Tv Formats

Tv formats

Serials - A serial has a continuing plot throughout each episode that starts to get revealed in a sequential episode by episode, its sort of like a cliff-hanger it leaves you wanting to know more but will be revealed within the next or next couple of episodes. The reason that audience will still continue to watch the show is because they need closure on the show to see how it ends, for example the show 'How To Get Away With Murder' it is not revealed who killed the girl Lila until the very last episode and then at the end of that episode it still leaves you wanting to know more so it makes people want to watch the next season and so on. 
Examples of television serials are: Secret & Lies, Empire, Revenge, How to get away with Murder, The Blacklist and Teen wolf etc.

Series - A series does not have a continuing plot, by the end of the episode all the unanswered question would have then been answered, for example a murder would be found out by the end of the episode this does not leave any cliff-hangers, this type of format gives you closure at the end of each episode. So for the audience if they were to stop watching the show for a little and missed a few episodes it would be pretty easy to understand what is going on and very easy to catch up. This television format might be aimed at and suitable for people that work since they may miss an episode so that way its not difficult for them to catch up on the show Examples of this television format are Friends, The Big Bang Theory, My wife and kids. 

Soap opera - A soap opera is known a serial drama on Tv which features many related story lines about the lives of different characters. Soap operas mainly shows many stories that people could be going through. For example domestic abuse stories, death of a loved one for example a child, wife/husband, mother/father etc. Soap operas do have cliffhangers at the end of their episodes to make the audience to want to watch more therefore they're like serials in a way. However soaps do not end and just continue to go on and on. Also soaps are usually shown nearly every week day so it can be considerbly harder to catch up on if missed episodes. Some examples are Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Coronation street, Eastenders.