But the second describes a process - the fictionalization of fact - that took a quantum leap with television docudramas.

First came the books, then the television docudramas and feature-length films.

The dramas that result, though, are closer to television docudramas than to operas.

Or is it something more ambiguous, selective and slippery, the still equivalent of a television docudrama?

It is one of the century's more remarkable scenarios and, of course, the very stuff of television docudrama.

In 1978 he took issue with the script of a six-hour television "docudrama" on Dr. King's life.

However, like some television docudramas, it falls uncomfortably between genres.

These inventions exceed even the questionable liberties enjoyed by television "docudrama."

The program's few simulated re-creations, so ubiquitous in television docudrama, are only slightly jarring.

The result is not your usual television docudrama.