Page - 18 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

what Catherine Keller describes as a crypto-apocalypse, something that emerg- es out of the amorphous realm at the subliminal margins of the mind, driven by a compulsive desire to fix meaning yet unable to ever fully escape the indeter- minable nature of the psychosocial zone out of which selfhood is composed.9 REPETITION AS DIFFERENCE: BETWEEN HABIT AND HOPE What, then, does it mean to frame the analysis of the series between the con- cepts of habit and hope? Fundamentally, such an approach addresses the essen- tial nature of the series as a series, that is, a repetition of an imagined world that the viewer returns to in a process of captivation and familiarity. It is possible to trace this conception back to the founding consciousness of human existence in myth, narrative, and the first visualizations of the world marked onto the walls and surfaces of the landscape. However, we can more recently locate the emergence of this process in the rise of the printed serial form in the nineteenth century, before it shifted into the media of cinema, radio, and then television. One aspect of contemporary TV series much commented upon, is how this longer narrative form allows for deeper character development and more com- plex structures to be established, something that is more limited by the typical ninety minutes of a conventional feature film.10 This follows a tradition within cinema of seeking to extend the audience engagement, something we can see in the feature-length film. This format emerged around 1912 as, in part, a strug- gle against the limitations of the ten-minute “one-reeler”, a duration that was deemed by industry organizations such as the Movie Trust to be the maximum length of time an audience could be expected to maintain their attention.11 The introduction of the feature became an essential element in the development of a more sophisticated and middle-class audience for cinema throughout this period.12 In a broader sense, such qualities point to how film and television function with an increasing level of creative crossover. For instance, one of the most highly regarded films of recent decades, the complex and challeng- ing Mullholland Drive, from 2001, written and directed by David Lynch, was originally written and shot as a pilot for a TV series before Lynch adapted it into a feature film after rejection from appalled television executives.13 In contrast, Sam Esmail, the writer and director of Mr Robot, originally envisaged the pilot 9 Keller 1997, 8. 10 see Mittell 2015. 11 The Movie Trust or Motion Picture Patents Company, was a trust of ten film producers and distributors who attempted to gain control of the motion-picture industry in the United States between 1908 to 1912. See Izod 1988. 12 Butsch 2000. 13 http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/dffm.html [accessed 12.09.2019]. 18 | John Lynch www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 15–30