Interesting. It starts to make sense of why so much US tv was entirely stand alone episodes, which did exist in the UK, but fairly uncommon except in sit-coms.

Interesting. It starts to make sense of why so much US tv was entirely stand alone episodes, which did exist in the UK, but fairly uncommon except in sit-coms. The UK had the broadcasters, even the commercial ones, making the programmes, so they were wedded to scheduling in the programme making. External production companies and studios came much later, 80s or 90s I think. Presumably they stuck to fairly rigid contracts about order, or broadcast after all x episodes of the series were made, after those changes came in, they certainly had a long history of managing in order. The UK experience was more how you describe Babylon 5 etc - a show plot that concluded with the episode, but theme and character development across the series. Even the classics from the 70s and 80s. Some were so smooth a transition it actually did seem like getting a glimpse a week later, rather than an artificially exciting episode. To modern eyes that looks pretty dull, though that's partly camera and production techniques too, yet did seem to allow smoother development.