Back in the day when there was only broadcast television in the US, writers tended to be confined to just one episode to tell a story, similar to a feature film. Limited series, where the writers could spread the story over many hours were relatively rare, because they disrupted the weekly TV schedule, not to mention being more expensive to produce. Yet, the examples of blockbuster hits like Roots, Shogun, and The Thorn Birds showed that there was a market for them, because the extended time enabled the telling of complex stories and better character development.
The arrival of streaming services has seen the flourishing of the limited series since there are no scheduling issues. One downside is that freed from some time constraints, some of the writing is a little bloated but on the whole, the limited series fills an important niche between feature films that tell one story and a normal weekly TV show in which each episode had to be largely self-contained within a short time and thus cannot accommodate complex and lengthy storylines.
There is one problem with the current limited-series model and that is how to end it. If the story is planned as a one-off from the very beginning, then there is no problem. You just end the story at the end and that is it. But some producers want to have the option, if the series is a hit, to bring it back a sequel with many of the same characters. But you do not know in advance when making the first series if it will be a hit so you want to end the series in such a way that viewers will look forward to a sequel series if there is one.
In my mind, there is a good way to do this and there is a bad way. The good way is have a satisfying end to the story arc of the first series but then at the end introduce a little twist which tells the viewer whaat to expect if it is decided that the series will get another season. At the same time, the twist must be such that if the series is not continued, nothing much is lost. The comedy-mystery series Only Murders in the Building does this pretty well. Each story features a trio of true-crime podcasters (another popular genre enabled by streaming) solving a murder that occurs in their posh New York City apartment building. In classic mystery fashion, the last episode features the denouement where the murderer is unmasked. But then at the very end of the last episode, another character is found murdered. This character is a minor one whose death is unrelated to what occupied the current season, so if the series is not renewed or you as a viewer get tired of it and decide to not watch the next one, you can do so without feeling that you are missing out.
Another good series that follows that model is the French series Lupin based on a character who models himself on Arsène Lupin, the fictional French gentleman-thief of the extremely popular stories by Maurice Leblanc. It too finished each season satisfyingly but with a teaser at the end that is picked up the following season.
The bad way to end a mini-series and that really annoys me are those which end on a cliff-hanger with the entire story unresolved. I recently watched one called The Diplomat about political intrigue in the UK and US, a topic that drew me in. It was not very good to begin with, having an utterly absurd storyline, and after a few episodes, I was ready to give up on it. But the sunk-cost effect kicked in. Having spent some hours on it, I decided to watch it to the end to see how it turned out. Imagine my chagrin when it ends on a cliff-hanger with nothing major resolved. I am not going to watch the sequel but feel annoyed at not having any closure.
(For obvious reasons, feature films made to be screened in theaters do not have cliff-hanger endings. Those that involve continuing stories, such as the Star Wars, Lord of The Rings, and Harry Potter sagas, telegraph this fact well in advance so that one is not caught by surprise, and even then, each film is fairly self-contained. One notable exception is the 1969 film The Italian Job starring Michael Caine that took me by surprise when it ended on a literal cliff-hanger, and there was no sequel. It was still enjoyable, though.)
Another series whose ending of the first season was unsatisfying was the Brazilian Good Morning, Veronica. This dealt with a low-level police clerk who, following up on the suicide of a woman who came to her office for help, unearths corruption at the highest levels of the police and government. The series was much better than The Diplomat and while the ending closed one major storyline, it left other major ones unresolved. I have not bothered to watched the sequels to find out what happened next. Part of the reason it that the level of violence was too much for my taste.
It is not that I expect every single loose end to be tied up neatly. Real life is too ragged for that and leaving some things open for the viewer to ponder over is fine. But the main story should be properly resolved. If not, viewers should be given advance notice that the story in the series they are watching will be continued into future series.
If I recall correctly, Lost wasn’t supposed to last as long as it did, but due to its massive success they kept it running much longer than it should, much to its detriment. There have been other shows that could have been amazing single season series but completely lost the plot when it continued into further seasons (I’m looking at you, Under the Dome).
John Cleese may be very problematic these days, but only making two short series of Fawlty Towers was probably the smartest thing he ever did and I doubt it would be as fondly remembered today if there were 100 episodes.
Charmed, the original TV series, (Forget the CW version) began with Something Wicca This Way Comes. At the end of season 7 the episode was titled Something Wicca This Way Goes. The three witches changed their appearance and may have left San Francisco. And then the series was renewed for season 8.
A bit of fancy footwork was involved. It involved the three replacement actresses changing back to the previous cast.
I look at limited series as being generally a successor to movies rather than being between television and movies. I do so if for no other reason that even the longest movie story arc might have 3 movies at 3 hours each. About nine hours to develop a plot, characters, background, etc.
A limited series may be shorter than that, but many of them are longer, even much longer, in even a single season. Even a short limited series, like Velma, has ten 26-minute episodes, all with a connected plot-line, in one season. You may love that show or hate it, but each season is 260 minutes long. That’s the equivalent of 2 feature-length movies (2 hours, 10 minutes each). And Velma is one of the shorter limited series. Many limited series are ten 46 minute episodes (7 hours and 40 minutes run time), and some are even longer.
Of course, there is the difference with seasons over the pond. My experience with BBC productions is that they have been creating six-episode seasons, which are really limited series, for decades. Most of them seem to be around 50 minutes, so that’s 300 minutes of story-line, or 2 feature-length films. But my experience may be biased as I know not everything on UK television makes it across the pond.
I think the limited series format allows writers and directors more freedom to develop characters and develop plots than a single 3-hour movie does. There are a couple downsides, like the plot not really needing that much time. Sometimes all you have is a short story idea, and turning it into a novel is a mistake. The problem you mention, about producers wanting sequels, is not confined to limited series. That obviously happens in movies too. That’s more about greed than the genre.
Speaking of Star Wars, the film was clearly not expected to have any sequels until after the initial box office release. I recall seeing Star Wars in the first week of release, and it did not start with “Episode 4: A New Hope”. After the Time Magazine spread and the surge of popularity it was then re-released within a few weeks with the new titles. That Lucas didn’t have any expectations for sequels is pretty clear from the film itself. The film was classic film-school teaching: develop a broad story arc, figure out the lynch-pin of the story (i.e. when does good start to prevail over evil), and film the actions around that lynch-pin. While the time-span of Star Wars is not explicit, it’s implied that all the events in the movie happen within a few days. From the boarding of Lia’s ship and the recruitment of Luke for the rebellion (the love interest in this movie), to the destruction of the Death Star, less than a week passes. Why did Lucas then say he had the plans for nine movies? Because he plotted story-arc for years in the future and the past in order to find the lynch-pin. It is my assessment, and I’ve never heard of Lucas saying this so this is only my personal opinion, that Lucas didn’t have any plan to film additional Star Wars movies until after Star Wars was a smash hit.
I live in movietown. It is about the money to produce the show and always has been. It matches the customer service dilemna in many ways. The seller wants to get the maximum in cash simoleons for their product and service and the buyer wants to keep as many of their gold ducats as they can. There is some kind of compromise in the middle (unless you live in a failed capitalist company that is regressing to mercantilism through monopolization and consolidation of wealth like that of our country and the tenth of one percenters win…)
A customer service representative has to keep both sides of the deal as happy as possible. Both sides can be capricious and unreasonable. It’s a shit job.
The production team of a show has to do enough to convince enough of their funders to keep on doing that and enough of their watchers to keep on doing that. The aesthetics of cliffhangers really don’t rate.
I think the TV show “The Fugitive” fits in here. While there was an overarching story they could also have limited stories each week.
But when the show ended they resolved the major overarching story and afterwards that TV show was destroyed in syndication. And it became widely considered that while the story did lend itself to syndication, the fact that they resolved that overarching story line killed that option. And that meant that in the future, in order to protect the potential profits of syndication for any production, they had to be very careful how they ended that first run.
It should be illegal to end a TV season on a cliffhanger if you have not already been guaranteed a renewal. Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior and Dark Matter spring to mind, but the absolute shocker was Legends of Tomorrow, where the writers admitted they ended the season on a cliffhanger as a dare to the executives that they couldn’t very well cancel the show now. Well, the execs called their bluff and now we will never know what happened to the crew of the Waverider. It drives me absolutely mental. There should be a law against it.
The British (i.e. original) version of House of Cards managed this very well. The first series was based on a book by Michael Dobbs, who had worked in Conservative Party HQ; the book ended with the central character/villain dying, but the TV series with him becoming prime minister and murdering his lover -- it was self-contained, but left the obvious question -- will he get away with it? Two subsequent series (To Play the King and The Final Cut) were just as good, and the ending of the second of these made further sequels difficult. Another trio of limited series I’d strongly recommend is the German Deutschland trilogy (Deutschland 83, Deutschland 86 and Deutschland 89) about a young East German man trapped into acting as a spy for the regime as it staggered towards its end.
All I know is that I hope George Lucas didn’t know what he was doing with the story when there was that brother/sister kiss.
Then there was Farscape, where they really did think they had a guaranteed renewal at the end of S4, finished on a massive cliffhanger, and only found out they were actually getting cancelled right at the end of filming. Yes, I’m still bitter.