Joyard (2003) refers to the past decade as the Golden Age of the
American series, mostly in connection with their narrative features and
their capacity to arouse emotions. 24 (2001) by Joel Surnow and Robert
Cochran illustrates perfectly these innovative capacities in dramatic series.
The series concept is everything, making 24 an instant cult object. It is
presented as the nearest to real time that any artistic work can achieve. The
continuous flow of events from 24 enters our homes through our TV sets
permitting us to follow an apparent reality, projected week by week at the
same hour, but making us feel a contemporaneous experience from a use of
a space/time that struggles against illusion.
Creative liberty has permitted the development of new narrative trends
(Thompson, 2003), just as unusual aesthetic forms new to television
(Nelson, 2001) have striven to deliver greater degrees of realism. Narrative
complexity is increasing, becoming more intricate not only at the plot level
but also at the level of character development, which might lead us to
believe that television series are positioning themselves in the vanguard of
visual media narrative
