I do love a good story, and television is a great medium for storytelling. I especially love a limited series.
Having just a few short hours in which to tell a story, and having to break that story up into a handful of more or less equally satisfying chunks is an exercise in knowing the story you want to tell, knowing how to pace it, and trimming the rest. A six episode mini-series doesn’t have time for filler.
If it’s just kind of okay, you can still take in the whole story before moving on to something else. But it will be over. If it’s good or great, it will still be over. It won’t join the list of shows that jump sharks or become shambling versions of themselves. The characters don’t have time to get Flanderised. They’ve gone to an unreachable place and they’re not coming back. We deny the network the opportunity to make me enjoy something only to cancel it. It’s self-contained.
And it’s accessible. The X-Files aired 218 episodes. Frankly, I’ve missed the boat. I’m never going to watch it from beginning to end, nor watch The Sopranos, nor read all hundred billion chapters of One Piece, nor sit through two rubbish seasons of something for the third season, which I’m assured is excellent. Six hours, though? I can do six hours.
