Are four-year story arcs better?

[Temis the Vorta]

My point was why stretch out 4 hours that you have left to complete your intended story to fit 20 episodes?

Whatever length you want to write your story for, plan your story so it fits into a sensible schedule so you aren't showing four episodes in one season and that's it. Otherwise, people will just forget it's on. It must take an incredibly egotistical TV writer to think that viewers should bother to remember one show or another from one year to the next, just to watch four frakkin' episodes. Maybe if you're The Sopranos, but very few shows are like that.

You can also look at it the other way around: you're a TV writer and you want to keep getting a paycheck. You can think of a whole lot of premises (that's the easy part! people do it here all the time) Why not choose a premise that has the potential to give you ten years of employment, versus one or two?

Why even bother with one or two year premises? Assuming you're a skilled writer who can create compelling character arcs, you can do a lot more with several years than with just a couple.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

My point was why stretch out 4 hours that you have left to complete your intended story to fit 20 episodes?

Whatever length you want to write your story for, plan your story so it fits into a sensible schedule so you aren't showing four episodes in one season and that's it. Otherwise, people will just forget it's on. It must take an incredibly egotistical TV writer to think that viewers should bother to remember one show or another from one year to the next, just to watch four frakkin' episodes. Maybe if you're The Sopranos, but very few shows are like that.

You can also look at it the other way around: you're a TV writer and you want to keep getting a paycheck. You can think of a whole lot of premises (that's the easy part! people do it here all the time) Why not choose a premise that has the potential to give you ten years of employment, versus one or two?

Why even bother with one or two year premises? Assuming you're a skilled writer who can create compelling character arcs, you can do a lot more with several years than with just a couple.

Why not, it works over here. We have shows that run anything from one off to (very rarely) 18 episodes a series, and people still come back when they have a new series.

As has been said before, plans change, things don't turn out as you expect, so if you plan it you may have had a "sensible" amount planned, but when it came down to it for some reason it was longer, or shorter than you expected. Why compromise the story you want to tell, or the quality of the work just to fit a 22 episode season in?

As for why do a short story when you can do a long one, why do a long one when half of it won't actually be the story you want to tell? OK, some good writers will be able to tell a long story and make it all relevant but a lot won't. Even Lost has stumbled in places. Battlestar certainly lost it's way when they extended the season lengths. I'm not saying they ever got bad per se but there was definitely a drop in quality in seasons 2 and 3 of Lost and every season after the first of BSG.

I know, I know, it's a business, and that's what you're getting paid for...

 

[firehawk12]

Well, if you go with classic dramatic structure and you manage to have each season fit the thematic aspect of each act of that structure... a 3 or 5 year show would be ideal.

But the problem is that no one really plans ahead that far out... and even if they do, you just don't have the guarantee that the show will be on that long or that the actors will want to stay. The Wire is probably the only show that managed to pull it off successfully.

The Shield and The Sopranos sort of count... but I get the feeling that those shows weren't planned so much as just extended over and over again.

 

[Bri]

Five year arcs are great when they actually get to complete them without various factors.

Babylon 5 had to skip ahead a few pages at the end of season 4, Joe would have ended it with "Intersections in Real Time". As a result the first half of Season 5 was compromised, and didn't really kick in till half way through. That Byron arc would have lasted FAR LESS TIME.

Bri

Not at all would have been better. He's the ONE thing about B5 that I hated.

lol, you will get absolutely no argument from me on that one!

Ugh, early season 5 is a chore, but it made up for it after .

The last 2 episodes make me a wreck, and that's not easy to do. In fact, that was the only time. Franke's music is what did it, that last theme is just heart wrenching. Then the Lost Tales comes out and uses the damned theme again right away!! I was like, NO!!!! lol

Bri

 

[Warp Coil]

I prefer the Buffy method. Each season has an overall arc, with a meta arc encompassing the entire series.

At the end of each season you had a sense of closure, should the show not return. But there were still elements left to build on should the show return for another season.

The method used in Enterprise season 4, with mini arcs of three episodes interspersed with stand alone episodes worked well too. And like Buffy, there were continuing story lines bridging those mini arcs. I thought the structure was very satisfying.

You can only get away with planning a multiple year arc when you know you can let it play out. Most series don't get that kind of guarantee.

I agree that "Buffy" had a really good formula. Each season having a theme, a particular arc, and Big Bad was quite affective. I also liked that the show was serialized, but did manage to mix stand-alone episodes in with the mythology/arc episodes. And even the stand-alones would reference the arc or previous episodes. The sheer level of continuity on that show was also amazing.

 

[FordSVT]

My point was why stretch out 4 hours that you have left to complete your intended story to fit 20 episodes? If your story is complete it's complete, don't milk it.
And if you think the quality of your work would drop squeezing 20 episodes out, when all you really need to tell your story well is 10, then why compromise the quality in order to get the quantity?

You're failing to comprehend the fact that people enjoy being able to pay their bills and eat. It's nice talking about "art" in abstract terms but this is about business. In fact, a lot of art is about business, always has been.

Very few people in Hollywood have the financial and creative licence to unanimously determine every aspect of a project they're working on. Very few people (believe it or not) make the kind of money where it's easy to just say "fuck it" and stop producing a popular show you're making a living from. The industry can be very fickle, most people working in it go from job to job with no illusions that things are permanent for them. So if you're a writer and you've got an idea that you think would be best written as 10 episodes but someone says "20 episodes or no deal and you don't work", you write 20 episodes.

Writers and creators go into a situation knowing in advance what the market demands from them. You can't sell a 6 episode TV series to NBC, America is not Great Britain.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

My point was why stretch out 4 hours that you have left to complete your intended story to fit 20 episodes? If your story is complete it's complete, don't milk it.
And if you think the quality of your work would drop squeezing 20 episodes out, when all you really need to tell your story well is 10, then why compromise the quality in order to get the quantity?

You're failing to comprehend the fact that people enjoy being able to pay their bills and eat. It's nice talking about "art" in abstract terms but this is about business. In fact, a lot of art is about business, always has been.

Very few people in Hollywood have the financial and creative licence to unanimously determine every aspect of a project they're working on. Very few people (believe it or not) make the kind of money where it's easy to just say "fuck it" and stop producing a popular show you're making a living from. The industry can be very fickle, most people working in it go from job to job with no illusions that things are permanent for them. So if you're a writer and you've got an idea that you think would be best written as 10 episodes but someone says "20 episodes or no deal and you don't work", you write 20 episodes.

Writers and creators go into a situation knowing in advance what the market demands from them. You can't sell a 6 episode TV series to NBC, America is not Great Britain.

And? It's not like I'm proposing they actually change it. I thought we were talking personal preferences here, not reality.
I'd prefer that sort of system. But I can see it's not really viable with the way the system actually works. And obviously some things work well either way.

 

[blockaderunner]

BSG didn't have a four year arc, it was just on four years, but it was NEVER planned to be on only four years. Hell they never even had a plan.

Finally! Someone other than me has seen through the Mr. and Mrs. Moore spin machine. But be careful, the Cult Of Moore out there will hang you in effigy for taking the lord Ron's name in vain and exposing him for the directionless dinghy he was.

 

[blockaderunner]

As already said, BSG didn't have a pre-planned four-year arc - that's just when they decided to end it.

If by "they" you mean SciFi because they were losing money, then yes. Like it or not, the only decisions Ron Moore had was which Parkinson's afflicted cameraperson was chosen to frame a scene.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

BSG didn't have a four year arc, it was just on four years, but it was NEVER planned to be on only four years. Hell they never even had a plan.

Finally! Someone other than me has seen through the Mr. and Mrs. Moore spin machine. But be careful, the Cult Of Moore out there will hang you in effigy for taking the lord Ron's name in vain and exposing him for the directionless dinghy he was.

What is there to see through, he's admitted numerous times that there wasn't a pre-planned story, and they just made it up as they went.

 

[DS9Continuing]

BSG didn't have a four year arc, it was just on four years, but it was NEVER planned to be on only four years. Hell they never even had a plan.

Finally! Someone other than me has seen through the Mr. and Mrs. Moore spin machine. But be careful, the Cult Of Moore out there will hang you in effigy for taking the lord Ron's name in vain and exposing him for the directionless dinghy he was.

What is there to see through, he's admitted numerous times that there wasn't a pre-planned story, and they just made it up as they went.

Yeah, you're really just coming across as intractable and irrational as you're accusing those others of being, blockaderunner.

 

[sidious618]

Yeah, you're really just coming across as intractable and irrational as you're accusing those others of being, blockaderunner.

There are BSG haters who don't come across that way?

 

[Greg Cox]

BSG didn't have a four year arc, it was just on four years, but it was NEVER planned to be on only four years. Hell they never even had a plan.

Finally! Someone other than me has seen through the Mr. and Mrs. Moore spin machine. But be careful, the Cult Of Moore out there will hang you in effigy for taking the lord Ron's name in vain and exposing him for the directionless dinghy he was.

What is there to see through, he's admitted numerous times that there wasn't a pre-planned story, and they just made it up as they went.

Which is the way 99% of all tv shows, comics, movie series, and so on work. Writers make stuff up until people stop paying them to do so.

Where's the scandal?

 

[nx1701g]

A four year arc is fine - provided you get the four year arc

 

[bigdaddy]

Yeah I never said it was a bad thing there wasn't a plan (It was a bad thing for most of the show), however I loved Moore's openness. He will admit that the storylines that seemed to be great in his head sucked when they filmed it. He made sure no to blame the actors or directors that it was all his fault. i liked that.