Favorite tv shows

[Albertosaurus Rex]

Are you sure about the five-year span? I stumbled yesterday upon the blog of writer Joseph Mallozzi, where he talks about their plans for season 3, and it strikes me how vague those are. It sounds to me like they were making it all up as they went along, which is of course not uncommon in the tv industry.

More and more recently, it strikes me how unnatural the tv series is as a storytelling medium. For episodic series, fine. But for arc-heavy series? Unlike miniseries, most regular series just chug along as long as the ratings are good. Notable exceptions being Babylon 5 (Always planned as a five-season series, then canceled after the fourth season so they had to hastily wrap it up, which actually worked, but then the series was renewed after all and we got a lame fifth season), Lost (After the third season, the writers were able to strike a deal for the series to end after three more seasons, at which point the pace goes up considerably) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (which plays out as a classic fantasy trilogy).

Here's a thought experiment: plan out three years for each series, giving the story a beginning, middle and end structure. Then make a three-year sequel if the first three years are succesful. (And write the first season to have some sort of closure in case the show gets cancelled.) What do you think?

EDIT: This is my 666th post. Spooky!