In modern continuous works (largely tv shows at this point in time, but also comic books and other media) there are few ‘one-shots’ anymore. Obviously, books are the largest exceptions, but even many movies nowadays feel like they’re all either remakes, reboots, prequels, or sequels. Everything is linked to something else because why spend all of the money to make one of something when (if people like it) they’ll pay to come see another with less advertisement? And I’m sure that’s how a lot of consumers have come to see it. But from the perspective of a writer, it’s fantastic. Why? Because serial works have something that episodic works tend not to have. What is the difference between the two? I’m going to use TV shows as my ‘medium’, but you can apply this to any form of media.
A serial work is one where each episode builds off of previous episodes, and sets up future episodes. Episodic works, on the other hand tend to just rehash the same setting, but with a new plot. Rather than try and strictly define a midpoint, I’ll just say that it’s a vague continuum; everything is a little bit episodic and a little bit serial, but some works are way more episodic (Whose Line is it Anyway?) and others are way more serial (Lost). If you tune into a random episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? odds are you’ll understand it just fine. You might miss a few of the jokes that are more recurring jokes, but they’ll probably still be funny. On the other hand, the first time I tuned into Lost, I was — pardon the pun — lost. They were on an island, and an unknown monster — I was hoping they’d crashed on a prehistoric island and it was a dinosaur –was attacking them, and I had no idea why they were hiding in trees from a boar, and why the boar couldn’t be seen and then the next episode I tuned into I think there was a ghost or something and they were living in a bunker and pressing this button and all I could think was WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONSTER? WAS IT A DINOSAUR? IS THAT WHY THERE’S A BUNKER? AND WHY ARE THEY PUSHING THAT BUTTON?
So I understand why TV shows are at least somewhat episodic. Who has the same chunk of time open EVERY day? Who will NEVER miss an episode? What about that random guy who sits down and turns the show on, is he going to keep watching if he can’t figure it out? Books on the hand, are inherently serial. You don’t sit down, pick up a book, flip to a random page, and start reading. So if somebody criticized a book for not making sense when you started halfway through, we’d laugh at them. But we do sort of expect that to be possible with TV (less so in the age of TiVo, which I think explains the success of shows like Game of Thrones). And I think we understand that book series’ and comic book series’ are part of one ‘book’, so to speak. Nobody buys just book 2 of a series.
Fistful of Wits 