h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As someone who hasn't watched much TV in the past 10 years, the idea of having a background story arc that climaxes at brings together everything at the end of the season seems relatively new to me.

Obviously shows always had continuity and background setting, but rarely can I remember TV series have an arc behind them. The opposite is soap operas where lots carries over and there are few discrete episodes.

Doctor Who's 1978 Key to Time season would be an exception although it also demonstrates the point. Collecting the Crystals was rather incidental to each story and the final scene only took up a few minutes with the Black Guardian. Today's storyarcs seem much more intertwined.

My question is what TV series did the idea of the story arc originate on? For some reason I feel it'll be The X-Files?

Apparently the first TV show to use a proper story arc as a plot device was I Love Lucy.

Most American dramas talk in terms of arcs, but I think one of the first times this industry term became well known was in Babylon 5, where the fans became very aware of the intentions of the production team because of the mention of planned arcs in interviews with writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski. B5 aired a few months before The X Files in the US.

For Russell T Davies though, the main inspiration was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's said he was mulling over the idea that became Torchwood before Doctor Who came along because he felt that UK TV could and should attempt something along those lines. That structure of an emotional build, structured highpoints and a series finale all come from Buffy; this kind of strategic planning simply didn't exist in the original series - where we had Caves of Androzani followed by The Twin Dilemma, and where episodes were planned much more on budgetary lines than whether or not the story had enough material to support more episodes (cf The Sensorites, The Mutants, The Armageddon Factor).

Ys in Babylon 5 the whole 5 seasons was apparently plotted out before the series was filmed.

Except that B5 had to shift things around a little due to network uncertainty. For example, season 4 plot was meant to continue into season 5 some distance, but when a question mark appeared over whether season 5 would happen, that bit of plot had to be condensed into season 4, and so season 5 felt half a season too long.

Basically, if you stop at the end of season 4, and then jump to the last episode of season 5, you haven't really missed all that much....

But anyway, on the subject of plot arcs, there is something of an arc back in Gerry Anderson's UFO series in the 70's. It's not neccessarily a very strong arc, but it is there. For example, there is a man who joins the SHADO organisation in the first episode, and you see his character develop during the series, amongst other things.


Geggs

Oh they *had* arcs in other shows, it's just no-one really called them that. It was just 'ongoing storyline'

Or they called it an "arc" when it was only a couple of episodes...

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Interesting that SJA doesn't have much of a story arc that I've noticed ... although I haven't seen the final episode of any season!

No, it's had recurring characters, but not actually an "arc" per se.

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It's a bit more subtle with SJA. They sometimes drop hints in early episodes that are followed up in later ones, such as Sarah Jane's parents in series two. There's also a lot of cross-referencing episodes, but generally they're more self-contained than in Torchwood or Doctor Who.