Anthology_TV_series

Anthology series

Anthology series

Form of broadcast entertainment

An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short.[1] These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week.[2] Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.[3]

Lux Radio Theatre ad art featuring Joan Crawford

Etymology

The word comes from Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthología, "flower-gathering"), from ἀνθολογέω (anthologéō, "I gather flowers"), from ἄνθος (ánthos, "flower") + λέγω (légō, "I gather, pick up, collect"), coined by Meleager of Gadara circa 60 BCE, originally as Στέφανος (στέφανος (stéphanos, "garland")) to describe a collection of poetry, later retitled anthology – see Greek Anthology. Anthologiai were collections of small Greek poems and epigrams, because in Greek culture the flower symbolized the finer sentiments that only poetry can express.

Radio

Many popular old-time radio programs were anthology series. On some series, such as Inner Sanctum Mysteries, the only constant was the host, who introduced and concluded each dramatic presentation. One of the earliest such programs was The Collier Hour, broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from 1927 to 1932.[4] As radio's first major dramatic anthology, it adapted stories and serials from Collier's Weekly in a calculated move to increase subscriptions and compete with The Saturday Evening Post. Airing on the Wednesday prior to each week's distribution of the magazine, the program soon moved to Sundays in order to avoid spoilers with dramatizations of stories simultaneously appearing in the magazine.[4]

Drama

Genre series

Radio anthology series provided a format for science fiction, horror, suspense, and mystery genres (all produced in the US, unless noted):

Nelson Olmsted of NBC's Sleep No More fantasy series.
Listed in order of first broadcast

The final episode of Suspense was broadcast on September 30, 1962, a date that has traditionally been seen as marking the end of the old-time radio era.[6] However, genre series produced since 1962 include:

Television

In the history of television, live anthology dramas were especially popular during the Golden Age of Television of the 1950s with series such as The United States Steel Hour and The Philco Television Playhouse.[7][8]

Dick Powell came up with an idea for an anthology series, Four Star Playhouse, with a rotation of established stars every week, four stars in all. The stars would own the studio and the program, as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had done successfully with Desilu studio. Powell had intended for the program to feature himself, Charles Boyer, Joel McCrea, and Rosalind Russell. When Russell and McCrea backed out, David Niven came on board as the third star. The fourth star was initially a guest star. CBS liked the idea, and Four Star Playhouse made its debut in fall of 1952.[2] It ran on alternate weeks only during the first season, alternating with Amos 'n' Andy. It was successful enough to be renewed and became a weekly program from the second season until the end of its run in 1956. Ida Lupino was brought on board as the de facto fourth star, though unlike Powell, Boyer, and Niven, she owned no stock in the company.

American television networks would sometimes run summer anthology series which consisted of unsold television pilots.[9] Beginning in 1971, the long-run Masterpiece Theatre drama anthology series brought British productions to American television.

In 2011, American Horror Story debuted a new type of anthology format in the U.S. Each season, rather than each episode, is a standalone story. Several actors have appeared in the various seasons, but playing different roles—in an echo of the Four Star Playhouse format.[10]

The success of American Horror Story has spawned other season-long anthologies such as American Crime Story and True Detective.[11]

American drama

Anime

  • Gokujō!! Mecha Mote Iinchō (2009-2011)
  • The Grimm Variations (2024)
  • Hakken Taiken Daisuki! Shimajirō (2008-2010)
  • Mewkledreamy Mix! (2020-2021)
  • Miracle! Mimika (2006-2009)
  • Shimajirō Hesoka (2010-2012)
  • Shimajirō no Wow! (2012-present)
  • Shūkan Storyland (1999-2001)

British drama

Canadian drama

Indian drama

Pakistani drama

Philippine drama

Thai drama

Animated

Adult animation

Children and family

Comedies

Crime dramas

Educational

Historical

Medical

Military

Mystery and suspense

Religious

More information Title, Started ...

Science fiction and horror

More information Title, Started ...

Westerns

More information Title, Started ...

Film

Anthology film series are rare compared to their TV and radio counterparts. There have been several attempts within the horror genre to have a franchise with an anthology format, such as with the Halloween franchise where the third film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, was meant to be the beginning of a series of anthology horror films, but due to negative reception that plan was shelved.

Drama series

More information Title, Started ...

Genre

More information Title, Started ...

Video games

Anthology video games have been very rare since the 1980s.

More information Title, Started ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Anthology series changing television". UWIRE Text: 1. 23 October 2015 – via General OneFile.
  2. [2]
    "Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  3. [3]
    Sterling, Rob (2015). "About Writing for Television". Patterns. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1505707465. Archived from the original on 26 August 2015. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  4. [4]
    Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Revised ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 163–164. ISBN 978-0195076783. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  5. [5]
    Widner, James F & Frierson III, Meade. Science Fiction on Radio: A Revised Look At 1950–1975. Birmingham, Alabama: A.F.A.B. Publishing. p. 20 [ISBN missing]
  6. [6]
    Chimes, Art. "Last Radio Drama". National Public Radio. Retrieved 22 January 2010.
  7. [7]
    Kraszewski, Jon (Fall 2006). "Adapting Scripts in the 1950s: The Economic and Political Incentives for Television Anthology Writers". Journal of Film and Video. 58 (3): 3–21. JSTOR 20688526.
  8. [8]
    Simon, Ron (2013). Riggs, Thomas (ed.). "Philco Television Playhouse". St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 4 (2nd ed.). St. James Press: 144–145.
  9. [9]
    Ray Bradbury on Film and TV: Starlight Summer Theater (1954) Archived October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  10. [10]
    American Horror Story, retrieved 19 April 2019
  11. [11]
    Malone, Michael (2 May 2016). "Anthology format gets a 'true' rebirth: AMC is the latest of many nets modeling shows after True Detective and Fargo". Broadcasting & Cable. Vol. 146, no. 17. p. 24 – via Academic OneFile.
  12. [12]
    Images Staff (20 February 2017). "PEMRA issues notice to Hum TV drama 'Kitni Girhain Baki Hain' for homosexual content". Images. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  13. [13]
    Haq, Irfan Ul (12 March 2018). "In Angeline Malik's new TV series, a psych professor is the neighbourhood hero". Images. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  14. [14]
    "'Berlin, I Love You' Trailer: Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren Star in Fourth 'Cities' Anthology Film". /Film. 20 January 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
  15. [15]
    "The Ninja Trilogy Blu-ray from Eureka Video". Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Anthology_TV_series, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.