I was watching Stargate SG1 the other day (8 seasons up on Hulu now), and I came away loving the fact that the first two Stargate series were based on the trek storytelling method. There’s probably another word for this, but I don’t know what it is. But it’s this self-contained episodic storytelling that I miss. I liked that a week would feature guest stars, a very self contained storyline, a villain of the week to take down, etc. Know the kind of thing I’m talking about?
I miss this. I want this to come back. Sanctuary seems to have a monopoly on this idea these days, and I’m sure there are others. SGU has yet to prove which direction it wants to take…long drawn out story or shorter forms of narrative. While I have no problem with long form, and love shows like Lost, Fringe, Flash Forward, BSG, etc., I’d love more shows to return to the old formula. There is just something…comforting about it, for lack of a better term.
Am I crazy? Do I just have antiquated taste in television?
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I know what you mean and it’s nice for some shows. I would have thought of it as the “cartoon method” because that’s how most of them were. The problem with those is that things were so self-contained that you saw virtually no real character progression.
Dr. House does this “containment” to an extent, because practically all cases tend to end within the same episode. There’s character development and progression that also goes on but you can still skip and episode and enjoy the next (the fact that you WANT to see the previous one speaks of how well it’s made).
Actually, it is not always stunted character growth, it is just well written characters. The IT Crowd in England does this fairly well, but like trek, it only reveals enough of the characters as needed for the episode so they can reveal more in another episode
I think the word your looking for Scott is: episodic The series is constructed of individual stories that don’t usually have a ongoing theme or plot.
“But it’s this self-contained episodic storytelling that I miss.”
The new Doctor Who has an over-arcing theme but the episodes are largely self-contained. Plus it’s awesome.
The new Dr Who is awesome but this year there has been no serialised content because David Tennant has had other commitments. There is supposed to be a 1 hour special sometime in November and a couple around Christmas time. But yea I totally agree Dr Who and another BBC show ‘Merlin’ are in the same style as star Trek, short story every week with a larger overarching storyline.
I miss it too… I work weird hours sometimes and if I miss something I won’t catch it until later. Yes, I have DVR and yes, I know about hulu, but if I had the time to do all that catching up I wouldn’t miss shows in the first place.
So… when there’s this huge arch it’s annoying to miss something and feel when you get back to it like I’ve missed something. So, I have mostly stopped watching sci-fi on tv. Babylon 5 was the first to really do the arch that I can think of and I never missed one. Now though, my schedule isn’t as TV friendly so I just skip it. Maybe catch a few up later on DVD, but mostly I just don’t watch. I don’t have the time to commit to it and I don’t feel like scheduling around a tv show.
I’m a casual gamer too lol.
Yeah. I don’t watch much tv, so having to follow some long story that spans several weeks is too much to ask. I prefer my shows to be self contained much like a meal. Salad, meat, pasta, ice cream. I don’t want salad one week and meat the next. Sheesh!
I definitely prefer that style too. I thought The X-Files did a really good job in that regard – most episodes were a self-contained story (at least in the earlier seasons), even though there were some characters & storylines that carried over. Now it feels like if I don’t start watching a series from the very first episode, I have no idea what’s going on. It’s one of the reasons I never got into Heroes or Lost – it’s feels way too late to get up to speed now…
There are plenty of shows that still follow the method you’re describing Scott. Sounds like any hour long procedural or half hour sitcom will fulfill that desire for you.
Law & Order and CSI seem like the obvious shows that follow this formula today.
I don’t think you have an antiquated idea of television – but judging by the examples you gave your interest seems only in sci-fi. You’ll find a lot more of what you want in crime drama.
It’s dead, Jim.
I was going to bring up X-Files too. i think they started out doing this really well. For the most part the episodes were self contained and episodic, but sometimes there was an element of the over arching plot. It seemed to me in the later seasons that they did too much of the over arching plot and not enough of the episodic episodes and it hurt the series.
Law & Order, especially the original, does a really good job at being episodic but developing the characters along the way. I mean we all knew about Lenny’s ex-wives, but we never needed a whole episode devoted to Lenny getting married (if this happened i missed it).
Chuck was following this formula. It had an arking end goal of getting normal again, but mostly each episode was self contained.
It’s why sometimes I play CSS/TF2 and sometimes I play Braid/Portal…SG-1 fulfills a need for what could basically could be called Sci-Fi porn. I know it’s crude, but I think the metaphor is valid. I can’t seem to think of a better one. When I watch SG-1, I want to see Teal’c kick some bad-guy butt. I want to see Carter reverse the polarity, O’Neill speak ancient, Daniel decipher an ancient alien language, staff weapons and zat guns fire, and several trips though the Stargate. I want to see the Iris close, a ship enter and/or leave hyperspace, and have the show cut to commercial right after something dramatic is discovered/revealed. It’s wonderful and I love it.
Also – I loved SGA forever the moment Shepard yelled “COLYA” in the rain. SGU is unproven, but I am certainly enjoying watching people say the word “Stargate” in content that’s new to me.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=32njhr3qmfefdrh6rwkvlq50 click show replies. In trhe battle of episodic vs serial, Im on the serial side.
yes you are crazy
i agree 100 percent scott, some times u just wanna read a short story, not a 10 book epic.
I have yet to watch even one episode of Lost or Heroes because I know it won’t make sense unless I start at the beginning.
A show like BSG, you can’t just put one in at random and start watching. Almost none of those stories are self contained
Though that form of storytelling is nice, after watching SG-1 and Trek for so long I can guess perfectly what happens. It’s always so predictable.
Supernatural follows that episodic format. Well, they used to anyways. Not so much anymore.
I agree I miss the episodic format too.
I love episodic, but in a way you can’t call SG1 completely episodic, with recurring characters and stuff later on that many people wouldn’t get unless you’ve watched it. I love episodic mainly because it isn’t addicting. Its like lemonade vs coke. You have one glass of lemonade and you’re done, whereas coke, you’ll drink the whole bottle. In this case, lemonade is episodic. So, when I have something else to do, I watch something episodic, but when I have enough free time, i’ll watch something with a good ongoing story.
I agree, I miss this, especially as I used to like to wait a couple of episodes into a hyped up show because Ep1 is usually what they sell it on, now if I miss one episode I miss such a huge chunk of story. House and The Mentalist all the way for me now.
I do enjoy a long term story but I like the completion at the end of the episode
p.s. Actually if I want to watch TV I want to watch a TV Episode, I don’t want to watch a snippet of a movie. I feel thats a better summation of my feelings.
Feels a bit like the line between movies and TV is blurring with increasingly the difference being what size screen it previews on and how long it takes to produce. Any movie with a the slightest profit made is immediatly commissioned for a sequel aswell which is usually disappointing…whilst I mention it can someone PLEASE stop making SAW films, ITS DONE, ITS OVER, STOP IT!!!
Would love to see more epidsodically contained TV to return so I can just grab a quick show rather than committing to 24 episodes of Keifer Sutherland.
This is a question that television execs have to deal with every season: go with more episodic shows, or select a story-arc series. It’s a difficult decision for several reasons, not the least of which is the fickle nature of television programming. Episodic shows do very well because they leave off with a satisfying conclusion and very little in terms of trying to keep track of a story, making it more likely that a viewer will come back to watch again. However, if you’re like me, you hate jumping into a series in the middle if it’s a big story arc, much like Babylon 5, DS9, BSG, LOST, et cetera. This will leave your viewer feeling very confused. It makes more sense to invest in a show that shows more potential of being a breakout hit and garnering a devoted fanbase. All too often we see single seasons of intended story-arcs that fail, leaving show fans frustrated and annoyed at the networks that cancelled the show; unfortunately, that’s the nature of the business: whatever doesn’t make money gets the ax.
What I see a lot of, however, is a hybrid of the two. There are plenty of series that contain lots of one-off episodes, as well as important “arc” episodes that advance the entire story forward. This is especially notable in DS9 and Stargate, who take care to try and not leave casual viewers in the dust (i.e. recaps and the like). Purity in either sense can be dangerous, because then you’d wind up with either a series of disconnected vignettes, or a monstrous, lumbering beast of a show that you’d need a flowchart to understand if you hadn’t watched from the beginning (LOST comes to mind here).
that pretty much sums up my opinion when comparing the two forms. these ‘hybrid’s i believe are the result of producers and writers paying attention to what their viewers want – or what sells. so long as the short story is engaging enough, i think the audience will stick around to understand the long story.
personal favs that came to mind while reading the posts: B5, Knight Rider, Law & Order.
ps. i liked FlashForward when it was a book. the updated version does not appeal to me.
While nostalgic, I do not want to return to the Star Trek method… even spread over many episodes. The Star Trek method involves “The Miracle Solution”.
What often happens: Conflict builds. Then at the last moment, a quick, easy, often miraculous or just plain ridiculous solution solves everything. It’s like a Timothy Zahn story arc. That stuff is great for punch lines but stinks in action movies.
It’s a total let-down.
I do know what you are talking about with this “method”. It’s the same thing that comedies use… one to two jokes play out during the 22 minutes of the show. I think the shift away in the action / drama genre to this long-form story is something that has kept me from getting into new shows…. I don’t have time for it. I know I have a DVR, but I then have to NOT watch it on the night that it’s on, because I’m behind by three episodes and have to catch up so I can watch tonight’s show. Silly sometimes. I loved ‘24′, but now I’m actually two SEASONS behind on that one… and I have to avoid people in the office just because I’m three or four episodes behind on ‘Lost’.
It’s one of the reasons that I now just watch comedies, or shows on HBO. Those seasons usually are only twelve episodes long or something ridiculous.
I do love the long story, but I would much rather have a good show that I can pick up when I can, instead of being stressed that I’m behind in it. I missed the beginning of BSG, and never watched a single episode because of that. I missed the entire series, and from what I have heard from, well, everyone practically, is that it was great.
I agree. I like episodic stuff as well. Numb3rs does a good job of this, as does Ghost Whisperer. I think everything else I’m watching now, Supernatural, Flash Forward, etc all have that long-form feel to them.
I totally agree! This is actually a reason I don’t watch much TV anymore- everything is an ongoing story, episodic storytelling is dead (with live actors), where you can’t miss a show or you’re behind. Probably why I watch mainly cartoons and shows with no plot like “Cops,” and don’t watch Dexter, or Lost, etc. Yeah I have DVR, but still not enough time to commit to an ongoing story.
BLAME TIVO
because of the DVR, we now are able to see every episode of a show without missing the kids’ soccer games or whatever. TV makers know it and more sophisticated stories are possible. They are also more valuable, and everything is on TV to make money
As I stopped mainstream music listening in the 1990s, Hollywood movie watching in the 2000s, I stopped TV series watching in 2009. They go for the lowest common denominator, and that does not include me anymore. So for me it goes much deeper than just a storytelling technique. People want it to feel real. I just want a good story.
I feel exactly the same way. For most shows if you miss an episode you have a very good chance of missing a very big development in the story line and can through you out of wack until you get caught up. It was great watching shows if you missed an episode no big deal and you can just watch next week with out much confusion.
this discussion is really interesting from a psycholical point of view. let’s face it: you don’t want to watch story-based series because you are not ready to commit. basic guy problem. well some of you out there are okay with it and your girlfriends slash wives will love to hear it. but most guys are just afraid of the commitment. if you start watching, let’s say heroes, you’ll have to watch it fairly regularly to keep up with the show.
okay, i have no idea about psychology, but i like to zap into a show and just relax and have a good time without worrying what i might have missed last week. and it doesn’t matter to me, wether i got the show on dvd or anything either. most of the time i’m just looking for light entertainment.
so basically i totally agree with scott!
I wouldn’t say that it’s dead, just that it has become largely discouraged. Sure we see it in shows like House and (formerly) Scrubs but by and large I think there has been a shift into longer story arcs to maintain continued interest. I mean look at House this season, yes they are still solving/resolving the medical case in the given episode, but they have started weaving in longer arcs to develop the characters further, for example House’s psychosis last season and Chase’s moral dilemma this season. I wouldn’t say that the single episode resolution is dead, just that there has been a shift toward longer arcs to maintain the audience, unfortunately this often turns what was a good show into a complete soap opera for me.
Man screw hulu.. they’ve got some decent stuff but if you want a site with real quality videos go to ninjavideo.net.. i’m one of the artists there for their banners.. you name hte show/movie it’s all ninja no spyware all streaming video… check it out my friend!
Some shows it seems to fit better than others, Lost would just be aggravating more episodic. The Star Trek series was pretty much episodic until DS9, not sure what season though, and it got more into long for stories. I personally think Twin Peaks and Babylon 5 were the biggies that made that more popular, although B5 had stories that were more episodic, but everything lasted, no change was just “fixed” before next episode. I’m mixed in my preference, i love shows like fringe, lost and such, but i also want my quick fix i don’t have to go back and watch all episodes to get into it.
It all depends on the show and, even more so, the general mood of the public. Right now we’re coming off an era of game shows and reality TV, which are nothing but episodic. The public is now trending more towards serialized television as a strong backlash to the feeling of meaninglessness generated by nothing but one-shot adventures. A few years from now, the pendulum will swing back to episodic as the public grows frustrated with all these darn interconnected, time-consuming stories.
Personally, I favor the hybrid – large story arc that’s showcased in 1/3 to 1/2 the episodes (emphasized at the beginning and end of the season) with a lot of cool one-shots tossed in the middle to allow for the passage of time and a break from the main story.
I’m a bit of a freak in that I gave up television in 1999, thanks to all the reading and writing I do on the Internet. After a while, I realized I was paying $23/month to tape four or five shows per week to watch on my off-hours (gotta love graveyard shift.) That was also the time I made the jump to DVDs. I avoided buying VHS tapes for a long time because I wanted laserdiscs, but it didn’t happen. With DVDs, it was time to start growing the collection.
These days I use Netflix for TV viewing: streaming and mailed disc. Current addiction is Smallville—watched one episode long ago, didn’t care for it. Gave the first two discs a try, now I’m addicted.
So, I prefer big story arcs as long as they go somewhere. Episodic is all I saw growing up in the 70’s, and I did bemoan the fact nothing really changed from show to show when I was growing up, so as my mother hates black and white shows, I hate self-contained shows. The only consolation I had was the subtle way actors and details progressed as they got more experienced filming the shows, until they hit that shark-jumping wall or cast Ted McGinley in a regular role.
Babylon 5 was the answer for me. I didn’t realize it had the five-year format since I just watched the show on the air, but after a while I appreciated the subtle hints of things to come and was hooked from season to season. Sure, one could be confused jumping in the middle, but it didn’t take long to understand what was going on.
I also liked the way Doctor Who operated in the old days: multi-part serial stories that are somewhat self-contained. There were occasional references to earlier things, but the viewer was quickly brought up to date, sometimes in a single sentence—a good thing because the show has a history approaching fifty years. “Sontarans? Nasty fellows that are all clones. Look out!”
I don’t like diving into the middle of things, but my Netflix habit keeps that from happening.
I like a good mix. Some stories you can only tell over a long time. (B5) Others sometimes get too drawn out for one hour.(Most of Trek) This time around around with SGU I think the mistake was having the first five episodes be a three-parter followed by a two parter. From what I have read for the rest of the season SGU goes back to a more episodic pace.
The show that worked best for me was the first few seasons of Buffy. In those there were a handful of episodes that were about an overall plot but the majority were one-shots.
I have been thinking the same thing recently, especially because I’ve been going back and watching Xena lately. All the shows I can think of are moving on from what I call “monster of the week” (I think that phrase was originally used for Scooby Doo XD) and I miss it. The only show that I watch that still resembles that older format is Eureka, and even that is starting to drift a little bit.
For – it simply has to be good story telling. I think I prefer a mix of single episode stuff and some kind of arc going on. Sometimes I think when you go too far into an ongoing arc it becomes a bit hard to maintain (example – LOST). But, one series I love is “24.” They have a single season story arc each year. That works for me. You know it will be pretty much resolved at the end of the season and a whole new story the next season. Anyway, while I love classic “Star Trek” (you guys know that), I think series today need to be a bit more complex than single stories each week.
A lot of comedy shows are self contained for the most part. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is for sure. It is hard for other shows to succeed without something to keep people watching and wanting the next episode. Most shows rely on the plot for that now, where in the “old days” you could rely on characters alone for that.
Personally, I think shows ‘back in the day’ would rely on more consistent viewers because there were simply less things for people to watch. Right now I have 500 channels on my TV, it takes a lot more to hook me in as a weekly viewer than it did even 5 years ago, simply because there’s so many other shows I could be watching. Hell, I can even watch TV by buying whole series at an inexpensive price, not to mention any show that’s on the internet.