Although many countries have produced series, some of which are of high quality, the history of television series has been dominated by mainly three countries: the United States , France and the United Kingdom . Genealogically, the television series comes on the one hand from the serial , a format invented shortly before the First World War and which is a film cut into episodes and screened in theaters, and, on the other hand, from radio drama . From the mid -1940s to the mid -1950s , television played above all on the image and visual discoveries, and sought to gain the loyalty of the public with regular meetings of variety or entertainment, even cultural. The arrival of major sponsors makes it possible to produce dramas, independent stories, broadcast weekly under a common credits bearing the name of the sponsor . We called these anthologies. They grouped the episodes under the same theme, sometimes with a common presenter, were mostly broadcast live from New York , being shot in conditions closer to the theater than to the cinema. The first French series also drew their inspiration from historical culture: Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge , Thierry la Fronde Vidocq , Le Chevalier Tempête , Thibaud ou les Croisades , Mandrin , Le 16 à Kerbriant , Ardéchois loyal heart . They were often inspired by French soap operas : Le chevalier de Maison-Rouge, Rocambole , Lagardère , Jacquou le Croquant , Les Habits noirs , La Dame de Monsoreau , La Porteuse de pain , D'Artagnan , L'Homme qui retour de far away , La Juive du Château Trompette , Chéri-Bibi , La Poupée sanglante , Le Loup blanc , La Corde au cou and of course Belphégor ; then as part of European co-productions, Arsène Lupine , Joseph Balsamo , Le Comte de Monte-Cristo , Les Mystères de Paris , Fantômas . French television was also, from the outset, fond of detective series: Signé Alouette , Le train bleu STOP 13 times , The Five Last Minutes , Allô Police , The Investigations of Commissioner Maigret , Commissioner Moulin , François Gaillard or Life the others , Les Brigades du Tigre , the latter series combining police intrigue and historical culture. The geographic adventure had its heyday in the 1960s with The Globe-Trotters , The Sky Knights , Star Trek and Mission Impossible. The 70s TV series like Wonder Woman, the invisible man, Starsky and Hutch will make an impression. In the 1980s, L'Agence Tous Risques, MacGyver, Supercopter, Maguy, Magnum put TV series in the foreground. The 90s will introduce new types of series like Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson, 7 at Home, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Melrose Place, Underside of Palm Beach and also the AB sitcoms. The 2000s will make us discover Prison Break, the fate of Lisa, Degrassi new generation. The 2010s will allow series like Vikings, Castle, to explode.

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