ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that worlds have to be made to be perceived, turning on a series of intertextual linkages that need to be forged, reinforced, and acted upon for the shared narrative space to be recognized by viewers and exploited by industry. It examines those linkages means understanding the choices available to producers who sought to unify narrative space across multiple series – either in initial design or retroactively – as well as the challenges they faced in making the resultant narrative amalgamations coherent to viewers and compatible with the needs of television distributors. The chapter conceives of the story elements of character, setting, and event as 'energies' generated and expended in the course of constructing shared narrative universes. It considers how the comprehension of viewers and support of world-building by television institutions depended upon significant industrial constraints that encouraged some kinds of narrative interactions while discouraging or dissipating others.
