There definitely was that dynamic, but I think X-Files tried to have it all different ways. There were extremes - the core mythology got explicitly played around with in meta episodes (e.g. Jose Chung’s From Outer Space) that were outside continuity because of unreliable narrators, but they also insisted that there was a coherent core mythology with a mystery that would be/could be solved. But I think during the run of the show, the demands of each episode/mini-arc outweighed the desire for a coherent central plot, and unreliable narrators (which were already part of it) became the way of not just papering over inconsistencies but embracing them. Despite cracks showing in the core mythology, it worked moderately well (if you ignored all the contradictions between the few established facts) until the end of the show, when they did a special “summing up” arc that was just embarrassing. Nothing really fit together or was coherent, in the end. I don’t think that was a deliberate plan so much as a side effect of it being more important to (some of) the audience than the writers who were trying to make each episode compelling in a long-running, open-ended show, where the vast majority of the audience weren’t following the minutia of the show’s core mythology plots.
It doesn’t work well if you have a singular story (the whole structure of American tv works against that, really - having an open-ended number of episodes, where you want the show to run as long as possible but also could be canceled at any time kills the ability to come up with a coherent overarching plot), but it’s great for those stand-alone episodes. X-Files wouldn’t work as a streaming show, for example. The core mythology would end up being a lot more coherent than it was, but you’d lose all the monster-of-the-week episodes that actually made the show good.
Multiplying the mysteries was a particularly bad move - adding in the whole “purgatory for people with daddy issues”* element late in the series really derailed things badly. It was clearly just to pad things out when they ran out of material for the main mystery, it added nothing, wasn’t very satisfying and apparently it confused the hell out of much of the audience.
*From which I have concluded that Life on Mars,Ashes to Ashes and Lost exist in a shared universe.
This is detrimental to shows that happen to be a huge success as well, since they’re forced to keep going beyond their natural resolution (i.e. Buffy or more recently Stranger Things).
I much prefer the British style where a show is planned to run a certain number of episodes and conclude. That’s why Breaking Bad (the American exception to the rule) is so good - it has an actual 5 act structure over its seasons. If it had been cancelled early or run longer it wouldn’t be so highly praised. It was a huge hit, so we get another well planned show in the same universe. But Stranger Things just keeps dragging on. Wouldn’t you rather that have ended when it should and be watching a new, different show from the same creators?
Yeah, it’s not good for them in general - even before the show is a success or under-performing, just coming into it with that uncertainty, not knowing how many episodes the story gets to grow in. I don’t know how anyone does it.
The ending to that series was so deeply unsatisfying to me, which was a shame because I really enjoyed that show in its short run. But, at least it was a definitive way to end the show.
I agree that well written shows could and sometimes did use commercial breaks strategically, but more often they were just kinda randomly between scenes. And then, when there were reruns and syndication? So many commercials thrown in mid-scene or even mid-sentence in some cases.
There’s also nothing stopping shows from making 1-off episodes, so the fact that no one does now that it’s not forced on them is a choice. I don’t think many stories benefit from throwing random episodes in the middle. What I do think could be pretty cool would be between-season bonus episodes. Like, film a 12 episodes, release a 10 episode season, then have 2 self-contained extra stories released at some other time(s).
I found it not just unsatisfying but deeply unsettling, even disturbing - a guy has a serious traumatic brain injury, and during recovery becomes extremely depressed (which is common, in reality) and then… kills himself. (Without ever making an effort to verify that any of these people existed, which means as far as he - and the audience - knows, the whole thing was just a coma dream he preferred to reality.) The British really do like their downer endings in TV shows… Then Ashes to Ashes, the follow-up series, came up with a definitive explanation of what was going on, and in the process doubled down on being a downer.
I only watched the last episode or so of the US version, to see how they resolved it, and you almost could see how the creators started watching the original series, said “Let’s do a remake of this,” then got to the end and decided, “But definitely not like that!”
Babylon 5 remains one of the few shows that was conceived as serialized with a definite direction and planned ending.
The problem it had was on the production/cast end. The lead had to drop out for mental health issues, it got cancelled 1 season prematurely and picked up unexpectedly.
One interesting approach is Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex
It only ran two seasons. Each with an underlying arc. But they would indicate at the start of each episode whether this was a standalone episode or an arc episode one.
I rewatched most of it recently. It is seriously heavy on the heart to watch Michael O’Hare, now knowing that he was frequently performing while literally hearing voices.
I guess Game of Thrones got away with a long arc by killing a lot of characters.
I watched the British Life on Mars and the follow up Ashes to Ashes. They are great shows. The endings are dark in a way, but the journey to reach them was fun.
I’ve watched one episode of the US Life on Mars, which I enjoyed. I’m aware of the ending of the series, which makes sense in its own right. But doesn’t create the same kind of vibe as the British original.
But Game of Thrones ran into the same problem a lot of anime producers have, in that they outpaced the source material. (The first Fullmetal Alchemist series is a great example of this).
By the last two seasons they were scrambling to tie up everything.
But American remakes of foreign films and shows are never as good as the original. Sure, sometimes they’re good, but never as good or better. The Office, The Ring, and Vanilla Sky might be good (and some lost souls even think The Departed is good) but they’re all inferior to the originals and thus ultimately pointless cash grabs from idiots who can’t read subtitles or won’t look beyond what they’re spoon fed for entertainment.
But yeah Life on Mars is an excellent example of a mystery twist show that was planned and executed in the appropriate number of episodes with a real ending in mind.
Ah yeah, just from watching the final episode of the US show, it seemed like it would be unsatisfying. I got the impression they had been leading towards one answer for the show (that he really was time traveling), then threw in the Mars travel hallucination thing (because of the name of the show and some tv executive needing to be too literal), even though it didn’t really make sense (he was hallucinating his present experiences, the flash-forwards, and… who he was, as well?!), then threw in that final shot just to make things ambiguous again/to be annoying. The UK show was a lot more coherent, but upsetting.
I watched part of the first episode of the US adaptation of Ghosts. I found it too fast and gave up. The UK version was much more to my taste.
While there are lots of US TV shows which become successful in the UK, I’m not aware of any comedies which have been naturalised, if that’s the right word. I’d like to know if anyone is aware of any.
I do think Season Three is largely acknowledged as a turning point — they introduced The Others in an interesting way, but then sort of spun of their wheels for a while. IIRC, Season Three was when they locked in a deal with the network to make 6 seasons total, so they could actually make a plan. This is part of why the later seasons are shorter (though it was also derailed in part by the Writers’ Strike).
