French Literature Reviews - 2026

V. Colonna, The Art of TV Series, 2. Farewell to Morality
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Bibliographic reference: V. Colonna, L'Art des séries télé, 2. L'Adieu à la morale, Payot, "Hors collection" series, 2015. EAN13: 9782228911993.

Vincent Colonna, The Art of TV Series, 2. Farewell to Morality

Paris: Payot, coll. "Hors collection", 2015.

EAN 9782228911993

400p.

Price 20EUR.

Overview:

A mild-mannered chemistry teacher who builds a drug empire, an assassin who becomes pope, a queen who sleeps her way back to her throne, a well-bred high-society lawyer who kills her brother… The television series that leave a lasting mark on their era are not necessarily those with the most conventional subjects: Borgia, Breaking Bad, The Returned, Ainsi soient-ils, Mafiosa, Game of Thrones, to name just a few, fully embrace their artistic ambitions and deeply explore the fascination with evil that seems to have gripped our society…

Vincent Colonna is a semiotician, consultant, and novelist. Following a first volume dedicated to classic series (House, Section de recherches, etc.), in this second volume of The Art of TV Series he continues to shed light on major trends in cultural evolution.

The volume forms part of a broader critical inquiry into contemporary cultural production and the evolution of televised narratives. As serial fiction increasingly commands serious attention within the humanities, analysts examine how complex character arcs and transgressive plots reflect shifting societal values. Works discussed on the page, ranging from Breaking Bad to Game of Thrones, illustrate a widespread turn toward morally ambiguous protagonists who defy traditional narrative conventions. Vincent Colonna, known for his work in semiotics and narrative forms, situates these developments within wider trends in recent artistic expression.

This study continues an ongoing project dedicated to mapping the structural and thematic shifts within modern television. By examining productions that embrace artistic ambitions alongside conventional entertainment formats, the text addresses the ways in which serialized fiction engages with difficult subject matter. Readers interested in contemporary media studies, cultural evolution, and narrative theory may find this volume relevant to their inquiries into the status of modern serial storytelling.