In search of an author: Italian television crime in the mid-1980s

The 1980s have been a time of great research, despite the ongoing scepticism of some criticism towards Italian TV crime drama. The TV detective story stands as a laboratory of experimentation which still makes an effective proposal for Italian television as a place for stylistic research and a space for theoretical reflection on the specificity of public service. This article focuses on two chronological extremes of the period: the persistent mixing of detective story with TV game show formulas at the beginning of the 1980s; and the strong authorial research that weaves through TV crime drama, particularly in Cinque storie inquietanti ('Five disturbing stories') by Carlo Di Carlo (1987). The article investigates not only the meaning of crime stories and giallo, but also the importance of this seriality in terms of the changes taking place in the cultural and television system.