Abstract

Although alternate histories have been present since the early days of televised science fiction, the genre didn’t take off until the streaming era of television began. Direct-targeted advertising, a glut of content, the maturation of the genre, and the historical instability of the twenty-first century intersected in the alternate-history genre, making it not only an important artistic genre but an important political one as well. Traditionally, the alternate-history genre, on a whole, has been criticized for its closed narratives that support the Great Man theory of history through an overemphasis on battles and royalty. A case study of six recent televised alternate histories—Russian Doll, Undone, Bandersnatch, Loki, Watchmen, and For All Mankind—shows that the televised version of the genre has matured into a revisionist genre that is focused on the natural determinism and personal agency as well as on the social factors that impact both. Taken together, these six shows suggest a unique maturity in the alternate-history genre, one that questions Anglo-Saxon spheres of narratological power and the very linearity of Western history.

摘要

尽管从早期的电视科幻小说中就已经出现了不同的历史，但这种类型直到电视的流媒体时代开始才开始流行。直接定向广告、内容过剩、流派的成熟以及 21 世纪历史的不稳定性交织在交替历史流派中，使其不仅成为一种重要的艺术流派，而且成为一种重要的政治流派。传统上，总体而言，交替历史类型因其封闭的叙述而受到批评，这些叙述通过过分强调战争和皇室来支持伟人历史理论。对最近六部电视转播的交替历史的案例研究—— 《俄罗斯娃娃》、《未完成》、《潘达斯奈基》、《洛基》、《守望者》和《全人类》-表明该类型的电视版本已经成熟为修正主义类型，专注于自然决定论和个人能动性以及影响两者的社会因素。总而言之，这六场演出表明了交替历史类型的独特成熟，这种类型对盎格鲁-撒克逊叙事权力的领域和西方历史的线性提出了质疑。