While the trick or treaters continue to come to the door (which my daughter is having fun staffing), I thought I would share a musing from this morning.
Recently, I’ve gotten into the new NBC program “Heroes“. This program, like the CBS program “Jericho“, is a serialized drama. However, other new serials are failing, and from what I understand, other older serials are running out of steam. This is because serials, by definition, are a closed-end story. Unlike shows such as Law and Order (which are self-contained each episode), or ER (which has a continuing storyline people move in and out of), these serials have a beginning, middle, and end. This is good for the networks, because it makes you want to catch all of them. This is bad for the networks, for (a) people get pissed if they get cancelled before the story is done, and (b) if they get renewed, often the story peters out when it is extended too long.
It seems the network has forgotten a form they originated back in the early 1980s. Originally, the mini-series was a serial program that extended perhaps over 15 episodes. Often they were “events”, being shown over two weeks, but sometimes they went longer. You remember their names: Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, Holocaust. By the 1990s, the miniseries had shortened to a two-night movie. That’s a miniseries jr. in my book.
Many of these serials should be miniseries: they shouldn’t be open ended series. There could be a follow-on miniseries with a similar them, but it would be a new story. This is much cleaner. Does this form sound familiar? Yup: telenovela, although there are some significant differences: (1) the number of episodes is much shorter, and (2) it is not one-per-night.
So, what do you think? Should networks bring back the miniseries?
