Episodic Series

Abandoning anthologies, producers and writers increasingly developed episodic series, first used on radio in 1929. In this format, main characters continue from week to week, sets and locales remain the same, and technical crews stay with the program. The episodic series comes in two general types: chapter shows and serial programs.

image
DOWNTON ABBEY, a British period-drama series, has amassed a large international fan base since premiering in the United Kingdom in 2010. Part of PBS’s Masterpiece Classic anthology, each Downton Abbey season depicts a distinct period in English history and in the personal lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their live-in servants. In the second season, the Earl of Grantham, and head of the Crawley family estate, creates a makeshift hospital in his home to treat soldiers wounded in World War I, an act of charity that initially disrupts day-to-day life at the family’s sprawling country house.
213

Chapter shows are self-contained stories with a recurring set of main characters who confront a problem, face a series of conflicts, and find a resolution. This structure can be used in a wide range of sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory (2007– ) and dramatic genres, including adult westerns like Gunsmoke (1955–1975); police/detective shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000– ); and fantasy/science fiction like Star Trek (1966–69). Culturally, television dramas often function as a window into the hopes and fears of the American psyche. For example, in the 1970s police/detective dramas became a staple, mirroring anxieties about the urban unrest of the time, precipitated by the decline of manufacturing and the loss of factory jobs. Americans’ popular entertainment reflected the idea of heroic police and tenacious detectives protecting a nation from menacing forces that were undermining the economy and the cities. Such shows as Ironside (1967–1975), Hawaii Five-O (1968–1980), The Mod Squad (1968–1973), and The Rockford Files (1974–1980) all ranked among the nation’s top-rated programs during that time.

In contrast to chapter shows, serial programs are open-ended episodic shows; that is, most story lines continue from episode to episode. Cheaper to produce than chapter shows, employing just a few indoor sets, and running five days a week, daytime soap operas are among the longest-running serial programs in the history of television. Acquiring their name from soap product ads that sponsored these programs in the days of fifteen-minute radio dramas, soaps feature cliff-hanging story lines and intimate close-up shots that tend to create strong audience allegiance. Soaps also probably do the best job of any genre at imitating the actual open-ended rhythms of daily life. Popular daytime network soaps include As the World Turns (1956–2010) and General Hospital (1963– ).

Another type of drama is the hybrid, which developed in the early 1980s with the appearance of Hill Street Blues (1981–87). Often mixing comic situations and grim plots, this multiple-cast show looked like an open-ended soap opera. On occasion, as in real life, crimes were not solved and recurring characters died. As a hybrid form, Hill Street Blues combined elements of both chapter and serial television by featuring some self-contained plots that were resolved in a single episode as well as other plot lines that continued from week to week. This blend has been used by many successful dramatic hybrids, including The X-Files (1993–2002), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Lost (2004–2010), TNT’s The Closer (2005–2012), and AMC’s Breaking Bad (2008–2013) and Walking Dead (2010– ).