Type of TV shows you enjoy the most.

[Tuor]

So, which type of TV shows do you like more?
The ones with a continuous background story, like Flash or Lost. Or, new story every episode with a minimal background story, like Dr. House.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Lots of great examples of both. Continuous stories seem to run that risk of cancellation and not being worth much of anything if it happens and it happens pretty often. You know where it just ends on a blank like their would be another season or they knew the cancellation was coming and 3 seasons of story gets smashed into one to finish it out sort of thing. More episodic stuff seems to stand the test of time a bit better because it can run on TV, or you catch a random episode, and it is as enjoyable as it could be with or without seeing the rest of them. It is also less of a time investment to go back and get the feel and memories of it without a bender.

Really I enjoy the shows that kind of mix it up between the two. Where its very episodic but 4-6 episodes of a 12-15 episode season connect and tell an over all arching story without the cliffhanger at the end of each episode sort of thing going on. Maybe that continuous story is talked about or see a bit in the more episodic ones as well, but each episode still stands mostly alone with a start, problem, climax, problem fixed/lesson learned, and conclusion to the individual episode. Deep Space 9 really pulled this off well in my opinion. Very episodic in feel and approach but with a greater and larger narrative that connected. Not many pull it off well. Most just go either 100% one direction or the other. But the middle I find pretty nice.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I like a continuous story, even if it's not the focus 100% of the time. You have shows like Babylon 5 which had stand alone episodes, that still contain threads of the whole story, and shows like the X-Files or Supernatural which have a long running story, but occasionally have one off episodes to break it up a bit.

[Tuor]

Created the Thread, and just realised i didn't answered the question.
I actually like both, i choose TV shows under other circunstances. back in the days, i was a Lost geek, i never missed an episode, to the point, i actually didn't applied to my guild raids in wow, because the tv show was on the same day my guild raided. But i actaully prefer stand alone TV shows, like Dr. House, because you not required to be on the story, each episode is enjoyable that way. I tried to rewatch lost, and i couldn't, because i already had lost most of the background story, which means, the TV show was no longer enjoyable. I voted for individual story because of that.

[Echeyakee]

Individual. I mean, every show has some background story, but all of my favorite shows are gag sitcoms, or close to it.

[roboscorcher]

I like to really focus on one thing at a time, so overarching narratives are my jam.

If you enjoyed Lost, I highly recommend watching Dark. That show really pushed the envelope for multi-season narratives. It's a trilogy of sorts, and (unlike Lost) you can see that the major story beats were planned in advance.