Season long antagonists ala Buffy - original source?

[Cor Azer]

Howdy all,

I was curious, before Joss Whedon brought Buffy (and then Angel, and Firefly, which also suggested having this concept) to the small screen, what other television series (most likely fantasy/science fiction) used the (mostly) season-long antagonist/BBEG?

Certainly, old cartoons like G.I Joe and Transformers had good guys and bad guys, and the various Star Trek series had major antagonists, but they never (as far as I recall) did the rotating big bad evil guy for a season, particularly when there was little to no relations between the bad guys.

I'm just wondering where Joss may have gotten such an idea for his television series.

 

[RaVan]

Well, I first thought of the Cyclons(sp) in Battlestar. They are continual "Bad Guys", but like G.I.Joe, I don't think I'd count them in this light.

One good example would be Profiler. The show had episodic antagonists, but Jack was a continuing Archnemesis.

Joss has admitted his writing was inspired first by scary movies. And the longer the big bad lurks the scarier, why not a whole season?

I would think the "original" would come from comic books. Be it Lex Luther or Magneto, there is always a good err... bad archnemesis lurking in the background.

Smallville is a cool twist, an archnemesis who's not yet the big bad, even though we all know he will be one day.

-R

 

[Klaus]

How's about "The Fugitive", with Dr. Kimble going after the One-Armed Man? That was a meta-plot if I ever saw one...

And maybe Hulk (Bixby/Ferrigno) and that darned Reporter (iirc, McGee).

 

[takyris]

I can't think of another show that had roughly season-long arcs for bad guys. I can think of several (many of them already mentioned) shows that had permanent recurring bad guys, but those folks never really got defeated. The great thing about Buffy's folks is that you get to see them do nasty stuff all season and then finally get their comeuppance in a big flashy finale.

 

[Pielorinho]

Don't soap operas have season-long big bads? I always thought they were a major inspiration for Buffy.

Daniel

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Babylon 5 had the Shadows as multi season big bad guys, along with the Facist regime of President Clark.

 

[swrushing]

The first main stream tv show that did this was the series Wise Guy with ken Wahl. Season 1 was him infikltrating the mob, season two was the profits. season three iirc was actually divided because he had an accident in mid season in real life and the subbed in the roger lecoco character as the main... but in general each year was one long story arc dealing with a single undercover mission and a single thematic big bad.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Dr. Who had a season revolving around the Key to Time, and a evil Lord of Time (or somesuch) who was trying to get the Key. That might qualify. The Master also was a major villain, though I don't know if he was ever a BBEG in the Buffy sense - more of a recurring villain, I'd say.

I'd differentiate between shows that had one villain for the whole series - Battlestar Galactica and The Fugitive fall into this category, and ones that have different bad guys for each season...

 

[Endur]

Sherlock Holmes fought Dr. Moriarty.

Whiz Comics Captain Marvel is the first comic book to have a season long bad guy. Mr. Mind in the 1940's was Captain Marvel's foe over an 18 issue span.

"Crime Story", a 1980's cop show that came on after Miami Vice at night, had season-long bad guys, sort of. The show was based in the 1950's in Chicago, then later Vegas and South America. Ray Luca, was the Big Bad guy in that series. But each season he moved up in the mob. He started out small and eventually was running casinos. Also, each season there would be other bad guys, but Ray Luca and his buddy/comedy relief Paulie, were the only two that were in every season.

 

[Cor Azer]

Hmm... so, plenty of series-long or recurring bad guys, but not so much on the season-long bad guy. It's a cool idea in any event.

Interesting. Mayhaps if I ever see a "Ask Joss Whedon Questions" type deal, I'll have to fire off the question at hand.