I have always had an interest in episodic television and in sitcoms, in particular. However, as I engaged with various critical theories in class, I noticed that some half-hour shows don’t neatly fit into the traditional sitcom or episodic categories. I’ve always wanted to write about Atlanta but felt qualms about it due to how far the show is from my lived experience. Thus I found structure to be a good way in as a critic. I chose to focus on seasons 1-2 of Atlanta in my video essay although many of the ideas hold true for the later seasons. (I just didn’t like them as much.)

Through my video essay, I tried to reframe the episodic. VanArendonk’s “Theorizing the Television Episode” discusses the procedural in largely negative terms, chastizing it for its “amnesiac” quality. Through my analysis, I tried to highlight that, in her conceptualization, a show like Atlanta would fall outside of the serialized/episodic dichotomy. In Atlanta, the relationship between episodes is more diffuse, like that of a deviating episode. 

While Atlanta’s pilot suggests a serialized show, the writers later called it a “Trojan horse.” They never planned to write a serialized show but needed to suggest it to move the project forward, highlighting how the relationship between episodes is not only undertheorized but often maligned by creators themselves for commercial reasons. 

To further contextualize Atlanta, I compared it to shows like Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, and Master of None, noting how it borrows elements of surrealism, anthologized storytelling, and episodicity from these series. I argued that Atlanta’s use of episodic techniques is actually uplifting rather than dull as it allows its characters to continue exploring. The challenges the characters face like making rent or raising a young child are not insignificant, but the show is never tragic because even when the characters fail, they are given the opportunity to try again.