A Little More on Seriality
February 19th, 2008 by DylanGoing off of what Bob was saying today, and also what Jenkins talks about, it got me thinking a little more about fandom in relation to series. On the bottom of page 98 and top of 99, Jenkins talks about how Star Trek “remains self-contained.” In each episode a particular problem is usually resolved by the end of that episode. The next episode will be a new adventure. Of course there may be allusions to early episodes, or permanent story changes among episodes, but for the most part they seem to be their own unit. For example, “Amok Time” was my first Trek episode, and I did not have much trouble following everything. I did keep bugging Diana with questions, but mostly out of curiosity.
When reading this part of Jenkins, I immediately compared it to another fandom potent genre, anime. This “self-contained” aspect does not characterize anime at all. For all the Dragon Ball Z fans out there, I have felt the pain all too often of watching a character just charge up and talk the whole episode without throwing a punch. Bob was saying today how TV encourages watching more TV, and anime is completely guilty of that. How can you justify watching two hours of characters talking about how great the fight is going to be and not watch the actual fight? So I guess my first point is that this difference in genres is really interesting. They each use their own type of hook or cliff-hanger.
My second idea is about actual fandom for these genres. On the surface to me, it seems anime would have a lot more room for extended fandom because of the continuity between episodes. It is one long narrative, and rich with information. But Jenkins convinced me otherwise. Because of the seemingly long gaps in between Trek episodes, it invites speculation among fans. The fans have more power because less information is given. There is now more interpretation. What happened between episodes? What happened to those aliens saved a few episodes back? And so on and so forth. I think that is part of the fun of fandom and why it has become so big. This power given to fans is quickly grabbed and put to use.
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I think another opening for fandom, from a corporate perspective (and one that Jenkins often ignores) lies in episodic television shows like Star Trek precisely because you don’t have to watch all of the episodes to be into the show. The best example to me is Law and Order (or pretty much any one of those serial law/cop dramas–Without a Trace, CSI, etc.). I love Law and Order because I can tune in anytime and not be lost–it doesn’t matter if it’s been a week, if the cast has dramatically changed, etc. The show is always understandable and engrossing. This seems like the opposite of the model we were talking about in class–no cliffhangers, no serial plot. This seems related to the fans who don’t participate in cultural fandom–I don’t run into much Law and Order fanfiction. I think that Jenkins in general just misses corporate-designed fandom and where it comes from and what it does.
I don’t really have much experience with anime, but your post and Abby’s comment about the economic/production side of things got me thinking about the high Nielson ratings of shows that do require a great deal of fidelity and sustained viewing like Lost, 24, or Heroes. I wonder what role the rise of cable, with its vast increase in the number of options, and the paradigm of narrowcasting and targetting a more niche, but extremely dedicated audience plays in all this. While these shows have very dedicated fanbases, I would think that the basic cable networks would stick with more episodic models (as they do with CSI and Law and Order) because of the competition from cable networks producing more serialized shows that can nevertheless offer content that networks may not be able to (i.e. violence, profanity, sexual content).
Going off Dylan’s comment of the self-contained nature of Star Trek TOS(TOS=the original series) I find it funny that Star Trek is being used as an example of self-contained episodes. The creators of Star Trek switch between continuity and self-contained episode forms, but have been shifting to continuity.
With the later series, there is a huge shift towards seriality and continuity between episodes. The most extreme example would be the last season of DS9 (Deep Space Nine). Season 7 ends a 2-year long war, several 7-year long arcs, and many multi-episode arcs. Even Voyager and the first two seasons of Enterprise require some previous knowledge to understand many of the episodes.
I’m curious if other franchises have the issue of universe continuity, in terms of linking multiple series together. Several recurring characters show up in multiple Star Trek series (Q being the best example). A couple shows even have characters from one show in another (McCoy on TNG, Riker in VGR). Certain episodes can by understood, but not on quite the same level without certain Star Trek universe knowledge. All subseqent Mirror Universe episodes, for example, need the backround of the TOS episode to make complete sense. Do any other franchises develop inter-series continuity?
I think it’s important to keep in mind when talking about seriality is that it’s not all or nothing–that is a series doesn’t have to be either “serial” or “episodically self-contained”. Producers often try to incorporate aspects of both in order to attract a bigger audience. People obviously enjoy the continuity of serial shows, but the producers don’t want new viewers to say “I haven’t been watching this show, so I can’t start now because I won’t be able to understand/enjoy it”.
The clearest example of producers trying to bridge this gap is by recapping the plot of a serial series during the first few minutes of an episode (eg. “previously on Lost…”).
I actually love those “Previously on…” intros because they remind me of fan vids!
The way they use little pieces of previously seen episodes sometimes entirely out of context to tell the full story of all the subplots discussed in the episode coming up (I’m thinking specifically of “Previously on Gray’s Anatomy”) is similar to the way slash vid makers use little key segments of episodes out of order to tell a new story. Similarly, in a slash video, the clips a story familiar to (almost) everyone watching the video, just as every faithful viewer will already know what has happened in previous Gray’s Anatomy episodes.
I guess the “Previously on” segments are really just a function of how much easier it is these days to re-edit video that you already have into a snappy clip. However, seeing these clips out of order at the beginning of an episode not only reminds a fan viewer of previous episodes they have already watched, but it encourages them to see the moments of film edited together for the clip as not necessarily part of any specific episode unit, but as little kernels of meaning that can be taken out of context and used to convey new meanings.
Maybe?