What’s up with all the “Event TV” among new TV series?
Lost, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Invasion, Revelation, The 4400 and so on are good examples of this (although admittedly, Desperate Housewives is the only one of which I’ve watched an entire episode). There seems to be a strong trend of always keeping in touch with the original premise of the pilot, or building towards just one event (or both), seemingly forever.
Scrubs, Smallville, Joey and other regular series and sitcoms contrast with the above in that while the premise may be strong, the plot keeps progressing, and the individual episode doesn’t seem like just a means of progressing towards an end. Additionally, you don’t find yourself wondering where the hell the series would be going once the event in question has passed.
I guess the feeling I’m trying to get across here is that what I dub Event TV are shows whose entire basis feel like nothing but a single emancipated plot arc. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the thing is that we had a word for these kinds of creatures, and that was “mini-series”.
Am I completely wrong in thinking this?