Until the early 90s, prime-time dramas, much like sitcoms and other kinds of series, were mostly episodic, meaning the show had a basic premise that was all you really needed to understand in order to tune in. You could watch any episode in any order without needing to see everything that came before it. Sometimes there was a slight progression or one episode that would call back to another, but if you missed an episode here or there, you didn’t have to worry that you couldn’t follow the next one. Every week was a new, stand-alone story with the same characters, similar to Sherlock Holmes stories. These shows tended to be somewhat formulaic in order to come up with enough material to do several seasons, often over 100 separate stories. Good examples of this are Star Trek: The Next Generation and the early seasons of The X-Files.

Series like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Babylon Five were seen as experimental but drew in large audiences because they took longer to tell big stories. Their characters went through deliberate changes, evolving with their grandiose plot arcs. Instead of occasional two-parters, every story would be bigger than one episode, sometimes lasting entire seasons or longer. The drawback to these sorts of shows is that they’re a long-term commitment– if you don’t watch the whole season, if you miss even one episode, you could be missing an important piece of the puzzle and be totally lost until you catch the rerun or wait for the dvds.

These continuous shows are becoming more and more common. Sci-fi fans are especially beginning to expect it. The most successful shows are of this type, shows like Heroes, Lost, and 24. The days of the formulaic and episodic sci-fi show, ala Quantum Leap, seem to be mostly behind us. Why is that? I hear a lot of talk in director commentaries and interviews about this being a positive step forward, that we’ve moved to this kind of storytelling because it creates deeper, changing characters and more complex stories can be told. That’s certainly one of the pluses to the continuous format, but I wonder if that isn’t more of an effect than a cause.

This trend is best illustrated by Smallville. The first season was mostly episodic– you really didn’t have to see the episodes in order (except maybe the pilot) to understand another, even though minor details would come back here and there, and there was a slight build up to the season finale. Slowly but surely the show moved in more of a continuous direction and now it follows the Lost and Heroes thread– you need to see pretty much every episode of a season to follow it. In fact, one of its biggest problems these days is that it still does lame, contrived one-shot episodes in the middle of season arcs that bog down the story. So why didn’t it just stay with the episodic format? I think it’s because writers keep covering the same territory. There are only so many one-shot sci-fi plots you can do in a show. A lot of completely unrelated shows have reused a lot of the same premises. For example, how many times have you seen the fight club scenario? A main character gets kidnapped and forced to fight to the death, and the supporting characters have to rescue him/her. I’ve seen it in Star Trek: Voyager, Angel and Smallville (just last year!). And get this: Birds of Prey was an episodic show that only got 13 episodes, and ONE of them was a fight club episode!

Voyager, “Tsunkatse”

Smallville, “Combat”

My point is, these huge stories that go through an entire season or even a whole series, in the case of Lost, is thriving, I think, because there seems to still be some unexplored territory there. Granted, it’s been THE popular format for close to a decade now (after shows like Deep Space Nine were no longer simply experimental) and so a lot of that ground has been covered. What’s nice about them is that very long stories can look more original, even if they aren’t really in essence, because so much more can happen within them. If the fight club scenario was a six-episode arc, it’s possible something more than the same old formula could be done with it. Heroes has been criticized as being just a live-action X-Men, and yet it’s extremely popular. Is that because the stories are so complex and the characters are given time to mature and grow, so we really don’t mind that the initial premise is something we’ve seen before?

But I sometimes wonder if expecting your viewer to watch every single episode of a show is still too much to ask. A lot of networks have begun putting full episodes on their websites in case you miss something, which makes it a lot easier to catch up if you miss something. But I find it a lot harder to follow a lot of shows at once this way, not only because I have to see every episode, but because there’s a lot to keep track of. With 24, you have to remember everything that’s happened in a day and you have to readjust from it’s hour-to-hour format after watching anything else (which is pretty jarring until you get used to it). With Heroes, I have to keep up with a lot of characters and how they’re all connected, and ditto with Lost, except there I have to remember pretty much everything that ever happened because it all ends being important to understand anything that’s happening!!!

I realize the episodic format isn’t dead. A lot of cop shows still keep this and I think CSI is too, though I’ve never watched it. Chuck is an interesting hybrid of both, with contained stories but a lot of through-lines that only matter if you care to keep up.

So what do you think? Do you prefer the current trend of continuous shows or do wish you could just tune in whenever you wanted and didn’t have to make a TV show a six, seven, or even a ten year commitment? I’d love comments on this.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

SPOILER WARNING

Chuck: Episode 1.11– Chuck Vs. The Crown Vic

I’ve already expressed my frustration that the last three episodes have focused too much on Chuck and Sarah’s lack of a relationship, and after last week’s very strong episode with the return of Bryce Larkin, I was really expecting it to finally pay off. But it didn’t. I sat through love triangle after love triangle, hoping this would be the episode where a decision would be made: either she’d move on, go with Bryce (which would mean she’d have to leave the show and I was sure the writers wouldn’t do anything that surprising) or she would choose Chuck. A decision was made, it just wasn’t that one. Sarah stays because it’s her job, but she suddenly starts acting very irritated toward Chuck when he even hints that they may have had any feelings for each other. She isn’t out of character– after all, she’s probably afraid that if she did choose one over the other, he would get killed and she’d find herself where she was when Bryce “died” the first time. Or since she’s in the same line of work Bryce is, she might be afraid she could die and leave Bryce or Chuck in that position. So it’s somewhat interesting for the character, but I still wanted her to make a choice between them. Instead, at the end, she does lighten up a little but the writers pull the “just friends” card. Please. Like that’s going to last. They both have feelings for each other and the writers won’t forget that. Which means sometime later this season (once it starts up again) we’re going to be taken on this roller coaster ride once again.

The comedy, again, is somewhat lost in the middle of Chuck’s jealousy at the “crown vic” who Sarah pretends to hit on in order to discover his sinister plot. Chuck going undercover and accidentally losing $100,000 at a roulette table is pretty hilarious, though, and programming the missile’s GPS coordinates for Casey’s car so it won’t kill them all was the funniest part of the episode. The strongest part of the episode are the small revelations we were given about a couple of characters. We find out that Morgan’s girlfriend Anna has another side to her, the submissive Chinese girl, who she shamefully pretends to be around her parents. And we discover that Casey has a love for cars, when we previously didn’t think he loved anything but maybe guns.

The ending scene is a great hook to bring us back after the holidays– the government is about to have a new intersect so they don’t need Chuck anymore. This is going to bring a whole new element to the show which I think will up the stakes a little. Will the humor suffer too much and where is Casey’s character going to go are the two questions foremost on my mind.

2.5 out of 4 points

Heroes: Episode 2.11– Powerless

This was quite a finale, and now that it’s over, I can say that even with only 11 episodes, it feels like a full season. This “volume’s” conclusion, as opposed to last season’s, felt much less contrived. We get to see almost every character with powers use them in an interesting and exciting way, yet the resolution doesn’t rely too much on powers, as I felt last year’s did. We see a lot of characters making real decisions– Peter deciding he can’t trust Adam, Niki deciding to go into a burning building to rescue Monica even though she knows it’ll probably get her killed (and does), Mohinder deciding to help Silar to save his friends though he knows he’ll regret it later, Bennett going back to the company to protect his family, etc. These hard choices are what make for good television drama, and sometimes the ones in this show don’t make a lot of sense, but I thought there was some real heart in this episode that Heroes sometimes lacks.

We knew going into it that two of the Heroes would die, and I must say, I didn’t call who it would be at all. When Silar shoots Maya, I really thought she was dead, so that was a good fake-out. I certainly hope no more of the characters who were killed are brought back to life, however. Niki and Nathan are both given very good death scenes. Niki’s is wonderfully ironic, since her husband died the same way, and this raises the question of whether these people should really try to be comic book-esque super heroes are not. I’m looking forward to seeing what this does to Micah– now he’s an orphan because both his parents tried to be exactly who he wanted them to, and who he wants to be. Nathan goes out in a blaze of glory, which is wonderful. His character came a very long way and if he had to die, it should have been exactly the way it was here; trying to save the world by telling the truth about his abilities. There’s also a nice bit of irony about his death. Claire is his biological daughter and he died trying to expose the Heroes, which is what she was just about to do before Bennett stopped her. Did Bennett kill Nathan? I’m thinking probably, but it could have been someone else from the Company.

Silar once again survives for next season, a volume called “Villains.” He’s got his powers back and I’m looking forward to seeing him do more than seduce confused super powered women. I also predict we’ll see a return of Adam, who was humorously buried alive by Hiro. Since the next volume is “Villains” I’d kind of like to see the two team up to create most of the conflict for season 3. More super powered bad guys, less Company!

That was the one thing I didn’t really like about this episode. I hoped the Company would be destroyed, but it’s still around. Crippled, without a killer virus, but still around and powerful enough to make Bennett join it again. Adam’s big plot to basically create a second Great Flood, only with a virus, is really compelling. He’s lived so long he thinks he’s God. I want to see more of those sorts of issues dealt with. It’s really time to move on from the tyranny of the Company.

3.5 out of 4 points

One more episode of Journeyman left to review next week, and then nothing for a while. Unfortunately, as I expected, Journeyman did get canceled. At least Chuck is safe. Keep your ears open for the eventual end of the strike and the beginning of new seasons in the new year!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan