Fandom and serial TV -- Letting go, holding on

A lot of ink has been spilled about the future of serial television, but even if I do not think that it is "going away" or "dying," I've recently been thinking about how troubling it is to be a fan of these types of series.

As a fan of serial television, there are usually two things that happen to me. And there are two series on the air right now that embody them perfectly: FlashForward and 24.

NBC reboot has begun: Where to now?

Tonight -- well, I guess this week since Leno's Tonight Show started yesterday -- is the makeshift reboot of NBC's schedule, as it's newest hope for ratings success, positive critical response and good buzz, Parenthood debuts at 10 PM.

In the last year, NBC's undergone a slew of changes that more or less led to nothing. So where do we stand with the Peacock network?

Just end it already! Genre television and end dates

As we've all seen over the past month, the end of Lost has sparked a slew of different conversations about the future of television, formats, serialization, etc. One move that Lost proponents always cite as the turning point in the series was the agreement to end it all back in 2007. 

And now, that idea gets thrown around for nearly every series with any extended mythology. But should it?

'M*A*S*H' knocked-off: Is that good for advertising?

Not to call out Professor Anderson, but recently in class, he noted that nothing would ever top the ratings of the M*A*S*H series finale, which reached 105.97 million viewers in 1983.

And why wouldn't he say that? Nothing has come that close ever since, and with the slew of cable, pay-cable, OnDemand, online and other channels, the audience is fragmented beyond belief.

Well, never count out the appeal of a city coming back from disaster and Peyton Manning.