Affective Trajectory of Viewers’ Long-term Engagement with TV Series

Abstract

Abstract Referring to the widespread disappointment over the ending of the Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin recently cried: “I don't understand how people can come to hate so much something that they once loved.” My aim here is to offer an account that explains this shift in viewers’ emotions, which I refer to as affective trajectory. On my proposal, viewers are attached to a certain work for a considerable amount of time when they care for it and feel rewarded by such caring. When this sense of reward is absent from their experience, they start to feel disappointed. To account for such an absence, and such a shift, I first analyze some of the ways in which a show inspires and rewards a sense of care in the viewers, and I then move on to examine how this sense is betrayed. Underlying my analysis are insights from cognitive approaches to aesthetics, philosophy of taste and emotions, and television studies.