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"Every question met with another question. Never an answer. Only 'why?'" — Borehinder Mohindrance Mohinder Suresh, Heroes
The dropoff in viewership that occurs when the fans have lost confidence in the writing team's ability to ever resolve its plots.
It's said that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the viewing public, but sometimes a show comes along that promises stories so complex and subtle that it'll make War And Peace look like "Frog And Toad Are Friends". If done right, this is catnip to a certain sector of the viewing public, who will often give such a show a surprisingly long time to set up its plot arcs before getting antsy for a resolution. The catch, for a creator, is that the longer an arc runs and the more complicated it gets, the more awesome its payoff must be in order for it to feel satisfying to the fans. It's much easier for a writer to keep kicking the can—piling mysteries on top of mysteries—rather than close off storylines, but even the most patient and indulgent viewers will want at least some mysteries solved eventually.
Named for Chris Carter, creator of The X Files, which made wide use of Myth Arc plots (in fact, it was the Trope Namer for " Myth Arc"). For the first half of the 1990s, the fans were convinced that Carter had plotted an elaborate and minutely thought-out web of deceit and lies for his FBI agents to unravel. Forests of Epileptic Trees sprouted around every new tantalizing hint revealed. No reference was too obscure for devoted X-Philes, who cheerfully threw themselves into history, folklore, myth, science, or any other branch of human knowledge that seemed like it might shed some light on the story. By mid-decade, though, the Myth Arc story had churned along for years without really answering any of the questions raised. It had, in fact, mutated into a dense Kudzu Plot, and fans began to suspect what Chris Carter would later sheepishly confirm: there was no intricately plotted story. He'd been making it all up as he went along.
X-Files fans had, as they'd demonstrated, a tremendous willingness to invest time and brainpower into slowly building plots... but finding out that they'd been putting so much mental effort into no plot was a bit much. The Myth Arc plot eventually limped to a conclusion, but by then the only people watching were Mulder/Scully UST fans. When, around this time, a certain J Michael Straczynski was starting up his new show, he took pains to assure everyone that he'd written the story in advance.
In some series, an additional possibility is that the viewer will spend months or years watching each new episode only to have them all get erased from continuity, leaving them at the same point in the story they'd be at if they hadn't bothered.
See also Kudzu Plot and Commitment Anxiety. The Chris Carter effect is when bad writing and/or plotting cause fans to give up on the show; if fans—suspicious that such a story-driven show would even survive to tell its stories—were wary of even watching it in the first place, that's The Firefly Effect. Contrast Leave The Plot Threads Hanging.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Neon Genesis Evangelion and The Big O. The Big O never got to complete the overall story that was planned, but it's hard to believe that it really would have suddenly started explaining all the bizarre events and cryptic utterances that were being built up continuously over the first 26 episodes; NGE, meanwhile, led to enough speculation, supplemental material and enough Mind Screwing confusion to fill 175 pages of Wikipedia articles.
- The Big O's problem was that they had planned on wrapping everything up - and then were ordered by Cartoon Network to leave in SequelHooks for a third season that never came to fruition. Concept art from the time the episodes were made shows a number of ideas that were left out of series two for this very reason - the show may well have wrapped things up with more finality had the original plan been left intact.
- Actually, the original writer wrote a carefully-plotted 2-season story, but they ended up leaving out a lot of the setup when it became clear that there wasn't going to be any funding for a second season. Later, when Cartoon Network agreed to co-produce a second season, the missing setup was re-introduced, again prepping for "next season" (i.e., a third season). In the end, Cartoon Network decided not to fund a third season, leaving the whole thing unresolved.
- The Pokemon cartoon seems to have no real set goals for the characters in mind despite having heavy references to "pokemon mastery" and the like. None of the characters have truly achieved any of their goals as of yet.
- It doesn't help with the tendency to completely drop, forget or ignore ongoing plots or foreshadowing.
- Which makes hilarious amounts of sense when you apply the theory that Ash has actually been comatose since the Spearow attack way back in the first season, and the rest of the show since has just been one long hallucination. How many times can you remember your dreams wasting a good plot?
- It got even worse, when it was revealed, that Ash has Psychic Powers (Well, actually, Aura Powers, but still). He DOES use them in the anime, but only... twice, I think. And never for something usefull. Think about it: He could wipe the floor with team Galaxy without even moving a single finger or sending out a Pokemon... but he uses this awesome ability to find run-away Riolus. So Yeah.
Comic Books
- Many of the plot elements related to the Spider-Totem introduced by J Michael Straczynski during his run on Spider-Man from 2001 to 2007 gave readers a lot of doubletalk and mystical mumbo-jumbo, but very little in the way of concrete resolution, like exactly why Peter had to "evolve", why one cosmic entity wanted to bring him back from the dead while another thought he should stay deceased, the mysterious entities that resurrected Mysterio and Miss Arrow and what they wanted with Peter, etc. None of this was ever really explained.
- To be fair to Straczynski; he probably did have some exciting, interesting direction to take the series. He probably knew how he would end it. It's not exactly his fault that Joe Quesada decided to hit the Reset Button via the One More Day Ret Con.
Literature
- Robert Jordan's Doorstopper series The Wheel Of Time spent so many books getting more and more complicated, that it seemed impossible for anyone to ever wrap everything up. Jordan himself stated that he would conclude the series with book 12 "whether it's 15,000 pages, Tor has to invent a new binding system, or it comes with its own library cart," since it was very unlikely that he could write a coherent thirteenth book. Robert Jordan's death shortly before finishing the last book sure isn't going to help matters — Brandon Sanderson, the writer tapped to finish the series in Jordan's stead, eventually deciding that resolving every arc properly would take no less than three
 books.
- Although, according to Sanderson's own words, he approached the project as if it were to be a single, final book. He left the decision to split it into three up to the editor and publishers.
- The rest of Sanderson's writing averts this trope with a vengeance. If anyone could tie up all the loose ends in another author's epic, it's him.
- If one book is the length of four of the other books in the series, is it really one book?
- Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler deliberately exploited this.
- You sure about that. Or did he just leave everyone hanging?
- I think he intended to leave everyone hanging from day one, as there is no possible way to resolve that mount of info.
- Remnants by K.A. Applegate. They spent the first ten or so books setting up a bunch of mysteries...and then promptly switch to basically a new plot for the last few books, with none of the questions answered. Granted, the plotline at the end was actually pretty good...but it's like the first ten books were wasted leading nowhere. It Just Bugs Me.
Live Action TV
- Lost. At any given time, exactly half of its fanbase will believe that the show's creators are making the next Twin Peaks and have no idea what endgame they desire, while the other half will argue that the threads are finally coming together, and a satisfactory revelation is all but guaranteed.
- Now that ABC has signed a deal that extends Lost to definite endpoint in 2010 and there are a set number of episodes in between now and then, they can't possibly screw it up! Right? Right?
- This strip of Order Of The Stick takes a subtle jab at this.
- In a Saturday Night Live episode, Amy Poehler said "ABC announced this week that it has renewed Lost for a fourth season. Said the show's writers, 'oh, crap.'"
- The Guardian's guide magazine once had a feature on several theories as to what was going on in Lost: it's all a dream (Word Of God denies this), Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory (ditto), it's an elaborate version of The Truman Show etc., etc., before reaching the final theory: "They're just making it up as they go along."
- Are you a fan of Lost? Here's a fun game. Find someone who's never watched it. Explain the premise in one sentence - "people mysteriously marooned on an island and they have to get off". Ask them if they would watch it. They would? Great. Explain everything that happened next in very simple terms. Ask them what they think. Almost always they answer will be, "WTF?!?! They're totally making it up as they go along!".
- Hurley did manage to summarize the first four seasons to his mother, in under a minute. SPOILERS. Admittedly, it sounds like nonsense because he didn't understand any of what happpened.
- With the Season 5 finale there is now a distinct possibility of the second variant, the reset button.
- The actual mythology was planned out by Carlton Cuse when he joined the show midway into the first season, according to him, and recent statements have revealed long-term planning...some of which never took off, like Libby's backstory (thanks to the writer's strike) and Eko's major, four season long storyline (the actor was impossible to work with).
- Suspected contributor to the failure of The Lone Gunmen
- Demonstrated failure of Twin Peaks. But really, what did they expect from David Lynch? Writer and committed Lynch fan David Foster Wallace opined in an essay that the second season of Twin Peaks was some of the best television he'd ever watched, in that it was some of the worst television he'd ever watched. If you watch it all in a row, it's pretty clear that it's one long nervous breakdown on the part of David Lynch as he realizes there's no way in hell he can fulfill any of the promises he made to the viewers with season one. The desperation is palpable. Executive Meddling was only the start of its problems.
- David Lynch was hardly involved with the second season of Twin Peaks after Laura Palmer's murder was solved as he was working on other projects. He didn't write or direct any of the next 14 episodes, and only returned to direct the series finale. There's a consensus among Twin Peaks fans that the episodes directed by Lynch are the best of the series.
- Perhaps the ultimate example is The Prisoner, which posed lots of ongoing questions — Who runs the Village? Why did Number Six resign? Who is Number One? — but ended with an utterly incomprehensible Grand Finale that answered none of them.
- This was pretty much what got The 4400 cancelled. The long-awaited elaboration of the fabled 'Future People' was half-answered very late in the show, but then about twice as many new questions cropped up. The cancellation then abruptly cut off any hope of the rest of it being resolved. Damn shame, really.
- Heroes first season was hailed as great, tightly-plotted and well-written storytelling, with a clear goal in mind. Its second and third seasons, though, were prime examples of the Chris Carter effect in action—the writing team flailing around, directionless, at war with its own continuity—and it's only started to re-establish its arc as of the fourth "volume". Unfortunately, the writers had envisioned each "volume" to be about a different set of heores with a different set of problems to solve, but fans just wanted more cheerleader beheadings.
- Babylon 5's spin-off Crusade, didn't manage so well. It spent half a season creating mysteries to solve later in its planned five year arc, and then got canceled. Whoops.
- It's more accurate to say it was canceled even before it went on the air, but.. yeah.
- Also by Chris Carter, Millennium is a good example of this. The show got increasingly bizarre and difficult to follow as it went on, and the end of the third season (the last one filmed, and for good reason) provided no closure at all. Each season had a different show runner(s), each with a very different idea of what the show should be and no one from above willing to set boundaries.
- After the cancellation, the whole thing was put into the laps of The X-Files team.
- We're getting there with Burn Notice. The second season ended teasing the same reveal it teased at the end of the first, and we still don't know much of anything about who "burned" Michael or why. It's entertaining enough watching Michael smack around drug dealers and loan sharks, but we could use just a little information here...
- Season 3 wrapped it up with... arguable elegance.
- The problem is, the shows individual episodes have been, far and wide, amazing. No one knows how to keep the show good while actually fixing the premise. Think Gilligans Island, how much fun would it be if they had left?
- Similar to Veronica Mars, Desperate Housewives features a single ongoing mystery for every season which is solved in the season finale. Though the fans still complain that one or more of these revelations have been less than satisfactory. In particular, there's widespread suspicion among the fanbase that the solution to season four's mystery was changed halfway through after Marc Cherry decided he wanted to keep Dana Delany (one of his favorite actresses and the original choice for regular character Bree) on the show.
- The 2000 reimaging of BattlestarGalactica built up a series of open questions and mysteries over the length of the show, only to end with lots of handwaving and even the revelation that God was responsible for many of the mysteries. Similar to the X-Files example, many fans had abandoned the show as this became clear, and those who stuck it out (including this Troper) were not very happy.
Professional Wrestling
- Pro wrestling has its own jargon for this: hotshot booking. This is when a show is literally written as it is being performed, either because the writers aren't prepared, a wrestler is suddenly unable to work a match during a live show requiring an abrupt change in his angle, or because the bookers are trying to be daring and edgy. Hotshot booking rarely produces anything but failure, however.
- At WWE, the concept was put in writing as part of the company's "Wellness Program," which states that any "Superstar" fired for doping offenses must job his or her title/finish an angle in the ring immediately and without pay.
Video Games
- The Legacy of Kain series seems to be suffering from a fatal case of Chris Carter. Eidos never really knew what to do with it after Crystal Dynamics stole it from Silicon Knights (and told SK to throw their carefully plotted story ideas for a sequel in the trash). Crystal Dynamics' next decision with the franchise, having multiple titles in development at the same time, with different teams working on them, did little to gel any sort of solid story. The meat of the stories after the first game seemed to follow immortal, nigh indestructible evolving vampires traveling through time and fighting extra-dimensional demons. The series' timeline spans thousands of years, and each additional game either flagrantly retcons and/or reset buttons the previous installations, including at least one cliffhanger ending that not only drew cries of the game being released incomplete, but wasn't actually resolved in the next game. It still could turn out to be one of the greatest series ever, provided they manage to put a bow on it. However, so far news from the developer seems to suggest that another sequel is unlikely.
- "Making it up as he goes along" seems to describe what Nomura is doing with Kingdom Hearts to a tee. Trying to figure out what the cosmology is exactly is like trying to put together a 1000 piece puzzle in which most the pieces are identical, and several are missing. Tying things up without contradicting something in the canon seems pretty much impossible even though it's only 3 games into the series. Nomura's been accused of Retconning his own canon since the announcement of a 14th Organization member. And some of the pieces to be put together are exclusive to Japan, making it even more fun!
- Averted with the Legend of Zelda series - its timeline is a mess of debate and controversy due to the series having multiple prequels and prequels to prequels and sequels to prequels, not to mention Word Of God holds that the timeline was split following the events of Ocarina of Time. The more recent versions like the "Four Sword" games (most of which were made by Capcom instead of Nintendo) and Twilight Princess have only further muddled the series' continuity, making it more and more apparent that the creators have no continuity in mind. Despite this, the series remains very popular, and the timeline debates have become part of the lexicon.
- Eiji Aonuma claims, that a file of the complete chronology of the games does exist. It's just not like they actually cared about it while making a Zelda game. So Yeah.
Webcomics
- Sluggy Freelance has been suffering from this problem for some time. During the first six or seven years of the strip's existence, artist Pete Abrams created a veritable arsenal of Chekhov's guns... then stopped firing any of them. To make matters even more frustrating, Abrams has spent many months working on side plots that do not play a major role in advancing the numerous plot threads he already created. Things are beginning to move again, but at this point it's hard to believe Abrams could possibly wrap up the strip in less than four or five years, even if he created no new plot elements. Every resolution adds a few more questions. Arguably, though, Abrams has been lampshading this with the "fate spider" comics.
- Averted in that many Sluggy fans don't really WANT the series to end.
- Several things have been resolved, others clearly advanced; what seems like a majority of readers (on the forums) are confident enough Pete can pull it all together given (lots of) time. He has done it before on a more limited scale, and proven himself a master of planning in advance. So, averted in that faith has not been lost.
- Erica Henderson did a very good job parodying this during her guest week back in 2007, pulling at several loose plot threads and even introducing "Pete" as a Wizard of Oz type god.
Western Animation
- Sort of inverted in Avatar The Last Airbender. Most fans were absolutely confident that the writers would neatly resolve all the loose ends, especially the ones they made great big deals out of. But at the end of it all where is Zuko's mommy? (and other things.)
- Depending on who you ask, the Series Finale for Teen Titans was either satisfactory, or it just opens up more questions which will never get answered.
- That's what the comic is for.
Web Original
- Many of the plot elements from the first season of lonelygirl15 seem to have been completely forgotten. Cassie, anyone?
- KateModern is much more successful in this regard, but still left a few threads hanging at the end.
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