The Strange Genesis of Television Serials

American serials, be they drama, science fiction, comedy, thriller, or a combination, all begin being ‘episodic’.

The term means that each episode stands on its own.   The same characters, yes, the same basic environment, yes, but each time you turn on the television, what you see does not connect to what you saw, or what you will see, last week or next week.

This police drama, for example, begins, introducing the characters, having them work around a crime.  They have interactions with each other, but the crime is the centre.   Next week, the same characters, another crime which is central, interactions between them.

If you missed or skipped episode six, going from five to seven, you wouldn’t notice.  If after episode eighteen you realised you skipped six, you watch it.  There is no discordance, no gap or over reach.   Yes, a character that came in at six,who you saw for the first time during episode seven and onward, may have a piece of ‘back story’ you didn’t know, but it doesn’t much matter.

In fact, if you take a serial that ran for five years, beyond ‘continuing story’ which may be a part one in episode twelve and part two in episode thirteen, it doesn’t matter as the ability to start, complete, stop within the 42 minutes of the hour is how these programmes are done.

Some have different writers, some shows have one writer.  Some shows have one writer for the first season, another for the second.   Some have a crew of writers.    It doesn’t matter.  There is no over arching story line.

There are often ‘specials’ which are five or ten shows which are like a novel put to visual.  You must see them in sequence, just as you read a novel in sequence.

These are Story Arc programmes.

In many major dramas which have gone more than five years, there is a strange change in the series.  Moving from Episodic, where everything starts at minute one and ends at minute forty two, and entering the Story Arc.

The first time I saw this was on Deep Space Nine.   This show went from 1993 to 1999.   During the Seven years, the first four seasons were episodic.  Then there was a slight move to story arc which increased, until the last season in which there were no real ‘episodes’ there was one story that began and went on for the entire season.

This is useful in that one doesn’t need the single idea to complete in forty two minutes.   This allows a writer to create a full story, chop it into bits, stuff a little here and there to make it run slower and fill the time.  It is much easier to do it this way then to think of some new idea every week.

On Deep Space 9 the latter episodes are much more entertaining in that there isn’t some need to rush from here to there, but little bits of characters can be exposed so that one knows them better.

NCIS was episodic until it reached the 9th season.  Instead of crime/solve in 42 minutes there was an entire story arc in which each episode was connected, was part of a previous episode.  It became one continuing story which is more ‘realistic’.

In real life police don’t solve a crime in forty two minutes. They have to gather evidence, they have to take statements, they have to investigate and form ideas, maybe go in the wrong direction, maybe miss something, so that one crime can take a long time to solve.   By most crime shows doing this forty two minutes solution it has made people expect too much from the police.

In most long running series, whether Burn Notice or House, that last season become one large episode.

The reason most shows don’t start as story arc is because they need viewers.

The first batch may not like this character or find this focus boring.   Eventually, when the show hits its stride, when people watch week after week, the producers know what is liked, expected, what annoys, and so, after the fifth season, they can start with one major episode which is broken into four pieces and see how it goes over.  If it goes well, they can increase this until the last season in which they have a beginning, middle and end.

If the show is renewed beyond that supposed ‘last season’, the ability to do the story arc is enhanced.  For long time viewers of a show, it is preferred.

Many viewers like the characters and are happy to see them, and not in two minute bytes.