Story Arc - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Arc

A story arc (a contraction of "over-arcing storyline") is a sequence of episodes that puts characters through their paces in response to a single impetus; basically, an ongoing storyline. This can be a few episodes, an entire season, or even the focus of the entire series.

Arcs are not necessarily consecutive episodes. The story may reach a point where, although the arc is not completely resolved, it ceases to be of immediate concern to the characters, thus allowing the writers to intersperse non-arc episodes.

Writers may decide to use a stand-alone episode to lighten the mood during a dark arc, or to feature a character not involved in the arc. For example, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Go Fish," which aired between "Passion" and "Becoming" during the second season, has very little to do with the Angelus storyline.

Episodes that form a story arc cannot be run out of order, or at least they shouldn't be. Not that this always stops networks or syndicators from doing so.

While the Soap Opera has been exclusively arc-based since the beginning of television and before, the recent popularity of arcs doesn't seem to come from soaps. Back in the 90's when half-funny Sit Com reruns and poorly constructed Saturday morning cartoons ruled with an iron fist, the consensus among writers was that casual viewers wouldn't be able to get into the show. Hill Street Blues was the first American prime-time drama to rely on arcs, and is probably when the term came into the American TV vernacular. British Shows have a longer-standing tradition of arcs (See Doctor Who).

According to Doctor Who producer Russell T Davies, the term is not used by UK TV writers. However, it is becoming increasingly well known by UK viewers, and UK Comic Book writers certainly use the term.

Story arcs also occur in most other serial media; Super Hero and dramedy comic series (especially online series in the latter case) are well known for them, and since they lack the seasonal format of most Western television shows, some of them take years to resolve.

Examples:

Live Action TV

The canonical British TV show with a Story Arc is The Prisoner, which was created from the get-go with a beginning, middle and end, and is also used as an example of the TV Novel.
The X Files (see Myth Arc)
Alias — So heavily, in fact, that there was significant Continuity Lockout experienced by casual viewers.
Babylon 5 (another Myth Arc)
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. had two intertwining story arcs throughout the series (The Search for The Orb and The Capture of the John Bly Gang).
Star Trek Deep Space Nine has several, featuring battles against the Maquis, the Jem'Hadar, and finally the Dominion as a whole.
Doctor Who has a few, used for combo DVD sets, when a clear follow-on is present.
- The Key To Time (all of Season 16)- the search for pieces of a Cosmic Keystone.
- The E-Space Trilogy ("Full Circle", "State of Decay" and "Warriors Gate"
- The Guardian Trilogy ("Mawdryn Undead", "Terminus" and "Enlightenment")- involving Turlough's relationship with the Black Guardian.
- "The Trial of a Time Lord" (a 14-part story with four distinct parts)
- "Rose's First Trip" (the first five episodes of Season 27/1, "Rose" to "World War Three"), "The Bad Wolf Scenario" (ditto "Bad Wolf" to "The Christmas Invasion"), "Just One Trip" ("Smith and Jones" to "The Lazarus Experiment"- Martha's first journey), "A Donna Kebab" ("Partners in Crime" to "The Doctor's Daughter"). All are Silent Hunter's names for them.
Suprisingly, The Beverly Hillbillies used story arcs in a Network Sit Com all the way back in the early 1960s.
- Mrs. Driesdale's multi-episode psychotic breakdown after living next to the Clampets, combined with the Clampet's attempts to "help" her.
- The Clampets acquisition of an English Manor and their subsequent "War of the Roses" with their alcoholic neighbor. This was spread over several seasons.
- Ellie May's engagement to a "Naval Frogman" and Granny's belief that this means he turns into a frog from the bellybutton down when he gets wet. Lasted most of a season.
Probably the oldest one in television is I Love Lucy, which featured several long-running arcs. The most famous is of course Lucy's pregnancy, which took up a full season from her first learning of it to giving birth and bringing Little Ricky home. Subsequent seasons followed the Ricardos and Mertzes on long trips through Europe, the US, and a stay in Hollywood.

Anime

The vast majority of anime series are built around arcs, which further distinguishes them from American cartoons, which are very often episodic (though less exclusively so in recent years).
The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya's six-episode arc was broadcast with eight Breather Episodes that flashed forward to after the arc.

Western Animation

Justice League Unlimited had one in the second season, dealing with the fight between the League and Project Cadmus, and another in the third season focusing on the Secret Society/Legion Of Doom.
Transformers: Beast Wars had arcs a-plenty. The first season often leaving a viewer wondering What Happened To The Mouse, until, several episodes later, just when they'd almost forgotten, it was revealed. The second and third seasons, however, are more serialized. Skip an episode, and you'll miss at least one thing that's worth knowing later. You won't be left completely hanging, but you won't get what's going on as well as a more devoted viewer, either.
- Transformers Animated follows arc structure as well, with Season 1 focusing on Megatron's attempts to rebuild his body (with his eventual success covered in the finale), and Season 2 dealing with the Decepticons' plot to build a space bridge to Cybertron.
Though his higher-ups demanded a strictly toy deal series for the lines of action figures, story editor John Semper managed to "sneak in" overarching storylines and development into Spider-Man: TAS. Naming each season and referring to episodes as "chapters" probably didn't hurt. By the time they realized what he had done, and despite limited animation and extremely restrictive censorship, the show had become the number 1 cartoon in America. Nonetheless, they still didn't let him join in on the Spider-Man Unlimited spinoff, which was primarily stand-alone format and petered out after barely reaching 13 episodes.
The X-Men cartoon of the 90s did this as well, going through a number of arcs that were featured in the comic books, including the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas.
The 1981 Spider-Man cartoon (the solo one, before Amazing Friends) had a story arc, stretched across five episodes, surrounding Doctor Doom's attempts to conquer the world and the developing situation in his home country of Latveria.
Gargoyles had a subtle arc about Brooklyn's coming of age that for this troper became a flaring beacon of story awesomeness in the episode, "Kingdom," when you realize this is what the previous Brooklyn stories have been building toward.
The second season of Sonic The Hedgehog's "SatAM" cartoon started off more continuity-based to begin with, then kicked into full-on, development-a-week arc mode with the launch of the Doomsday Project.