Hercules has aged pretty well I think. Minus some of the less serious bits, which weren't always as bad as this article tries to claim. And yeah, it was a bit episodic. Could've been handled better on occasion, but "them's the times". Not a big deal.
The goofy parts of Hercules were fine because they were sincere and straightforward, there wasn't any winking at the camera to tell you how stupid you are for laughing at Autolycus's ex-wife being played by Traci Lords or the one with Iolaus in drag.
Oh yeah, I agree. I actually appreciate how it handled goofy things most of the time, and it was handled pretty clearly in episodes dedicated to being less serious.
I just found it a little awkward when trying to introduce the show to people who'd never seen it before.
I'm in the minority, but I prefer TV where the plots are self contained one and dones.
The only exceptions are Breaking Bad (My favorite show of all time) and Entourage (top 5 shows of all time). Even Entourage is sort of like a mix, where there definitely large connecting plot being a huge focus, but self contained misadventures are also a huge part of the shows appeal.
I'm not too into these long epic length plotlines really in 90% of cases.
A good balance is the show Elementary. It has some woke garbage in it, I'm only in Season 3, but it is an entertaining show.
It has longer threads that pop up here and there in moments in the show, but each episode the focus is on the "mystery of the week" as it were, where the long plot gets dripped little by little in scenes.
To me, the short, one and done episode style is more entertaining than an extremely elongated movie.
You have to be really skillfull to pull it off. Breaking Bad, but Vince Gilligan is like the Rod Serling of our time, in terms of the caliber of writer he is, and as a talented director.
I feel like even Better Call Saul wasn't able to keep that addicting pace like Breaking Bad. It was too much spent on certain things, stretched out way too long. I enjoyed it, except for the ending, but I don't think it's as entertaining.
With Breaking Bad, things moved at a break neck speed, so it never felt like things were being artificially stretched.
Particularly shows like Kevin Sorbo's Hercules that had network runs before the advent of streaming. Being episodic & self-contained made a lot more sense in a time before bingewatching entire seasons.
Particularly once classic shows hit syndication & re-runs, there was no guarantee that multiepisode storylines would ever air in the proper sequence ever again.
Iirc, Hercules and Xena also didn't have the most stable network backing either. So there was even more risk of inconsistency with production and release cycles.
Not sure how much of the cast actually lived near the filming locations either. New Zealand and possibly Australia.
Supernatural had a good balance between episodic and persistent plot arcs too. Not that it was terribly complicated, you could sum up most of the season's core plot arc to a single sentence. But it typically worked pretty well, and even if you missed a few episodes it was easy enough to be caught up to speed.
Hercules has aged pretty well I think. Minus some of the less serious bits, which weren't always as bad as this article tries to claim. And yeah, it was a bit episodic. Could've been handled better on occasion, but "them's the times". Not a big deal.
The goofy parts of Hercules were fine because they were sincere and straightforward, there wasn't any winking at the camera to tell you how stupid you are for laughing at Autolycus's ex-wife being played by Traci Lords or the one with Iolaus in drag.
Oh yeah, I agree. I actually appreciate how it handled goofy things most of the time, and it was handled pretty clearly in episodes dedicated to being less serious.
I just found it a little awkward when trying to introduce the show to people who'd never seen it before.
It's definitely easier to show people in a world where you can pick which episode you're watching.
I'm in the minority, but I prefer TV where the plots are self contained one and dones.
The only exceptions are Breaking Bad (My favorite show of all time) and Entourage (top 5 shows of all time). Even Entourage is sort of like a mix, where there definitely large connecting plot being a huge focus, but self contained misadventures are also a huge part of the shows appeal.
I'm not too into these long epic length plotlines really in 90% of cases.
A good balance is the show Elementary. It has some woke garbage in it, I'm only in Season 3, but it is an entertaining show.
It has longer threads that pop up here and there in moments in the show, but each episode the focus is on the "mystery of the week" as it were, where the long plot gets dripped little by little in scenes.
To me, the short, one and done episode style is more entertaining than an extremely elongated movie.
You have to be really skillfull to pull it off. Breaking Bad, but Vince Gilligan is like the Rod Serling of our time, in terms of the caliber of writer he is, and as a talented director.
I feel like even Better Call Saul wasn't able to keep that addicting pace like Breaking Bad. It was too much spent on certain things, stretched out way too long. I enjoyed it, except for the ending, but I don't think it's as entertaining.
With Breaking Bad, things moved at a break neck speed, so it never felt like things were being artificially stretched.
Particularly shows like Kevin Sorbo's Hercules that had network runs before the advent of streaming. Being episodic & self-contained made a lot more sense in a time before bingewatching entire seasons.
Particularly once classic shows hit syndication & re-runs, there was no guarantee that multiepisode storylines would ever air in the proper sequence ever again.
That sort of stuff was left to afternoon soaps, generally
Iirc, Hercules and Xena also didn't have the most stable network backing either. So there was even more risk of inconsistency with production and release cycles.
Not sure how much of the cast actually lived near the filming locations either. New Zealand and possibly Australia.
Supernatural had a good balance between episodic and persistent plot arcs too. Not that it was terribly complicated, you could sum up most of the season's core plot arc to a single sentence. But it typically worked pretty well, and even if you missed a few episodes it was easy enough to be caught up to speed.