Interesting article about serialized programming

[Kegg]

^ I always thought of episodic shows as being easier to rewatch. The problem with serialized shows is that you have to watch the whole thing all the way through, whereas with episodic shows, you can just watch your favorite episodes.

But with serialized shows you can also go back and watch your faves, since you know the story anyway.

And as I observed, are far more satisfying to marathon. Episodic series are nice both for casual viewing - watching an episode at random on TV - and just rewatching your favourites and series highlights. But if you want to sit down and rewatch the whole show, probably a couple of episodes at a time for days, then arced shows generally have the edge.

I've watched Farscape twice for precisely that reason. Seeing the development of the scenario and the characters and the various arcs is just a very satisfying experience; as indeed is the series overall (I have a sneaking suspicion one day I will admit it is simply my favourite space opera, period, and leave it at that.)

Obviously the disadvantage is the 'whole show' thing. What if it went off the rails for a whole year? Well, for, say, the original Star Trek, you can skip over all the bad episodes (and most of season three) and you're not 'missing' anything. But in arced shows even substandard years and poor episodes can have consequences that are felt down the line.

Hell, what if the arc is two-thirds the best thing in the series and the final third is utter crap?

A lot of people have soured on BSG because they didn't like the ending - they may still like the earlier seasons, but in such an arced show almost everything rides on how satisfactorily it concludes. By contrast, who likes the final episode of the original Star Trek, and further, who really gives a damn? It effects nothing but itself.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Trent, it was not pop-psych bs, nor was the intention to insult, merely to point out that people do continually change but it's not as big a change as portrayed on tv

 

[darkwing_duck1]

If I can't turn on your show, watch it for an hour and feel thoroughly entertained without needing to care about your wonderful backstory then fuck you.

Funny, I feel the same way about the "pandering to the LCD" attitude you're copping here...

I'm sick of the people who are in charge of deciding which entertainment makes it to the public treating their market like mentally-challenged infants who can't handle continuity, a continuing story arc, or real character depth.

The best in sci-fi/fantasy TV over the last decade and a half or so has ALL been short or long-term arc based: B5, DS9 (later seasons), Enterprise S3&4, Buffy, Angel, et al.

I'll take any of those over the Voyager "reset button", or PoS procedurals and episodics any day of the week...

 

[Anwar]

Voyager's lack of arc-storytelling wasn't a deliberate decision on the part of the writing staff.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Voyager's lack of arc-storytelling wasn't a deliberate decision on the part of the writing staff.

It never is. It's the decision of the "show runners"...

 

[Anwar]

It was UPN itself really, so we can't blame Berman (as it the cliche). So it wasn't even the show runners, who DID want arc storytelling.

 

[Hober Mallow]

The obvious problem with serialized shows is that it can be tough for potential new viewers to get up to speed on an in-progress storyline.

At one time that was true, but now you've got hulu and DVD/blu-ray season releases out in stores almost as soon as each season ends. It's not hard to get into a serialized show. I started watching Lost about three months before season five began. By the time the season started I was completely caught up thanks to Sci-Fi Channel reruns and DVDs.

Having said that, I tend to prefer "lightly serialized" shows.

I don't actually have a preference. A well-written episodic series does it for me just as much as a well-written serialized drama. Twilight Zone is still my all-time favorite, and I just spent loads of money on the original Star Trek blu-rays. I think the format isn't as important as the quality of the writing.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I like both episodic series and arc-based series, just as I like both short stories and novels. Why is this even an issue, aside from fashion?

 

[Anwar]

Apparently some folks have no tolerance for programming that isn't 100% serialized from premiere to series finale.

 

[Dream]

With BSG done and LOST airing it's last season this year it looks like episodic shows are sadly taking over.

I'm not watching any episodic television right now. Suff like CSI doesn't interest me.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I like both episodic series and arc-based series, just as I like both short stories and novels. Why is this even an issue, aside from fashion?

It's an issue of taste. And not an issue, really, since there's no accounting for taste. This thread is just a buncha people saying I like X, I like Y. And isn't that pretty much all that goes on around here?

With BSG done and LOST airing it's last season this year it looks like episodic shows are sadly taking over.

Serialized shows are going strong on basic and premium cable.

 

[Greg Cox]

Depends on the series. Some shows work better as episodic, some better as serials. And I think there will always be a place for a good episodic series. MONK was basically a procedural. Didn't hurt it one bit. And some shows should not be allowed near arc plots. GHOST WHISPERER works as a weekly, heart-tugging procedural, but turns into a muddled mess whenever they attempt some complicated BUFFY-esque arc. It just doesn't fit their format.

The main problem with the current fixation on arc plots is that it creates a mentality that an episode is a waste of time unless it advances the arc. A show could air the most brilliantly crafted standalone episode ever, full of clever twists, great acting, and sparkling dialogue, and some people would still complain that it was just "filler."

And now I'm going to get back to writing my next CSI novel . . .

 

[stj]

^^^Yes, the blind praise for serialization does devalue good writing. And not just for single episodes. (Closed ended serialization tells a single story in multiple episodes. Some here call those arcs. Open ended serialization has an endless story. A meaningless succession of arcs, like Wiseguy did, qualifies as open ended serialization.)

As mentioned, the endless character revisions in open ended serialization are just second rate melodrama at best.

The repetition of the same story, because it's more satisfying (a la Dexter seasons two and three, and maybe season four which I haven't seen,) in open ended serialization can not be justified.

Open ended serialization often ends up in disemboweling not only its characters but its themes. Witness the ghastly end of Farscape, in which the band of heroes gallantly storms the foe and by force of sheer charisma kicks ass. All hail victory! Then, within minutes, Crichton and his wormholes enforce peace by exposing the folly of using wormhole technology as weapons. Down with war! Having it both ways is tiresomely phony.

The fundamental critique the proponents of open ended serialization make of episodic television isn't really answered by blandly observing it's all just a matter of taste. It really seems that at bottom, the insistence on opened ended serialization as the cure for lack of character growth; predictable plots; (less articulated, but I think reasonably imputed) simplistic moralism lies in the correct belief that the open ended serial form does in fact offer the desiderata.

But I would call these a notion that people are infinitely plastic (appealing to an adolescent sense of possiblity for self reinvention); a notion that anything can happen (impatience with mundane issues of plausibility); adolescent rebellion against adult morality. These are all typical of soap operas, the preeminent form of open ended serialization.

Which brings us back to the starting point, the real reason for open ended serialization is because when successful it gets audience loyalty. It's still strong on basic and premium cable, which audiences are still small enough that loyalty must be relied upon to counteract the relative lack of popularity compared to broadcast networks.

Shocking to say, broadcast television is not only better written on average but more original.

 

[Holdfast]

I'm at the point now where I can't watch stand-alone storytelling anymore. It doesn't interest me. And crime/cop procedurals never really interested me in the first place, so you can throw all of those out the door. Well-written, serialized storytelling is what I like and what I demand.

I'm actually going in the reverse direction. I find myself with less patience for serialized stories as I get older and my time gets more demands placed upon it. If I do get into a serialized show, I tend to not bother watching it on the broadcast version and go for the DVD instead (Deadwood, for example).

Alex

Yep.

Beyond everything else this nonsense encourages people who want to be writers to think in terms of series and arcs and all sorts of multi-story stuff when in fact they can't yet write a simple short story with a beginning, middle and end.

In fact, a number of the "metastory" luminaries themselves seem to have the same problem.

What really drives the entertainment industry's on-again/off-again fascination with arcs (when a series comes along that succeeds, they're in, and when a few fail then execs all want to talk about "procedurals" again) is the audience-loyalty success of daytime soap operas. In their heyday these things basically paid for network operations, and they didn't even have to be good.

I'm too busy to waste time on anything other than casual dating that requires this kind of investment. If I can't turn on your show, watch it for an hour and feel thoroughly entertained without needing to care about your wonderful backstory then fuck you.

I am simply unwilling to put aside the time needed to watch something like Lost. Except for the bits of time here and there I spent on the net, I'd rather spend the time on something productive.

I'm with all you guys.

I used to watch some serialised arc-based shows (alongside episodic shows) when I was younger, but lost interest sometime in my late-teens/early-20s and never looked back. The phrases "waste time", "unwilling to put aside the time", and "less patience" that you three have used hits the nail exactly on the head for me too. I hardly watch any TV these days, but what I do tends to be episodic because I just can't be bothered "following" a show.

 

[I am not Spock]

I like shows that reward you for tuning in every week. A show like DS9 or Buffy, etc will give you a big payoff if you stick with it long enough. And in both cases, I was not disappointed with the end.

Voyager was a show ideal for arcs, but sadly it never happened.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It really seems that at bottom, the insistence on opened ended serialization as the cure for lack of character growth; predictable plots; (less articulated, but I think reasonably imputed) simplistic moralism lies in the correct belief that the open ended serial form does in fact offer the desiderata.

Serialization at least provides a distraction from the worst aspects of TV writing, which you've cited: stagnant characters, stagnant plotlines, and the same canned episodic plots we've seen a thousand times before. But even a distraction is something. It beats having to suffer through all those problems you've cited without having anything to at least delude ourselves that we're not watching the same old crap.

Writing that is good enough to rise above the handicaps of the episodic structure is very rare. If I see a show that can do it, I'll watch it. But I'm struggling to come up with any current examples. Maybe Archer? But then again, as funny as it is, its schtick is far from fresh. It's a nastier modern take on Get Smart.

But I would call these a notion that people are infinitely plastic (appealing to an adolescent sense of possiblity for self reinvention); a notion that anything can happen (impatience with mundane issues of plausibility); adolescent rebellion against adult morality. These are all typical of soap operas, the preeminent form of open ended serialization.

Characters don't need to be "infinitely" plastic for good serialization and plotlines should adhere to the story's internal logic. Dexter and Lost are examples of shows that don't jerk their characters and plotlines all over the map because of the need to keep coming up with new story fodder. The other end of the spectrum is Heroes, where the characters have lost whatever integrity they once have because there's no consistency to how they're written, and trying to figure out plot logic is a lost cause.

When I look at the stuff I watch, it's Serialization Done Right (Dexter, Lost, Breaking Bad), Serialization Done Okay (Sons of Anarchy, The Tudors) and Serialization That Merits the Death Penalty (Heroes). So I'm willing to watch stuff worth watching, and stuff that isn't worth watching as long as it offers some distractions from its awfulness.

Which brings us back to the starting point, the real reason for open ended serialization is because when successful it gets audience loyalty.

I wonder if the motivation is more on the other side of the line: that TV writers and producers would rather write serialized stories because it's more interesting for them. When you look at the actual Nielsens for shows, the serialized format often fails, and when it fails, there's no way to recover. From a pure business perspective, episodic formats are safer.

The repetition of the same story, because it's more satisfying (a la Dexter seasons two and three, and maybe season four which I haven't seen,) in open ended serialization can not be justified.

You need to see Season Four, because where you're at, you can't see the overall arc of the story. No spoilers here, but I can say, the writers could have easily have kept at the level they were at in S3, just churning out Serial Killer of the Week stories, and not trying to keep advancing Dexter towards that inevitable end point, which means they all lose their jobs because they story is over. The ratings are strong, they could do that job for ten seasons, so why not just keep chugging along and keep their profitable gigs? Watch S4 to see what choice they made.

 

[stj]

Serialization at least provides a distraction from the worst aspects of TV writing, which you've cited: stagnant characters, stagnant plotlines, and the same canned episodic plots we've seen a thousand times before. But even a distraction is something. It beats having to suffer through all those problems you've cited without having anything to at least delude ourselves that we're not watching the same old crap.

The characters on well written episodic television shows are not stagnant. In episodic television, the guest characters are just as important. And their character are almost never stagnant, because their stories are usually crisis points in their lives, which do in fact change things forever. The implicit assumption of the serialization proponents is that only the regular characters matter (which sometimes seems like an inability to empathize with ordinary people,) and only their personality changes are of interest. Again, that bespeaks an adolescent notion of endless possibilities for personal reinvention. The viewer invests in one or more characters, who become a sort of mirror. Open ended serialization becomes a sort of endless gazing at the love object.

Stagnant plotlines, pretty much by definition apply only to serialized shows. When Dexter, one of the better written ones, has the same basic one season story three seasons in a row, that's "stagnant plotlines." When something keeps John and Aeryn from getting together yet again, ditto. When Bill and Lee reconcile their father/son antagonism yet again, ditto, ditto. When Kate switches from Jack to Sawyer (or was it vice versa,) ditto, ditto, ditto. Or would that be ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto? Whichever, stagnant it is.

The real question is whether in fact episodic televisions in fact have plots we've seen a "thousand" times before. Frankly I think this is at best hyperbole. The contorted plots in the large majority of serialized shows may be unpredictable, but that's because they don't make sense. But the fact is that soaps are notorious for repeating the same plots, heroine falsely put on trial for murder, evil twins, blah blah blah. Extended plots tend to get silly. Contained plots tend to make sense. If someone has some set notion that the world does't make sense, that shit just happens for no reason, I suppose that seems boring.

As to Dexter, I'm pretty sure since Julie Benz is joining Dangerous Housewives for a while at least, that I know the big shakeup. My guess is that it had little to do with the bulk of the fourth season, which I bet repeated the same "Dexter meets someone who promises a life where he gets to be a serial killer with a social life but ends up choosing to kill them." The departure of show runner Clyde Phillips is an ominous sign.

I will note that if Dexter ends up being a happy serial killer who will go on happily serial killing the wicked, forever and ever, that will be exactly where the character started. Also, those serial killing plots are downright silly by now. This guy is a better detective than Batman ever hoped, and Miami must have 2% of its metropolitan population be serial killers. But none of them can be caught by regular police.

The gruesome thing is that Dexter is in fact one of the best written open ended serials. Perhaps it will have a great fifthe season. If so, you can watch first season Dexter, the last episode of the fourth season, and the last season, and get the best parts of the series.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Apparently some folks have no tolerance for programming that isn't 100% serialized from premiere to series finale.

I have plenty of tolerance for it, actually, because there's several shows I like, and still watch now and then, that have no arc what so ever (except for one or two episodes here and there), and it doesn't really change my like, or dislike of episodic television. My preference more towards arc, is that there's sometimes a direction, or that there's just a continuing...I don't know, exactly what to say here, but it can be more satisfying to me. I've noticed that in serialized television, "actions have consequences" tend to be seen more. Maybe that's it...

Depends on the series. Some shows work better as episodic, some better as serials. And I think there will always be a place for a good episodic series. MONK was basically a procedural. Didn't hurt it one bit. And some shows should not be allowed near arc plots. GHOST WHISPERER works as a weekly, heart-tugging procedural, but turns into a muddled mess whenever they attempt some complicated BUFFY-esque arc. It just doesn't fit their format.

The main problem with the current fixation on arc plots is that it creates a mentality that an episode is a waste of time unless it advances the arc. A show could air the most brilliantly crafted standalone episode ever, full of clever twists, great acting, and sparkling dialogue, and some people would still complain that it was just "filler."

And now I'm going to get back to writing my next CSI novel . . .

You are probably right here, there's shows where it just doesn't work, family dramas and sitcoms probably are not the ones to try and arc, or procedurals, either (depending on the premise, I guess). Monk, however is something I'd call a "hybrid" more or less, mostly stand alone episodes, but a semi serialized arc, which had a nice payoff in the finale. Other then that, there's nothing arc or serialized and as you said, it probably would have turned into a muddled mess, if they had tried.

As I said above, I don't see episodic plots as a waste of time, I can still enjoy many episodes from various series that have no arc what so ever, I just find arc story telling a bit more satisfying. If it were brilliant, well written and well acted, I wouldn't call it a "filler" for example, DS9's "Take me out to the Holosuite" is just an amazing episode to me, but I wouldn't call it a "filler" because while it wasn't a part of the arc (it wasn't really...), it was still a satisfying episode. However, on to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there's several episodes mid season 2, that despite arc connection attempts, are seen as "fillers" because the story doesn't really advance (having to suddenly fit in an extra nine episodes to an arc planned out for 13 can do that, I guess), and the episodes in question, really just were not that great. It's all about execution, not whether or not it's an arc episode, stand alone or the series is seralized or episodic. In short, I mean that I found "Take me out to the Holosuite" in DS9 more interesting then the sudden back 9 (some of them, anyway) in SCC because of the change in pace and the story.

I realize you weren't really generalizing there (I hope not, anyway), but I just wanted to point out that it wasn't always needing to be a serialized show to be good to me. I watched Monk, more or less (missing a few episodes here and there) from start to finish, and found it satisfying. Didn't need to be a complicated arc/serialized show to capture my attention. While at the same time, some of the stand alones in SCC were just, blah.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The characters on well written episodic television shows are not stagnant.

Which episodic shows are you talking about, because I'm sure not familiar with them.

I love your bullshit about "adolescent personalities." I guess nobody is allowed to have a different opinion from you and be grownup about it. I wonder who the "adolescent" is here anyway?

I will note that if Dexter ends up being a happy serial killer who will go on happily serial killing the wicked, forever and ever, that will be exactly where the character started.

He's already changed beyond his S1 persona and I doubt the writers are going to send him right back where he was, but if they do that, they will have still done an arc - a full-circle arc - not something you see done a lot, but if they can pull it off, more power to em.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I'm not sure what the problem is with so-called stagnant characters. Take an iconic character like Sherlock Holmes-- still popular over a hundred years later and there was not a lot of changing going on in those stories. Today, every issue of The Strand publishes a new Holmes story and it's the same old Holmes and and Watson. 221B hasn't been burned to the ground for the sake of shock value, Watson has not been killed to prove that anything can happen next and Holmes has not been turned into a vengeful and violent action hero to make him more palatable to today's youth (still talking about the The Strand here, not the movie).

I look for an enjoyable story. If it involves a series character, I want that character to be himself. I want Holmes to be Holmes, the Shadow to be the Shadow, Columbo to be Columbo and Captain Kirk to be Captain Kirk.

It's great to have stuff like Babylon 5 and Lost that are essentially novels, where you expect things to change from start to finish. But that's not the end-all and be-all of fiction, no matter its current popularity. What matters is the quality and/or entertainment value of the stories and characters.