Babylon 5<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
In some ways, I can do nothing but applaud that trend. Dammit, Kirk should<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Thus, if someone decided that the underlying tale of the original Star Trek<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
The bottom line seems to be the media res.<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
Which brings us back to Babylon 5,<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\nSerialized Television Has Become a Disease<\/a><\/span>
\nAt New York Comic Con, during the Star Trek: Discovery panel, Alex Kurtzman said something that I\u2019ve been thinking about a lot. He said that you couldn\u2019t do \u201cCity on the Edge of Forever\u201d now, because Kirk would have to spend a whole season mourning Edith Keeler.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nView on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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