Thread by @MuseZack

Brief thread on TV writing inspired by @JoseMolinaTV's "bring back 22 episode seasons!" comment from yesterday. I love long seasons of TV. Here's the challenge: in genre TV, it's really difficult to pull off given the demands for serialized storytelling.

In the old days of Star Trek or Mission: Impossible, it was simpler. The characters went on a different adventure or solved a different problem each episode, with little to no continuity between episodes. But over time, serialization came to genre TV...

At first, this manifested itself in shows like The X-Files & Buffy, which had serialized, often season-long arcs, but with many or most of their episodes being standalone "monster of the week" episodes. But there's been pressure to drop those as "filler..."

Which has left shows doing 22 episode long arcs mostly about a single, season-long "big bad." This ends up creating HUGE storytelling problems. How do you sustain mystery, suspense, and escalation for an entire season?

Why does it take an entire season for the hero to defeat the villain? And why is the villain hanging around that long? You end up having to contrive incredibly Rube Goldberg plots that often aren't very satisfying and feel like marking time until the big May sweeps confrontation.

This is why you've had network genre shows start to play with mini-arcs, multi-season plots, and even beginning to re-embrace "adventure/monster of the week" episodes. Over-serialization and "It's really a long movie cut into pieces" ended up being cul de sacs for network TV.

I saw up close the challenges of serializing genre TV in season 2 of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Josh was adamant that he didn't want to do a "Terminator of the week" show, which was incredibly admirable, but also a challenge when in came to storytelling...

So while we had fairly standalone episodes, the engine of the first half of the season was Cromartie's relentless pursuit of the Connors, & the engine of the back half was "What the hell is Weaver up to?"

The decision was made early on that the Connors shouldn't cross with Weaver (the liquid metal Terminator played by Shirley Manson) until the end of the season, but the result was that after Cromartie was killed, the show's tension went slack for several episodes.

Now I personally liked the weird, moody, introspective episodes we did in the middle of season 2...but clearly not everyone did. We bled most of our audience during that middle period, so by the time the arc really kicked in again, it was too late to get them back. Oh well.