Status Quo in fiction, aka constant story resets...

[Darth Angelus]

I don't know if the title is appropriate for the topic here, but I get the impression from certain pieces of fiction, particularly long running TV-shows, that the situation in the story isn't changing at all most of the time. That is, most events in the story has nothing to do with the (often limited) overall story arc of the series. This has a lot to do with the monster of the week trope, of course. With the possible exception of the first or the last couple of episode in a season, the episodes are largely interchangable, even skippable. If you just randomized the order you watched most episodes of a given season, it wouldn't affect your experience at all.

This annoys me, somewhat, because the characters don't change naturally by what they experience, either. Also, should events occur during any non-pivotal episode that you'd think would reveal something about a central character to others (or at least make the suspect it), you can be sure there will be some contrived explanation for other characters dropping their suspicion and never think of it again.
If reality, if you were given reason (by an isolated event) to vaguely suspect something about another person, but there was a reasonable explanation other than what you suspected, you might be willing to sort of overlook your suspicion about that person, but that isn't exactly the same as resetting said suspicion to zero. This is because any future events that might point in the same direction would be added to the earlier indications. However, in quite a few TV-shows, the other characters don't seem to add things up, or look for patterns, the way it is human nature to try to understand others.
In real life, pretty much all experiences, about other people and the world alike, leave some traces in people's minds, and changes the person having the experience ever so slightly as a result. More dramatic experiences may lead to more significant changes.

For example, if a person A being disappointed in - or even betrayed by - person B doing action X, then even if A does forgive B, they are still likely to think slightly less of people in general and B in particular than if X never happened, and more likely to assume the worst about B in the future.
If A has caught B attempting to deceive him or her (even if the deceptions have been forgiven), A is less like to regard B's word as reliable.
This goes both ways, of course. If A gets repeated positive experiences of B, they are more inclined to expect the same type of positive behaviour from B later on.

I find it weird with stories where dramatic events can occur to central characters without altering their outlook on the world and life, even slightly. Therefore, I prefer stories where each episode changes the situation and the characters just that tiny little bit.

The TV-shows I like the most do have stronger story arcs, so that all episodes (with a possible exception of very few) moves the overall plot just that tiny bit. Both Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams seem very capable of tying almost every episode in their shows to the overall arc, in some way.

But anyway, what do you folks think of this? More importantly, how do you think writers should think in order to keep the number of episodes/chapters that do (almost) nothing for the overall arc as low as possible? I do not want chapters that neither alter the story situation or develop/alter at least one character a little bit.

Thanks!

 

[kromanjon]

Well character arcs and story arcs are two different things. In a book I don't want any scene that doesn't move the plot forward but I tend to be more forgiving about characters not changing since characters can't just change all the time.

TV-shows are another thing. Characters almost never change on TV beacuse the producers don't want them to change. They've found a cash cow, everyone likes the characters, so if they change them ratings will drop. Of course it goes the other way as well. Many shows change drasticly from first to second season when the producers get to know who the audience likes and who the don't like. What I'm saying is that, most of the time, TV is a buisness more than anything holding back any attempt at making artfully told stories with belivable characters and exiting plots. Those shows that manage to be exciting tend to get overly complicated in later seasons because the writers have to up the stakes all the time. Sooner or later the aliens will attack.

 

[Darth Angelus]

Of course character arcs and story arcs are different things. I am sorry if I implied otherwise.
However, they are not entirely separable. Characters and people are a major component in stories, and their attitudes are often very central to the setting in any genre, including Fantasy. Changes in such attitudes of one or more characters can move the plot forward.
Of course, the plot can also move forward by people being eliminated and other events, but character attitudes are one of the major elements in almost any story.
Due to this, I think stagnant character arcs and ditto story arcs tend to coincide.

Also, while a character's basic nature can not change all the time, small things about them can, even if it is just a slight alteration in attitude towards someone else.

I agree with you, however, that commercial concerns often trump artistic ones in many TV-shows. It is just unfortunate. I prefer when stories are not that move forward.