[ SECRET POST #2954 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2954 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.
[Phineas & Ferb]


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.
[Roger Delgado]


__________________________________________________



06.
(Dangan Ronpa)


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.
[All Time Low]


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 024 secrets from Secret Submission Post #422.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. http://i.imgur.com/McWALIo.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

No matter what show I'm into,
I can't get into the episodes
that are about the "big arc."
I watch for the characters,
and stand alone eps are always
better at focusing on the
characters than arc episodes.

S!B: I'm doing it wrong.

Re: Transcript by OP

[(Anonymous)]

It depends on who's writing the show. Some shows are really good at developing the long arc and some shows aren't. I don't think character development is contingent on whether the show is monster of the week or a long arc though. I've watched a few shows that were great at developing their characters while maintaining long term arcs even over the course of seasons. And I've watched monster of the week shows that were really hit and miss with their character development especially long term.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, you are

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, expert fan!

[kallanda_lee]

I'm your polar opposite - but that being said, it's not that unusual. And certainly in earlier TV, big arcs were not even often being done.

[cushlamochree]

I feel the same way about a lot of shows. Sometimes you just like the characters and you just want to watch them do stuff, you know?

[badass_tiger]

Nah, I see where you're coming from. If I like a show and its characters, I'm going to watch every episode to get as much of them as I can, but I usually prefer watching the standalone episodes since they do best at showing what the characters are really like.

[lb_lee]

I generally dislike big arcs because I am so bad at watching TV that I will invariably miss at least one episode, at which point I won't know what's going on.

The whole reason I got into the idea of serials was because I could watch each episode stand alone, while also learning about the larger character arcs that rewarded you for watching over a long period of time, but were more forgiving if you missed a few eps.

--Rogan

[silverr]

I like big arcs to the extent that they develop characterization.

Shamless Show Pimping

[ioanite.livejournal.com]

Eh, I can see where you're coming from; sometimes the characters can be more interesting than the plot.

If you're interested, the new TV show "Forever" is doing this interesting mix-and-match that might work for you. There are a few major plot threads, but instead of focusing on them, the show is mostly going for "case of the week" format, with bits and pieces of information trickling in about the (immortal) main character's life. It's doing a great job at character building, and the big plot arcs are sort of pushed to the side; there's only one episode I can think of other than the pilot that was all about the big story. Maybe it'll pique your interest in the way you like.

Re: Shamless Show Pimping

[(Anonymous)]

OP - Thank you, I will check it. It sounds like my cup of tea.

[manzana]

I actually used to love "big arcs" and think poorly of the more episodic, er, episodes, but now that I'm older I'm just like you.

I'm pretty sure it's because after a while all the "big arc"-type stories start to look alike.

"Nemesis that can't be caught/killed because they're so clever/lucky and acts from the shadows and is so mysterious and unknown for the first eleventy episodes."

"Must keep our shenanigans secret from this person because-"

And so on.

[philstar22]

I totally get it. I myself love big arcs and always tend to not like as much the one-off episodes in the midst of an arc that shift focus away from that arc. To each their own.

[snowcipher]

Depending on the show, I'm this way. It was one of the myriad reasons I quit watching SPN. I always liked the Monster of the Week eps better than the arc on that show and the later seasons had fewer and fewer of them.

[(Anonymous)]

It depends on the genre or specific show, but yeah, me too. In the vast majority of cases, in my experience, TV shows, for reasons both in and out of the writers' control, are not great at maintaining high-quality, interesting, internally consistent arcs over the long-term. Thankfully, at least some of them are really good at writing individual character moments and storylines. Some of the most classic, memorable episodes of TV are stand-alones for a reason. That said, the best writers can manage to put character moments in the big arc eps too.

Fortunately, there's actually no right or wrong way to be a fan. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a jackass whose opinions are worthless, anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Stand alone episodes can definitely be more artistically satisfying, but they can be harder to discuss with other fans. Everything has already been said in the episode if they're good. Long arcs are good because they tease, so giving something for the fans to wonder about.

So I don't think you're doing it wrong. It's just that discussion is stimulated more by longer arcs because they're stories that are essentially works in progress. There's less discussion about stand alone episodes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're less liked.

[(Anonymous)]

You're not alone, OP. I tend to dislike the big story arcs, too. They pull in lots of viewers but I think they're often poorly done.

[brooms]

same, going all the way back to txf. drawn out mytharcs are a mess.

[(Anonymous)]

That's why I love Leverage. Their season arcs were CHARACTER arcs, so you had the best of both worlds re: both characterization and continuity porn.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't feel that it's always true that stand-alone episodes do characters better than big arc episodes. For one thing, big arc episodes are more likely to be written by the core writers.

...Though come to think of it, I'm basing this largely on Farscape, and the major arc of Farscape was mostly "this poor schmuck tries to stay alive, no less sane, with no fewer of his friends, and possibly get home". I guess it depends on how much the arcs have to do with the characters!

[nightscale]

It depends on the show for me, some I want nothing more than MoTW-type episodes where everything is done and dusted in an hour, and others I want a nice long story-arc going over an entire season. I think it's all down to what kind of show it is tbh.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I think it depends on the show structure and season pacing. 26-week arcs almost always suck, especially if they're shoe-horned into a structure like murder-of-the-week. Then there was Agents of SHIELD which couldn't figure out if it was a weird-of-the-week or serial, so it combined the worst of both world by dropping the word "Tahiti" into awkward moments.

"Hey Coulson! What about that plot device that's gone nowhere and done nothing for the last half-dozen episodes?"

"It's a magical place!"

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

The X-Files did me in on this. I was completely wrapped in the myth arc and tried to piece it together and apart for years... until I realized no questions were ever actually going to be answered, and instead we were only going to ever get more questions that contradicted the previous ones. It was so unwieldy and top-heavy that I gave up entirely on it, since to enjoy fiction, I require some kind of internal logic and believable if-then consequences.

But that still left me those delicious monster-of-the-week episodes. They are great for the character and fun quotient, and hold up over time. These days quality monster(or whatever)-of-the-week with good character work is what I really look for in a show. Too much arc makes me nervous. I don't want my plot heart broken again by open-ended, jenga-tower nonsense. I'll just have my procedural morsels of reliable goodness, thank you.

[cloudtrader]

I completely understand. My first online fandom was The X-Files (Gossamer Archives, GO!) and I always loved the monster-of-the-week episodes way more than the myth-arc episodes.

I think it comes down to integration as well as characterization, too. Of all the TV shows I've enjoyed, Babylon 5 was, I think, the best at having every episode be a good stand-alone while also addressing the wider arc.