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0 pointsk__8y ago0 comments

I don't know where to read, but it seems to me that end of the 90s, TV shows (real and anime) became less episode based but got a whole story arc, like we know from current TV shows like "Game of Thrones", "Breaking Bad" or "The Wire".

I always hear people talking about how "The Sopranos" was the first TV show that did this, but anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Cowboy Bebop" came out years before it.

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8 comments · 2 top-level

blincoln8y ago· 4 in thread

AFAIK, J. Michael Straczynski was the first person to get a successful arc-based television series on TV, with _Babylon 5_ - the pilot aired in 1993.

He had tried earlier with _Captain Power_ in 1987, but that only lasted a single season, and it was kind of doomed to be thought of as a kid's show because of the toyline tie-in.

vesak8y ago

> AFAIK, J. Michael Straczynski was the first person to get a successful arc-based television series on TV, with _Babylon 5_ - the pilot aired in 1993.

Would you consider Twin Peaks (1990) to be arc-based?

aidenn08y ago

Soap Operas?

da028y ago

I was thinking of that too, especially of all the personal problems the characters had in Evangelion. I had to stop watching because of the main protagonist repeatedly asking why his father doesn't show any love for him. A lot of people are into those story-lines, and I guess it partly explains Evangelion's popularity with women too.

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chc8y ago

Babylon 5 was even called a "space opera."

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bitwize8y ago· 2 in thread

Macross and Gundam did this in the 80s. Macross was even viewable here, as Robotech.

labster8y ago

And Rose of Versailles did it in the 1970s. Don't forget the shoujo demographic, everyone.

This whole myth of invention being a singular moment rather than a gradual stream of improvements infects creative works more than other fields. But we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

k__OP8y ago

But who did it first?!?!? xD

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