The argument for (good) serialization is simple: it makes use of television's key advantage over film: the ability to tell complex stories over long periods of time. Which is not to deride television that has told mostly standalone stories. Certainly television is a more useful venue for anthology stories (i.e. The Twilight Zone) than film since it can tell more stories. Some series that tell standalone stories (i.e. Star Trek) are equally commendable for the creativity exhibited.
That's all true. Both serialization and standalone storytelling have their value. And it's a good point that a television series has a greater potential for serialization, which makes it distinct from film. But that's different from saying that one is intrinsically "superior" to the other. That's oversimplifying the question.
The fact that serialization is a standard of soap operas doesn't make for much of an argument.
I'm not saying it does. I'm saying it was a factor in why people 30 or 40 years ago looked down on serialization. I'm saying each generation's perception of the different approaches is shaped by the kind of shows they've seen them used in. In the '50s through '70s, TV viewers saw serialization used mainly in more "lowbrow" formats and episodic or anthology formats used in "classier" shows, so they assumed serialization was an inferior, disreputable technique. Then a series of high-quality shows from
Hill Street Blues to
Babylon 5 to
Lost demonstrated that there was the potential for a lot of quality in serialization, and it therefore became fashionable for classy shows, and so it came to be seen as a superior format. It's just a matter of what experience shapes your perceptions. If the opinions of people a generation or two ago were based more on preconceptions than on objective reality, why should we assume our opinions are any more objective? People 40 years from now may scoff at our definitions of quality storytelling. So all I'm saying is, don't be too quick to assume that the preferences of our generation are a fundamental truth.
Good writers have long fought for more serialized television (i.e. Homicide: Life on the Street), but networks have been traditionally against it, arguing for more standalone stories.
In the past generation, yes. But for many years before that, the classy, big-name writers wouldn't be caught dead doing a serial. People like Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky and Reginald Rose were
playwrights. To them, good writing meant doing the equivalent of a play every week. Serling could've created a weekly series with continuing characters, but he
chose to create
The Twilight Zone instead, because that meant he didn't have to be limited by the same characters and situation and formula every week and could let his imagination roam wherever he wanted. Also because it let him adapt great short stories by the likes of Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, something he couldn't have done in a series with continuing characters and situations.
Indeed, maybe that's part of the reason why anthology shows were more common then -- because print anthologies were as well. These days, short stories aren't read as much (largely because of television) and most people's experience with print fiction is in the form of novels. So people have come to prefer a more novelistic approach to their television shows. But that doesn't mean novels are better than short stories, just more in vogue.
Fashion isn't cosmic truth. Today's writers find serialization preferable, but that hasn't always been the case. There are benefits to both approaches, not just to one of them. Pointing out the benefits of serialization is not wrong, but it doesn't refute the point that there are benefits to episodic or anthology storytelling as well. And different generations have simply had different opinions about which benefits they were more interested in.
