Excellent question – and a surprisingly deep one.
The television show most often credited with pioneering the “100-minute self-contained adaptation of a full novel” format was BBC’s Play of the Month (1965-1983).
Here’s why that’s the likely origin:
- Each episode ran roughly 90-120 minutes, essentially film length for television.
- Each one adapted a classic or contemporary novel or stage play in its entirety – Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and many others.
- The BBC used the format to bring literary depth into the living room, treating television as a theatre of the mind rather than episodic fluff.
- It pre-dated similar anthology efforts like ITV’s Play of the Week and PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre in the U.S. (which debuted in 1971 and drew heavily on the BBC’s long-form drama model).
In the U.S., Playhouse 90 (CBS, 1956-1960) is also worth mentioning – its 90-minute runtime and literary scripts (many adapted from novels or original teleplays written with novelistic scope) paved the way for serious long-form TV drama in America. But Play of the Month solidified the “film-length adaptation per episode” structure as a recognizable British cultural institution.
So if we trace the genealogy:
Playhouse 90 (US, 1956-60) – first to stretch TV drama to 90 minutes. Play of the Month (UK, 1965-83) – first to regularly fit a whole novel into one episode of about 100 minutes.
Would you say that Montalbano followed that format or is there a different timeline in Italy?
Yes, Il Commissario Montalbano fits that lineage perfectly, though Italy arrived at it by a slightly different path.
Let’s trace it clearly and chronologically:
