Right, and in general, I prefer a short arc. That way it’s no biggie if I miss an epi.
I prefer stand-alone episodes, but with continuity throughout the series (ie, the events of previous shows are sometimes mentioned or built upon later).
Red Dwarf did this really well for the most part, I though- each episode was fairly “stand alone”, but things that happened throughout the series were referenced or acknowledged later.
The first show that I recall using story arcs that used up more than one episode were St Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues and I loved the way they did it. Story arcs ran for as many episodes as required. In any given episode someones arc may begin, someone else’s end and others keep going.
I find with the season long arcs that as soon as I miss one episode, or even a good slab of an episode, and don’t care enough to find the missing episode I never watch again. So I have seen very few of the shows that are popular among members of the Dope.
Burn Notice balances it well. Though I find the single-serving plots to be kind of annoying sometimes. It gets formulaic though they do it tongue in cheek on that show. I enjoyed White Collar which seems to be following the Burn Notice path.
But generally I think the best shows are the long arcs. Very few get it right in its totality. The Sopranos, the Wire, and The Shield all got it right. Battlestar Galactica almost got it right except for the horror that was the final episode, most disappointing finale of any show ever. I think the Shield’s finale was probably the most superb finale of any show ever beating the Sopranos by a nose.
Well Lost is a horridly written piece of garbage that nonetheless finds some way to remain engrossing. I continue to watch it even though I have very little respect for the writers. It’s character driven nature makes it good, it’s plot driven nature where the characters are simply slaves to the poorly written arc makes it tedious.
Well-done shows, IMO, will have several arcs going at once. There’s the plots contained in a single ep, usually A and B, then the season arcs. Those are basic for my preferred kind of show, and if the writers are ambitious they can write in semi-season arcs or a full series arc.
Series arcs are incredibly difficult for reasons already mentioned here: primarily, the writers need to know how many episodes they have. Continuing a series arc over an indefinite number of episodes beyond what’s originally planned will kill a show. I’m usually happy with a simple series premise.
When a show is just episodic, it feels too shallow. It may be a good show, but it doesn’t feel like there’s much meat to it. A larger arc tying episodes together really helps make shows work. On the other hand, a show that focuses on season arcs or at least multi-episode arcs have the disadvantage of not being as rewatchable. I like watching stuff over again, but it’s difficult to pick out a single ep in such a structure.
For dramatic shows, I prefer loose continuity and short story arcs. By loose continuity I mean a common theme or occasional recurring elements such as secondary characters, situations or locales. For story arcs, I prefer them to be wrapped up in three or four episodes, although this is mainly because writers have a tendency to stretch stories well past the breaking point.
For comedies, I generally prefer standalone episodes. Less thinking involved… 