Which is better -- Stand alone eps or Arc?

Watching SG-1 last night got me wondering why shows like SG-1, Buffy and X-Files, consisting primarily of 'stand-alone' and 'mini-arc' episodes, go into Seasons Six, Seven and so on but shows with an 'arc' end after the arc is completed and spin-offs from an arc-based series rarely succeed? Any ideas or anyone know?

I would guess that there are just so many more shows without long and complex arcs on the air. So it might seem that they do better, when there really just are more of them out there to begin with.

I think JMS once said that you never heard the word "arc" until he started using it. The concept is really fairly new to television, I think.

True. There are very few shows with a real "arc" so I suspect the viewing public's attention span is short so they like "stand alone" or "mini-arc" eps with good CGI and lots of action over a well thought out story, also with good CGI and action, that builds over time.

B5 always struggled, so I would gather your assumption is fairly correct. It's hard to get people into arc episodes when they can't remember what happened last minute let alone last week.

What I really wished for, and thought I may have gotten awhile ago, was a channel devoted just to science fiction/fantasy. Where lower viewing numbers would be acceptable and the viewing audience would be dedicated to this kind of a show.

I would think as others have said, that some sponsors would find that kind of a crowd to be perfect for their products. But, alas, the Sci-Fi channel doesn't seem to think so.

I think it might also have something to do with syndication. Some shows think ahead about this and if they don't have a comprehensive 'arc' ala B5 then when the show hits syndication, they can sometimes show them out of order.

I'm not so sure that Buffy won't have an "arc" end. Every season of Buffy is an arc and maybe this season will tie them all together, or maybe there was an overall arc that we just haven't been able to put together yet, I don't know. I do know that Joss Whedon, like JMS, planned the entire series out and definitely had a place he wanted to go.

The concept is really fairly new to television, I think.

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American television anyway. Blake's 7 leaps to mind as an example of arc-style storytelling.

I was going to say the Prisoner, but I don't know if you could call it an arc driven show. That seems quite it's own animal.

I suspect that the executives at Sci Fi are using a 1950/1960s model of TV audiences and advertisers. Housewives are the big audience.

A more appropriate model is that of a specialist radio station. Possibly they should hire a shock jock.

An alternative model is that of magazines. There are a couple of newspapers that sell millions, all the rest have to have a niche readership or they have no sales.

It just seems like a lot of people would rather plop down and watch something that they don't have to show up for every day just to understand. Not that stand-alone stuff isn't good. I love The X-Files, SG-1, and the long-lost Millennium (where are the DVDs?!?!?! ARGH!!!), among others. Of course, arc-based shows are good too, but not everyone's in a situation where they can catch it all the time or record it to watch later on.

I am sure I will meet with disagreement here, but Stargate has many arcs that overreach several seasons with many of those linking together into at least one if not more bigger arcs. They tend to be subtly brought up at times, but the arcs are there, showing the development of the characters, consequences for actions, and enhancing the story.

One example, the fate of Sha're, the repercussions of which have carried from the first episode all the way to Season 6.

Nirrti's story as well. And both of these tie into an even greater arc or maybe two which probably encompass the series as a whole.

One reason I think Stargate is as good as it is, is that they can do an arc episode that seems to completely standalone, unless you have seen all the episodes prior and know all that's going on. The Season 6 episode with the Tok'ra, Jaffa and Tau'ri (humans) stranded on a planet together stood alone just fine, but also advanced the arcs of several stories, including the Jaffa underground/rebellion, the Tok'ra/human alliance, and Bratac's story, not to mention Teal'c and the other main characters.

So I definitely feel Stargate is an arced show whose episodes stand on their own quite well.

I guess that's my two cents for now. Back to lurkerdom.

SmG

I think JMS once said that you never heard the word "arc" until he started using it. The concept is really fairly new to television, I think.

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If he did say that, he's got a short memory. The Ken Wahl series Wiseguy popularlized the notion of "arcs" - using that word - beginning in 1987, six years before The Gathering first aired. Wiseguy's arcs were the hero's undercover assignments, which ran for different lengths of time, and each of which had a pre-planned beginning, middle and end.

Basically there are three kinds of TV shows:

1) Episodic or "stand alone". However, even these have some degree of continuity from season to season. Friends is episodic, but events and relationships change over time on the series, and an effort is made to keep things straight. Everyone doesn't forget what happened in each episode by the next week. (Which is typical in "pure" episodic shows.) M*A*S*H and Magnum, P.I. are two other shows that used recurring characters and a degee of continuity while primarily being stand-alone shows. The various Law & Orders are more episodic, but even they contain elements of continuity. Most shows these days do, and the trend started years before B5.

2) "Continuity" shows. These are shows that carry plotlines and development from episode to episode, but not necessarily according to any kind of master plan. Hill Street Blues was a continuity show. It ran "arcs" that were preplanned across five or six episodes, but didn't have a beginning, middle and end in mind for the series. Steven Bocho's other series, including L.A. Law and NYPD: Blue take a similar approach. Perhaps the classic "making it up as we go along" non-arc continuity show is The X-Files, which gradually became choked by its own mythology precisely because creator Chris Carter didn't have an over-all plan in mind. Again, "continuity" shows are increasingly common on TV. The 60s era stand alone, where nobody seemed to remember this week what had happened last week (ST: TOS, virtually any sitcom from the period) is largely a thing of the past. Most shows pay at least lip-service to continuity. The model for all such "continuity shows" is the soap opera, which imported its story-telling style from radio. While most soaps have a master plan for each year, few lock themselves in beyond that, and all will improvise to deal with cast problems, incorporate current events into the plotline, etc.

3) Genuine arc shows. These are rare, because one of the thing a real arc requires is a fixed end point. Since TV shows tend to lurch from season to season it is hard to write a well-shaped arc because nobody knows how long it is going to be. Blake's 7 was going to be a limited series from the beginning (something much easier to do on British than on American Television) so this wasn't a problem. JMS's refusal to do a sixth season and his insistance from the beginning that the show was a five year story was a recognition of this. Of course, some shows have a premise the looks forward to some definite ending (Richard Kimbal catching the one-armed man in The Fugitive, getting rescued and returning home again on both Gilligan's Island and ST: Voyager .) But the episodes that fall in between the pilot and the finale on these shows rarely make up an arc. True arc shows are indeed few and far between, because they are the hardest of all to do. However, the success of "continuity" shows like Hill Street in its day, and L.A. Law or NYPD: Blue in more recent years suggest that there is an appetite for at least that much of a continuing story, which means both network executives and audiences may be a little smarter than some have suggested in this thread.

Regards,

Joe

The question "which is better" depends to a great extent on the viewer. Today when many fans can tape shows (if they know how to program the VCR) arc shows are not a problem. If you can't watch it when it's on, then you tape it and watch it later.
When B5 was showing here originally it was all over the map and the only way to watch it was to find it each week and set the tape recorder. Also, although it was an on-going story most episodes could be watched without knowing the back story. Personally, I enjoy an arc, or on-going story. The problem with episodic tv is that you know exactly how each episode will end within the first two minutes so there is really no suspense.

Personally, I enjoy an arc, or on-going story. The problem with episodic tv is that you know exactly how each episode will end within the first two minutes so there is really no suspense.

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Very true. Once the opening scenes play the rest will follow a set pattern.

AFAIK, soap operas have been using arcs pretty much since their inception decades ago. But the problem with arc storytelling is, as mentioned above, the need for a loyal fanbase. That's why they work well in soap operas and cult shows (many of which are sci-fi) as opposed to other types of shows. Light dramas and sitcoms don't adhere to continuity the way more fantasy genre-type shows do. Those shows are geared for laughs, not for character development and complex plotting.

So, in answer to the original question, I prefer the arc model simply because I have an attention span that lasts longer than twenty minutes and I generally catch the shows I like. But when watching comedies, I think the episodic style works better.

The first arc TV show i liked started in the late 50's, 59 I think. It was called Rocky and Friends, later Rocky and Bullwinkle. It was originally shown with two new shows each week, and the story arcs ran from a few weeks, to many weeks, in many cases just segueing into the next adventure.