andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2020-07-30 01:33 pm
andrewducker) wrote2020-07-30 01:33 pm
What multi season TV series had a good arc?
I'm primarily looking for series that had an arc plot which started at the beginning, crossed between seasons, and came to an ending which took in the whole run of the show and brought it to a coherent close, intended since the beginning, which made narrative sense and was emotionally satisfying.
I'm not asking for perfection here. Happy to include something like Babylon 5 (had an intended arc plot from the beginning, was derailed by the studio, and half of season 5 was a mess, but still worked overall, and had the ending it started out towards).
I'm just curious what other examples there are. Far more TV seems to consist of lots of exciting set-up, but with the writers later admitting they didn't actually know where they were going. I still enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, but it definitely suffered from this. Lost was the epitome of this, and nobody at all seems to have enjoyed its ending.
A better model for most TV seems to be a season arc. Where you've dealt with your Big Bad at the end of the season, but left things open for future ones. Buffy excelled at that.
In any case, the only things I can think of recently that fit this mould are the She-Ra reboot and Steven Universe. And going back fifteen years there's Avatar: The Last Airbender. All of which were animated kid's shows.
I hear Breaking Bad did pay off at the end, with what the creators had been aiming for since the beginning. What else did?
I'm not asking for perfection here. Happy to include something like Babylon 5 (had an intended arc plot from the beginning, was derailed by the studio, and half of season 5 was a mess, but still worked overall, and had the ending it started out towards).
I'm just curious what other examples there are. Far more TV seems to consist of lots of exciting set-up, but with the writers later admitting they didn't actually know where they were going. I still enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, but it definitely suffered from this. Lost was the epitome of this, and nobody at all seems to have enjoyed its ending.
A better model for most TV seems to be a season arc. Where you've dealt with your Big Bad at the end of the season, but left things open for future ones. Buffy excelled at that.
In any case, the only things I can think of recently that fit this mould are the She-Ra reboot and Steven Universe. And going back fifteen years there's Avatar: The Last Airbender. All of which were animated kid's shows.
I hear Breaking Bad did pay off at the end, with what the creators had been aiming for since the beginning. What else did?
no subject
Two time-travel examples:
Continuum is my favorite time-travel story ever, and it worked hard to make logical sense. (It mostly succeeded.) On long-term arc, let's put it this way -- in the middle of season 2, I concluded "There is only one way this story can possibly end that actually works both logically and as a story", and sure enough: the final scene was almost precisely what I expected it to be. The fact that that was possible speaks to how well-designed the arc was.
I know that many details got adjusted along the way: it actually ran 3.5 seasons, but from the pacing I figured they probably intended 7, and have heard rumors that they had planned 10. Towards the end it is notably rushed, similar to B5 season 4 (there is one storyline that I think was intended to cover an entire season, that wound up turning into ten minutes of exposition). But the story works: the core arc does get resolved in a satisfying way, and it all hangs together decently well.
Similarly, I just finished Dark on Netflix. This is an insanely intricate time-travel story, perhaps an order of magnitude moreso than Continuum. Again, I'm fairly sure that it got cut short: from the pacing of Season 3, I'm pretty sure that they had intended 5 total. And it gets somewhat mystical towards the end. But it's pretty clear that it was tightly planned from the beginning, with lots of stuff that doesn't even make sense until a season or two later, and sticks a decently solid (if rushed) ending. Not as strong a recommendation as Continuum, but still fascinating, if often a tad bleak.
no subject
Additional thoughts, based on a quick skim of my reviews:
Preacher was adapted from the comic book, and at least vaguely follows its arc. Very much a matter of taste, but I think it qualifies.
Gotham arguably qualifies: it was always clear where the story was going (covering Bruce Wayne's life from the death of his parents to the beginning of Batman per se), although I think they were making up most of the details as they went along. Surprisingly good series, if and only if you like grand guignol, and are willing to go with the fact that it is arguably more about the villains than the heroes. (And that Bruce is not in any way the lead.)
I'm pretty sure that Sense8 -- Netflix, from JMS and Lana Wachowski -- was pre-planned. As so often for JMS, it got cut short, but they gave them enough room to tie the story together in what I think was at least vaguely the originally intended form.
That reminds me of Jeremiah, yet another JMS story that got somewhat short. Two seasons, and I'm fairly sure this wound up being a variation of the story he originally intended to tell in Crusade, despite looking very different on the surface. I'm pretty sure it went where it was intended to go.
Buffy is one of the classics of season-long arc; another Joss Whedon story, Dollhouse, may well be a series-long one. Hard to be certain, but it very much has a complete storyline that builds to a rather brutal ending -- I suspect that was planned, but dunno.
And of course, there are zillions of single-season minis out there with strong coherent arcs, Watchmen probably the most notable recent example. But I don't think that's quite what you're asking about.