"Episodic Trek v. Story Arcs"

[master_q 0]

Episodic Trek v. Story Arcs

 

I found this on another community and I would like to know what all of you think of it . . . . .

 

Yes I know it is a bit long, but it’s not that bad

 

Sigh.

 

Things were so much simpler with TOS. People knew it was episodic television, not a soap opera or a miniseries. Connections between shows were limited to things like dead characters' not being around anymore, actors' getting to put a little extra umph into certain lines, a developing relationship, and, just maybe, someone's referring to something from a previous episode in such a way that people wouldn't be confused if they didn't get it.

 

The rules for this arrangement are familiar, but they are not simple. In fact, doing episodic television well is quite demanding, and in some ways more demanding than doing a continuous story.

 

First, one requires a situation where individual characters may grow and develop without changing their fundamental nature, and events may occur that are exciting and varied without destroying that situation. Both the situation and characters must be expandable and contractible at will, yet retain their strength, their believability, and their ability to surprise.

 

Second, one requires some sort of slow development, some place for the show to go despite the fact that the situation remains static. (Bad episodic television does not do this, of course, but the good kind does, to give the show a "point.") This is usually some sort of course of development for a relationship and for personal character growth, but it can also be the development of improved political and/or social circumstances.

 

Third, one requires writers with enough talent and discipline to expand on the situation and characters in original ways while staying within the sometimes torturous confines of the show's original conception. When good episodic television breaks down, this is usually where it occurs.

 

Fourth, one requires actors with enough talent and discipline to remain true to their characters while finding growth and humanity both in the written and unspoken word.

 

Fifth, all these elements must work together with the thousands of other things that make any dramatic production possible -- the directors, the sets, the costumes, the guest stars, the production effects, and all the rest -- to provide a continuous and well-balanced blend of the familiar and the new, the "bible" backbone and as much originality over as many years as the show can stand.

 

Episodic television has become the mainstay of the medium, much more familiar to general audiences than continuous stories, with the exception of soap operas. Miniseries began in the '50s but didn't really hit their stride until the '80s. Recent epics, like Dune, and television shows like Twin Peaks, X-Files, and Babylon5 have recently impressed science-fiction lovers with the possibilities of long story arcs. In particular, some Star Trek fans and detractors have been avid for more plot arcs, and have been bashing Voyager and other such episodic television for "reset buttons" and "lack of continuity."

 

Now, there is no question but that episodic television can get sloppy. With different writers going after their own visions and impressions, and the shows' all being created by committee, momentous events can be too easily ignored in later episodes, continuity can suffer, and genuine inconsistency can, and does, occur. As a consequence, some fans are loudly demanding longer story arcs, and there are rumors circulating that the next series will have a Babylon5-like (or soap opera-like) plot, weaving its way through the seasons.

 

This isn't a good idea.

 

This backlash against episodic television has already created many incorrect expectations by both Star Trek producers and audiences that have stunted and shunned some of the shows' best aspects and imposed ill-fitting structures on the way that Star Trek tells stories. It may be fashionable to weave seasons-long story arcs these days, but that's not the way Star Trek was set up, and the imposition of the foreign structure on top of the show's episodic nature simply doesn't work.

 

The demands of long plots and episodic television are far too different to combine casually.

 

Plots arcs demand a beginning, a middle, and an end. Obviously, episodic TV is missing the end, and thus the middle as well (as it has no end). Just as importantly, the type of beginning needed is different. Episodic TV has to establish the situation immediately while allowing flexibility for possible changes and surprises. Plot arcs require careful crafting in their opening, and are usually done much more slowly, establishing the various storylines so that they may eventually arrive at that end. (Sloppiness in developing the beginning in such a fashion is a huge part of what distinguishes mediocre plot arcs, such as those in soaps, from better plot arcs, such as those in miniseries.)

 

To create a satisfying "middle," plot arcs must have second acts, which introduce further complications without making the audience or the characters lose sight of the original conflicts and goals. These second acts must smoothly incorporate themselves into those original goals, or the story breaks apart.

 

To create a satisfying end, the various storylines of the plot arc must all be either wrapped up completely, or left open to some specific purpose or intent. Obviously, both of these interfere with the demands of episodic TV, which will introduce storylines that are purposefully unresolved. Only in this fashion may episodic TV drop and introduce and drop again various themes and complications and conflicts to mimic the "realistic" comings and goings of the situation and expand on the possibilities of the show.

 

True episodic TV has no end, though and ending of the situation can be imposed. For example, the characters can finally get off the island, the characters can all die, the characters' mission can come to an end. However, this will only be an end to the events, not a "wrapping up" of everything significant that has been explored.

 

This mix of plot arcs and episodic television is particularly troublesome with Star Trek, and for one simple reason: TOS' "Wagon Train to the Stars" creation is one of the best, if not the best, situation ever devised for episodic television. Attempting plot arcs puts the genius of the show to its worst use.

 

To begin with, placing the action aboard a spaceship gives the situation almost infinite mobility in terms of location, conflict, and characters. The ship and the crew can go anywhere, face anything, and meet anyone.

 

Also, the "five year mission" places a time constraint on the show (even before it was canceled) that is completely artificial and realistic at the same time. TOS' situation was limited by an arbitrary time constraint, so no promise was made that any particular event or level of character development would be achieved by the end of the series. Characters and situations could then be resolved or left open depending on the demands of the individual episode and its story and themes, not according to some overseeing influence.

 

Even more importantly, TOS establishes an infinity in its setting, and infinity that again translates to its situation, while setting up rules and contradictions for that space to create a feeling of a "real world." TOS is about "space, the final frontier," but this space is to be explored on a military ship of peace, by a crew from various cultures who all wear the same uniform, among good friends who don't always get along.

 

Thus, we get institutions that are themselves structured yet expandable: Starfleet, the Federation, the Academy, Vulcan, Earth of the Future, the Klingons, the Romulans, warp drive, phasers, and super-intelligent computers.

 

Without worrying about overarching plots, the episodes can focus on their stories while supported by this expandable (but ordered) world. There are rules and goals to establish similar stories, yet an inexhaustible number of scenarios in which to explore the limitations of those rules, and the worthiness of those goals.

 

And here is where we find the true difference between episodic television and plot arcs, though I don't know of a name to call it by. I'll use the term "incidental continuity" for want of something better.

 

In plot arcs, the writing has got to be tight. Plot arcs work constantly against chaos, and the introduction of ultimately unimportant matter, which works so well in episodic television, is death and destruction to plot arcs. In the episodic approach, we meet a murderer, and either he kills someone in that episode or he is thwarted. He may or may not appear ever again. In plot arcs, if we meet a murderer and he doesn't kill someone right away, the odds must be good that he will appear and attempt to murder at some later time. He doesn't absolutely have to, of course, but if he doesn't, the audience will be distracted by him -- and by any like him -- for the rest of the story. Too many distractions, and we have chaos.

 

Since episodic television doesn't have to worry so much about chaos, there is no need for such tight writing, but in good episodic television -- and this is very much a part of Star Trek's appeal -- we get to enjoy the development of incidental continuity. Characters can pop up again just because an episode benefits from it, without its really meaning anything. We can have recurring aliens, recurring worlds, visual and verbal references to things that came before that don't add up to some conspiracy or grand scheme behind it all. Thus we get a nice parallel to the lives most of us know, and to the way things around us generally work from day to day.

 

TNG took over this episodic structure completely, and has used it perfectly. The characters are well-developed from the beginning, but have expanded considerably since then, except for Beverley Crusher. (Gates McFadden definitely has cause for complaint, but that's another article). The situation has remained fairly constant, even though they had to change ships, while having encountered a bewildering variety of locations, aliens, worlds, conflicts, themes, and storylines.

 

Since it's gone to the cinema, TNG has yet to have an "end," but when it does, it will in all likelihood repeat the end of the series, with the sky's being the limit and the human adventure continuing nicely.

 

From its conception, DS9 did not follow the "Wagon Train to the Stars" concept of TOS. The situation here is stationary (oh yeesh, that's a pun), and that caused the show some problems. Aliens come to the station all the time, and there are many away missions, but ultimately the location is the station in Bajoran space next to the wormhole, severely impinging on the show's ability to expand and provide variety to the storylines.

 

Perhaps because of this, the writers of DS9 eventually strayed from the episodic nature of TOS and TNG and created several small story arcs before finally giving us an almost two-season-long plot arc of the Dominion War. The final season in particular was conceived as a plot arc, and the problems with the clash of structures is apparent in almost every episode.

 

Since DS9 had already firmly entrenched itself into the Star Trek universe, the incidental consistency it enjoyed for the first few seasons had to be restructured to give everything the necessary "meaning" to support the plot arc. Thus, many of the original rules and goals of the show were violated or forgotten. The original constraint to the storyline, the inculcation of Bajor into the Federation, was put aside and never mentioned again. The relationships between Federation worlds was altered to suit the needs of the war, such as the on-again, off-again Federation/Klingon Alliance, the bizarre alliance formed with the Romulans, the development of the Breen (barely heard from before) into a full-blown Federation enemy, and the almost incomprehensible back-and-forth political standing of the Cardassians.

 

Worst of all, the characters were manipulated in order to suit the needs of the "new" plot, turning Sisko into a non-human and then having him abandon his pregnant wife and son (this in a character who was introduced as the first captain to have a family life), making the previously fascinating character Dukat into a nutcase and then a pawn of the Pah wraiths, squashing the interior politics of Bajor's provisional government, making the Federation Admirals look like morons, converting the Changeling leader into a nice person because Odo told her something or other, and, finally, scattering the characters to the four winds for motivations we had never really heard of before: O'Brien's wish to go back to Earth, Bashir and Ezri falling in love, etc.

 

Ultimately, as the demands between plot arcs are constantly thwarted by the near-infinite possibilities of episodic television, the story simply gets away from the writers. Multiple storylines are left open for no reason, characters such as Dumar are killed off somewhat meaninglessly, huge events (such as the destruction of Starfleet Headquarters) get cheated out of their meaning and screen time, and friendships/lovers are separated or united in accordance to the plot, not to the characters and their history.

 

Now, don't jump all over me. I love DS9, but the ending was messy and made almost no use of the aspects of Star Trek that has allowed TOS and TNG do to so very well, and so much better than DS9, in syndication.

 

Voyager's conception returned to its Star Trek roots by having the situation once again on a ship, and seemed to be have a great idea in sticking that ship out into the "frontier" once more.

 

Unexpectedly, however, Voyager has proven that "Wagon Train to the Stars" must also be about home as well. Sure, they didn't go to Earth in TOS, but they had contact with home, and the characters were able to revisit locations and meet with recurring aliens and situations.

 

Voyager's situation not only is cut off from almost all dealings with Earth, but has very little of that "incidental consistency" because the ship is always on the move. During the first two seasons, the constant reappearance of the Kazon simply made no sense, and since then there has been such a variety of aliens and worlds and dangers and political structures that, even for episodic television, chaos has threatened more than once.

 

Voyager also suffers somewhat from having an ending that is too well-clarified. As with Gilligan's Island, the adventure cannot continue if the castaways get home. We always know wormholes and time rifts and transwarp coils won't get the ship back to Earth, no matter how smart the Professor is, and we know that when/if Voyager does get home, the crew will almost certainly scatter to the winds once more. It was only a couple seasons ago, in fact, that the crew even seemed to be happy to be together, a constant reminder that the characters themselves want the situation to end. (Fortunately, this has recently improved greatly.)

 

However, Voyager has managed despite these difficulties to be a superior, if somewhat unappreciated, show, somewhat like TOS during its first run. As long as the show ends without destroying itself, and continues to avoid plot arcs, the show should do well in syndication. I have to note that Voyager did try a couple plot arcs, such as Paris' work undercover and Janeway's holonovels, but seemed to figure out early that they weren't working. The "let's get home" situation is a more than adequate plot arc for any space opera.

 

So now there is the issue of the next series. I've wished before that TPTB would just do Star Trek, with a crew on some ship exploring the space around Earth and beyond, but whatever set-up they create, the most important thing is that it recapture the episodic purity of TOS and TNG, exploiting all the best of expansion and development, along with the chaos-negating delights of the Star Trek universe and its incidental continuity. For this reason, more than any other, I really hope the next show isn't set in the past, as this will severely curtail its ability to do all these things.

 

As for the rest, whatever. Have an alien captain, or not. Make it a rag-tag bunch, or not. Make it another great ship, or a garbage scow. Just give us a tall situation, and a star to steer her by, and we Trekkers will be there to cheer it on.

 

 

Here is one of the replies from one person . . . . . . . .

Note those last two paragraphs and the almost prophetic way she describes what eventually became Enterprise, both how that show has succeeded and how it has failed. Being set in the past has hurt Enterprise, to an extent, because it has caused many fans to have expectations about the stories that will be told on this series that would be unreasonable for any other show. Enterprise is not just a prequel to a TV show; it's a prequel to an entire franchise, and maintaining perfect continuity is almost impossible because of the contradictions that exist within the franchise itself. With Enterprise, the writers are constantly walking on a tightrope, and when they stumble there is hell to pay on either side. It's sad that Trekkies need to be so pedantic, but it's nevertheless a fact of life.

 

Perhaps that's why the show's concept is being changed so drastically; the writers don't want to have to deal with being lambasted for continuity violations anymore, so they're just avoiding these problems all together and taking the show off somewhere to the side, where they can develop the characters the way they want to and tell science fiction stories with more freedom. Perhaps eventually the plan to bring the ship out of this Delphic Expanse or whatever and reintroduce Enterprise to the established Star Trek universe, continue the show with a whole new energy to it. Perhaps Season 3 should be thought of as some kind of active hiatus? I don't know, but in any case, it still feels like a major cop-out to me. They're afraid of the challenges it poses, so they run away. Pathetic.

 

About this whole "reset button" thing...perhaps the people who make that criticism have a point, about the ship taking heavy damage one week but not showing it the next (frankly I can't recall when this ever actually happened), but here's the thing: I, for one, never really noticed it, and wouldn't have particularly cared even if I had. I'm perfectly willing to believe that B'Elanna Torres and her engineering crew could repair any damage to the ship in a week. OK, come to think of it, there is one example I can think of: "Deadlock." Voyager was torn to bits in that episode, and the next week it was fine. B'Elanna said however that she could have the ship fixed by the next week, and she did, so that just proves that she's a competent engineer. I still see no reason to get excited. After watching a Voyager episode I'm always more interested in the new story I see the next night rather than wondering about the lingering effects of the episode before, and if there really is something to wonder about, usually it's touched on again. There are a few gripes I can make about the show's continuity, but far too few to make me hate the show, (like the woman who wrote that article said, she loved DS9, even though she can acknowledge its faults), and no more than in any of the other series (or any show on TV for that matter). I don't expect perfection like some other fans do, nor am I under the delusion that perfect Trek ever existed or ever will exist. In general, when the "reset button" is pushed, I tend not to think about such things.

 

Sometimes the reset button was not only acceptable, but necessary. Had it not been for the reset button, "Year of Hell" would have pretty much been the end of Voyager. And WOW, what a spectacular series finale THAT would have been (seriously), but still...having that whole episode be erased from history was kind of necessary. It was such a brilliantly written and powerful two-part episode though that the use of the reset button is more than forgiveable, as is the fact that the events of that episode didn't entirely jive with "Before and After" (but hey, it was an alternate timeline, so...). The same is true for "Timeless," an overrated but nevertheless pretty good episode that would have been impossible were it not for the reset button. So is having self-contained episodes rather than extended, cumbersome story arcs really such a bad thing? I don't think so, especially not when it comes to Trek. That's the way it's been done for 35 years; there's no sense in fixing something that isn't broken, lest you risk breaking it while fixing it.

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

[~Crims~ 0]

Not going to read all of that but I think story arcs are great when done correctly. It gives the series a really epic feel and usually a highly anticipated and well done climax that lends itself to very good television in my opinion.

[Captain Jean-Luc Picard 1]

I prefer episodic shows and story-arc filled shows. It depends on the premise, really.

[xenexian 2]

Well, that was quite the read just to compare the two lines of reasoning, episodic vs story arc. It may have been a little long winded, and it does bring a few good points into the picture, but I don't agree with the final assessment. I believe that what it comes down to is how well the story lines written in either genre. I personally prefer the continuing storyarc rather than the episodic. DS9 was exceptional doing this and hardly destroyed the idea of how star trek is done at all. In fact, it made it much more watchable and enjoyable then any of the others. I find it far more satisfying to have a complex story that can take the entire season or more then one season for that matter, than just to deal with a weekly new adventure. When you have to involve yourself in the characters and their respective histories, the viewer feels as if they become part of the program as well and missing an "episode" of the story line is tantamount to skipping chapter 6 to go to chapter 8. Why would you want to do this? As the viewer becomes more wrapped up in the story and the characters, the viewer finds themselves scheduling a part of their weekly schedule to watch, "What happens next". This keeps viewers interested and coming back for more and brings in more viewers as word of mouth spreads as to what is happening. This is the formula that soap operas or daytime dramas have used since the days of radio and is a proven successful formula. If it works for Star Trek, I would hardly use the line of fixing something that isn't broke. DS9 broke the mold and didn't break the way Start Trek was done at all. It improved it and it worked. If one looks at the rage of what passes for television nowadays, the reality shows are ALL continuing storyarcs and have been very successful (i.e. Survivor, The Batchelor and Joe Millionaire just to name a few). One reason that was not given as to why Paramount would prefer episodes rather then continuing storys, is that it's easier to sell the shows in syndication when you can show any episode in any order and not have to worry about what the viewer may have missed in an chronologically earlier show. It keeps the casual viewer interested in watching re-runs if they don't have to commit to a daily schedule. As for the true blue trek fans, who will watch any Start Trek show at anytime, this is a moot point. But for the bean counters who watch the dollars of shows in syndication, this becomes a valuable point in keeping the show on the air somewhere and any time. For those, like the writer of the post that started this, perhaps the problem doesn't lie with the just the preference of episodic vs storyarc, but with the attention span of the viewer. A point that I have brought up in the past is that todays television viewers have shorter attention spans then the viewers of the past. A fact that rears it's head in other fields as well, not just viewing habits. The MTV generation of production is prevalent in just about everything on tv today and requiring a viewer to have to pay attention may be almost asking too much. Is a continuing storyarc better overall? You bet. Give me a reason to keep coming back week after week to find out what happens next draws on basic human curiousity, a very powerful trait and doesn't allow me to just watch a particular show because of some perceived loyalty to a franchise or actor, but to a very real feeling of a saga to follow. Because of all this, DS9 in it's entirety, as well as selcted episodes of Voyager and TNG that contained these elements, are the ones that seem to be remembered the best and at times, brings up the most debate. Sorry, but after all this, I'll take my continuing and evolving storyarc of DS9 over all others and as far as the stand alone episodes go, they're fun when you see them again but adds little to the whole idea of an expanding Federation and the feeling of "Time Marches On". I'll get off my soapbox now.

[gul_nodrog 2]

I can't read all that ... she lost me around the fourth paragraph or so.

 

Look, I can only speak for myself, but DS9 was the BEST of all Trek series bar none. I preferred it's indepth exploration of all the characters, both main and secondary AND I really enjoyed the fact that you had to have at least a little intellect to get the show. Did a good job of eliminating the casual viewer, though, but I really don't care about that (or them). It gave me what I wanted out of Trek and now that I have all seven seasons on DVD, I can watch a seven season story arc any time I want too!

[Dark Reality 0]

I can't read all that ... she lost me around the fourth paragraph or so.

 

Look, I can only speak for myself, but DS9 was the BEST of all Trek series bar none. I preferred it's indepth exploration of all the characters, both main and secondary AND I really enjoyed the fact that you had to have at least a little intellect to get the show. Did a good job of eliminating the casual viewer, though, but I really don't care about that (or them). It gave me what I wanted out of Trek and now that I have all seven seasons on DVD, I can watch a seven season story arc any time I want too!

:P

 

Actually, I'm trying to get a casual Trek fan (sorta - my fiancée) hooked on DS9. You really have to watch the whole thing to appreciate it, but I agree completely. There are some aspects of Voyager I miss (that's after DS9 for us... could be a couple years though) but nothing beats DS9, before or after.