sci-fi shows with continuous ongoing arcs?

[DarkProphet]

nuBSG and Lost spring to mind.

Trouble is both of those shows are fucking shit are care little for their continuity while Babylon-5 was a much better story driven series.

It's fortunate for DarkProphet that you're completely wrong.

Oh I'm definitely going to check out BSG and Lost. BSG has lot of rave reviews and critical acclaim.

For good arc-driven shows that have already been mentioned, I'm going to bring back up nuBSG, Jericho, DS9, and Lost. For a show that no one hasn't mentioned yet, Invasion was a great one. This is another show that I was pissed to see go down after one season. it even ended on a cliffhanger.

Yeah I heard of Invasion and Threshold. Are they similar to Surface (i.e. continuous storyline)? And how bad is the cliffhanger to Invasion? Does some of the arcs get resolved by the end?

 

[archeryguy1701]

Threshold is a continuous story, but it's a series of standalone stories tied to the overall arc. I think the best way to describe it is it's about chasing the bad guy of the week, except all the bad guys are part of the alien invasion. Once in a while something happens to move the overall arc along, but mostly it's standaloneish.

Invasion, on the other hand, it a full arc. The entire series (as I recall) is dedicated to moving the bigger story along. The cliffhanger was ok. The main story of the entire season mostly gets resolved. However, it causes more questions. And it's a full cliffhanger too, unlike Jericho's series finale, which wrapped everything up, but left a window open if there was a desire to continue things.

 

[Gepard]

Oh I'm definitely going to check out BSG and Lost. BSG has lot of rave reviews and critical acclaim.

Excellent. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

 

[DarkProphet]

Threshold is a continuous story, but it's a series of standalone stories tied to the overall arc. I think the best way to describe it is it's about chasing the bad guy of the week, except all the bad guys are part of the alien invasion. Once in a while something happens to move the overall arc along, but mostly it's standaloneish.

Invasion, on the other hand, it a full arc. The entire series (as I recall) is dedicated to moving the bigger story along. The cliffhanger was ok. The main story of the entire season mostly gets resolved. However, it causes more questions. And it's a full cliffhanger too, unlike Jericho's series finale, which wrapped everything up, but left a window open if there was a desire to continue things.

Thanks for the detailed info. I'm always a little weary about series that ends with a cliffhanger, but i think i'll check out Invasion. As long as the main story gets resolved and the fact that the entire series is a full arc makes it sound appealing.

Full arc series is always fun and good but there's always the risk that the stor doesn't get resolved which pisses people off.

Oh I'm definitely going to check out BSG and Lost. BSG has lot of rave reviews and critical acclaim.

Excellent. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

Thanks I'm excited to check out those series

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Oh I'm definitely going to check out BSG and Lost. BSG has lot of rave reviews and critical acclaim.

Excellent. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

BSG is almost done so we can judge the coherence of the arc in the near future. Lost still has a couple seasons to go. Of the two, I'd say Lost has a good chance of coming out with a pretty coherent story arc overall. I'd be surprised at this point if BSG manages to pull it off. There have simply been too many veerings and retcons. But any show that attempts a full-on multiseason arc deserves our support for just having guts. Too many shows wouldn't even try it.

 

[DigificWriter]

One thing about nuBSG that the thread starter needs to be aware of: There are some issues that crop up logistically, continuity-wise, and pacing-wise in the second half of Season 2 that may detract from his/her enjoyment (they have for me, although I still consider the series to be one of the best things on TV and Season 2 as a whole to be very strong story-wise despite the continuity, pacing, and logistics issues).

 

[Broccoli]

Heroes do season arcs.

The first season of Heroes was great but I'm not sure I would recommend the whole show. I tried watching S2 and was like "WTF is wrong with this show" I think it burned out too quick IMO.

Well, I'm one of those crazy people that actually likes season 2.

 

[sidious618]

One thing about nuBSG that the thread starter needs to be aware of: There are some issues that crop up logistically, continuity-wise, and pacing-wise in the second half of Season 2 that may detract from his/her enjoyment (they have for me, although I still consider the series to be one of the best things on TV and Season 2 as a whole to be very strong story-wise despite the continuity, pacing, and logistics issues).

See, I loved season two but though season three's pacing was a little off. Amazingly fantastic show, though.

 

[DigificWriter]

If you examine the second half of S2 in-depth in relation to both the first half of S2 and the entirety of Season 1, you end up uncovering a large amount of problems as it concerns the internal chronology of the series. The first evidence of issues with regards to the internal chronology of the series starts to crop up in 'Flight of the Phoenix', but the problems really start to show up beginning with 'Epiphanies'. The pacing and logistics issues start cropping up with 'Epiphanies' as well, and they mainly concern the roles of Apollo and Starbuck, who end up flip-flopping from the Pegasus to the Galactica (and back again) from episode to episode. For example, 'Epiphanies' has Kara flying CAP duties with the Galactica's pilots under Apollo's command, but there's no mention made of why.

 

[Harvey]

I thought the larger issues were about (1) the pregnancy, (2) the cancer, and (3) the election (I'm trying to be as vague as possible about these points to avoid spoilers). It seems to me that it's pretty difficult to reconcile all of these things together.

I didn't notice a problem with the command structure, although Razor throws a monkey wrench in the whole thing somewhat. I bet Battlestar WIKI has managed to rationalize it all out, though I don't know how well.

 

[DigificWriter]

It's not those three issues themselves that create the problems; it's how they're executed that creates the issues (I can't go into more depth because I can't seem to figure out how to spoiler code my post). The logistics problems stem from a few different things, some of them related to the election and the cancer, and some relating to Kara's character and her official rank and status (there are some things that are established in one episode that end up being seemingly ignored in others).

 

[Neroon]

(I can't go into more depth because I can't seem to figure out how to spoiler code my post).

If you click on the "Post Reply" button at the bottom left of the last post on the page, you get the standard reply format box and tools. Simply key in your post in the blank text box, then highlight the text you wish to encode in a spoiler. Above said text box you see a line of icons each used for a different formatting tool. The last one on the right is a yellow smilie that looks like it's got a closed mouth. Click on that, and it will step you through what it needs to encode your spoiler text properly.

Spoiler: like this

"Luke I am your football coach".