Complex Seriality: Genetic Science As Narrative Device

Abstract

In this chapter Bull investigates connections between (1) complex serial narration on television, (2) academic interest in ‘complex TV’, (3) the wider popularisation of complexity theory, network theory, chaos theory and the butterfly effect, and finally, (4) post-genomic discourses that increasingly understand molecular life as an indeterminate and complexly interlinked system characterised by non-linearity and uncertainty. The chapter compares the iterative episodic narrative structures of the forensic crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the hospital series House M.D. with the long-form seriality of the science fiction serials Heroes and Fringe. Noting that genetic science functions as a key narrative catalyst in all four programmes, Bull argues that their varying uses of complex narrative devices produce contradictory ideas about DNA.