Opening C21 Digital Screening’s first Theme Festival, featuring Classic Drama Franchises, Drama Quarterly editor Michael Pickard considers the attributes needed to propel a series into the television hall of fame.

In 1997, some 13 years before it would go on to produce Downton Abbey, Carnival Films produced a science-fiction detective drama in which police officer Jeff Slade uses time travel to solve crimes.

That the series only ran for a single, eight-episode season – creator Anthony Horowitz recalls the series fell through a gap between BBC commissioners – is just one reason why I might be one of the few people to consider this a television classic.

From its sci-fi twist on the whodunnit format and the charming yet clunky time machine design to the clever way the effects of Slade’s journeys into the past are written into the present day, the show stood out as one of the few that caught my attention in the same year UK TV added a fifth terrestrial channel.

And it has stayed with me ever since. Even when I was lucky enough to meet Horowitz during his promotional tour for another crime drama, New Blood, I couldn’t stop myself from asking him about the show.

Of course, what might be a classic series for one person is entirely subjective, although there is an undisputed class of small-screen series that are widely acknowledged to have earned the title, from The Sopranos, Mad Men and The Wire to The West Wing, Breaking Bad and countless other series from the past 50 years and beyond that continue to draw legions of fans long after they first aired.

In today’s super-opinionated society, where everyone with a Twitter account can become a television critic, superlatives are easy to come by. One series might have been ‘groundbreaking,’ ‘unprecedented’ or ‘revolutionary,’ while the next might be deemed ‘a masterpiece,’ ‘astonishing’ or simply ‘perfect.’ Yet it’s harder to describe a series as a classic, a label that is usually earned with hindsight and the passage of time.

Even then, there can be early classics, 1980s classic and modern classics, to give some examples of how even that one single label can be divided into further sub-categories.

But time is only one factor that adds weight to deeming a television series a classic. It can also be down to the length of time they aired. Doctor Who and Star Trek are considered classics because, among other reasons, they have appealed to fans across generations, as they have both been onscreen in one form or another since the 1960s.

Subverting genre and breaking the traditional television form also saw Twin Peaks, NYPD Blue, Oz, Lost and 24 become classics in their own right, while compelling, radical or risky storytelling over just a handful of episodes or seasons can also justify a series being labelled a classic. Our Friends in the North, The Singing Detective, State of Play and Band of Brothers are regularly considered to be among the best short-lived shows.

“Anything goes in 1920s Paris. This is an edge-of-your-seat mystery with all the production values of a lavish period drama. Things that transport you somewhere else are really attractive and this certainly does that,” says Hedges.

Equally worthy of the title are so-called cult classics – shows that may not have scored a huge following when they originally aired, leading to early cancellations, but whose legend has grown over time. For example, Pushing Daises, My So-Called Life, Freaks & Geeks and Firefly.

But it’s not just series that can be considered classics but the characters that appear in them, too. What would The Sopranos be without Tony Soprano, Mad Men without Don Draper or Peggy White and Breaking Bad without Walter White? Where would The X-Files be without Mulder and Sully, 24 less Jack Bauer and Game of Thrones lacking Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen or Tyrion Lannister?

Now, with the globalisation of television, with viewers able to tune into shows from around the world, the availability of series in foreign languages also means there are many more classic series to consider. Spiral and Braquo in France, Nikolaj og Julie (Nicholas & Julie) and Forbrydelsen (The Killing) from Denmark and Wallander and Beck from Sweden were at the forefront of the global drama boom that has given rise to massive interest in new shows now coming out of those countries.

There is no hard and fast rule about what constitutes a classic TV series, and that is part of the fun, leading to countless top 10 lists and numerous debates. And if you haven’t yet seen Normal People, the drama based on Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel, you really should check it out. It’s a classic.

Contact C21 to feature in upcoming C21 Digital Screening Theme Festivals.

Opening C21 Digital Screening’s first Theme Festival, featuring Classic Drama Franchises, Drama Quarterly editor Michael Pickard considers the attributes needed to propel a series into the television hall of fame.

In 1997, some 13 years before it would go on to produce Downton Abbey, Carnival Films produced a science-fiction detective drama in which police officer Jeff Slade uses time travel to solve crimes.

That the series only ran for a single, eight-episode season – creator Anthony Horowitz recalls the series fell through a gap between BBC commissioners – is just one reason why I might be one of the few people to consider this a television classic.

From its sci-fi twist on the whodunnit format and the charming yet clunky time machine design to the clever way the effects of Slade’s journeys into the past are written into the present day, the show stood out as one of the few that caught my attention in the same year UK TV added a fifth terrestrial channel.
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