The Introduction introduces the terms complexity and simplicity. It advocates that we might expand our critical vocabulary by reconsidering how these terms are employed in television studies.Overt references to complexity and ‘complex TV’ have burgeoned in recent years. Complexity has played a particularly salient role in television aesthetics, where it supports evaluative appreciations of specific programmes. However, the range of television works considered in terms of ‘complexity’ is rather narrow: twenty-first century, American, ‘quality’ serial dramas predominate. Furthermore, narrative complexity is frequently prioritised over other kinds. We suggest that conceptions of complexity drawn from analytic aesthetics might help direct attention to other sources of complexity and complex pleasures.In TV studies, the word ‘simplicity’ is often used as a negative counterpoint, associated with unfashionable and critically slighted television, rather than as an alternative criterion for value. We make a case for reappraising simplicity, not merely as a route to clarity, concision or accessibility, but also as a potentially valuable aesthetic feature. We note that the achievement and indeed the appreciation of simplicity, just as in the case of complexity, requires complex skills on part of the creator or viewer. The Introduction sets out the book’s chapters. Contributors come from diverse areas of TV studies; the range of television works addressed is similarly broad, covering UK and US drama, comedy-drama, sitcom, animation, sci-fi, adaptation and advertisement. But all chapters attend closely to stylistic details of specific moments, and all explore the chosen programmes’ achievements in terms of their balance of complexity and simplicity.