Matthew Gilbert in the Boston Globe this week described how 'Lost' leaves us wanting more. Lost is very good TV but it's falling under its own weight of unresolved mysteries. Adam Sternbergh in New York Magazine writes about How to fix shows like 'Lost'. His point is that ongoing shows about a mystery have a problem that if they resolve the mystery the show ends. So shows like the X-Files, Twin Peaks, and Lost all have this inherent conflict. "Puzzles are meant to be solved, not prolonged." His solution is to design the series to be run for just a couple of seasons. This makes a lot of sense but it's hard for networks to end successful shows.
I really enjoyed Prison Break last season but it did seem a little stretched that the breakout didn't occur till the season finale. This season they've put aside the plot of who killed the vice president's brother and framed the star's brother, as all the escaped cons go their own way but converge on the lost stash of D.B. Cooper, while trying to avoid the cops. The premise is good and it was exciting, but this is a show that should only last a season or two, not 5 or 6.
The first show I remember having running story lines (and to use the term arcs to describe them) was Wiseguy. This started in 1987 and ran for 4 seasons. It was about a cop deep undercover into organized crime. He had between 1 and 3 cases a season which gave us plenty of time to meet the bad guys in depth (Kevin Spacey was one of them, and not the best one) and explore various issues. Murder One was a lawyer show with a case lasting a whole season. It didn't do very well. Babylon 5 was a good sci-fi series, originally designed to be 5 seasons long. It was a miracle it lasted for all 5 years, but it did and the best part of the show was the unfolding story and the rich universe that was developed with enough time to explore many alien races, characters, and beliefs.
Sternbergh says 24 works well, but because it's a cliffhanger show and not a mystery one. Like, Murder One, each season is its own plot and things are resolved by the end of the year. HBO's The Wire (my second favorite show) does the same thing with its 12 episode seasons. Showtime's Sleeper Cell had a good 10 episode run for it's first season and now it's coming back for an 8 episode second season.
Many of the new network shows this season followed a similar model as Lost, huge casts and running stories with mysteries. Smith, Kidnapped, and Runaway have already been cancelled, and Vanished and Six Degrees are struggling. I think Jericho and The Nine are doing ok, but I'm really not interested in learning a new cast a new mysteries, I'm still waiting for the mysteries of Lost to be resolved.
I have been watching Heroes (the closest thing to a hit of the new shows) but it's making a conscious effort to not be like Lost and are giving us solutions to mysteries while creating new ones. I like this model and think it worked pretty well for Alias until it reinvented itself one too many times.
Another strange thing I've heard is that networks are considering letting cancelled shows run a little longer to wrap up their plots. The fear is that people won't watch new shows if there's a risk they'll never find the answers to mysteries they invest themselves in. If you can resolve the plot in a handful of episodes, it's probably a bad idea to think that you can successfully stretch it out for several seasons.
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