Telenovela in the Streaming Era: Narrative Innovations and Seriality in All the Flowers (Globoplay)

Abstract

In this paper, we identify how local streaming services strategically adapt, enter, and remain in the highly competitive new television ecosystem. We analyze potential narrative innovations and seriality issues in the telenovela All the Flowers (Rebelo & Paulon, 2022-2023), the first original script released by Brazilian streaming service Globoplay. Even though it maintains precepts of classic narrative design and melodrama, we identify an acceleration in the pace of narrative events with the anticipation of the inciting incident; the convergence of subplots around the central plot; and the interdependent crisscrossing of weekly arcs and biweekly arcs, which elevate and intensify the dramatic tone, suspense, and complexity of the narrative.