I understand that a lot of people these days really enjoy how serialization keeps them on the edge of their seats all season long, but my personal tastes run toward a preference in stand alone episodes, (that's the perfect breeding ground for future nostalgia too,) so this is actually a bit of a bummer for me to hear.
Unfortunately however, I'm also not at all surprised. Everything is serializing these days... even silly things like South Park where each episode used to be it's own ridiculous joke, and each season was rife with them, now will just come up with one amusing theme, stretch it over 10 episodes, and call it day.
The skeptic in me is afraid that this particular trend is just another symptom of the same rampant corporate greed and "walmart-ization" sweeping across first world nations and filling homes with, essentially, crap that breaks. Afterall, it's easier (read: cheaper) for writers (or bean counters upstairs) to come up with one story and milk it, than for everyone to work overtime coming up with all sorts of interesting themes, anomalies, paradoxes, dilemmas, scientific wow factors, etc.
Again, unfortunately, this makes me sad. I wish I was optimistic enough to hear this and think, "great, less filler." I just can't. If I'm being honest with myself, all my instincts are actually screaming "Look out! They are skimping on production costs but are still going to sell us the Blu Rays for the same standard fee."
It's all about protecting the bottom line. Movies, television, video games, electronics, fashion, cars, appliances, everything... the passion, the creativity and even the genius are slowly but surely all getting pushed out to make room better fourth quarter returns. I can't tell you how incredibly sad this makes me. I can only hope that small, independent or even crowd funded businesses and projects become the norm so that the people who are willing to pay for quality, actually have genuine quality options available to them.
Looks like you and I could not be more different when it comes to what we want out of TV.
Personally, I am beyond tired of dramatic TV repeatedly resetting everything at the end of the hour. It's different on a sitcom, as we're basically just experiencing a slice of the characters' lives, and as it's mostly about making you laugh, having status quo remain isn't really a bad thing (though there are serialized comedies, as you point out).
For a dramatic series, especially if it's about people who work together, I expect it to build, to lead somewhere, not to be a meandering collection of one-hour adventures that wrap up neatly at the conclusion with no loose ends.
And this really isn't a recent trend. As early as the early 80's, shows like
Hill Street Blues and
St. Elsewhere were already moving away from this. They usually had a self-contained A-plot and a B-plot that would play out over several episodes. In the 90's, shows like
ER and
NYPD Blue did this on steroids, with every character having a plot that spread across multiple episodes, even if there was one plot element that was self-contained.
To me, watching a TV show that is nothing but one-hour TV movies with the same characters is like reading a collection of short stories. I prefer reading novels. Short stories are okay, but in small doses. I don't mind "breather" episodes, but I do mind when literally every episode is only concerned with keeping you engaged for that one hour. If you miss next week's episode, no problem, you can catch it in a rerun. It's not like it will have lasting consequences. You can be a casual viewer. You aren't expected to be invested. To me, a show that is formatted to only attract casual viewers isn't interested in quality. Characters remain flat, stories remain on repeat and an episode from season 5 might as well be from season 1.
Now, in the 60's, this was expected and even necessary. By the 80's, it was passe, and even TNG tried hard to buck the trend and make it so that at the very least, episodes had far-reaching consequences. And it cared about character development. DS9 went even further, with later seasons involving the Dominion arc.
Voyager went in the opposite direction, assuming that the reason people liked TNG was because they liked the steady routine of "new episode, new adventure" and actually strove to avoid story arcs other than very short-term. In the process, beyond maybe the second season, they got rid of the idea of long-lasting consequences or revisitations of older plot threads. Promising recurring characters were either killed off entirely or just stopped appearing. Interesting characters were introduced and then never seen again. The main characters never grew beyond what they were initially designed to be, apart from the Doctor and that was all thanks to Picardo's performance.
Enterprise was more of the same old, same old until Braga finally had enough of our complaining and said "Okay, you want an arc? Well season 3 will be one long arc, but it still won't be a birth of the Federation arc because I am determined to not give you what you're asking for!" Then Manny Coto took over the final season and gave us a series of mini-arcs that built on each other and were actually prequel material, which was great, but no one noticed because only a handful of fans were still watching, so the show was cancelled.
Personally, I say let's reach for the future. Let's expect viewers to be invested. Let's build on what's there rather than just resetting everything at the end of each hour.
As for shorter seasons; I'm sorry, I cannot agree here, either. Longer seasons means more filler. That's just always true. And if you're fine paying for filler, then that's okay, but I'd prefer 10-15 solid episodes rather than paying for half-crap and half-good.
