Year 2024/2025
January 23: „I’m weird. I’m a weirdo.” The Allure of Unhinged Teen Television Drama Series Riverdale (2017-2023)
January 20, 2025
Join us for the second Weird TV lecture in 2025! Teen TV programming by The CW Television Network in the last 20 years has been a wildly successful blend of soap opera, generational saga, crime, the paranormal, and erotica. This paper argues that the drama series Riverdale (2017-2023) is the last show of this kind due to its week-to-week broadcasting format, as well as its convoluted, absurd, weird, and addictive storytelling. In the span of 6 years and 7 seasons, Riverdale explored various themes and topics: serial killers, occultism, time traveling, parallel universes, superpowers, folk tales, witchcraft, and many, many more. On a purely visual level, the show does take its inspiration from the grand tradition of horror/thriller genre storytelling, BUT is it camp, pastiche, or pure kitsch? This paper attempts to situate Riverdale within a broader context of both cult cinema/TV, and teen film studies. Finally, Riverdale’s weirdness and ridiculousness would be nothing without the show’s internet discourse, fandom, and critical reception, which are part of this analysis.