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Would you be OK with TV series' "ending" and then starting again, like arcs?
Zhurrie
Posts: 617
This is a topic I have brought up for a long time and discussed with a lot of people in person but never in cyberspace. The current trend is to ride a hot commodity TV show into the ground and beyond usually by stretching out an originally written script to the point that the show ends up being canceled before properly ending or with a million loose ends left over. I have always thought that a show should try actually ending say after a season or two/three seasons and then start again with a new storyline or different tale in the same world and with the same cast. People tend to be more invested in the characters and the world from my experience. Would you be OK with that? Would your interest wane if it wasn't one monolithic storyline?
For instance the current series Once Upon a Time. If the first arc had been say three seasons and ends with the final battle which would be about the right pace for the story at hand with no filler, and then a new storyline (same cast) begins. Could be "in continuity," could be a new setting, or entirely different (even different/new cast). Do any of those three options appeal more or less to you?
For instance the current series Once Upon a Time. If the first arc had been say three seasons and ends with the final battle which would be about the right pace for the story at hand with no filler, and then a new storyline (same cast) begins. Could be "in continuity," could be a new setting, or entirely different (even different/new cast). Do any of those three options appeal more or less to you?
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And I wonder if HBO, in a way, has already been doing this, albeit not as formerly as calling the break between seasons "endings" as opposed to just breaks between seasons that are allowed to be longer than the traditional network TV schedule.
Sopranos' creator/EP David Chase memorably once took, I think it might have been, 18 months off between seasons, because that is how much time he felt he and his writers needed. And HBO let them do it, and I know I was still interested and up for more Sopranos once it came back, and so were a lot of other people. I believe Curb Your Enthusiasm has also been allowed to have an unusual release schedule that way, too.
The idea that HBO (which, in my opinion, consistently makes the best television there is) has maintained audiences for shows and let the creative needs dictate the schedule more than the calendar shows that this model is possible.
I also love the shorter seasons that are more common outside the US, but have become common on cable.
(Though I would imagine it is expensive-- from talent holding deals, to the marketing effort of reminding an audience that this or that show exists and regathering them once they may have dissipated. Sure, Sopranos did it, but that was an extraordinarily popular show that came to wield a lot of cultural influence in its time. I do think that a show may have to really grab an audience interest to keep them interested over a long break.)
There is some multi-season arcs, but Season 1 had its arc, as did Season 2. And each had a fulfilling end to the season arc.
Heck. Downton Abbey felt like it did this too... um at least thats what I gather from what my wife said... I was to busy rebulding a transmission... yeah thats it. transmission...
I could get down with tv functioning like Hellboy here in the US. I wonder though if that wouldn't be like the made for tv movies that have recurring characters like that Tom Sellek Jessie Stone stuff.
Also didn't Buffy kind of do this? Every year they built up a new threat and ended the season fighting them.
Now that I think of it, Dexter seems to do it as well ( I haven't watched the last 2 seasons yet). It's usually Dexter versus someone worse than him, for a year.
- Same basic cast of characters (good and bad)
- familiar feel
-maybe new surroundings or twists to react to
- big bad at the end of the season/level allows for closure, but just leads to the NEXT bigger thing.
oh and magic mushrooms that make you grow big.
Does the cast matter to you season to season? If it were the same cast but new scenario/environment/setting is that more important to you than a new cast with each arc? I am kind of one of the types that is more attached to the cast and the overall world/characterizations so I prefer the same cast. However, I much prefer a fully new cast to one chopped up into some old and some new if it comes to it.
Now, that may be completely different from how we around here watch what we watch... but given the fact that we are the types to discuss our art and entertainment on a forum probably puts us solidly outside the world of mainstream viewers.
As for the question about the cast season to season, I think that is a really interesting one (and I may be misunderstanding: do you mean a different cast playing the same characters? Or new characters? I assume you mean the latter).
if a series had a strong central premise or even an anthology approach I would be up for it. Though that is pretty rare, as the intimate and serial nature of television means it is probably even more character-driven of a medium than film. So it is hard to think of many shows in which you could have a completely new group of characters and have it still be the same show. But I would be up for it. I personally love when a story with a big, ensemble cast gets to survive and stretch out over enough time that you either have a lot of new people coming in as it goes along, or even have characters who fall out of the spotlight and you see again later in some completely new place in their life.
That is one of the things I loved about The Wire-- when you meet the character 'Prez' (Jim True-Frost) he is in one place in his life and work that couldn't be more different then where he ends up in seasons 4 and 5. It is an organic progression, but it is rare that you get to see a TV character change that much in the course of a series. Usually everyone just keeps being who they were conceived to be the whole time.
It is also interesting to me because people always clamor for something new or different but when it comes down to it they usually want more of the same. I loved Weeds (I still kinda do) but they went so far out of what the show was that it lost a lot... but they could have told those same stories in a more clean manner had they just ended and began new stories. We're such slaves to convention at times and I think there are whole hosts of new ways to do shows and tell stories that never get a chance. I've talked about this with some folks I know in TV and they are always for it but claim it is impossible for a whole host of reasons, I think it is only impossible until someone really does it right and then I think the freedom it would offer would appeal to a lot of writers and even actors.
Case in point- Dr. Who: The Doctor is an alien, so the concept of an Alien creature regenerating itself in an attempt to extend its life makes sense.
Argument against- My Hero: The sixth series in this show also had the main character change bodies. Except in this case; we're talking about a family sticom so they had to cook up a plot that turned the character's original form into a deadbeat dad (Fun for the whole family, right?)
On the otherhand, I just saw Bablyon 5: The Lost Tales. The special effects would have been better if the actors were standing in a cardboard box with crayon drawings. Win some, lose some.