¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 The beginning of a
narrative is an essential moment, establishing much of what will
follow, including whether any given consumer is motivated to
keep consuming. If we want to understand contemporary serial
television storytelling, we need to examine how programs begin.
In this chapter, I explore a range of techniques that various
complex television series use to launch their storyworlds, and
highlight how these techniques might be taken up by viewers,
both within the media industry and those watching at home. Via a
close analysis of one exemplary television pilot, Veronica Mars,
we can get a better sense of the poetic importance of serial
beginnings for a broad array of programming. ¶ 3 Leave a comment
on paragraph 3 1 All series start somewhere. Such a statement
should be self-evident, but it’s actually a bit more complicated
than it might seem. First off, to highlight a beginning is to
suggest the parallel of an ending—but as I discuss in the
Endings chapter, serial tele