TV Cloning as Transcultural Adaptation: The Reformatting of the Medea Myth via Doctor Foster.

This article examines how digital streaming platforms have facilitated the global remixing and reformatting of the Medea myth through the practice of "TV cloning" or "TV formatting," focusing on the British TV series Doctor Foster (2015) by playwright Mike Bartlett. Doctor Foster, a modern adaptation of Medea centered on a professional woman confronting infidelity, became a global phenomenon with localized remakes across diverse cultural contexts including South Korea, India, Turkey, and the Philippines. These adaptations illustrate how the core narrative of betrayal and revenge is sanitized and modernized to fit local social norms and middle-class lifestyles, while also reflecting varying gender dynamics and cultural specificities, such as the Korean version's inclusion of a women's association as a social chorus. The study highlights the role of streaming platforms like Netflix as "localizing adaptation machines" that enable transnational circulation and cultural transformation of television formats, emphasizing the interplay between global media flows and localized reinterpretations of classical myths.