ABSTRACT
This chapter explains complex serials are conceived in terms of a central 'overarching' story rather than a story-generating 'problematic', an approach that allows their narratives to investigate morally conflicted primary characters as opposed to investigating situations in which conflict is a regular occurrence. It pursues two questions are how do 'complex serials' deploy and deviate from longstanding narrative strategies in American hour-long series and serial drama and what are the narrative distinctions of complex serial dramas and how do they achieve complexity? The chapter culminates in a case study of Mad Men, whose critical acclaim and successful deployment of narrative complexity over some 92 episodes places it among the most influential American complex serials yet produced. The increased narrative complexity of American TV fiction, both drama and sitcom, has been investigated by Jason Mittell. Another facet of complex seriality is the narrative foregrounding of morally conflicted primary characters whose potential for transgressive behavior is without precedent in American TV drama.
