Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Episodic vs. Long arch story line

I was watching Star Trek (the 60s one) and I remembered how much I loved episodic shows. Episodes start out with the same characters, they solve some problem, and then it ends, and virtually nothing changes.

I like Star Trek. It's cool, it's interesting, and the cheesy special effects and plain set design just make me like it even more.
The story ideas are interesting to me. I like the twists and concepts in each episode. Each episode has it's own story, twists, turns, characters, action scenes, and it's own little "idea" they study upon.

The bulk of TV shows I watch nowadays are LOST, 24, Prisonbreak, and/or House. Every one of these (excluding HOUSE) runs on a LONG ARCH STORY LINE. This means that there's one basic story all the episodes follow, and they slowly progress further through it each episode.
Now...

...After watching those shows, man. I miss episodic shows. In one episode of LOST, they talk a little, they say we're gonna go walk through the jungle to a place, then they do that. And once they're there, they say what they're gonna do next. Then the episode ends, but then they do what they say they're gonna do next in the next episode.

Each episode passes and they talk a little more, have some backstories, talk a little more, tensions rises, it falls, and then you're left with a feeling of being cheated after THEY DID PRESS THE BUTTON, and they RAN AWAY FROM THE OTHERS, when they easily could've got in a fight and shot one or two of them. (Note: The only time they DO NOT PUSH THE BUTTON, or they DO CHASE THE OTHERS, is in times like the Season Finales, which sucks cuz there's only 1 per year.)

But in Star Trek, they do tons of stuff in one episode. They beam down, they fight, they talk, they run, they analyze strange viruses, they solve mysteries, they interrogate prisoners and all sortsa crazy stuff. And there's tons of twists and turns in the story and interesting stuffs.
And then it ENDs with a feeling of satisfaction... right...

All in all, um... ...

Star Trek is cool.

Lost is cool but slow and kind of slow.

24 is really boring.

...And one more thing.

1 Comments:

At 6/09/2006 3:37 PM, Blogger ifedajay said...

Oh yeah,

Well, I agree...

Except I think if you keep watching those episodes then you get tired of them saving the world a gazillion times and nothing serious ever happening...that's the only bad thing...hardly anyone every permanently dies or anything.

yea

 

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