Writing about television, Stanley Cavell has argued that "what is memorable, treasurable, criticizable, is not primarily the individual work, but the program, the format, not this or that day of I Love Lucy, but the program as such." While this admonition might admirably apply to the telefilm series that came later, the 1950s drama anthologies were premised on the fact that they were different every week. However, the drama anthologies shared at least one thing in common- the one -hour live format- and because of that very fact. they had to distinguish themselves from each other. The producers for each seri es worked to develop a "house style,” a distinctive reputation for a certain kind of difference and diversity, whether based on quality writing, attention to character over theme, or, more typically, technical and artistic innovation that developed the form. A full assessment would necessarily consider each distinctive anthology series (and assess its "distinctiveness" from the others) as a whole and the failures and achievements of individual productions.

Studio One was the longest-running drama anthology series, lasting ten years from 1948 to 1958, from the “big freeze" through the "golden age" to the made­-in-Hollywood 90-minute film format: in all, over 500 plays were produced. From the beginning, Studio One's "house style" was foregrounded not only by the quality of its writers but also by its production innovations, professionalism, and experimentation within the limits of live production.

Studio One began as a CBS Radio drama anthology show in the mid- 1940s. Then, in 1948. Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) drama supervisor Worthington Miner translated the series to television . Its first  TV   production  was  an  adaptation  by  Miner of “The Storm” (November 7, 1948). In Miner's hands, the series emphasized certain "quality" characteristics: adaptation (usually of classical works, such as the 1948 production of Julius Caesar) and innovation ("Battleship Bismarck," 1949). Studio One adopted a serious tone under Miner but also a pioneering spirit. For example, “Battleship Bismarck" made advanced use of telecine inserts and three-camera live editing within a confined and waterlogged set. Miner left  to join the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1952, but the show regained an even clearer sense of identity and purpose when Felix Jackson became the producer in 1953. Jackson used two directors, Paul Nickell and Franklin Schaffner, each with his own technical staff, who  would alternate  according to the material. Nickell was given the more "sensitive" scripts, Schaffner the epics, the action. Both directors were committed to pushing the live studio drama to the limits. Nickell in particular stands as one of the greatest-and most unsung-television directors: he never made the mistake of thinking a good TV drama has to look like a film.

By the mid- 1950s, dramatic anthologies typically became less focused on adaptation, and more emphasis was placed on new works written for television, often giving attention to contemporary issues. Studio One followed this trend. In many cases, the same writers, such as Reginald Rose, who had adapted for Studio One, now wrote original teleplays. Rose worked as an adapter until 1954, the year he wrote "12 Angry Men" and the controversial "Thunder on Sycamore Street." The latter story, about racial hatred, was modified to satisfy southern television station owners, replacing a Black protagonist with a convict. By 1955, Studio One was receiving more than 500 unsolicited manuscripts per week.

However, it was Studio One's technical innovation, rather than its coterie of writers, that made the series distinctive. Its chief rival in the ratings, Fred Coe's Philco Television Playhouse/Goodyear Playhouse, had a superior stable of writers (Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Horton Foote, Robert Alan Aurthur, and Tad Mosel-most of whom later worked  for Studio One), but it could not match Studio One's technical daring. Philco/Goodyear developed a reputation for plays that explored the psychological realism of character, using many close-ups, but this was influenced by other factors. As Mosel recalled, "I think that began because the sets were so cheap; if you pulled back you'd photograph those awful sets. Directors began moving into faces so you wouldn't see the sets. Studio One had much more lavish productions, they had more money." After 1955, Studio One joined the general decline of the other New York-based dramas. Network programmers began to favor anthologies that fit 90-minute slots (such as CBS Playhouse 90) and dramas shot on film, often in Hollywood. Eventually, Studio One joined the drift to Hollywood and film. By 1957, the anthology was renamed Studio One in Hollywood-and the spon­sor, Westinghouse, withdrew from the series.

Studio One's achievements have to be measured in terms of technical and stylistic superiority over rival anthologies. With plays such as "Dry Run" and "Shakedown Cruise" (both set on a flooded submarine, built in the studio) and "Twelve Angry Men," Studio One was the first to use four-walled sets, hiding the cameras behind flying walls or using portholes to conceal cameras between shots. The freedom to innovate was in part due to CBS's policy of giving directors relative autonomy from network interference and the stability of the Schaffner-Nickell partnership, but it is also a pioneering quality that can be traced back to Worthington Miner and the late 1940s. Miner was quite clear that he wanted Studio One to advance the medium via its experimental storytelling techniques: "I was fascinated by the new medium and convinced that television was somewhere between drama and film ... a live performance staged for multiple cameras."

However, with the mature Studio One productions of the early and mid-1950s, one has the sense that the movements of the cameras were not subordinate to the requirements of the performance-quite the opposite. For example, "The Hospital" was an adaptation produced during the 1952 season and directed by Schaffner. This play seemed to achieve the impossible: it literally denied the existence of live studio time. Flashbacks and other interruptions could be achieved with some narrative jigging to allow for costume and scene changes. Still, unlike film, live studio time was real time, and the ineluctable rule of live drama was that the length of a performance was as long as it took to see it. But Schaffner had a reputation for thinking that nothing was impossible for live television. Most other anthologies of the period used a static three­ camera live-studio setup, where two cameras were used for close-ups and the other for the two-shots. In such an arrangement, the television camera acted as a simple, efficient, relay. Schaffner favored instead a mobile mise-en-scene; his cameras were constantly on the move, with actors and props positioned and choreographed for the cameras.

This play concerned the drama of a local hospital, following the various staff and patients through typical medical crises. Although the transmitted play lasted 50 minutes, the story time took up only 18 minutes. Some scenes were therefore repeated during the three acts, using a different viewpoint and requiring the actors to restage precisely their initial scenes. As some scenes were lengthened or modified in the light of what viewers saw previously, the audience gained a greater understanding of the events from each character's viewpoint. Although this would be relatively simple to achieve on film, for live drama it involved complex methods of panning and camera movement to capture and expand the chronicle of events and repeat them exactly as it had gone before. Schaffner achieved this by using several cranes to snake through the various sets as the scenes were played and repeated, often in a different order. Doing what seemed technically impossible was therefore foregrounded in this drama, and the complexity of this achievement was emphasized  by the ironic commentary of one of the hospital patients who, with head bandaged, was able to explain at the end. as the sponsors shouted for their advertisements. "Time? There is no time. Time is only an illusion." And Studio One could prove it.