kontextmaschine:

It’s weird that for so long the prestige, “prime time” model of TV was basically character types in disconnected but formulaic vignette plots and “multi-episode plot arcs driven by changing character dynamics as plotted by a coherent creative team” was the degraded, low-status daytime “soap” form

People date the “Golden Age of TV” to The Sopranos but I think the key was reversing this and that started in the decade prior. By the time it debuted in 1999, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess already had a real reputation for that (and for playful writing with self- and genre-awareness, which was impressive when you consider they were both based around fight scenes); the X-Files was famous for balancing monster-of-the-week and broader series mythology.

You can see the progression in the Star Trek serieses - TOS was barely consistent from episode to episode; TNG had the Borg arc and recurring Q episodes but also the entirely abandoned Season 1 arc about corruption and betrayal in Starfleet; by DS9 they kicked off the series by plopping the station next to a blob of long-term plot and introducing elements – Sisko as Emissary of the Prophets – that didn’t resolve for seasons.

Maybe further back to the 80s, when this even became possible as shows staffed up their writers’ rooms enough to produce consistent work in-house rather than just taking freelance pitches and polishing them. Miami Vice was a breakthrough not just for the cinematic style and contemporary pop score but that it had elements of overarching plot – the hunt for Calderone, Sonny’s amnesia (how soapy!) – at all

Reblogging at a more reasonable hour because I originally woke up and wrote it down in order to get it out of my head and fall back asleep

Oh, something else important on the way was thirtysomething, clear progenitor to relationship dramedies like This Is Us, that was basically a 1987 My So-Called Life for adults, or at least Boomer yuppies

Also interesting are the false starts - the miniseries boom after 1977’s Roots revealed an audience for multi-episode narratives; the 80s “prime-time soaps” Dallas and Dynasty that didn’t have much episodic drive aside from the overarching plots.

I suppose we should also consider the soapy 90s youth dramas on Fox and the WB - 90210, Melrose Place, Dawson’s Creek. I’d say you really see some of the seeds of modern TV here – the shipping-bait plotting that seeped into action genres through things like Buffy, Smallville, and Supernatural; soliciting pop soundtracks from bands looking for breakthrough opportunities; The OC as a revival of the Dallas/Dynasty style prime time soap