Dogmas for Television Drama: Changing a Production Culture

Abstract

There have been major changes in the approach to writing and producing television at DR since the mid 1990s. This chapter introduces how Lars von Trier’s Riget/The Kingdom (1994) was an important source of inspiration to people in the film and television industry and brought the two worlds closer together by marrying cinematic imagery with episodic storytelling and by showing that one could create productions that were eclectic and artistic as well as popular for the small screen. The hiring of two film directors as Heads of Drama in the mid 1990s further strengthened the meeting between film and television, and with the building of new studios and the creation of so-called ‘production hotels’ the spaces of production facilitated the making of long-running series as flagships for DR.