The Bingeable Ms Gilmore: A Comparative Analysis of Narrative Structure in Broadcast TV Show Gilmore Girls and Netflix Original Show Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

Abstract

This chapter aims to analyse the elements of narrative structure in televisual series produced and distributed by subscription video-on-demand services (SVODs) to explore how these elements contribute to the bingeability of content. In order to compare narrative elements between broadcast television and internet television series, Gilmore Girls (The CW, 2000-7), a broadcast TV series that went on for seven seasons; and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (Netflix, 2016), a Netflix Original mini-series consisting of four 90-minutes episodes is analysed. The cases have been chosen because of their paradoxical nature; the series distributed by the SVOD platform consists of a much smaller number of longer episodes that encompass a much longer narrative time. To a certain extent, this works against its ‘bingeability’. Using a visual analytical tool developed for my PhD research, episodes are broken down into their beats and narratives are broken down to characters, settings and plotlines. While there is significant research done on Netflix as a platform, binge-watching as an audience activity and Gilmore Girls (among many other series) as issues of fan engagement, structural analysis of televisual narratives have been neglected. There have been recent studies that focus on narrative aspects of serial narratives on internet TV platforms. Yet, no detailed structural investigation has taken place into issues of ‘bingeability’ and narrative structures as series undergo significant shifts in their televisual afterlives on the internet.