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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 601322" data-attributes="member: 3887">Temper, temper... {And to answer your question, my friends have been arguing that one for years...}jdavis said just about everything I wanted to, but let me add...I didn't say that Farscape or B5 where identical in structure to shows like ER. I meant that ER was a servicable example of a popular mainstream show that wasn't comprised entirely of self-contained stand-alone episodes. Whether a show is serial or not isn't a simple yes/no, a binary state. Just because ER isn't B5 {which was described by its creator as a "5 year long miniseries} doesn't mean it ER isn't serial --you admit as much in your post. Its a question of degree. As I see it, on the seriality scale from greatest to least: B5, Farscape, 24, ER......... old pre-80's dramas like The Rockford Files {an excellent show, BTW}.jdavis... you're absolutely right saying SF/F fans want long in-depth epicly proportioned storylines {and there are a number of reasons for this. My favorite is that long storylines w/several recurring elements help make the fictional universe more concrete}. B5 was a huge success among the hardcore SF audience. Fantasy novels often come in huge multivolume cycles.  While theres always a place for stand-alone works in these genres, how can you deny that there's a demand for long arc pieces?</blockquote>