TV Tuesday: Seasons and An Announcement

[yourlibrarian]

Do you prefer short seasons for your shows, long seasons, or no seasons at all, like soap operas that go on without a clear break? What do you consider the minimum number of episodes to make up an effective season of a TV show?

Also, an announcement! Starting January 12 the mods would like to kick off a weeklong rec fest. Although people do rec shows on other days, we thought a tagged recs event would help newcomers find shows they might enjoy more easily.

So for 7 days of genres we'll have Sunday: Family viewing/Children's Shows, Monday: Comedies, Tuesday: Dramas, Wednesday: Sci Fi/Fantasy, Thursday: Mysteries or Horror, Friday: Romances, and Saturday: Miscellaneous (any shows you don't think fit the other categories!)

We hope you'll put together some recs to share over the next month -- they can be shows you've discussed before in other tv_talk posts, new things you've just tried out, or shows others have recced before!

Comments

[shadowkat]

Depends on the show? Some shows fit a six to ten episode arc better, others need more time.
I love serials - which usually require a longer arc to build character and develop story, as do fantasy and sci-fi. However a good tight story told within six to ten episodes is wonderful.

In short, I don't really have a preference? I'm not a fan of the episodic style series, where it's basically a lot of stand-a-lone mystery/case/crisis/monster of the week, and the characters change in small bite-size snippets each season.

The minimum is six, preferably 10, I can kind of see why the requirement of 13 was in place for DVD releases. But I think 6-10 is the best minimum. Maximum 22 per season, unless it is a soap opera or serial.

[yourlibrarian]

Your comment about the episodic style made me realize it does depend on the type of show for me. For example, with mysteries I prefer to have 80% mystery and 20% personal character plot. I like learning about them and seeing some character development, but prefer it to take a backseat to the plot.

It also depends though on whether there is an A and B plot. The recent season of D.I. Ray was a good example as there was the police case plus an internal affairs type plot. Examining the system characters work in makes for a good substitute (to me) of a lot of specific character development.