I prefer a nice blend. A season long arc (or longer) usually means bad things will happen to characters you like over and over again which can turn into a slog. A good MoTW episode is a nice palate cleanser. Supernatural is an excellent example of this. The most fun episodes were MoTW but I enjoyed the myth. I guess I’m in the minority who thinks it was good until the end. The arcs were better in the beginning but some of the more enjoyable individual episodes were later. X-Files would have been the same if it didn’t turn out the arc was a muddled mess that they made up as they went along.
The Mythology episodes stay with me. The other one’s not so much. I like the guy who lives under the escalator but only comes out to feed every 100 years. Those episodes stick with me. Is this the discussion we are having?
In most shows, the mythology is fun. In X-Files, the mythology was annoying. If the Grand Conspiracy was really that intent on keeping their secrets, then they should have either tried to recruit Mulder and Scully, or just killed Mulder and Scully, and gotten it over with.
I think you’ve got it flipped. The guy what lives in the escalator (Eugene Tooms) is a MOTW, despite CSM featuring in the episode.
But, but…Mulder is CSM’s illegitimate love child and is protected, and his sister was traded to the aliens for a pack of smokes, and Scully carried the Not!Alien Miracle Baby and was infected with the black oil mix (what about the BEES, Agent Scully!) and the cabal is researching whether excessive masturbation with crappy porn is protection from alien attack so no, Mulder is Our Best Hope!
Same with Phillip Stroh (masterfully played by Billy Burke), the ongoing big baddie in Major Crimes, who could manipulate ANYone, show up ANYwhere, and had a guy who could hack into ANYthing (including the Smart Whiteboard at police HQ to learn all about the cops’ next moves, by watching them strategize in real time). Talk about over the top…
Definitely the mythology. That’s what I’m after in any horror/sci-fi work. Scary and creepy is OK, but to be compelling there has to be some mythology or backstory behind it that is slowly being revealed, that’s why I’m watching, and what the best ones do well (where you are left guessing as to whats actually going on but its gradually revealed over the course of the story). Its why I have no interest in slasher movies (the mythology is “there’s a dude with a knife who likes stabbing people”, er ok, why should I watch that?)
It’s also why X-files jumped the shark for me the moment I realized there was no actual mythology, there was no grand conspiracy tying all the events of x-files together that would one day be revealed, it was a just a bunch of stuff the writers made up on the fly to get through the next “alien conspiracy” episode.
I agree about sci-fi and horror where done well, and I agree with you that X-files was definitely not well. DS9, on the other hand, had a really good story arc that had an excellent ending. Regarding detective / cop shows, however, I have yet to see a good mythology storyline. NCIS and Law & Order in all their various iterations are the two biggest offenders, but I’m sure others are just as bad.
Yeah the nearest to a “mythology” is where you have a long running storyline throughout the whole series, e.g. in Monk where there is long running storyline concerning who killed Monk’s wife (though generally that is closer to X files where its whatever the writers need to move the story forward this season, rather than a fully fleshed out mythology that is a gradually revealed)
Another fan of Monster of the Week.
I prefer Monster Of The Week…unless the monster is weak (har har har)
OK I get it now. Yes I’m a monster of the week fan.
I’m torn. Much like @Miller, it depends greatly on the show.
Is it character driven? Is it story driven? Was it well plotted, or a mess of different writers trying to figure out what the prior writers were doing?
When it’s well written and directed, I’m generally more a mythology person, especially for shows that are largely controlled from beginning to end by a single vision, such as Babylon 5. If the show is a hot mess with a cool concept, or almost entirely character driven, then MotW works.
And that leaves out series that change abruptly mid-run.
For example, a guilty pleasure of mine was Dark Angel of Jessica Alba fame. While it was never perfect, I really liked the first season, which had a solid if unoriginal mythology (although not all myth episodes were well done). It also had MotW and Social issue of the week episodes.
Season two jettisoned 90% of the prior mythology, created a new (stupid) one, and was meanwhile mostly monster of the week which were . . . terrible. The combination of both was somehow worse than the sum of it’s parts.
Still, I’m the sort of GM that spends tens of hours building the background and setting of a world, but half-asses the mechanics of getting from A → B and what the characters are supposed to be doing to keep them interested in my world, so that’s a pretty clear symptom of myth addicts.
Looking back at Castle, the overarching story about the murder of Beckett’s mother was actually pretty good for the most part. Although I probably wouldn’t have missed it if they hadn’t bothered with it at all, I think it was generally well-written, wasn’t too obtrusive and was wrapped up in a timely fashion so the show could move on to other things. Er, I mean, it was wrapped up in a timely fashion until, unhappily, the writers decided to dredge it up for Season 8. I don’t know why they did that. There was plenty of fresh material to explore in Beckett’s promotion as well as the possibility of her running for office that had been tossed out there. But they decided to warm up some leftovers instead. Bleah.
There are some shows that lean a little more heavily on the season arc storylines, but also include a MOTW element. In those cases, I greatly prefer the mythology episodes, or portions of episodes. Some examples:
Battlestar Galactica (new version)
The Wire
Breaking Bad (ok very little MOTW in this one)
Better Call Saul
Picard
The Orville (after s1)
The Witcher
Andor? (not much MOTW here, but there is some)
The Mandalorian
I loved the “monster-of-the-week” episodes. The “mythology” ones, not so much.
That would be two of us. Even when there were Big Bad Guy arcs, the individual episodes boiled down to them jumping in the car and driving around killing monsters.
Someone that didn’t watch the show would probably think it’s all hyperbole. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s also what stopped me from watching the last few years. I also totally passed on the movies.
The ones in your list that I have seen, I would not think MOTW applies to them at all. Galactica, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul… Probably The Wire and The Mandalorian too. Maybe just splitting hairs tho.
The ones in your list that I have seen, I would not think MOTW applies to them at all. Galactica, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul … Probably The Wire and The Mandalorian too. Maybe just splitting hairs tho.
I am considering it MOTW if the main thrust of the episode is a new conflict that gets resolved within that episode. Galactica definitely has a LOT of episodes like this. Better Call Saul and the Mandalorian too. (with Mandalarion, often it is quite literally a monster-of-the-week). It’s harder to argue for Breaking Bad and the Wire to be MOTW shows, but there are quite a few episodes where the focus is on a single episodic conflict.
I’d call the two types episodic vs story arc shows.
Okay, I see what you are getting at. I think of it a bit differently, but like I said, just splitting hairs.