Babylon 5 was not the first TV show to play with serialized stories — the idea that the events of one episode might effect later episodes, and that a TV series was actually a long novel not just a series of incidents — but it set a precedent for SF/Fantasy TV that has grown more and more significant over the decades.
In some ways, I can do nothing but applaud that trend. Dammit, Kirk should have been personally devastated by “City on the Edge of Forever,” and it should have impacted his character in future episodes. Hell, McCoy should have been traumatized by the experience, and Spock should have referenced it in future encounters with Earth’s past, time travel, or Kirk romances.
Beyond that, one can easily point to TV series that have strong serialized stories, but have to be padded out over a season to include stand-alones that don’t advance the overall seasonal plot and tend not to be that memorable. Not every episode can be a “City on the Edge of Forever,” after all, and if you have a serialized story in mind, the “filler” episodes can tend to become like food fillers — cheap, non-nutritious, and not bearing close examination.
That said, serialization has its drawbacks. While it can draw an existing audience forward, it can also alienate people who didn’t jump onboard with Episode 1. I have had a number of series that people have assured me are tremendously cool and worth watching — but which struck me as so serialized that I felt I needed to watch from the beginning to make them understandable … something that’s often non-trivial to do.
Some of this militates toward the UK / BBC approach, in which there are often heavily serialized stories that only have as many episodes as are necessary to tell the core story. If that means a series or season is just six or eight or ten eps … well, there you go, and no worries about filler.
The problem, of course, is that sometimes the “filler” can be great TV. Not everything has to advance the underlying story. (I would argue the same can be true for novels as well, but the weekly episodic nature of TV makes it even more true.) A stand-alone episode can illuminate a character in a way that doesn’t affect the overarching story, but still remains a noteworthy tale.
Thus, if someone decided that the underlying tale of the original Star Trek was the one they revisited on a regular basis — the “Cold War” between the Federation and the Klingon Empire — we might never have gotten “City on the Edge of Forever,” unless it was intentionally targeted toward that story (I can imagine ways to do that, of course, but I can point to great eps in TOS — “I, Mudd,” “The Immunity Syndrome,” “The Apple” — that had nothing to do with that theme, and would therefore presumably have been dropped.
The bottom line seems to be the media res. A series of episodes in which nothing every changes and each episode serves as a story that has no effect on subsequent tales is a shallow and unconvincing show. On the other hand, a series where everything is deeply interlocked and every episode is structured solely around advancing that overall tale can leave out side stories that illuminate and entertain — that are not just filler, but add to the richness of the tapestry of the tale.
Which brings us back to Babylon 5, as that series contained a blend — “arc” tales that focused on the main storyline and themes, the “wham!” episodes, but also one-offs and sides stories that could serve as diversions, illuminations, and stories to add to the overall richness of the saga being told.
It’s a balancing act, that middle path. But it’s one worth pursuing, to avoid the extremes of tunnel-vision focus on the core story versus the things that happen that should (but don’t) have an impact beyond that single episode in which they occur.
Serialized Television Has Become a Disease
At New York Comic Con, during the Star Trek: Discovery panel, Alex Kurtzman said something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. He said that you couldn’t do “City on the Edge of Forever” now, because Kirk would have to spend a whole season mourning Edith Keeler.
When Star Trek came out, and for the next few decades after that, serialized stories wouldn't work because audience members would usually miss episodes and have no way to watch them again. Eventually there would be Star Trek marathons on TV, but that was a long time after the program had been cancelled. The marathons would often include "lost episodes" that were aired once and hadn't been aired since.
+Terrence Lee Reed It's certainly true that the advent of the VCR made serialized stories much more practical. Except, of course, for soap operas.
I'd agree with your sentiments, +Dave Hill. B5 walked the line perfectly. Few other shows have. One I can think of: Avatar, the Last Airbender.
The excuse for soap operas, though, is that while they are serialized, the changes are so slow, and recapped so often, that you can hop on board without having to go back through 20 years worth of stories. I remember seeing a certain soap that my mother liked, and when I went back to it years later, they were still practically on the same story line!
Then there’s Doctor Who… It’s almost completely serialized…and yet it somehow isn’t at the same time.
@Solonor — Good point on the constant recaps on soaps. Doctor Who has struggled with striking that balance, and for all I live serialization, some of the biggest problems of the recent years have been overly-serialized seasons or arcs.
+Gary Roth Oooh, great example.
I’d rather seen more anthology tv than to have dramas and adventure shows go back to being purely episodic.
Assuming continuing content availability, streaming services like Netflix go a long way to making the serialization option steadily practicable. A pox on them for the occasions when they remove a series before I complete it, though.
How would you rate, e.g., the original Twilight Zone – surely the antithesis of serialization?
+Michael Verona Anthology shows (such as TZ) are their own category, just as collections of short stories are different from a novel. I'm fine with them as a model, as the main issue with classic episodic TV (all problems are wrapped up in 30/60 minutes, never to be heard from again) doesn't pertain.
Frankly Star Trek TNG had great way to deal with this without going full serialization. They would mention things that would happen in early episodes or have complete call backs to early events. Without requiring someone to watch every single episode. It allow Picard to go from someone who hated children to someone who was actually fond of them.
My probably with serialization is many of them have horrible people as protagonist. Your not going get character like Rocky, Andy Dufresne, or even Data and Picard on any of these shows. Most of them are just High Budget Soap Operas. People can say that Game of Thrones is great all they want. But at the end of the day its just a Soap Opera. Its got all the elements of a Soap Opera. Constant backstabbing, Killing characters off for the sake of drama and boring love affair and love triangles. And like Soap Opera they usually focus on the worse in Humanity. Schindler’s List is about the holocaust. But at the center of it, is a man trying to save every Jew he can from the Nazi. Out of all the serialize shows ive seen. I can’t say many of those character would be making the kind of sacrifice, Schindler did in that movie. Just Saying.