Thou Shalt Not Cliffhang and then Cancel

With the ending of another year in TV, cancellations are about to occur. And there should be a few rules about cliffhanging and storylines that serve no real purpose. I know. The writers of TV land are really concerned about what I think. Still, one can try.

Rule 1: Any television series in its first three seasons should not have a season ending cliffhanger.

Let's face it any television series is a gamble at the beginning. It doesn't really reach any real security until it passes that magical third year when a series finally has enough episodes to be syndicated on a regular basis. Any series can be cancelled, but we know that most will have it happen especially in the first three years. Cliffhangers in that time is unfair to the few fans a series may garner, and a cliffhanger does not guarantee a next season. People are roaming around wondering what happened the next season in Alphas. It was serious enough, The Big Bang Theory actually included it in an episode.

Rule 2.: Any television series that has a cliffhanger and is cancelled, must be given one episode after its cancellation to resolve the cliffhanger.

If you are going to allow a cheap trick like cliffhangers, you should at least give the fans the opportunity to see it settled. If the studio wants to make money, I suppose they could include a final episode on the digital or DVD release. It is only fair to those people who sit through all the advertisements and other crappy shows that should have been cancelled after episode 2. Take for example the last episode of Castle. When the show received its notice that there would not be a next season, the writers had an end scene ready to shoot to solve the obvious cliffhanger they'd planned. Was it a good conclusion? Not really, but the fans got closure albeit a bit trite.

Rule 3: Cliffhangers are cheap and lazy writing and should be avoided.

I hate the cliffhanger as a season end grabber. It's cheap. If a show is so bad or melodramatic that it has to get its viewers to watch by cliffhanging episodes, especially to try and get to the next season, the writers of the show need to rethink their life choices. Cliffhangers in TV, movies, and books is quite simply poor writing and a gimmick to sell more. In writing, if every chapter of the book is a cliffhanger, then the book is plot driven and just dragging the reader along. I've had this problem with cliffhangers in books and shows for a long time. Climactic writing at the end of a chapter should make the reader want to go to the next chapter. It differs from cliffhangers which more or less forces the reader to the next chapter. It's one of the reasons I still despise The Stand. It uses a cheap and lazy plotting technique. The same is true with cliffhangers at the end of a season. It's cheap and lazy. It means you don't care enough about the characters to stay with the series.

The best example of true climatic writing on TV was the Star Trek Next Generation episode called "Best of Both Worlds." That's the episode where Picard is turned into a Borg. It works because fans care and are invested in the characters of the show. The other reason is that the season ender wasn't a gimmick that was used every single season up to that point. True all seasons following used the technique and unfortunately, it was an occasional gimmick used even by one of my favorite shows that I could've lived without.

Rule 4: If a series is a crime solving series, it should solve crimes. If it is a law series, it should have a trial with an outcome. If it is a super hero series, it should have a battle between the hero and the villain.

Not staying with the series premise is known as "jumping the shark." When I watch Elementary or Monk, I want them to solve a mystery. That's the premise. Any series that doesn't stay in its premise or genre, is jumping the shark. I really don't care what so and so's home life is like. It's time filler. Backstory is an important part of developing character, but only as it relates to the premise. If writing never ties that backstory, then it's poor writing.

Rule 5: Additional scenes which give other characters depth (and actors something to do in the episode) but have nothing to do with the plot or central premise of the show is cheap and lazy writing and should be avoided.

Along the same line as Rule 4, we don't really need to add to supporting characters extraneous storylines. I really don't care about Supergirl's human sister’s love life unless that love life has direct bearing on a storyline which is related to the premise or genre of the show. I get that actors have been hired and they want to work. Adding stories that have nothing to do with the central story is wasted film. If a show doesn't have enough plot to support an hour (actually 42 minutes) of story, then maybe the show be thirty minutes long. I don't know how many times shows like Criminal Minds have five minutes of show following the resolution that has nothing to do with premise. "Oh look, they've run out of plot again."

And I still want to know the resolution to season 2 of Alphas.