Engaging with complex television crime drama: Moral and artistic value in Gomorra: La serie (Seasons 1–3) and Twitter audience responses.

This article investigates the interplay between moral and artistic values in complex television crime drama through a case study of *Gomorra: La serie* (Seasons 1–3), an Italian series produced by Sky Italia that portrays the Camorra criminal underworld. It introduces the concept of "cinematic moralism" to describe how the series' narrative and stylistic elements aim to elicit a morally reflective response by encouraging viewers to pity rather than endorse the characters. Combining analytic aesthetics, film analysis, and empirical research on Twitter audience responses, the study finds a disconnect between the series' intended moral cues and actual viewer engagement, as Twitter users primarily focused on celebrity interaction rather than sustained moral reflection. The article concludes with a cautious stance on the capacity of complex crime dramas to reliably foster moral learning or improve moral judgment among audiences.