Introduction: complexity/simplicity – Sarah Cardwell, Jonathan Bignell and Lucy Fife Donaldson
1 ‘WTF June?’: The Handmaid’s Tale and the significance of unexpected choice – Trisha Dunleavy
2 Being Frank? Breaking the ’fourth wall’ in Netflix’s House of Cards – Christa van Raalte and Maike Helmers
3 ‘You’ve got to expect this kind of thing in the priesthood’: simplicity and complexity in Father Ted – Karen Quigley
4 Depth in two dimensions: complex/simple moments in Rick and Morty – James Walters
5 Simplicity and complexity in the costuming of Killing Eve – Josette Wolthuis
6 Complexity and clear-sightedness in The Wire – James Zborowski
7 Such schadenfreude: unpacking the political satire in Veep – Michael P. Young
8 Queer adventures in time and space: complicating simplicity in Doctor Who – Benedict Morrison
9 Vanity Fair and the contradictions of colour – Jonathan Bignell
10 The value of simplicity: The Long Wait – Sarah Cardwell
Index

The ‘Moments in Television’ collections celebrate the power and artistry of television and the excitement that particular televisual moments can engender, while simultaneously interrogating current concepts and debates within TV studies.

Each book is organised around a binary theme that engages with key concepts in television studies. Complexity / simplicity addresses the idea of complex TV, an increasingly influential category within television criticism and scholarship. It examines the potential and limitations of complexity and explores its impact on creative and interpretative practices. The book also opens up new pathways, reassessing simplicity as a potential criterion for evaluation that has been neglected within television scholarship. Complexity and simplicity are employed persuasively to illuminate the book’s chosen programmes in new ways.

The chapters in Complexity / simplicity are inspired by moments drawn from an eclectic range of TV fictions, dramatic and comedic. Contributors from diverse perspectives explore, expand and enrich the kind of close analysis most commonly found in television aesthetics. Each chapter attends to one carefully chosen programme, evoking its particular qualities and appraising its achievements – while situating it within historical, technological, institutional, cultural, creative and art-historical contexts. The programmes examined here are The Handmaid’s Tale, House of Cards, Father Ted, Rick and Morty, Killing Eve, The Wire, Veep, Doctor Who, Vanity Fair and The Long Wait.

Complexity / simplicity is essential reading for those interested in how notions of complexity and simplicity can enhance our critical appreciation and enjoyment of television.