History Main / ArcFatigue

* The Avalon arc in ''{{Gargoyles}}''. The creators weren't pleased about that, however, and when it was coming to a close, made some clear hints that the end was indeed in sight.

*** ''May'' have?

* ''Achewood'' recently entered this realm. Creator Chris Onstad has never been a stranger to long, doublewide strips, but as of late most of the strips have been this way, with week-long waits between many of them. Everything came to a head as the strip entered one of its patently surreal arcs that might have been better received if it moved at a better pace only to get halted prematurely for an indefinite hiatus, with strip standards "Fuck You Friday" and "Roomba Cinema" filling in. This was also around the time Onstad renewed a plea for donations. Needless to say, the fandom was not amused.

** The one packing the most heat, however, is the Johto saga, as a result of waiting for the head writer and his arc-plan being dropped only a quarter of a way through, leaving the rest of the saga with an ungodly amount of filler and no plot direction. The Sinnoh saga later on comes close though; managing to surpass Johto in length and having the opposite problem: having way too much plot threads and characters to juggle and drag out until most found them boring.

* Pretty much any time the {{X-Men}} go into outer space, since fighting aliens is not what the series is about, and the fact that such arcs are ''always'' economy-sized.

* The Dahak Saga dominated the fifth season of ''HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' and third season of ''XenaWarriorPrincess''. While his daughter Hope was an endearing villainess, Dahak annoyed fans for being a generic GodOfEvil whose true form is never seen, and whose plans were less MagnificentBastard than just plain convoluted.

* The Dahak Saga dominated the fifth season of ''HerculesTheLegendaryJourney'' and third season of ''XenaWarriorPrincess''. While his daughter Hope was an endearing villainess, Dahak annoyed fans for being a generic GodOfEvil whose true form is never seen, and whose plans were less MagnificentBastard than just plain convoluted.

* All of the many, many Shi'ar and Brood arcs from the ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}''.

* {{Superman}} was killed off because LoisAndClarkTheNewAdventuresOfSuperman was in production and the executives wanted to have them marry at the same time in both media leading to a stalled marriage arc. This lead to the DeathOfSuperman which, if you include the return, ran over a year generating huge sales and leading the writers to run long event arcs for the remained of the decade at which point the fans were finally tired of it.

** Often lampshaded on the show, usually either by the future children ("I feel like you've been talking for a year!") or by Ted ("When I have kids, I'm gonna tell them the WHOLE story of how I met their mother!")

* The second half of season three of ''BattlestarGalactica''. After the dramatic escape from New Caprica, the show lapsed into a series of filler episodes with little development. This was from two apparent factors: ExecutiveMeddling and budget restrictions. '[[DeathFromAbove Dropping The Bucket]]' in "Exodus Part Two" wasn't cheap, y'know.

** Well no actually. Just because Gaius was willing to sacrifice himself on the spur of the moment doesn't mean he was going to keep playing the hero, as the rest of the arc showed.
*** This is true, but it still counts as ArcStall because Baltar lives in the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor for the series' entire run. By season 4 it was starting to get annoying. [[spoiler: One could argue, however, that this is exactly why it's so satisfying to see him finally get it right in the GrandFinale.]]

** Hell even Season 5 suffered from this. The Glory arc was slow and plodding with whole episodes going along without anything progressing in the plot. Glory isn't introduced until the fifth episode, is forgotten about for another three episodes and if you cut out all the filler from that season you have about twelve episodes where the plot progresses normally. Hell, the penultimate episode of the season was just complete filler because they needed to wait another episode until the finale.
** yeah, but if you notice almost every episode before the season finale was a monster of the week: season 1 had the invisible girl, season 2 had [[YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries the Freaky Fish Guy]], Season 3 had the guy who wanted to release hell hounds (IIRC) to kill evereyone in the prom heck it was in season 4 that the show stopped doing that instead setting up the finale (season 4 for restless, the whole kidnapping of Dawn, etc) and theres' the fact that most of the stuff in season 5 ended up being a ChekhovsGun
** The real problem with the First Evil story wasn't that it should have ended sooner - the First was the BigBad of the final season, so it would obviously be defeated in the GrandFinale. The problem was that the structure of previous seasons was for the BigBad to take a while to show up, with roughly the first half of the season focusing on the MonsterOfTheWeek or Little Bads like Spike or Mr. Trick. The First, on the other hand, was established as the BigBad in the first episode (although only the audience knew) and dominated practically the entire season.

* The ''DNAngel'' manga, definitely. The manga started November, 1997, and the only closure we have as-of-yet is the anime, which completely branched out into it's own after it ran out of source material. But the fangirls are still waiting. Oh, yes, we're still waiting.

* Arguably, the entirety of ''[[{{Gunnm}} Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita]]: Last Order'' qualifies as a Myth Stall. More specifically, there's the infamous "vampire" flashback arc that lasted two volumes, and the "Zenith Of Things" TournamentArc has been going on since volume 4 of ''Last Order'', and has yet to finish despite the sequel now being longer than the original manga.
* Also arguably, ''OnePiece''. Especially since it was supposed to be five years long, but Oda having fun with the plot stalled the bigger story's progression. A lot. It's no wonder so many people have CommitmentAnxiety when it comes to this series.

*** UPDATE: As of late 2010, they've finally made it! Though, as of the latest chapter, they're only in the mermaid part of the island. They're on their way to the Fishmen, though!

** Incidentally, I know that this is a YMMV trope, but to refer to Season 4 as 'a slow grind to tie up loose ends' is to seriously miss the point.

** Before that though, there was getting to Vermillion City, which took six whole episodes to reach because Ash had to have all the starter Pokémon. Compared with later seasons it was a short wait, but by then...

** The one packing the most heat, however, is the Johto saga, as a result of waiting for the head writer and his arc-plan being dropped only a quarter of a way through, leaving the rest of the saga with an ungodly amount of filler and no plot direction.

** The one packing the most heat, however, is the Johto saga, as a result of waiting for the head writer and his arc-plan being dropped only a quarter of a way through, leaving the rest of the saga with an ungodly ammount of filler.

** The one packing the most heat, however, is the Johto saga, as a result of waiting for ''[=~Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire~=]'''s release. While the other regional sagas are almost quite as long in terms of episode numbers as Johto, with Sinnoh even ''surpassing'' it, there are two storylines for each saga to consider (May [later Dawn's] participation in Contests having as much relevance alongside Ash's own story). However, Johto did not introduce the RotatingArcs in the anime, so it still goes on to have the record of the largest amount of pointless filler episodes in the entire series.

** Before that though, there was getting to Vermillion City, which took six whole episodes to reach because Ash had to have all the starter Pokémon.

** The Hueco Mundo Arc of ''{{Bleach}}''. Ichigo, Chad, and Ishida entered Hueco Mundo in 2006. They ''finally'' got out in late 2010. The total amount of time that's passed has been ''maybe'' [[WebcomicTime 24 hours]].

* Hell even Season 5 suffered from this. The Glory arc was slow and plodding with whole episodes going along without anything progressing in the plot. Glory isn't introduced until the fifth episode, is forgotten about for another three episodes and if you cut out all the filler from that season you have about twelve episodes where the plot progresses normally. Hell, the penultimate episode of the season was just complete filler because they needed to wait another episode until the finale.

* GreenLantern event ''BrightestDay'' seems to currently be this.

* ''OrderOfTheStick'' has occasionally flirted with this trope, and the frequent {{Schedule Slip}}s are not helping. One strip preemptively subverted another extension of one such subplot: "[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0595.html Disintegrate. Gust of Wind.]] [[LampshadeHanging Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?]]"
** The end of the last arc raised this preemptive subversion to an art form, speeding up the plot to the point where Belkar suggested they'd be finishing off the BigBad within five strips.