Season 1s are great, setup, some payoff, a bit of lead into the overarching story. Then season 2 to X. The heroes win and then lose in the final episode, cliffhanger to next season. People get bored. Final season is announced and they wrap up the show.
Think we need more specific examples of what you’re watching, but I don’t think it’s just “American tv“—watched plenty of anime that is guilty of what you’re describing.
Plot creep is real, just look at any webcomic that’s been going for more than 3 years. Looking at you (lovingly, c… years ago?) Questionable Content.
Depending on the anime, but they usually have Arcs, which would be a named Show on its own. Then the second arc is the sequel. But usually the characters are pretty different at the end powerwise. I guess the equivalent is a character growth in a drama and some reversion to their original unimproved selves are common
Are you avoiding the question on purpose? For all we know you just watch bad tv
A good show will treat each season as a new story within the over all series, with 3 acts in a season.
It depends on the show.
In some cases, shows are written to be anthologies of stories. The characters stay similar across episodes and seasons, but the isn’t really an overarching plot. Sitcoms are known to use this a lot. Plot across episodes is mainly done to give writers something new to write.
In other cases, several plot lines are happening at once which resolve at different times. That way, there is always a plot having something happening even if other plots end or hit a resting point. A lot of soap operas did this.
Finally, there can be one overarching plot that gets resolved, but then another plot starts to take its place or the show ends. A lot of modern science fiction is written that way.
@delitomatoes Many sitcoms have an overarching romance arc between two leads that gets stretched out for eternity. I don’t know how much I can vouch for “The Office” handling other storylines, but the getting Pam and Jim together 1/3rd of the way through the series, and then not having them constantly breaking up and dating other people and then getting back together (like Friends) was a real breath of fresh air. The show really proved they could survive as an anthology without having the main romantic arc to fall back on. Of course, later on they introduce serious romantic arcs for other characters.
I don’t look at it like an overarching plot so much as anthology. Character A and Character B have chemistry and should be together but it doesn’t happen. It just happens that there are several stories that involve that failure.
“final season is announced and they wrap up the show”
Bro must be from 1995 or some shit. Since when does a show get an actual ending these days?
Arrow got an entire season to do nothing but wrap up the show. It was great.
We don’t talk about The Flash final season.
- Breaking Bad
- Better Call Saul
- Titans
- The Good Place
- Barry
Ted Lasso (announced it would be three seasons at the beginning and stuck with it)
And like every good story oriented cartoon. We’re in the actual golden age for cartoons right now and more people need to take advantage.
Owl House got cancelled and had to rush the ending. It was still good though
Indeed, very unfortunate. Amphibia knocked the ending out of the park. So did She-Ra. Gravity Falls and Kipo while I’m at it.
Hot take but so did Star vs the Forces of Evil imo.
Everyone on the fence about any of these mentioned you gotta go in. Banger endings only
Not she ra though. It’s monarchist propaganda
I’m not sure what you mean by that, but it’s a banger cartoon with amazing characters that comes full circle in such an immensely satisfying way. Top tier animation and writing.
Even Supernatural has actual ending after 15 seasons
They had two! One at the end of season 5 and then at the end of season 15.
Succession
I’m confused by your question.
Is your objection cliffhanger endings? Those are more common in American media. Or is it lack of plot progression, which is common across all media? Even shows famous for moving the plot forward never stray too far from the start.
I like the idea that a lot of series are repeating Act II over and over. I had never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense.
Really great shows have a broader plot premise and are free to build new storylines and character arcs each season. As YoBuckStopsHere said, some great shows build up and grow overtime - think Breaking Bad, Parks and Rec. Both shows start off slower, focus on character building in the earlier seasons. Then they become plot focused later on.
Other shows have the flexibility to create new story arcs so each season almost stands on its own but they still stay within the larger overarching premise, example - The Great, Game of thrones (although they really gave up at the end)
I think good shows have a plan for how to get to the end and mediocre shows do as OP described - have a beginning and end planned and not much in the middle. I don’t think all shows are stuck in Act 2, but it does say something that the ones that aren’t stuck there stand out that much more
I always found East Bound and Down jarring in some respects, the jump from the US, to Mexico, to Myrtle beach at the time felt all over the place, but in retrospect it gave every season of the show a different world to play in. I rewatched it during Covid and really enjoyed it moving around and even though some people like different venues for the show as a whole I feel it made the shower stronger.
Is that the mullet baseball guy? I didn’t realize there was more than one season of that!
Friend, you are in for a treat
Awesome, I could use one.
Ultimately, the primary satisfaction of storytelling comes from the story ending.
You can do that episode to episode, season to season, etc. I feel like the best shows balance by having plot archs and character archs that can happen independently of each other. That way each episode or two can close one kind of arch while opening another. Because they are different kinds of problems, they’re less likely to conflict, giving you the sense of closure you crave while also creating a sort of cliffhanger.
That’s really hard to do well though, especially over time. And usually expensive.
A lot of shows start with 2-3 seasons of concepts in mind, and hope to get picked up for more. At that point it gets exponentially harder to go on without detracting from what you’ve already built.
I’m glad that most streaming platforms are starting to see value in shows with a fixed ending in mind, it just makes for better storytelling.
You misspelled arc a lot
I use arc btw
Nah, they only watch TV shows based around St. Louis.
A lot of shows tend to lose steam around seasons four and five or so. Actors and actresses come and go and writers struggle to find new ideas so storylines get recycled and repackaged. Breaking Bad handled this perfectly by willing ending after 5 seasons.
It sucks when a show is spinning it’s wheels and a significant actor moves on to greener pastures, but you get it. It really sucks when a show rockets off and actors leave because the show has made them into a star who get offered bigger projects to capitalize on their fame. Mucking things up for the thing that made you famous is such BS.
capitalism baby,they need to milk it
Some of my favorite tv shows’ first season is usually the worse. Then the plotlines get better until the second to last season and things resolve. By the final season, the last few threads get resolved and the story ends.
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Pushing Daisies :(
I’m here to second the bitterness about Almost Human (the casting was perfect for the two main characters).
I’m also sad about Journeyman.
What are these shows? :)
The first season of Parks and Recreation was so bad compared to the rest. They didn’t seem to know what to do with the characters. They really gelled in the second season. The rest of the run was great and the final episode was inspired.
P&R continues to be in my mind what happens when you let a show with talented actors and smart writers marinate a bit. Everyone on the show became a bigger star/household name afterwards.
So many shows get cancelled after a season. And I wonder how many shows, if they got that P&R treatment, would be amazing today.
Star trek is notorious for having bad first seasons.
You see that a lot for sure. One show that stands out in my mind of continually moving the plot forward is Breaking Bad. The ‘villain’ changes throughout the show, Walt has an evolving relationship with Skylar and Walt Jr, and motives change as well for Walt and Jesse. Completely different show from beginning to end.
SPOILER: it’s a well known fact that season 1 was shortened due to the last writers strike and had that not happened Jesse would have been killed off at the end of the season. This show very well could have suffered the same fate OP prescribes to most shows since Jesse is so pivotal to the shows overall success. So maybe we should look for shows who’s first season is currently being cut short by this writer’s strike and that will be the next great show.
I suppose it’s the natural result of wanting to keep the show on as long as possible, when you’ve only got one good idea for the story arc. You need a lot of filler.
I’d like to see more shows done in the style of Babylon 5, where the creator had the whole 5 years written out from day 1. There was very little in the show that felt like filler or treading water.
Which also may explain why books are being brought to TV more frequently these days. But, TV showrunners have a bad habit of taking a good novel and totally mangling it in the translation to TV, so it’s not a guaranteed win.
It can certainly seem that way sometimes. Shows like The Handmaid’s Tale have been circling the drain of their own premise for a few years now. A big part of it, I think, is that they want to keep their main cast for as long as possible, which limits the options of what can happen.
Give me a mini-series, or even an anthology series, any day.
I love the limited scope of British TV series. They even managed to do only a few seasons of Law & Order, for crying out loud.
It’s not a creative or artistic choice; British channels simply have minuscule budgets compared to their American counterparts.
I think it’s for the best. Too much money in the US is spent on bullshit.
In any case, US versions of British series are almost certainly worse.
Sherlock proves it. It was given too much budget and time and what we got was overproduced bullshit.
Couldn’t agree more. The final season was such nonsense it soured the whole show and I’ve never bothered to watch it through again (ignoring the incessant “tell not show” with being told how brilliant Sherlock is but never really showing that, and how the mysteries were never deductible by the audience).
And yet it often leads to more satisfying narratives.
Look at Black Mirror. The British seasons are some of the best TV ever made. The American (Netflix) seasons have often been meh or downright awful, and derivative of the original seasons.
Shows like The Handmaid’s Tale have been circling the drain of their own premise for a few years now.
As far as I’m concerned, that show ended when the first season did (which corresponded with the ending of the book).
When I heard a season 2 was happening, I thought it might be based around the book’s epilogue. Instead, it’s the same story dragged out long past where it was supposed to end.
Part of the reason why I’m really into K-dramas now. It often doesn’t feel like it’s just dragging, but actually has nice pacing.
Weird, I feel the exact opposite about most k-dramas. Good premise but then take forever to tell their story.
I still don’t get why so many were relating handmaids tale to real life. Just as annoying as those who think everything is 1984. Its a YA series, and not a particularly great one at that.
Do you really not see the parallels to real life of a religiously-ruled country who has enshrined in law ways to take control of fertile women’s reproductive rights? Really?
The US is becoming more and more Giléad with every passing day.
I don’t see anyone taking away rights of women, and America is secular.
You can draw parallels between anything, thats not really pertinent.
Do ya remember Roe vs. Wade or the recent decision that overturned it, thus removing the rights of a woman to decide whether or not she will continue a pregnancy?
Judges should not make laws, congress should. Roe v Wade was a bad judgement. Also congress had decades to make it a law, and they failed to do so.
You’re using purist arguments to deny what’s evident. Your account name should have been a clue that you’re a troll. Goodbye.
I think that morally, only elected officials should make and pass laws.
You’re getting downvotes, but everything you said was correct. Congress should have made the ruling more than that, and Dems had years to make actual laws to uphold what Roe represented.
However, Republican opinion is specifically what eroded the opinion that upheld Roe v Wade, and Republicans get to hold the blame for what many women in many states now have to live with.
Not sure about the show, but Margaret Atwood has been at pains to point out that pretty much everything in her books has a real life precedent (albeit in different places at different times).
Child appropriations under the military juntas in Latin America, for one.
