With rapidly changing and developing technologies we have become a demanding audience. One that seeks a deep level of involvement and interaction with the characters and plots we see in our favourite television series. We lose interest quickly, become distracted and are no longer engaged by just watching the single television medium- we are looking for stimulating and exhilarating forms of interaction with storytelling, to heighten our television viewing experience.

The recent upsurge of transmedia has allowed television storytelling to connect with its audience in the most effective way, bringing the story to their everyday life (Jenkins 2007). The need to expand narratives across different media has been prevalent since one of television’s first hits, Dragnet (1950s), which shifted from radio, to television, to books, board games, and film (Media Commons Press 2011 para.4). However, the modern transmedia techniques are ‘both greater in degree and different in kind’ to the original forms due to fast-paced changes in technology and online media (Media Commons Press 2011 para.5). Transmedia is essentially a new form of storytelling which sees a convergence of different mediums, such as television, internet, social media websites, web series, gaming, films, music stations, live events, radio shows, and books (The Artifice 2013 para.4). The audience experiences a more in-depth, captivating way of interacting with characters and storylines as transmedia makes ‘its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story’ (Jenkins 2007).

With the increasing ‘innovative forms of narrative extensions’ on television, AMC’s crime drama television series, Breaking Bad (2008-2013) demonstrates the successful use of transmedia to engage its audience (Media Commons Press 2011 para. 3). The narrative of Breaking Bad depicts the life of a former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who falls ill with terminal lung cancer. In a quest to support his family financially, Walter decides to join up with a past student, Jesse Pinkman, to create the purest meth distribution company. After 5 seasons and 62 episodes, the popular award winning Breaking Bad had to come to an end. However, this didn’t mean the story surrounding Breaking Bad had to end too. There were still many questions left unresolved and shallow character developments that had to be addressed to ultimately fulfill the audience’s’ needs for what they would feel to be the true end to the series.

As a result, AMC along with Vince Gilligan (the creator of Breaking Bad) employed transmedia techniques to allow for a more in-depth audience interaction with the narrative and particularly the characters. Their extensive transmedia includes a live talk show (Talking Bad (2013)), online video games, an online alternate ending, Huell’s Rules (2014) and Better Call Saul (2015). The spinoff to Breaking Bad entitled Better Call Saul, saw necessary character development of main characters such as Saul Goodman and Mike Ehrmantraut. The spinoff was created not only to change the audience’s’ perspectives of these characters within Breaking Bad, but to give further perspective to the loose holes in the storyline. Through transmedia, Better Call Saul essentially satisfies the audience’s’ ‘demands’ to further interact with the storyline (The Artifice 2013 para.4).

(Huell’s Rules 2014)

(Better Call Saul, n.d)

A more interactive transmedia experience for the audience of Breaking Bad is AMC’s Breaking Bad Story Sync which entered the series in season 5. Story Sync is an application on a second screen which the audience can use to ‘participate in polls, trivia and exclusive content’ whilst watching an episode (The Artifice 2013 para.6). It has significantly helped to ‘transcend’ the audience from the single medium of the television to an alternate story world where they can also communicate on Facebook and Twitter (Media Commons Press 2011 para.4).

See Breaking Bad Story Sync here 

 (Breaking Bad Story Sync, n.d)

Through the use of transmedia we can see the ways in which the audience’s’ television experience becomes heightened, interactive and invigorating. In Breaking Bad, transmedia is used specifically to expand on characters and unresolved questions surrounding the plot. Audiences gain further insight into the character’s background, ultimately fulfilling their desire to ‘fill the gaps’ from the series, leaving them with a sense of closure (Jenkins 2007).

Take a look at the alternate ending of Breaking Bad for an interesting interpretation of what could have been….

References:

Better Call Saul, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015,  <http://www.slashgear.com/better-call-saul-smashes-record-with-highest-cable-debut-ratings-09368228/>

Breaking Bad-Alternate Ending, video, Vimeo, 2014, viewed 12 August, <2015, https://vimeo.com/91034065>

Breaking Bad Story Sync, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://the-artifice.com/breaking-bad-story-sync/>

Huell’s Rules, video, YouTube, 27 May 2014, viewed 12 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8domW4NwpBQ>

Jenkins, H 2007, Confessions of an ACA fan: The official weblog of Henry Jenkins, WordPress, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html > 

Media Commons Press, 2011, Complex Tv: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, Media Commons Press, viewed 10 August 2015, <http://mcpress.media-commons.org/complextelevision/transmedia-storytelling/ >

The Artifice, 2013, Breaking Bad Story Sync: Incorporating the Second Screen into Transmedia Storytelling, The Artifice, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://the-artifice.com/breaking-bad-story-sync/ >

We are currently surrounded by ‘a global explosion’ of the zombie text throughout ubiquitous media platforms (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014 p.3). With a particular focus on television, we see the ways in which the zombie text has taken place and shaped the notion of the contemporary zombie throughout popular culture. Being a zombie text and a television series, it is through Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set (2008) that we see the construction of a contemporary zombie and what it represents. Dead Set’ explores the outbreak of unconventional fast zombies intertwined with a fictional version of the British reality television show, Big Brother. In this five-episode mini series, aired on E4, the classic slow zombie has been transformed to an undead creature that viciously and rapidly attacks the living, spreading infection. The only safe haven from the outbreak is in the Big Brother household. Oblivious to the outbreak, the first episode of the series shows the contestants of Big Brother and the production company staff as the last survivors standing.

It was George Romero’s horror fantasy films that sparked the emergence of the modern zombie into popular television culture (The Guardian 2008a). He re-ignited the popularity of the zombie genre, making the zombie figure a ‘cultural icon’ in society (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014 p.13). Romero’s traditional and classic representations of a zombie in Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) affirmed the notion of a zombie as being a slow, cruel, undead creature that seeks human flesh. As a result of Romero’s work, Brooker was inspired to produce Dead Set. In juxtaposition to Romero’s work, Dead Set challenges the conventional zombies seen in Romero’s films and essentially draws upon the traits of the fast zombies depicted in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) (The Guardian 2010).

(Davina McCall in Dead Set n.d)

Within the mini-series, Brooker creates a modern zombie text which possesses a deeper underlying social commentary on the consumptive nature of the television audience- an audience which has become mindless, deadened and passive as a result of television’s consumptive control (The Guardian 2008a). There is an element of satire which undertones the audience’s consumption of television throughout the series. Particularly, this is evident through the ways in which Brooker parallels the traits of ‘Big Brother’ contestants and the production staff with the traits of the zombies. A parallel which Brooker perhaps uses to highlight that the destructive human traits aren’t all that different from the zombies.

Ultimately, Brooker intended on creating a zombie series that differentiates itself from the representations of zombies in past texts (The Guardian 2008a). Whilst the zombies do run and are fast-paced in Dead Set, they still reflect aspects of the traditional zombies seen in Romero’s films such as being flesh eating, brain-dead creatures (The Guardian 2008a). In contrast, Simon Pegg, co-writer of the satirical zombie film, Shaun of the Dead (2004) is against the way in which Dead Set steers away from Romero’s traditional slow zombie (The Guardian 2008b). He believes that the zombies shown within popular culture should possess the same attributes and values as the zombies seen in classic zombie texts (The Guardian 2008b). However, perhaps Pegg is wrong in assuming that audiences should see stereotypical zombie texts. Had Brooker not taken the risk of evolving the typical slow-brainless zombie to a fast-paced-destructive one, the regularity of a stereotypical zombie could have made the series stale.

Consequently, Dead Set is a mini-series that challenges the classic zombie text and re-interprets it into a contemporary and fast-paced creature. A creature that we are all arguably becoming today – fast-paced in the sense of technology and technological advances, but ‘zombified’ in the sense that we are becoming a brain-dead and mindless society consumed by television. The modern zombie representations such as those within Dead Set are changing the perceptions of the traditional zombie seen on television and transforming them into a social commentary on the consumptive society we are becoming today (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014).

Take a look at the first episode here:

(Dead Set- Episodio 1)

References:

Hubner, L, Leaning, M & Manning, P 2014, The Zombie Renaissance in Popular Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, London.

The Guardian, 2008a, Reality Bites, The Guardian, viewed 9 August 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/oct/18/horror-channel4>

The Guardian, 2008b, The Dead and the Quick, The Guardian, viewed 8 August 2015,<http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set>

The Guardian, 2010, Is Obama really president or am I just watching a fantasy? It’s almost too good to be true, The Guardian, viewed 10 August 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/barack-obama-zombies-running>

Davina McCall in Dead Set, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015,<http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/styles/article_main_wide_image/public/images/35204.jpg?itok=Erk8914G >

Dead Set- Episodio 1, video, YouTube, 10 September, viewed 7 August 2015,<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNwTfK4Kddk>