Ross Garner

The past weekend saw the annual San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) take place, an event which, as Lincoln Geraghty (2014: 96-103) has argued, has come to assume an increasing point of centrality within the screen industries as various intellectual property holders and brands use this to create buzz for new and returning series alike.

LESS CULT, MORE QUALITY?: AUDIENCE READINGS OF PRE-TEXTS FOR MARVEL’S INHUMANS AND ‘QUALITY-MAINSTREAM-CULT’ TV DRAMA

*Defiance *(2013-15) was an original commission science-fiction TV
series which has aired on the SyFy channel in both the US and the UK.
Set on Earth in the near-future after a war between humans and immigrant
aliens who arrived to settle on the planet, and whose technology has
greatly changed Earth's physical and biological environment through a
process named as 'terraforming', the show was premised around exploring
the interactions and tensions between the various races that inhabit the
titular town of Defiance (renamed from St. Louis in the US). Defiance's
inhabitants included humans (primarily reluctant lawkeeper Joshua Nolan
(Grant Bowler) and mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz)), as well as
members of alien races such as Irathients (spiritual, noble and tribal
people who are most noticeably represented through Irisa (Stephanie
Leonidas), a war orphan who has travelled with Nolan since he rescued
her) and Castithans (a pale-skinned and treacherous race represented by
the scheming Datak and Stahma Tarr (played by Tony Curran and Jamie
Murphy respectively)).

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=570&height=321&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/defiance-syfy.jpg){.addCaption
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*Defiance*'s lead characters from left to right -- Datak Tarr (Tony
Curran), Stahma Tarr (Jamie Murphy), Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz),
Kenya Rosewater (Mia Kershner), Joshua Nolan (Grant Bowler), Irisa
(Stephanie Leonidas) and Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene).

On October 16^th^ of last year, news reports circulated that SyFy
wouldn't be renewing *Defiance *after its third season. [Declining
ratings](http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/defiance-cancelled-syfy-season-4-1201620075/) provided
SyFy's rationale for cancelling the programme but this was despite the
show remaining the network's most-watched series. However, digging
deeper, issues of branding and market position may have played a more
decisive factor since, as Nellie Andreeva commented
for *Deadline*, ["*Defiance* is the latest Syfy drama to end this year,
joining *Dominion*, *Haven*, *Lost Girl* and *Continuum*, as Syfy is
overhauling its original
slate."](http://deadline.com/2015/10/defiance-canceled-syfy-3-seasons-1201585494/) Despite
a small (and ongoing) campaign circulating on Twitter under the
\#SaveDefiance hashtag, and some [celebratory comments made towards the
show from a feminist
perspective](http://www.thefword.org.uk/2015/10/a-defiant-exception/), *Defiance* (and
its stablemates) seems destined to become consigned to obscurity for all
but its most ardent fans.

Within TV Studies, though, *Defiance*'s relative absence within academic
work appears curious, not only because of its status as a (moderately
successful) series circulating discourses concerning how 'cult'
audiences are imagined within a niche-orientated context, but because of
the series' engagement with practices of transmediality. As Elizabeth
Wagmeister observed for *Variety *upon news of the show's cancellation:

["Defiance" was Syfy's big experiment with transmedia storytelling as
the series' storylines were specifically designed to mesh with the
narrative of the video game of the same name, produced by Trion Worlds.
The TV series revolved around the battles of seven alien races existing
on a much-changed planet
Earth.](http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/defiance-cancelled-syfy-season-4-1201620075/)

Although *Defiance *(the TV series and the MMO game) never came good on
its initial promise of continuous interaction between its onscreen and
online (hyper)diegesis (as the initial press image included below
suggested), the programme's ambitions and approach to transmediality
would appear to position it as a key text within contemporary academic
debates in TV Studies. To date, though, *Defiance *has only received
passing note within studies of transmediality (Evans 2015) and beyond.
 What does *Defiance*'s scholarly overlooking subsequently tell us about
current priorities within the field of cult TV Studies?

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=530&height=374&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/Defiance-is-a-combination-of-both-a-TV-show-and-a-video-game.jpg){.addCaption
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*Defiance'*s initial press image

 

It's fair to say that studies of cult TV are, at present, dominated by a
focus upon two or three series -- *Doctor Who *(2005-
), *Sherlock* (2010- ) and *Supernatural *(2005- ) -- and there are
undoubtedly highly valid reasons for each programme's levels of
visibility. Regarding *Doctor Who *and *Sherlock*, issues of branding
(Johnson 2012) and the transnational trade in television series
(Weissmann 2012), alongside the transcultural recontextualisation of
these (Chin and Morimoto 2013), have been core areas of interest for TV
Studies in recent years. A focus on *Doctor
Who *and *Sherlock* undoubtedly dovetails with these debates given that
both are prominent programme brands which have been marketed,
distributed and appropriated globally. Additionally, both series have
been important examples of transmediality: *Doctor Who *has been at the
forefront of the BBC's digital policies for many years (Perryman 2008,
2014) and has provided an additional way of exploring how 'public
service' and 'commercial' discourses continue to mutate
contemporaneously (Evans 2012; Johnson 2013; Hills 2015). Both *Doctor
Who *and *Sherlock *are therefore examples of what Matt Hills (2010) has
named 'mainstream-cult' series and allow (cult) TV Studies scholars to
explore the variety of ways in which 'cult' practices and preferences
have moved from the margins to become industrially recognised and
reconfigured within an ongoing context of technological change and
increasing competition for audiences.

 

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=556&height=285&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/superwholock.jpg){.addCaption
.addCaption .aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="556"
height="285"}

The current trinity of visibility within studies of 'cult' TV ?

Similarly, with *Supernatural*, there are again multiple valid reasons
for this programme's prominence with studies of cult TV fandom such as
its longevity and its large fan community. As is frequently recognised
(Hills 2002; Gwenllian-Jones and Pearson 2004; Abbott 2010), 'cult'
appeal is typically generated through audience practices and so it seems
appropriate that the most active fan communities garner larger amounts
of academic debate. Although writing fan fiction is not the only way of
expressing one's fan identity, a brief glance
at [fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/) demonstrates that
whilst *Supernatural *tops the list for TV entries with 112,000
(with *Doctor Who *and *Sherlock* being ranked third and fourth
respectively), *Defiance *has a comparatively paltry 149 fan-written
stories contributed. Moreover, previous studies of fan fiction (for
example, see Hellekson and Busse 2006, 2014) have indicated the strong
appeal and outlet that this provides for a wide range of female (fan)
audiences whose practices and tastes have typically been overlooked
and/or degraded within popular culture. By highlighting *Supernatural*'s
prominence within current academic understandings of 'cult' TV, then, I
am not intending to dismiss the show and its fans by adopting the
position of the authoritative, typically male (as Joanne Hollows (2003)
and Jacinta Read (2003) have demonstrated), cult TV aca-fan attempting
to discipline the field (although, I fear, some may take my comments
that way).

Nevertheless, given the (over-)representation of these shows within
contemporary studies of 'cult' TV, it does seem that a narrowing of the
focus and understanding of 'cult' television is currently observable.
One consequence of this is that series which fall outside of
'mainstream' production and distribution contexts, which develop brand
identities in accordance with industrially-imagined discourses of niche
'cult' appeal, and experiment with transmedia storytelling in
alternative and innovative ways (as is the case with *Defiance*) risk
becoming forgotten and their potential contributions to academic
knowledge on core areas of debate being lost as TV Studies' "zone of
liveness" (Hills 2010: 101) inevitably moves on to new programmes and
debates.

*Defiance *(and the other shows cancelled by SyFy last fall) currently
seems to exemplify what I would call *invisible cult television* within
the field. This argument is built upon the positions taken in a special
issue of *Critical Studies in Television *from 2010 edited by Brett
Mills which intended to explore "television programmes, which, despite
being long- running and consistently garnering high audience ratings,
are repeatedly ignored by the vast majority of academic work." (1)
Although *Defiance *doesn't directly adhere to Mills' characterisation
through being neither long-running nor generating widespread appeal, his
general call to look at marginalised examples seems applicable --
especially when considering a form of television which itself bears
associations with minority interests and unconventional ways of
engaging. *Defiance *and its peers therefore appear to be being rendered
invisible in relation to the current priorities for studies of cult TV,
overlooked by scholars focusing on more popular, recognisable (and, dare
I say it, attractive to academic publishers) examples which results in
directly-targeted 'cult' TV programmes featuring less prominently in
scholarly debates.

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=300&height=168&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/defiance3.jpg){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="168"}

Publicity image for *Defiance*'s third season

To clarify my own position, then, through discussing *Defiance* I am not
calling here for complete abandonment of scholarly interest in
'mainstream-cult' series like *Doctor
Who*, *Sherlock *or *Supernatural*. There are some highly exciting, and
greatly overdue, forthcoming studies which engage with these shows such
as [Lorna Jowett's study of gender in *Doctor
Who*](http://northampton.academia.edu/LornaJowett) and [Paul
Booth](http://depaul.academia.edu/PaulBooth)'s innovative study of
'SuperWhoLock', which seeks to explore trans-fandom rather than focusing
on a singular fan object, to name but a few. Additionally, glancing over
the contents page for the edited collection [*Time on TV *(Jowett,
Robinson and Simmons
forthcoming)](http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/The%20arts/Film%20TV%20%20radio/Television/Time%20on%20Television%20Narrative%20Time%20Time%20Travel%20and%20Time%20Travellers%20in%20Popular%20TV%20Culture.aspx?menuitem=%7BB571EE45-263D-4532-A616-771699D984CA%7D) indicates
a widening of 'cult' TV series, both past and present, which have
received academic recognition. Yet, it is worth remembering that in the
contemporary milieu both programmes and channels "have aggressively
forged "brand identities" for themselves as a way of standing out in the
increasingly diversified cable environment". (Hendershot 2004: 4) To
avoid narrowing what is understood as 'cult' TV within our discipline,
it is thus necessary to consider the branding, transmedia strategies and
audience appropriations of less visible examples such as *Defiance *so
as to maintain plurality, recognise the diversity of what constitutes
'cult' TV during a specific historical moment and fully consider what
these series can contribute to ongoing areas of interest. This is
arguably of extra importance when considering a channel such as SyFy
given its ongoing commitment to producing original programming which
targets and positions 'cult' audiences. Invisibility may be a recurrent
theme in the network's texts, but it shouldn't result in the channel or
its content becoming overlooked by scholars.

And finally, to end on a moment of reflexivity, yes, I'm highly aware of
a pot-kettle-black situation emerging here given that my own publication
list contributes to the problem I am outlining. Although exploring wider
debates towards nostalgia and authorship in cult TV forms, these have
taken place through using examples like *Doctor Who *and *Twin Peaks *as
objects of focus. Take this as my first attempts in trying to change
that.

   
**Ross Garner** is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies in the School
of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. He has
published various articles discussing nostalgia, popular memory and
television institutions in edited collections and journals and is
currently preparing the monograph *Nostalgia, Digital Television and
Transmediality* for publication in 2017 with Bloomsbury.


<em>
 Defiance
</em>
(2013-15) was an original commission science-fiction TV series which has aired on the SyFy channel in both the US and the UK. Set on Earth in the near-future after a war between humans and immigrant aliens who arrived to settle on the planet, and whose technology has greatly changed Earth’s physical and biological environment through a process named as ‘terraforming’, the show was premised around exploring the interactions

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

LESS CULT, MORE QUALITY?: AUDIENCE READINGS OF PRE-TEXTS FOR MARVEL’S INHUMANS AND ‘QUALITY-MAINSTREAM-CULT’ TV DRAMA

THE CANCELLATION OF DEFIANCE AND ‘INVISIBLE CULT TV’