The scene of the crime: Models, identities and roles of the territory in Italian giallo and television crime drama series

During the last two decades, Italian crime TV series have increased considerably, becoming one of the main scripted television genres offered on national channels, both on free-to-air and pay-TV and streaming platforms, while additionally developing an ever-closer synergy with local territories and their representation. Focusing on the 2020–21 television season, this article provides some maps in order to highlight roles and identities of national places and territories in defining different types and gradations of Italian crime drama TV series. More specifically, it underlines the variety of functions that territories played through the plot and the way they could be represented alternatively as background or foreground, as well as realistic or imaginary, taking into account different models of representation of a multifaceted genre and its connections with geographical locations, which could explain the prominence of giallo in national popular culture.