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Keep up, or you can't watch

Networks are turning to serialized shows with big-story plots that require tuning in weekly.

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published July 30, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - It's called "appointment television."

If it worked last year for Lost, the reasoning goes, it will work this year for Invasion, or Threshold or Surface or Windfall or Fox's new entries into the genre, Prison Break and Reunion.

The buzzword repeated during three weeks of the Television Critics Association summer tour this month refers to the extended serialization of stories made popular by 24, Lost, and Desperate Housewives.

Forget about dropping in and out of a series any time you feel like it. Viewers this year are supposed to get hooked on a story and make the show a weekly appointment. Then buy the DVD box set.

The reasoning in past years has been that the serialization hurt shows heading into their second life in syndication. That's one reason shows like Law & Order can be watched in any order and still pretty much make sense.

But all that's changed, thanks both to the success of last year's serialized shows and to DVD boxed sets, last year a $15.6-billion industry.

Prison Break creator Paul Scheuring on Friday said telling an extended tale is nothing new, it's just been away. The method goes back to Saturday movie serials of the 1940s and 1950s.

But it took the success of a few shows in the past two years to create the new wave, Prison Break executive producer Marty Adelstein said.

On many shows this season, viewers who miss a little will miss a lot. In Prison Break, for example, the two brothers at the center of the action will actually escape from prison, with a bunch of other inmates - some good, some evil - and viewers will follow the story arc as they scatter across the country.

In Reunion, viewers follow a group of friends in a murder mystery that centers around the group's history, retold as each episode covers one year in their lives. Skip a week and you miss a whole year.

""Lost proved (television) could be serialized," Adelstein said. "People had a real desire to see a big story unfold."

David Goyer, executive producer and creator of CBS's spooky space alien invasion Threshold, said his story is so big it potentially could cover seven seasons. The first three are already charted and have a steady progression, he said. In the second season, the U.S. government collapses.

"There's definitely a mythology that is building," Goyer said. "There are a lot of seeds being planted throughout the season."

"Mythology" is another common thread this season.

"There's a big mythology to the show," said Josh Pate, co-creator of NBC's undersea adventure serial Surface. "It's so highly serialized we had to tell (NBC chief Kevin Reilly) what the first 22 episodes were."

"We feel we built a mythology that's big enough to sustain for a long time," said his twin brother and co-creator, Jonas Pate.

Serialization has quietly worked on TV for years. Before Lost, premium cable channels were scoring with shows such as The Sopranos. It's just that there weren't so many competing interests.

The more popular dramatic genre, cop shows, have in a way been the antithesis of the serial. Time is compressed: Crimes are committed, uncovered, unraveled and wrapped up in an hour.

The serial was an alternative, and appointment TV struck a fancy. Problem is, that appointment book is getting awfully full. And it's not just serial dramas: Viewers are being asked to keep up with a slew of reality shows such as Survivor, American Idol and Amazing Race in which it's easy for the casual viewer to get lost.

Serials are hot, but maybe too hot.

"It's the new trend," Scheuring said. "Many will try, most will fail, a few will succeed."

[Last modified July 30, 2005, 01:08:02]