by John Ostrander
My favorite new show on TV this year is The Blacklist. It’s on opposite another show I enjoy a lot, Castle, which is now in its sixth season. Assuming it makes it (and I certainly do hope it’s renewed). I wonder if I’ll still love The Blacklist five years from now.
The new trend in American TV appears to be serial anthology shows such as American Horror Story and True Detective. Both take a season to tell a complete story and then the following season tells a different story but in the same genre. American Horror Story often keeps most of the same actors but then casts them in different parts. You tell the story and then you move on, giving a complete beginning, middle, and end.
There’s a lot to be said for that. The BBC series, Broadchurch, told a good story – so much so that I wonder how they’re going to do a sequel as they evidently plan to do.