Televisual Authorship and Comedy Showrunners: The Case of Greg Daniels

Abstract

The article focuses on Greg Daniels, the acclaimed comedy showrunner whose credits include the US version of The Office (NBC, 2005-2013) as well as King of the Hill (Fox, 1997-2010), Space Force (Netflix, 2020-2022), and Upload (Amazon, 2020-). The author analyses press and podcast interviews with Daniels and his co-workers, as well as other articles connected to the showrunner and his works, supplementing them with quotes from a previously unpublished in-depth interview. The central emphasis lies on Daniels’s creative methods, situated within the broader context of television and streaming shows authorship. The sources are interpreted with the help of methods characteristic of the critical media industry studies and utilize Jason Mittell’s model of authorship by management.

Keywords

• Greg Daniels
• showrunner
• television show authorship
• authorship theory
• sitcom
• critical media industry studies