Artxaysliketo be continued: a magazine about series, sequels and adaptations

An independent culture magazine about series, sequels and adaptations. We neither show nor distribute films or series, and we are not connected with the former site on this domain.

History

History of the form

The series feels like an invention of the screen, but the habit of waiting for the next part is much older. First readers waited for the next instalment of a novel, then listeners sat down by the radio at the same hour every day, and only after that did the habit pass to television. Below are three milestones confirmed by reference works, followed by an account of what came next.

The reader waiting for a novel's next instalment and the viewer waiting for a new episode are doing the same thing: living alongside the characters, not just finding out what becomes of them.

— Margin note

Timeline

  1. 1836–1837

    Charles Dickens's novel “The Pickwick Papers” comes out in monthly instalments. It is one of the best-known early examples of a novel in parts: each instalment is read, retold and talked over while everyone waits for the next.

  2. 1842–1843

    Eugène Sue's novel “The Mysteries of Paris” is serialized in a Paris newspaper. This is what the roman-feuilleton looks like: a chapter in every issue, a break at the most suspenseful moment and readers who buy the paper for the next part.

  3. 1930s

    In the US, daytime radio serials are often funded by soap and detergent makers. Hence the phrase “soap opera,” which in time became the name for long family stories where one storyline flows into the next.

What came next

With the arrival of television, serialized stories gained pictures. At first much was carried straight over from radio: the same family sagas, the same daytime hour, the same hope that the viewer would come back tomorrow. Gradually two ways of telling took shape. In one, every episode is complete and can be watched on its own; in the other, the plot runs through the whole season and makes no sense without the earlier episodes.

Later came the miniseries, a story whose ending is known from the start. It is closer to a big novel: several episodes, one finished storyline and no promise to return. The form proved especially handy for adapting long books, because it spares the plot from being cut down to the size of a single film.

In the streaming era a season more and more often arrives all at once, and the familiar rhythm of one episode a week is no longer a given. Viewers decide for themselves whether to stretch a story over a month or get through it in a weekend. Writers have had to rethink their pauses: if the next episode can start right away, a cliffhanger works differently than it did in the days of the newspaper serial.

The old techniques haven't gone anywhere, though. An open question at the end of an instalment, returning characters, a subplot that unexpectedly moves to the foreground: the authors of newspaper novels and the writers of radio serials knew all of this well.

  • Collections

    Reading paths by form (sequels, adaptations, sitcoms, anthologies, miniseries) and a starter route for newcomers.

  • People & roles

    Who stands behind a long story on screen: roles from writer to composer, plus the two names from our timeline.

  • Adaptations (in Russian)

    A reference note at an old address: what a text loses and gains on its way to the screen, and how to compare book and adaptation.

Sources

  • Reference works on the history of literature and film
  • Glossaries of TV and screenwriting terms (in general terms)

Historical facts are based on reference works on the history of literature and film. Different schools read the terms of dramatic writing a little differently, so we explain them in general terms and without tying them to specific productions.