assessment

"Realism is a vital component of television drama”. To what extent does an analysis of your television close-study products support this view? [25 marks]



Realism in a television drama can enhance the experience or dampen the mystery. For example, Deutschland 83's attention to detail and fact checking the past greatly benefit the show's world building, allowing audiences to get invested in the hyper-realism. Jean Baudrillard suggested audiences view a copy of reality in the media as being more real than the original, meaning Deutschland also serves an educational purpose for its audience as well as the traditional entertainment most TV dramas provide. This is apparent with the use of archive footage of ex-president Ronald Reagan reciting a controversial speech, mixing reality with fiction to create a mesh of both. The realism used in Deutschland 83 is absolutely vital to the success of the story. 

However, the realism in Capital isn't believable enough to create interest. What was a clean cut concept (property increasing in value) became clouded through creating leftist fanfiction characters that vehicle biased viewpoints into a show that was originally meant to be a whodunnit. The very childish stereotypes used for some characters such as Roger and his wife (middle class is selfish) and Petunia (old so is conservative) are only highlighted by the shallow attempts at subverting the stereotypes for the minority characters.