Personal and National History in the TV Drama Series Pillars of Smoke and The Exchange Principle

This article examines the television series Pillars of Smoke and The Exchange Principle as crime dramas. This generic framework is used in the article to highlight the similarities and differences that emerge from reading the two TV dramas together. Furthermore, the article reveals the unique historiographical connection between the Yom Kippur War and the Second Intifada. The article addresses the concept of defeated masculinity, and the interweaving of national and personal histories it suggests; it argues that, although Pillars of Smoke and The Exchange Principle both are centered around a male and female protagonist couple, they share a representation of male fraternity under the national and post-national conditions.