Episodic tv shows.

[Darthdenim]

Is it just me, or have a lot of people completely lost patience for shows of an episodic, one-off nature?

People are constantly complaining about "filler' in shows like Supernatural, Agents of Shield, and Sleepy Hollow.

Are some people just done with "monster of the week" shows.

[thatkidkenji]

I have never liked the episodic format, honestly.
Give me complex story arcs with a layered narrative.

[Darthdenim]

I'll admit, I've been guilty of this too.

I stopped watching Hannibal after three episodes cause it seemed like they were going down the "serial killer of the week" path.

I've heard that show actually got really good, though. I should pick it up again.

[Darthdenim]

I used to like the monster of the week episodes in Supernatural, back in the early seasons.

These days it seems like they have completely run out of ideas for good monsters, so they just recycle ones we've already seen.

[Atlas]

Netflix is ending episodic shows I believe since if I had Netflix I could watch all of Breaking Bad in one sitting instead of in a bunch of weeks. Also the King of Filler is Dragon Ball Z.

[Darthdenim]

At 11/20/13 01:28 AM, Atlas wrote: Netflix is ending episodic shows I believe since if I had Netflix I could watch all of Breaking Bad in one sitting instead of in a bunch of weeks.

That's not really what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about shows that have one-off stories that don't necessarily further the broader plot.

Breaking Bad is not one of those shows.

[Gagsy]

I shall hope not. My favourite episodes of X-Files are the episodic ones. The ongoing conspiracy ones were brilliant to begin with but the problem was it really fucking dragged after 9 seasons and their monster of the weeks just seemed to get better.

Was actually talking to someone in chat about this the other day. He's a Doctor Who fan and I've recently got into the show. I'm on the 11th doctor now and watching the 2 parter into the 5th season I just struggled quite badly getting into it. I much prefer episodes that are episodic and that goes for all the Doctor Who I've seen.

Isn't Sleepy Hollow new? How can people be complaining about 'filler' already.

But yeah long love Monster of the week episodes of tv. The very very best Buffy episodes were this - Hush, Once More With Feeling anyone? Usually the very first 2 episodes on anyones mind when you mention Buffy and that show did season long arcs very very well remember.

[Auz]

To be completely honest, I also dislike it when TV shows have a lot of filler episodes. I prefer one big storyline (like most mini-series have) or at least enough progress that I get the idea it's all going somewhere.

The exception are comedy shows though. I don't mind if they're episodic.

At 11/20/13 01:28 AM, Atlas wrote: Also the King of Filler is Dragon Ball Z.

I agree that show did have way too many episodes where very little happened, but at least the plot was moving forward.

[TheMaster]

There's a difference between filler and monster of the week. The first couple of seasons of Supernatural are monster of the week, the later stuff is filler.

There's definitely a place for both, although it's very difficult to do both. Look at The X-Files, which has great monster of the week stuff all the way through, alongside an increasingly nonsensical and dull ongoing story arc. For the flipside, look at Babylon 5, which has a fantastic ongoing story but falls apart whenever it tries to do one-off things, although that may be closer to just being filler than actual monster of the week.

At 11/20/13 10:58 AM, Gagsy wrote: But yeah long love Monster of the week episodes of tv. The very very best Buffy episodes were this - Hush, Once More With Feeling anyone? Usually the very first 2 episodes on anyones mind when you mention Buffy and that show did season long arcs very very well remember.

Buffy has hardly any purely arc-based episodes, though. It's handles it perfectly, in that each episode has a self-contained story and also furthers the plot. Even the stuff you mentioned moves stuff forward. Hush has Buffy and whatshisname, the military guy, meeting while hunting monsters for the first time, and Once More With Feeling has the Buffy and Spike kiss.

That's my favourite way for shows to work. Stuff like Deep Space Nine and early Supernatural did it the same way.

[Gagsy]

At 11/20/13 11:40 AM, TheMaster wrote:

Buffy has hardly any purely arc-based episodes, though. It's handles it perfectly, in that each episode has a self-contained story and also furthers the plot. Even the stuff you mentioned moves stuff forward. Hush has Buffy and whatshisname, the military guy, meeting while hunting monsters for the first time, and Once More With Feeling has the Buffy and Spike kiss.

Fair fair fair comment.

About Supernatural, I think their problem is just that they've completely ran out of decent monster of the week stories. I still believe they try but they just fall way too short now. If anything they try to do what Buffy did (as you explained), just with much much less success. They do monster episodes that push the arc somewhat forward. And by forward I mean Dean and Sam having a heart to heart after said monster events that sets their emotions up for the next episode.

[TheMaster]

At 11/20/13 12:14 PM, Gagsy wrote: About Supernatural, I think their problem is just that they've completely ran out of decent monster of the week stories. I still believe they try but they just fall way too short now. If anything they try to do what Buffy did (as you explained), just with much much less success. They do monster episodes that push the arc somewhat forward. And by forward I mean Dean and Sam having a heart to heart after said monster events that sets their emotions up for the next episode.

Supernatural just feels like it's been treading water since about season 4. Sam and Dean's relationship goes in circles and then they beat a new baddy who is, inevitably, just a human with superpowers and no personality.

I hadn't REALLY enjoyed it since season 2 ended because the whole "stop the apocalypse for the 12th time" thing is way less interesting than the personal vendetta of the first two seasons, and there's never been a villain as fun as Yellow Eyes since, except maybe Crowley who's never been a proper Big Bad. Eventually gave up a couple of episodes into season 8. There was still something to like in 3-5, but 6-8 were just dire.

[Gagsy]

At 11/20/13 12:29 PM, TheMaster wrote:

I hadn't REALLY enjoyed it since season 2 ended because the whole "stop the apocalypse for the 12th time" thing is way less interesting than the personal vendetta of the first two seasons, and there's never been a villain as fun as Yellow Eyes since, except maybe Crowley who's never been a proper Big Bad. Eventually gave up a couple of episodes into season 8. There was still something to like in 3-5, but 6-8 were just dire.

Oh Season 3 had some wonderful episodes still. The prison episode, Mystery Spot, A Very Supernatural Christmas (just for that sweet ending mostly) and the The Kids Are Alright which hand down is still the scariest episode of Supernatural ever, just because of those horrible creepy faces that take over the children. Worse than the Bloody Mary episode, just.

But yeah as much as I love Castiel, season 4 was the start of a downward spiral that the show has and will never recover from. There have been good moments still and I personally feel that season 8 was a vast improvement on 7 which was also much better than 6.. but yes just have to accept that it isn't the same show anymore. I just watch it out of loyalty and the fact that the main cast are all who they are.

Lucifer was a pretty good villain but in the way that Loki is in the Avengers movie, like he's bad but you'd rather laugh at his actions than anything else. Yellow Eyes is more Magneto where he literally did feel invincible. He was the best in the show without a doubt.

Adore Crowley still and yes mostly for his humour. As a villain he's as dangerous as a kitten with sharp claws really, he's just a really funny kitten with sharp claws.

Season 9 so far Sam has died 3 times, Castiel once and Deans been lying since the first episode. Normal business all round, but hey they had an episode where Dean turned into a dog, that was interesting to say the least.

[Darthdenim]

The problem with Supernatural now is that the monsters of the week can't even be visually interesting.

95% of the creatures in the show look like ordinary human beings.

The Wendigo in season 1 was kinda crappy cgi, but at least it was something.

The first season also had a much more interesting looking Reaper than the ordinary human looking ones that came later.

[Darthdenim]

At 11/20/13 02:32 PM, Darthdenim wrote: The problem with Supernatural now is that the monsters of the week can't even be visually interesting.

95% of the creatures in the show look like ordinary human beings.

The Wendigo in season 1 was kinda crappy cgi, but at least it was something.

The first season also had a much more interesting looking Reaper than the ordinary human looking ones that came later.

I can't give Sleepy Hollow enough praise for not going down this route.

When a demon shows up, IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING DEMON!

[Atlas]

At 11/20/13 01:32 AM, Darthdenim wrote: That's not really what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about shows that have one-off stories that don't necessarily further the broader plot.

Breaking Bad is not one of those shows.

I know but I was just talking about how the episodic format T.V. uses is dying. Criminal Minds is sorta like that. New killer each week with one killer that might take up two weeks.

[Gagsy]

At 11/20/13 02:32 PM, Darthdenim wrote:

The first season also had a much more interesting looking Reaper than the ordinary human looking ones that came later.

Oh man, that Don't Fear The Reaper scene is hands down my favourite Supernatural moment. Its perfect in every single way.

[Darthdenim]

I gotta say, this weeks Supernatural was probably the best monster of the week episode I've seen in years.

It really felt like old school Supernatural. They actually attempted to make it somewhat scary and suspenseful.

[Scarface]

I don't mind episodic shows, but I don't think they need to be an hour long.

For example, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia doesn't have very much of a running plot, and focuses on a problem for one episode (or possibly two, but rarely).

I don't like shows like Bones or CSI where it's essentially the killer of the week. That's not to say that they're bad, necessarily, but I just don't have much interest in them.

[Entice]

For comedy shows I still prefer things to be episodic because I'm watching it to laugh and fresh jokes are important. Running jokes can be okay sometimes but it's easy to take them too far.

In a serious show, the "x of the week" format just seems cheesy now.

[Darthdenim]

I see that the next episode of Supernatural is bringing back the Dragons.

The most fucking disappointing monsters to ever appear on the show.......

If you can't deliver on a fucking dragon, don't put them in the goddamn show.

[Jester]

At 11/19/13 11:41 PM, Darthdenim wrote:

I stopped watching Hannibal after three episodes cause it seemed like they were going down the "serial killer of the week" path.

They were doing it for a few episodes, but they've more or less strayed away from it by the point i'm at. Haven't quite finished season 1, but i'm getting there.

[Dean]

Original series Star Trek is up there as one of my favourite TV shows and it was completely episodic. Another of my all time favourites, Still Game, is again an episodic show. To an extent I can understand why some people might feel underwhelmed by shows like this given all the massive dramas we have now but there's still something nice about the pick up and go nature of episodic shows. It doesn't matter if you missed out on a few episodes, you can just start watching again without having to feel like you've missed out on a ton of content.

I do also like big story arcs too though. Currently I'm really enjoying Babylon 5, a show where every episodes seems to contribute to the overarching story.

[Luer]

At 11/21/13 06:44 AM, Dean wrote: Original series Star Trek is up there as one of my favourite TV shows and it was completely episodic.

Star Trek is amazing.

[Gobblemeister]

Episodic usually means that the people writing the show don't have enough meaningful content in the plot to make every episode relevant to the story at large. At the same time episodic shows can help develop a group of characters and the relationships between them quickly and effectively without trying to force it in to the 'grand scheme'. It's a lot easier to control the pace of an episodic show too.

[Dr-Worm]

There are a lot of things I love about the increasing serialization of TV since the '00s, but I agree that there are benefits to a more episodic format that are lost when everyone clamors for more serialized storytelling. Look at something like Game of Thrones, which is a great story taken all together but has little in the way of any self-contained, satisfying arcs or themes week to week.

It ends up playing more like one really long, incrementally told movie than a TV show, a structure which at any given time makes certain strands of the story superfluous and difficult to care about but requires that they be trotted out for a scene or two every week anyway (see: Daenerys in season 2, Theon in season 3). Though really this kind of storytelling has a tendency to make everything seem kind of loose and meandering until the wider arcs come into focus towards the end of the season (see also: Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, any number of other highly serialized shows like that), which might strengthen the larger story but definitely weakens individual episodes, especially towards the beginning of a season. In fact, the most highly-regarded episodes of Game of Thrones tend to be the most self-contained and tightly focused (like "Blackwater" or "The Rains of Castamere," both of which are situated near the end of a season).

I guess the root of the issue in terms of current tastes might be that people are increasingly binge-watching shows instead of watching them week to week. Serialized shows definitely lend themselves better to binge-watching than episodic shows do, so I can understand where people are coming from there. And it's not like the problems I talked about above are totally insurmountable, some of the best shows have done great things with heavy serialization (e.g. The Wire, Breaking Bad).

But TV is episodic by nature, and I think it's to most shows' benefit when they at least try to thoughtfully employ that unique property of the medium in their structure instead of just making really long movies (though now that I think of it that type of purely serialized, open-ended storytelling might be more directly analogous to soap operas than anything). Plenty of shows have done a good job of mixing self-contained stories with wider serialized arcs all within a given episode (e.g. Mad Men, Arrested Development, all the good episodes of Lost, Orange Is the New Black, Avatar: The Last Airbender).

I also think that despite the growth of binge-watching we're still going to see an increase in quality episodic shows in the future, now that the entire quality TV landscape isn't in the shadow of The Sopranos anymore and there's room in the conversation for more experimental shows that decidedly aren't heavily serialized gritty antihero dramas (Louie, Girls, Adventure Time, etc).