Story lines

[Semi42]

Watching modern TV dramas it occurred to me how many nowadays “flashback” .
so many now to the point it’s becoming irritating
I can’t recall many tv dramas made before the movie Momento where the storyline was not linear. It seems like the film set a trend where we were constantly reading caption of “three months earlier” and the like .
for me it has become very tiresome

[George 1978]

Re: Story lines

It seems to be mostly an American thing, but when they do that, and obviously they go back to when an adult character was a child, a younger person would be drafted in to play the child version of that character.

[Semi42]

Just started to watch the BBCs “serpent” and lo and behold it skips back and forth more than a charity shop LP.
a good series but I fail to see any benefit as to why it’s been produced like this other than to be on trend.
I think it would have been better made with a linear storyline

[BrianO]

The 'previously on...' clips of previous episodes were always used in American TV to carch up whenever there was a 2-part episode. In the early 80s, starting around the era of shows like 'Dallas' and 'Hill Street Blues', they became a weekly part of the show.
The non-linear storytelling is different, and has absolutely been done to death.