The Fragmentation of Narrative Authority in Television Crime Drama
The Fragmentation of Narrative Authority in Television Crime Drama The television crime drama exists in a state of fundamental contradiction. The genre purports to present coherent investigations into criminal activity, yet the source material reveals a medium increasingly unable to sustain narrative continuity or maintain logical exposition. Examination of transcripts from The Rockford Files, Law and Order, and related crime dramas demonstrates that the genre has developed a systematic reliance on repetition and fragmentation as substitutes for genuine narrative development. Rather than presenting crime drama as a unified investigative form, contemporary television crime narratives function through discontinuity, suggesting that the genre itself has become a vehicle for exploring the impossibility of narrative resolution rather than the certainty of criminal justice. ...