Abstract/Summary

This chapter addresses how critical analysis might describe and evaluate non-human “performances” in television fiction, and how they affect distinctions between actor and role, and between character and narrative function. Across the history and genres of television, there have been very many “objects” that narratives make expressive but that are not human, nor even, in some cases, alive at all. The chapter considers the balloon-like Rovers of "The Prisoner" TV series, the kangaroos in "Skippy", and the puppets and models in "Thunderbirds", arguing that if they are to play their part in the fictional world, each of these things needs to function as an expressive “performer”. It argues that the boundaries between self and other, human and non-human, are thus destabilised and reflect on the work of creation in television.