In the years since Treme and Boardwalk Empire ended, HBO has continued to produce critically acclaimed and buzzworthy historical series. The miniseries Chernobyl (2019) explores the 1986 nuclear disaster, illuminating the contributing causes, sequence of events, and consequences of the accident as seen through the eyes of scientists, residents, bureaucrats, and grunts. Gentleman Jack (2019–), co-produced with BBC, paints an insightful yet refreshingly lively portrait of nineteenth-century landowner Anne Lister, who secretly wed her female lover. HBO has also dipped its toes into more experimental and unorthodox screen histories with The Plot Against America (2020) and Lovecraft Country (2020). The former, based on a novel by Philip Roth, presents an alternate version of American history that sees Charles Lindbergh win the 1940 presidential election, setting the United States on a very different path. And while Lovecraft Country is ostensibly a science fiction / horror hybrid, the series delivers a powerful historical message about the mid-twentieth-century African American experience.
HBO’s lack of advertiser influence, commitment to showrunners’ creative freedom, and generous budgets and resources continue to draw in and retain talent who want to tell historical stories. But today it is not the only company offering such benefits; Netflix now entices with similar incentives and is building up a cache of showrunner talent with multimillion-dollar deals.1 Unsurprisingly, HBO and Netflix have followed similar paths, transforming how content is transmitted and viewed and evolving from movie providers to producers of innovative original content.2 Netflix was founded in 1997 and initially provided a DVD mail service before moving into streaming content over the internet. Increased access to high-speed wireless internet, along with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets that enabled mobile viewing, meant that Netflix’s streaming services soon far outpaced its DVD subscriptions.
With the shift in focus to streaming content, and the later decision to start producing its own original content, Netflix created an “effect” of its own. The Netflix effect is usually referenced when discussing those aspects that initially separated streaming services from broadcast and cable networks. One element of the Netflix effect is the apparent democratization of entertainment, with viewers able to access a range of content through one source and watch at a time and place of their own choosing.3 It also refers to the practice of binge-watching entire series in the space of a few days. Binge-watching is not a new phenomenon, but it has become increasingly commonplace with Netflix and other streaming providers (generally) releasing all episodes of a season at the same time, encouraging viewers to consume entire seasons quickly. The success of Netflix’s original productions, and particularly its foray into quality drama, has led other streaming services such as Amazon and Hulu to follow suit. Not only is Netflix now at the forefront of original TV programming, but it and other streaming services are also having a profound effect on the film industry, financing and distributing original content and upending standard distribution practices.
The rise of streaming and the dominance of Netflix has prompted major changes in the TV industry, and HBO is having to adapt. Viewers are increasingly moving away from linear TV (for which programming is scheduled) and are streaming content instead. With over two hundred million subscribers globally and a presence in about 60 percent of American homes, Netflix is currently the yardstick against which all other streamers and content providers are measured.4 Networks are now creating their own streaming platforms or are in the process of doing so in order to attract and maintain audiences. NBC, one of the original Big Three broadcast networks, launched Peacock in April 2020 in an effort to compete. American audiences can stream a selection of content for free, with ads, or can opt for paid subscriptions that allow access to more content without advertisements. Disney Plus has proved thus far to be Netflix’s most successful competitor, gaining almost ninety-five million subscriptions since its launch in 2019.5 The Disney platform gives subscribers access to a vast catalog of films and TV shows, as well as new original content, much of which is based on existing properties, such as Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Time Warner (of which HBO is a part) was acquired by AT&T in 2018, and it was announced shortly after the acquisition that the newly named WarnerMedia would launch its own subscription streaming service. HBO Max features thousands of hours of content from the WarnerMedia catalog but, as evidenced by the name, is seeking to attract audiences and subscribers with the HBO brand.6
As more and more streaming services launch, creating original content is increasingly vital to attract new subscribers and hold on to current ones, which is once again changing the television landscape. Many media conglomerates are choosing to retain rights to popular legacy TV shows and films rather than selling the rights to other streamers. This means that streamers need to fill out their libraries with original content since they cannot rely on securing (or renewing) licenses to existing titles. This is arguably leading to a shift from quality to quantity in the current TV landscape: in 2009 there were 210 scripted series produced in the US, while in 2019 there were 532.7 In this era of “peak TV,” FX CEO John Landgraf has cautioned that it is “impossible to maintain quality control with too many shows.”8
The HBO quality brand is not immune to the changes of peak TV.9 During a company town hall meeting after the acquisition of Time Warner, John Stankey, head of WarnerMedia, indicated that HBO would “have to come up with more content, transforming itself from a boutique operation, with a focus on its signature night line-up, into something bigger and broader.”10 In the wake of leaked audio from the meeting, HBO executives assured the public and critics that AT&T’s involvement would not dilute HBO’s brand excellence.11 As of 2021 there has been no sign of this, although there is great potential for brand confusion with the introduction of HBO Max originals. HBO Max originals, created specifically for the streaming service, are more numerous, are skewed to a younger audience, and draw upon WarnerMedia’s licensed properties (such as DC Comics). Shows that originally aired on HBO and are closely associated with the network are now appearing as HBO Max originals, and HBO originals are also premiering early on HBO Max. The similarity of the brand names and crossover between properties will likely result in audience confusion and changing expectations about what an HBO show is.12
Looking at the wider TV landscape, there are potential pros and cons for long-form historical programming. Quantity could result in histories of hitherto unfilmed historical periods and obscure events, as well as multiple histories of the same event presented from a variety of viewpoints. It could also mean that television histories continue to embrace narrative complexity and become even more experimental. Quantity also potentially opens the door to more diverse showrunners, writers, and production teams, who may approach history through different lenses. (Note that all the showrunners/creators of the series examined in this book were white men.) These trends are already in evidence, so more programming could allow them to flourish further. However, an oversaturation of historical programming and increased narrowcasting could also mean that shows will fail to connect with a wide audience. Even shows with Treme’s modest viewership numbers might end up being considered a hit, and historical dramas may become as niche as academic histories. This would, of course, not take away from the historical work they do, but TV’s ability to connect with audiences who may not usually engage with history, or particular kinds of history, is a big part of its power.
Regardless of whether peak TV has reached its peak and will start to decline, it is safe to say that history programming will always be a part of the schedule—even when there is no schedule per se. Television histories will not only contribute new historical insights, as this book has shown, but continue to shape how people understand the past, as well as the world they currently live in. “In the contemporary anglophone world,” Jerome de Groot reminds us, “the ways in which individuals encounter time, the past, ‘history,’ and memory mostly fall outside an academic or professional framework.”13 Television, film, music, novels, comics, board games, and video games are just some of the ways people come into contact with the past. For Vivian Sobchack, me, and presumably millions of other viewers, filmic and televisual renderings of the past are the “most compelling accounts” of history. Sobchack eloquently captures the attraction of history on-screen, praising the ability of the moving image “to tell me things by showing them to me, by their spectacular narratives of display.”14 She is critical of scholars who dismiss both history on-screen and the audiences who watch. This, she argues, is too “elitist a perspective—particularly if we want to understand how historical consciousness emerges in a culture in which we are all immersed in images.” Drawing upon her own memories of being a cinematically competent child, Sobchack refuses to see the audience as passive or dumb, suggesting that filmgoers have “learned the lessons of Hayden White’s MetaHistory even if they’ve never read it.”15 While I believe this may be an overstatement, I agree that the ability of audiences to understand and read moving images has been underestimated. Historians need to keep up with the viewing public and stay abreast of visual literacy. Historical films and TV shows are often crafted by an incredibly smart, talented, and research-focused team and then viewed by a diverse, media-savvy audience.
By exploring the way history on TV is crafted and attempting to understand the different forms history can take in television shows, this book has sought to appreciate what history on-screen is currently capable of. I do not want to suggest that any one type of history—history on film, history on TV, or traditional academic history—is better than another, but I do believe that each has its own unique capabilities. Traditional written history, the most established form of history, is, of course, going to serve as the benchmark against which these comparatively new forms are measured. Comparing history on-screen to academic written history is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can highlight not only history on TV’s shortcomings but its strengths too. The aural and visual elements of history on-screen, aspects that are respectively overlooked and criticized, are its strengths, having the ability to affect viewers in a bodily way, to show rather than tell, and to add to the argument of the text. Moreover, criticisms commonly leveled at history on-screen—that it presents a linear narrative glossing over the complexities of history, ignores opposing interpretations, and fails to comply with rigorous standards of referencing—have also proved to be unfounded.16 The way history on TV fulfils the requirements of traditional written history can be indirect and requires careful viewing on the part of the audience, but, importantly, these concerns can be addressed. Indeed, it is in addressing these concerns that the long-form series, rather than feature film, reveals its potential as a vehicle for history. As Glen Creeber has pointed out, early historical miniseries such as Roots and Holocaust “demonstrated the serial’s potential to take on large and difficult historical subjects.”17 This potential has only grown in recent years. The longer running time and complex narrative structure of TV series, coupled with recent changes within the TV industry that encourage experimentation, fragmentation, and an invested audience, have resulted in a medium with an incredible ability to tell historical stories.
Not all TV histories are the same, though, and rather than thinking of historical TV dramas as a monolithic category, it is more accurate to recognize the different types of television history that exist. Band of Brothers is a synthetic TV history. Gary R. Edgerton has argued that all history on TV is “essentially synthetic in nature and should not be judged on whether or not it generates new knowledge as much as it should on how creatively and responsibly it sheds additional light on the existing historical record.”18 Synthetic histories essentially rely upon existing scholarship to shape their narrative and argument. Band of Brothers, which closely follows the story laid down in Ambrose’s book and crafts a familiar Good War interpretation, fits into this category.
Band of Brothers draws heavily from other sources and can be categorized as a synthetic history, but this does not preclude it from having historical value. Although restating data and arguments found elsewhere, the series crafts an interpretation of the Second World War that simply cannot be found in books. The sound, special effects, hair and makeup, costume design, and production design departments fashioned a richly textured “feel” of World War Two that encompasses everything from jumping out of a C-47 above Normandy to the horror of finding a friend’s blown-off leg in the snow. The series creates historical space, showing viewers how Easy Company carried out its tactical maneuvers, like those at Brécourt Manor. Band of Brothers also exhibits an incredibly complex aural interpretation of World War Two. If we look beyond character and narrative to the unique sights and sounds of television and consider what they alone can offer, we can see that even synthetic histories such as Band of Brothers can generate “new knowledge.” However, not all history on TV is primarily synthetic; further categories are required to accurately capture the varied approaches to presenting and engaging with history in dramatic series.
Treme comes closest to adhering to the standards of academic history and thus can be classified simply as an audiovisual history, a category that surely deserves a place within the discipline. It may at first appear strange that I have identified Treme, a show populated with invented characters, as an audiovisual history, while Band of Brothers, based on a book by a historian and charting the experiences of real men, has been designated a synthetic history. While Treme is centered on invented characters, the show demonstrates a commitment to being faithful in all aspects to the realities of life in post-Katrina New Orleans and also separates itself from synthetic histories by acknowledging debates and presenting opposing arguments on key issues. This approach was shaped by Overmyer and Simon, who, more so than Winter and Milch, felt it was crucial to tell as true a story as possible and were likely influenced by Simon’s background as a journalist.19 Simon and Overmyer ultimately followed many of the same processes as traditional historians when they created Treme. They selected aspects of New Orleans culture they believed would best support their overarching argument—that New Orleans is a unique American city that needs to be rebuilt—and incorporated them into the show. Based upon their research, they crafted a narrative they believed accurately reflected post-Katrina New Orleans. With such a recent period in history, the showrunners, along with all of the departments involved in production, could not rely on existing literature and instead had to shape their own interpretations, drawing heavily on firsthand accounts from their consultants and other interviewees.
Treme’s approach to history does potentially limit its reach. Compared to HBO’s other historical series, the ratings for Treme were very small.20 I believe this was largely down to the fact that Simon and Overmyer privileged telling a “true story” that was often slow and pedagogic over creating a series that prioritized keeping the audience entertained. All the categories of history on TV have their own advantages and drawbacks. The drawback of audiovisual history is that it may only find a modest audience (much like academic history), but presenting a more original and challenging interpretation of history is its advantage. The still-raw wounds of many Americans, especially those in the affected Gulf Coast region, also need to be considered when assessing the series’ interpretation of history. With such a traumatic event that many experienced firsthand, it would have surely been a risk for the showrunners to take too much liberty with the documented facts. Viewers, critics, and scholars are likely going to be more open to a TV series that embellishes history and plays with the facts when they have a certain amount of distance from that event or period. Historical series like Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire, set outside living memory for most people, are not going to come under the same amount of scrutiny as Treme and thus have a greater unofficial license to invent freely.
Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire fit squarely into Alison Landberg’s description of historically conscious dramas, the third category of history on TV. Unlike synthetic histories and audiovisual histories, historically conscious dramas are seemingly less tethered to the historical record and are perhaps the most difficult category of history on TV for historians to come to terms with. Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire, along with other historically conscious dramas, package history in recognizable genres and employ familiar tropes to attract a wider audience. Nonetheless, they produce “a kind of historical knowledge that even an academic historian would recognize as having value.” Historically conscious dramas, Landsberg explains, are not generally based around one historical event or figure, but instead function like an experiment in social history. The value of these histories comes from the historical understanding they encourage, conjuring up a more general “period truth” rather than attempting to reconstruct events piece by piece.21
The historically conscious drama is the broadest of the three categories and has the greatest capacity for experimentation. Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire are both similar in that they incorporate real and invented characters and include both real and invented events. But even within these two shows there are differences in how history is employed and the role that it plays in the larger scheme of the narrative. The historical storylines in Deadwood involving annexation and the evolution of the camp have a greater bearing on the overall trajectory of the show, whereas in Boardwalk Empire personal storylines between the invented characters often have greater weight than the historical threads. Certainly, all historically conscious dramas are not the same, and there is incredible potential within this category to craft historical narratives in ways that are unorthodox yet rewarding. Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle (2015–19), based loosely on a Philip K. Dick novel, is set in an alternate reality where the Axis powers won World War Two. When the show opens in the early 1960s, the United States as we know it no longer exists; the West Coast has become the Japanese Pacific States, while the eastern and central states have been incorporated in the Greater Nazi Reich (with a neutral buffer zone along the Rocky Mountains). I would argue that this science fiction series could also be categorized as a historically conscious drama. The storylines involving Obergruppenführer John Smith and his family, for example, provide an insight into the policies and propaganda of Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that this is an alternate reality, it summons a “historical sensibility” of life in the Third Reich. That The Man in the High Castle is so clearly a fabrication is also potentially an advantage. The past that it presents is undoubtedly a “foreign country” to viewers, a condition that Landsberg stresses must be present to stimulate critical historical thinking on the part of the audience. Transporting an examination of the Nazi regime to an unfamiliar time and place constantly forces viewers out of the narrative. They have to negotiate between what they already know about this very familiar subject and the unconventional interpretation on-screen.
Historically conscious drama is the category of history on TV with the greatest license to invent, but all three types engage in invention. In this, though, it is worth repeating that they are not so far removed from written histories. “‘History’ can only be imagined and fictively ‘formed,’” Alun Munslow tells us. “The authored narrative we call history is never ‘found’ in the past.” Relying on the empirical traces of the past, historians infer the most plausible explanation and craft a narrative they believe represents “the most likely history.” While historians are not free to invent and have a responsibility to use data and evidence, writing a history is still “a process of imagination and fictive construal.”22 Ann Curthoys and John Docker likewise argue that history has a dual nature: “It both partakes of the world of literary forms, and at the same time is a rigorous intellectual practice which seeks to achieve historical truth.”23 The revelation that fiction is an inherent part of history is not particularly new, but it is an idea that is currently being embraced and is stimulating a reconsideration of the different forms history can take. The relationship between history and the historical novel is just one area generating exciting new scholarship, with scholars exploring similar issues revolving around history and fiction.24 I prefer to use the term “invention” rather than “fiction” when discussing the way history is crafted on-screen. “Invention” suggests an almost scientific process that acknowledges the research and reasoning that went into creating the invention, while “fiction” can have an almost arbitrary connotation. This is not to say, though, that “pure fiction” for the sake of adding drama and tension does not have its place in history on TV. Ultimately, the fact that the four TV series invent historical people, dialogue, events, sounds, and sets does not invalidate them as history. More invention can arguably result in a better history.
Invention is unavoidable in all types of history, but for history on-screen especially, it is a tool that enables historical events, arguments, and ideas to be represented effectively. This is clearly demonstrated by Treme, which used invented characters and incidents to make a strong argument about the city of New Orleans and the struggles of its residents. The study of character in Boardwalk Empire likewise demonstrated that invented characters have the greatest potential to explore a variety of historical issues. The chapter also showcased the possibilities for mixing real and exceptional histories (Capone) with invented and generic histories (Darmody). An exceptional true story told in isolation can potentially mislead an audience by giving a false impression of a period or event.25 When the invented and the real interact in the same narrative, however, the invented element can have the effect of demythologizing the exceptional, thus creating a more rounded picture. Invention is not only a useful tool in crafting historical narratives and characters; it also makes it possible to film actors in appropriate settings, accompanied by relevant sound effects and with the right clothes, hair, and makeup. Film crews invent the physical and aural traces of the past that are needed to render the past on-screen. Their research and decision-making processes are no less complex than the processes of the writers and showrunners who craft the characters and narrative. Novelist Tim O’Brien perhaps best captured the potential of invention when he wrote: “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”26
What is crucial in crafting all types of inventions is that they are based on knowledge rather than ignorance. Treme shifted dates and included some anachronisms, but the showrunners and writers made those decisions knowing they were altering the historical record.27 Changing such relatively minor facts facilitated telling the history more effectively on-screen. It becomes problematic when inventions are based on bad research or when they clash with the empirical data and ignore the discourse of history. The third episode of Band of Brothers, for example, focuses on Albert Blithe and charts his struggles coming to terms with what he must do to fulfil his duties as a soldier. By the end of the episode, Blithe has overcome the worst of his fears, but during a volunteer patrol he is badly injured. The postscript closing the episode explains that Blithe never recovered from his wounds and died in 1948. In truth, the real Albert Blithe went on to serve in the US Army for another twenty years and died in 1967.28 Many young men were obviously petrified by what they experienced and died tragic deaths; this is not a false invention per se. The problem is that Band of Brothers, as a synthetic history populated almost exclusively with real historical figures, does not have the license to invent someone’s history so freely. The parameters to invent are dictated in part by the type of history that is being created; synthetic histories and audiovisual histories have only a certain amount of leeway, and assessing inventions as either true or false is a relatively straightforward task. When reading and judging the inventions of historically conscious dramas, we need to be more flexible in allowing “pure fiction” that adds drama and conflict. We must first parse out the central focus and objective of the series and judge the inventions accordingly.
History by HBO has identified the diverse and distinctive components that compose historical television dramas and has suggested productive ways of reading and assessing this form of history. Indeed, the approaches used in this study can equally be applied to all types of TV programming, as well as feature films and other performative and experiential forms of history. The four HBO case studies have showcased what history on TV is capable of; analysis of other past, present, and future TV shows will surely reveal yet more innovative and unique ways the past is rendered in serial dramas. The fact that history is an “inventive, self-transforming discipline” and that long-form dramas are constantly adapting to changes in the industry and developments in technology means that there will always be new avenues to pursue in this area of study.29