Are American tv shows stuck in Act 2 for their entire runtime between season 1 and final season?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think the shows with long term success either have multiple independent or semi-independent story arcs or they have a well defined story arc that lasts for the entire run of the show. The characters grow and change as the show progresses which keeps the audience interested.
Where they run into trouble is when the constraints built into the structure of the show limit the number of possible stories, but success leads to them trying to keep the show running after all possibilities have been used. At that point, the show becomes repetitive and boring.
Writing this, I'm reminded of the show, Scrubs.
Scrubs was an excellent show for the entirety of it's 8 season run. The concept allowed for a story arc that lasted the whole run, specifically the story of JD and his friends learning and developing as doctors from first year residents to attendings. There is a natural progression during that process that allows for individual growth of the characters and accommodates natural shifts in storylines to allow for new topics for episodes. In addition there are countless opportunities for different individual smaller story arcs to make each episode able to stand alone as it's own tale.
Because there was a built-in plan creating a structure for the life of the show, they were able to maintain quality and audience interest for all 8 seasons.
If the producers had foolishly tried to squeeze more seasons out of the show after they had exhausted the original concept, they would have inevitably failed. The result would have been a weak and pathetic shadow of the previous seasons and would have rapidly lost the patience of the audience.
Eh, Scrubs suffered a lot from trying to find ways of keeping the characters somewhat together and on the hospital. Also, even if not relevant to the topic, flanderization utterly fucked Scrubs from season 5ish onwards.
Man, Scrubs was great. Still one of my favorite shows ever
Hot take: Scrubs Season 8 was weak. Dr. Cox as chief was lame, the new interns were lame, the Janitor’s wedding was lame.
Season 9 was actually a bit of a dead cat bounce.
dead cat bounce
Scrubs had its problems too. It just didn't matter as much because its a comedy first.
For example: Elliott took like 6 seasons to gain confidence. Probably because JD kept trying to get with her then being an idiot and breaking up.
I think the point of the question is that the producers get greedy midway. And stop the progress so they can go indefinitely. Then when the show is cancelled the finish the story arcs in the final season.
Once they realize they have a potential cash cow on their hands they do whatever they can to ensure that they can milk it as long as possible. S1 has no gaurentee of being a hit when its made so show producers put their all into crafting an enjoyable show. Once it becomes purely about extending its life as much as possible. Usually turning the story to crap in the process. I call this 'the Dexter effect"
Sounds like enshittyfication for series.
You see it pretty clearly with Stranger Things. In S1 each character has a specific purpose or role they fill in the story to back up the themes the show wants to explore, and they excel at that role. S1 is great, and they weren't expecting to get an S2. But they did.
Now those same characters, with their specific roles? Well now they need to change (because you're telling a different story), and they aren't a super great fit for the new roles they have to play. It still kinda works, but the show's themes become muddled and you're banking a lot on the audience's love of the characters now. Still a success.
Now we get to S3 and S4 and we have to change the characters' roles even more! Entire storylines from previous seasons have now gone to waste, and many characters are far from their initial roles and don't feel as interesting or compelling as they used to be - because they were never meant to get this far. They're cogs jammed into new and unfamiliar spaces to try and get this machine to keep running. And it lurches and jerks its way forward with the addition of fresh parts (Eddie Munsen being the best of them) but it's a far cry from the efficient, effective show it was in S1.
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.
Showrunnners are never absolutely sure how many more seasons they'll get. If a show is popular, they could end up having to continue it after a conclusion. Or the show could be popular but corporate priority could be elsewhere, and they'll be forced to wrap up promising storylines quickly. Even for shows that announce they have plans for a beginning, middle and end, it's possible that they'll be cancelled before end planned ending, or else have to stretch after the ending has been reached. Safer is to try to just coast along, being non-committal about major plot elements, until something happens that pushes the show to resolve things.
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.
And then just think about how many fantastic shows get cancelled in their first or second seasons. I'm still bitter and upset by Almost Human.
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? :)
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.
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.
"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.
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
Some shows do a better job than others of having a satisfying arc in every episode. The Boys comes to mind in the sense that every single episode has a cool, self-contained story that gets resolved by the end of the episode, as well as an overarching story that spans the season.
Funnily enough, The Boys came to my mind as a negative example. It feels like every season hints at big things coming, but then the finale just kinda resets everything without those big things actually happening. And then the next season starts with them having to get the gang back together again.
I largely enjoyed the most recent season but the finale killed any excitement I might have had for the next season. The finale really avoided resolving anything at all, and basically undid as much as it was possible to undo.
See also The Walking Dead.
I agree with your assessment of the most recent season finale, but I would say in general every season has done a good job of having something cool happen in every episode. Like in the sense that each episode has a complete narrative arc. That's not to say that the whole show doesn't tease you a bit, but the individual episodes still have satisfying stories.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.