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What are the main arguments in "Broken on Purpose: Poetry, Serial Television, and the Season"?

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Sean O'Sullivan, in "Broken on Purpose: Poetry, Serial Television, and the Season," argues that serialized television seasons resemble poetic structures more than novels due to their intentional fragmentation. He highlights how shows like HBO's The Sopranos, with its thirteen-episode format, use this fragmentation akin to poetry, creating a "unit of meaning" similar to a sonnet. This approach contrasts with pre-1999 TV's arbitrary episode grouping and is enhanced by DVD technology's influence on viewing habits.

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In “Broken on Purpose; Poetry, Serial Television, and the Season,” Sean O’Sullivan explores the formal relationship between serialized television and poetry. In considering this relationship, O’Sullivan suggests that a season of serial television constitutes a new “unit of meaning” (43).

Although authors and critics often compare the use of episode in serialized television to the use of chapters in a novel, O’Sullivan feels that the use of fragmentation in episodic television has a closer relationship to poetic fragmentation. O’Sullivan suggests that a key difference between serial television and the novel is television’s tendency to emphasize multiple narratives rather than a singular narrative. He notes that before 1999, television programs often varied in number of episodes, fragmented by commercials and promotions in a relatively arbitrary way. O’Sullivan believes that HBO’s The Sopranos altered this narrative mode by employing a thirteen-episode format without commercials, allowing serialized television to use fragmentation more intentionally. This intentional use of sequential fragmentation makes serialized television more akin to poetry than prose:

Think of those thirteen episodes as lines of verse, and this new model of the season is something like a sonnet—a clear but flexible shape that both hews to established protocols and breaks those protocols when necessary. (43)

When considered this way, the thirteen-episode sequence becomes a new “unit of meaning” rather than a less than intentional grouping of episodes. This shorter season duration encourages the viewer to consider the season as a whole rather than a set of vaguely connected episodes. O’Sullivan goes on to link the advent of DVD technology to the popularity of the season as a “unit of meaning” in the mainstream culture, and expands upon other ways The Soprano’s echoes elements of the sonnet.

O'Sullivan, Sean. "Broken on Purpose; Poetry, Serial Television, and the Season." Literary Theory: An Anthology, Third Edition. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2017, pp. 42-54.

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