Talk:Serial

message: There seems to be some controversy over my edit which qualified the comparison between a British serial and an American miniseries, so I think it's worth discussing to see if the terms are really synonyms, exonyms—or just good friends.  
It's my belief that British serials have some commonality with most miniseries I've seen, yet are distinct enough to warrant distinction.  British serials tend to be comprised of separate episodes which are usually, but not always, numbered in some way.  Each constituent part builds to a cliffhanger of some kind, which entices the viewer to watch the next part.  But when the story is over, the program can often live on.  Doctor Who is the most obvious example of this.  Just because the serial, "Robot" ended didn't mean Tom Baker was out of a job.  Serial is much closer to being a synonym of the word "story" than anything else, I feel.  
Miniseries by definition end the program as a whole at the conclusion of the last episode.  
Can a miniseries have a sequel?  Sure, but it's invariably given another title, even if it's as simple as appending a number after the name, such as North and South, Book III.  If Doctor Who is the definitional British "serial programme", Roots is surely the granddaddy of all American miniseries.  Each episode of Roots didn't build to a cliffhanger, as Doctor Who' did in it's "classic" era.  And its sequel wasn't called Roots,  but Roots: The Next Generations.  That sequel had a vastly different cast of characters, and the narrative was contained within itself—if informed by the earlier series.  If "serial" is a synonym for "miniseries", then it would have to follow that Twin Dilemma was a miniseries.  Does anyone seriously believe that?
The more recent Band of Brothers and To the Moon and Back also trended away from classic serialization, but instead, like Roots, strung its narrative together in a more slice-of-life style.  Central, it seems to me, to the notion of a British serial is the cliffhanger, much as in the days of the old film serials.  American miniseries trend much more heavily towards narrative about the passage of time, and thus the interest is sustained through the character's inexorable movement towards known historical waypoints, or fictional demarction (though in truth most US fictional miniseries wholly original to television have in truth been backdoor pilots, such as V and Battlestar Galactica).   With only a few very modern exceptions, cliffhangers are much more commonly used in the US to end whole seasons and begin new ones, or to tell a two-parter in the middle of sweeps.   The preference for episodic television argues that serial elements are secondary, or entirely absent, next to an episode's individual plot.  The fear of viewers failing to join a series later in its narrative arc has tended to scare American networks away from doing true serial fiction, even in miniseries.  Interestingly, the modern Heroes would tend to mitigate even further against equating  "serial" with mini-series, becuase at least its first season has been entirely serial in nature (complete with numbered chapters), yet is anything but a "mini" series.
There is also a difference in the way that American miniseries are commissioned versus the way British serials generally are.  With a miniseries it is explicitly understood that you have X number of episodes to tell your tale, period.  With a British serial, you certainly get an order for a set number of episodes, but there is always a chance that you might come back. 
Miniseries are frequently adaptations of pre-existing novels or non-fiction books.  British serials (like The Silver Chair and Pride and Predjudice) can be, but frequently (as with Glasgow Kiss, Dark Season, and Century Falls) are wholly original creations from writers just entering the field. 
Serial is a word which describes a way of organizing a series (season).  It's essentially adjectival.  Miniseries is a full-on noun.  The only constant about the term "miniseries" is that it will be a "short series (program)", whereas "serial" describes the nature of the storytelling method. CzechOut 16:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  British serial discussion 

message: If disambiguating, this should be merged to series. -Stevertigo 22:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Having just spent a little time with both, i can't say i agree. Although some of the disambiguated pages overlap, many do not. Some concordance would be nice, i'm just not sure what. For now, i'll make sure each links to the other at least. --John_Abbe (talk) 03:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with [[series]] 

message: Some old history that used to be at the title serial is now at Talk:Serial/History. Graham87 14:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old history