Horror on television has recently attracted much scholarly attention (see, e.g., Hills; Peirse; Robson; Totaro; Wheatley). As Alison Peirse says: “there has been a distinct evolution of late in terms of horror television... [Though this partly reflects] network interest in capturing the post-Buffy audience, it can still be argued that the contemporary television series is growing increasingly obsessed with horror” (Uncanny 129). Writers such as myself (Pleasures 125) and Simon Brown and Stacey Abbott have argued that TV horror has shifted from a position pre-1980s where it was viewed as “inauthentic,” or as less present in television schedules, to having a considerable presence today: "the post-network, multi-platform landscape of contemporary TV has led to a much broader range of programming strategies beyond the ‘Least Objectionable’ approach of the network era. ...networks, netlets, and cable and pay-TV channels are specifically targeting smaller, loyal markets, making the horror aficionado an increasingly lucrative, while still niche, market" (Brown and Abbott 207).
However, this argument relies on contrasting network TV to the post-network age; it hinges on a binary of “mass” TV drama versus the “niche” of horror fandom. In The Pleasures of Horror I similarly argued for a tension between these two industry practices (128). Here, though, I want to complicate such binary approaches to TV horror. I will use arguments surrounding what have been termed TV I, II, and III (Reeves, Rogers and Epstein Rewriting; Rogers, Epstein and Reeves Sopranos) before presenting Torchwood (BBC Wales, 2006-present) as a case study to articulate the differences of TV horror in these changing contexts. I will argue that horror has not just become attractive to target niche audiences, but has offered a strategy for the branding and ‘making-cinematic’ of television drama. This branding relies on a symbolic equation of horror with film, meaning that the genre’s rapprochement with TV is relationally structured against a view of ‘ordinary’ television as not evoking horror’s conventions.