How does serial drama earn, keep, and reward our attention for so long – over episodes, seasons, months, and years? While we know that characters are the focus of story and viewer interest in television fiction, scholars have for decades overlooked the way those characters are performed onscreen, and the lure of performance as a key formal and thematic aspect of long-form television storytelling. In Over and Over, Elliott Logan offers close readings of performance in some of the most celebrated television dramas of the century, casting new light on the attractions and significance of the medium’s seriality. The book shows how the patterning and expressive resonance of performers onscreen binds together otherwise unconnected episodes of shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men. In doing so, it highlights the provisionality of identity and meaning as crucial to their interest in the sustenance of human relationships over long periods of time. In accounting for the resonance of performance over time in serial drama, this book shows, we find the terms of our own attachment to its compelling depictions of human life

ELLIOTT LOGAN is a lecturer in film and screen studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Breaking Bad and Dignity.

Contents
Preface
Introduction: Beyond the Horizon
1 Lost for Words: The Challenge of Expressiveness in Serial Drama and its Criticism
2 Beyond Narrative: Expressive Echoes at the End of The Sopranos
3 Claims of Companionship: Transience and Commitment in Mad Men’s “The Phantom”
4 Faces of Allegiance: Revision and Reversal in the First Season of Homeland
5 Unspoken Bonds: Amnesia and Acknowledgement in Mad Men’s “The Suitcase”
6 Post-Script
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index