With an audience that grew increasing disinterested in serial exploits, Republic finally curtailed serial production in 1955 with King of the Carnival , which reused extensive footage from Daredevils of the Red Circle . Columbia would limp along with three final Spencer Gordon Bennett serials before giving up in 1956 with Blazing the Overland Trail . While the serial is now long gone, part of its heritage lives on in the television series. Instead of forcing us to spend an entire week waiting to find out how the hero will escape the villain's latest terror, we now must wait only until the commercial break is over. Some shows, such as The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space, actually used cliffhanger endings but only as small overlaps into the next week's episode.
Soap operas come the closest to using real cliffhangers.
However, the legacy of the serial lives on in feature films, such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark . Later, his fight aboard a truck recalls the work of the great stuntman Yakima Canutt. And Darth Vader of Star Wars is a direct throwback to the masked villains of the serial's golden era. The serial is now dead. Its history is in some ways a disappointing one, for the serial failed to progress past its own narrow limitations.