Continuity is handled very differently between different works: some of them take it very seriously, others really, really don't; some works need you to have been watching from the beginning while others just let you hop in and enjoy an individual story at any point in the series, that will usually be contained within a single installment.
Realizing where a work falls on the Sliding Scale of Continuity is often essential to being able to enjoy a series for what it is. In many cases, series on the lower side of the continuity scale often rely on a recurring structure or at least a consistent tone and mood — when deciding whether or not to watch an episode, a viewer will have some idea of what to expect beforehand. High-continuity series are usually expected to offer the viewer a sense of change or progress between installments, in terms of both characters and plot. This allows for more complex and detailed storytelling, spanning multiple chapters, at the cost of requiring more involved viewing. A lot of popular works attempt to combine the best of both worlds: offering self-contained episodes with something extra for those who take the time to watch all of it, or offering "progress" between seasons.
From the production side of things, works closer to the episodic end of the scale are also much easier to coordinate between writers, and handle a change in episode count or order better. In television, their appeal to networks is that can attract casual viewership, and easily increase viewership at any point along the series' run. On the other hand, works leaning towards continuity may find it easier to maintain a more devoted viewership once they catch on.
What this scale measures is: If you knew nothing of the series but the very basic premise and then happened to catch some random episodes in arbitrary order, how difficult is it going to be to understand and follow what's going on, and how much will you miss, compared to if you watched it in order from the beginning?
The answer doesn't have to be static within a series. When a work starts low on the scale and progresses upwards over time, that's Continuity Creep. Then, in many shows, especially those with a Half-Arc Season, the answer is different depending on which episode you're watching. If the shift is very pronounced, you can list it under both levels; otherwise, just put it where most episodes go and note the variance.
See also Season Fluidity.
The Sliding Scale of Continuity is as follows:
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Level 0: Non-Linear Installments
The different installments of the series are only nominally the same work; every new installment concerns different characters, or possibly the 'same' characters but in an alternate universe, such that the stories are explicitly disconnected and obviously not meant to be part of a continuity of any sort. Within any given installment, it can be assumed that every other installment either never happened or is at least completely irrelevant to the current one. What they share to make them a series is usually thematic, world or (for video games) gameplay elements, with possible minor recurring creatures, objects, etc. Non-Linear Sequel is the specific trope for this. If done to an entire series you've got a Thematic Series. In some cases, the rights-holders use the already-popular name that they own for marketing reasons, regardless of whether or not an installment fits in with previous ones in the series.
A franchise with multiple long-running continuities or frequent reboots does NOT count! This category is for works like the Twilight Zone TV series and Final Fantasy games, and the aforementioned Universal-Adaptor Cast.
Examples:
- Each episode of Space☆Dandy has the core crew of Dandy, Meow, and QT in common and little else. While they behave the same from episode to episode, the stories tend to end with one or more of them getting killed and/or horrible, irreparable damage to their universe. This goes beyond a Snap Back in that the art style, genre, soundtrack, and writing style also change from episode to episode, especially in Season 2, to where they would look like different series if not for the main characters' presence. However, the show shifts to a Level 4 in Episodes 23 through 26 while keeping the wildly divergent art styles and episodic format: 23 to 25 gradually explain the nature of why there's no continuity at all with 26 displaying the end result when someone tries to exploit it.
- Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman: Each story takes place in its own separate continuity, but all of them feature Wonder Woman in some way, even if she's only a comic book character within the 'verse of the tale.
- The seasons of Blackadder in relation to each other are this, the only similarities being the basic premise of "Blackadder surrounded by idiots" (and not even that considering the first season). However, the episodes within a season can be from Levels 1-2.
- Genre Anthology shows:
- The Goon Show, befitting its anarchic, surrealist nature. The characters were dropped into entirely different scenarios every week (often in a different country or century) and seldom remembered each other — and even when Bluebottle did recognise Neddie, it was as "the one who deads me every week."
- Each entry in the Escape Velocity series takes place in a completely different continuity from the others. EV Classic and EV Nova are tangentially connected because a Negative Space Wedgie kicked two Atinoda Kestrels from the Classic universe into Nova, but it's more of an Easter Egg than anything else and doesn't affect the plot.
- The Final Fantasy series. A couple of games had sequels or spin-offs; the others are each their own reality with their own characters, their own plot, their own setting... However, they share various nods to one another such as similar monsters, summons, chocobos, and characters named Cid.
- Most works in The Idolmaster franchise have separate continuities, the main exception being the various A-1 anime series, which appear to share a continuity.
- Neptunia:
- The second game takes place in an Alternate Universe from the first and Victory involves the protagonist and her sister from the second game Trapped in Another Alternate Universe. Despite having the same characters, the games taking place in AU versions of the same world and with AU versions of the cast make this a Level 0.
- The continuity progresses with VII, which features mk2's cast dealing with a new crisis and new characters in their home world, as well as Neptune and Nepgear ending up in another Alternate Universe that isn't actually one. Victory's Ultradimension is not mentioned for the most part outside of a quick recap at the very beginning, although a couple of elements from there do have considerable plot relevance. Namely Croire, the power of Tari's CPU, and Ultradimension Neptune. This in turn brings it up to somewhere between a Level 2 and 3.
- The Quake games were this, for a while, with Quake-III having nothing in common but a name for marketing purposes. That ended with the back-to-back releases of Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which were a sequel and prequel respectively to Quake II.
- The Shin Megami Tensei franchise as a whole. Certain games may share a continuity but have a completely different cast between games (such as Persona 3, 4, and 5) and there's rumblings in certain games that the franchise is part of a massive neverending conflict that transcends time and space, but to most people they all might as well be completely unrelated stories that only share basic themes such as All Myths Are True, The World Is Always Doomed and Order vs. Chaos with the ability to Take a Third Option in the conflict.
- There are certain games within the Tales Series that are directly related to each other (Tales of Symphonia being a distant prequel to Tales of Phantasia, and similarly Tales of Berseria being a distant prequel to Tales of Zestiria being the only non-number pairs) but otherwise are unrelated games that merely share similar battle systems and Deconstructor Fleet storywriting tendencies.
- Love, Death & Robots is a sci-fi/fantasy Animated Anthology with each episode being based on a different short story.
- Silly Symphonies and its imitators. The shorts in these series were almost entirely self-contained and populated by one-shots, with only the occasional Ensemble Dark Horse coming back for another cartoon.
Level 1: Negative Continuity
Continuity? What's that?
Sure, the episodes are clearly related, sharing characters and a basic setup... but ultimately, watching it out of order makes more sense than in order if anything. The show may cheerfully contradict itself and if something seems to have changed by the end of the episode, you can bet the next one pretended it never happened anyway, so it's hardly a loss if that's not the next one you watch. Usually done in comedy. When there actually is continuity of some sort, that very fact is probably a gag in itself. See the Negative Continuity page.
Examples:
- While Dragon Ball has a great amount of continuity about it, in a larger sense the various entries into the franchise almost always invoke Negative Continuity in relation to each other, especially if they aren't written by Akira Toriyama. The Dragon Ball manga forms the base from which all others are related by, but almost no works that expand the plot can ever be compatible with the others. note Movies get this the worst, slotting themselves into a hypothetical status quo that is similar to but not exactly the same as a point in time in the show. note Trying to sort this out causes more harm than good for many fans, and the creators are none too bothered by it and prefer to instead focus on writing interesting and cool stories than be bothered about how every single entry fits with the rest.
- While the Pokémon anime is 100% Status Quo Is God, it has sometimes dipped into Negative Continuity, as some events from earlier seasons or films are ignored later on. Pokémon: Genesect and the Legend Awakened is a very infamous example for ignoring Pokémon: The First Movie.
- The Disney Duck comics by Carl Barks and many other writers. Don Rosa's stories, however, are Level 2.
- Flight of the Conchords' second season had several episodes end with the guys having, say, lost all their furniture, or fallen below zero on Murray's friendship graph, with the next merrily restoring the status quo without so much as a mention. The first season, however, is Level 2-3, making it an example of inverted Continuity Creep.
- The Goodies, which rapidly devolved from a Work Com-Roommate Com-Brit Com hybrid into a vehicle for razor-sharp satire disguised as a live-action cartoon with dirty jokes, wasn’t afraid to do Monumental Damage, kill off the entire main cast, turn the population of Britain into clowns or in one memorable instance blow up the Earth, with everything back to normal next week.
- Saturday Night Live alternates between Level 0 and Level 1, with some recurring sketches and characters.
- Gossip City falls between 1 and 2. While there are some things that stay the same such as the Suzumori family others like who is Himari's husband and Jo's backstory varies from story to story.
- Happy Tree Friends. Every single episode has at least one character either die or get horribly injured, yet by their next appearance they're invariably totally fine.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force often ends with characters being maimed or killed, the main characters' house being destroyed, etc.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog, in some episodes the house the main character live in is destroyed or even some of them (most times Eustace) end up being killed by the Monster of the Week, but by the next episode the house will be intact and all the main characters alive as if nothing happened.
- Dexter's Laboratory often ends episodes with the destruction of the laboratory and the like. All you need to know for each episode is that he's Dexter and has a laboratory.
- Drawn Together, as exemplified by the fact it is the subject of the page quote for Negative Continuity.
- Many cartoons from The Golden Age of Animation have the Reset Button being pressed after and even during almost every episode. Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry being the most famous examples. They sometimes dive headfirst into Level 0, though, with shorts that place the characters into different time periods.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show fluctuates between Level 0 and Level 1.
Level 2: Status Quo
Here Status Quo Is God. While there is an established canon and different episodes or installments will usually try not to contradict one another, there will be no, or next to no, changes in the setting that aren't reset before the end of the episode. There may be Continuity Nods, but if you haven't seen what is being referenced, they might as well just be Noodle Incidents. The basic situation at the beginning of an episode in Season 7 will probably be exactly (or almost exactly) the same as the situation at the beginning of an episode in Season 2, so that it makes little difference in what order you watch them.
Examples:
- Franken Fran is steadily here. While there is the occasional Continuity Nod or Sequel Episode, as well as the occasional change to the supporting cast (with Veronica's introduction being the biggest), chapters will almost always begin with Fran getting back to work at the lab and ending with her shrugging off whatever disaster her latest work has caused.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- While the games have a vague Level from 0 to 4, the Pokémon anime is completely set in the status quo, with the only real cast being Ash, Pikachu and Team Rocket. New companions join, and new Pokémon are caught, but Ash will always lose the league at the end of a series, and the Reset Button is pushed so that the whole series might as well have never happened. Rinse and repeat. This has resulted in Ash being no closer to his goal of becoming a Pokémon Master than he was in 1997. To wit, it took roughly twenty years out of universe for Ash to finally make it to the finals of a non-Filler league (Kalos) and about another two for him to actually win it all (Alola).
- Pokémon Journeys decisively breaks the cycle by chronicling what Ash does next after winning the Alola league: aiding Pokémon research and setting his sights on the Pokémon World Championships.
- A great many superheroes of The Golden Age of Comic Books tended towards this trope, especially the B-list characters who often had little in the way of supporting characters or recurring villains. An Aquaman or Green Arrow story of the early '40s might be almost identical to one published nearly two decades later.
- The Sherlock Holmes stories can be read in any order (with a very few notable exceptions like The Final Problem and The Empty House). And after the first few stories, they aren't all set in the order they were written in, anyway. Arthur Conan Doyle deliberately wrote them like this so that readers would not quit following the series just because they had missed a story or two.
- Most Kid Coms, in general, are at this level. While they might occasionally have a brief story arc (and by "brief" we mean "the occasional two-parter"), they usually depict the exact same characters in the exact same situations from season to season. TGIF sitcoms are at the high end of this level, since they at least chronicle their main characters growing up and make whatever adjustments are necessary to the status quo to reflect this.
- As it says on that page, Saved by the Bell was the king of the Status Quo Is God trope.
- Seinfeld is a good example of a grown-up sitcom that's at this level.
- Star Trek: The Original Series adhered to this level of continuity well enough that with a scant few exceptions you can watch the series in any order and it generally makes perfect sense.
- A rare mixed example can be seen with the main series Pokémon games. They mix this with Level 0. There is continuity in the world, with references to events from previous games and some recurring characters, but every new game starts with you being a new rookie Trainer in a new region fighting a new evil team, and knowing where the recurring characters came from is more a bonus than anything else. Pokémon Gold and Silver, however, does continue the major events from Pokémon Red and Blue (and Yellow, sort of), making it a Level 4. On the other hand, Pokémon Sword and Shield and onwards have moved largely to Level 0, with few to no recurring characters at all, to allow new players to jump in at any point and not feel any Continuity Lockout.
- Most animated series from The '80s fell here, even if it meant Failure Is the Only Option for the heroes.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- The show fits this category to a tee, with each character having the same goals, motivations, and relationships with one another at the beginning of almost every episode. References to past episodes are often made, but regardless of which episode you watch, you can expect to see Phineas and Ferb trying to make the most of their Summer, Candace trying to show her mom the dangerous things they do, Dr. Doofenshmirtz trying to either take over the Tri-State Area, or get some sort of petty revenge for his Hilariously Abusive Childhood (or sometimes both at once), and Perry showing up to stop him. If any episode has something that could potentially result in a status quo change, expect it to be undone before the end of every episode, save for the series finale.
- Every now and then, the show introduces something new to the table. For example, "Hide and Seek" introduces Irving into the main friend group, and "Nerdy Dancin'" brings the creation of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. and the introduction of its members. However, each subsequent episode to include them has them in the same situation, and with the other characters having the same relationship with them.
- Perhaps the only aspect of the show that sits somewhere between Level 3 and 4 is Candace's relationship with Jeremy. She spends the beginning of the show crushing on him, though as the series progresses, they become noticably closer. After the special, "Summer Belongs to You," the two of them are officially a couple.
- Samurai Jack fits comfortably in this category. Although there were a few developments over the course of the series (Jack befriending the Scotsman, learning to jump good) they are only rarely shown. (The Scotsman only appears in three episodes after his introduction, there are plenty of times when jumping good could have solved the episode's dilemma but went unused.) Jack was never going to get to that time portal. Season 5 bumps it up to Level 4, however.
- The Simpsons: Almost every episode ends with everything in the same place it started (albeit with the occasional use of Snap Back to clean everything up) and characters fail to recognize each other despite all the adventures they've had together. However, there are also occasional Continuity Nods and permanent changes such as Lisa permanently becoming a vegetarian or Maude Flanders's death. However, the show does run on Broad Strokes, and uses a hefty amount of Comic-Book Time, Multiple-Choice Past and Chaos Architecture as Rule of Funny dictates. Treehouse of Horror segments are Level 1.
Level 3: Subtle Continuity
There may be developing minor subplots or Character Arcs, the status quo may gradually change over time, and prior events may be casually referenced, but major changes generally don't happen. If you watch a season two episode and then a season five one, you may think, "Wait, when did they get together?" or "Whoa, Alice and Bob moved?", but chances are if you then watch a later season five episode you'd never know you skipped seven episodes in between, and the plots of the individual episodes you watch will always be resolved by the end.
Examples:
- The second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex diverges from the Type 4 setting that the first season fell into. Episodes are split up into "Individual", "Dividual", and "Dual" episodes. While the first two may seem like completely stand-alone episodes that have nothing to do with anything in particular, each episode focuses on at least some minor detail that will build up to a more important role later on as the story unfolds. Individual episodes focus on the rising tensions with the Asian refugees in Japan practically being treated as 2nd class citizens. Dual episodes focus on the Government's involvement with the refugee situation (and the Big Bad's manipulation of everything behind the scenes), and Dividual episodes focus on the members of Section 9 and how they get involved in all of it.
- Superman is a Level 3 in at least The Silver Age of Comic Books — while Mort Weisinger was the editor, his supporting cast, Rogues Gallery, and mythology were slowly built upon, without readers requiring to have read any previous stories most of the time. Supergirl (also edited by Weisinger) followed this model but often moved into Level 4 as she was more likely to be involved in two- or three-part stories.
- The first three Harry Potter books' storylines don't directly depend on the stories of the previous books; they each explain basic premises like the wizarding world, Voldemort, Harry's backstory, etc., Harry continues to live at the Dursleys', go to Hogwarts every year, have friends named Ron and Hermione, etc., and the actual events of the first book almost doesn't matter by the third, but they ARE brought up a few times in the other books. Also, for the fans that say that the second book doesn't matter either, Ron and Hermione wouldn't have been able to destroy horcruxes without the Basilik teeth, which is something they could've only known to do if Harry told them about what he did in the Chamber of Secrets, which happened in the second book. As for the rest of the series, well...
- Land of Oz:
- Hovers between 2 and 3 on the scale, mostly because Baum was burned out on the series, and grinding them out ahead of the bill collectors for a happy-to-oblige publisher. There are some elements that carry over (like Ozma taking the throne in the second book, Dorothy moving to Oz by the 6th book, the magic belt), but most books are standalone and many elements can contradict one another, especially as Baum started phoning in his later entries to the series. Things got worse as the apathy gradually developed into full Creator Backlash with repeated attempts to Torch the Franchise and Run, only for Baum to find himself writing yet another Oz book that retconned or otherwise undid the previous torching under the combined forces of his financial concerns, pressure from publishers... and the desire to please an enthusiastic fanbase that he actually rather appreciated (though he desperately wished they would embrace some of his other works as fondly).
- It became more complicated after other authors began working on the series and tried to untangle the Continuity Snarl Baum left behind, with the canon-ness of various events Depending on the Writer.
- David Drake's RCN novels make Call-Backs to earlier books but mostly stand on their own. In only one case so far has a novel had an actual Sequel Hook, which turned out to be mostly a Red Herring: What Distant Deeps has Adele discover intelligence that sends Daniel and the crew to the location of The Road of Danger, but once he gets there the information is handed off to a Hero of Another Story and the heroes go off and do something else.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events is much the same as Harry Potter, with the first four books or so being mostly independent, starting off with the Baudelaires being adopted by a new guardian and carefully explaining who the characters are to potential new readers, but later on the continuity creeps and the reader starts to need to have read the previous books to make sense of all this stuff about VFD and Beatrice and so on.
- Sitcoms that aren't Level 2 tend to be this, e.g. How I Met Your Mother and Friends.
- Forensic Dramas, Monster of the Week shows and other basically episodic, plot-based genres with no Myth Arcs also usually fall here.
- From Season 3 on, Blue Bloods drops the Myth Arc format for Jamie Reagan's plots and becomes much more episodic. There's still consistent Character Development going on but there's no longer a formal Story Arc.
- Criminal Minds falls here. Although story arcs are present from time to time and it has seen main characters get replaced, any differences between the episodes tend to be mostly cosmetic—the vast majority of episodes are simply the Mystery of the Week where the storyline is introduced and wrapped up in the same episode, with arcs operating mostly in the background.
- The overwhelming majority of the Classic era of Doctor Who is like this, with the exception of a couple of season-long arc plots here and there. The basic premise of the show remains the same, but actors switch out.
- Firefly's episodes can pretty much stand on their own in a mostly arbitrary order, though this may largely be because it never got the chance to go anywhere with the hinted Myth Arc.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a funny case of a series operating at a Level 3 with main characters who have the mindset that they live in a Level 2 or even 1. Mac, Dennis, Dee, Charlie, and Frank are callous, cold-hearted, and downright stupid enough to forget whatever horrible things they may have done to someone else, and then treat them like they’re misremembering it or that it never happened in the first placed. Their inability to live by anything except the status quo heavily factors into their Sanity Slippage over the seasons. Frank has enough money to bail them out each time they’re in trouble, which can partly explain why consequences don’t seem to register, but increasingly sad cases like falls of the Waitress, Cricket, and the Ponderosas won’t make much sense unless you saw the previous episode they were in.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation generally operated at this level. Most episodes focused on the Enterprise and its crew discovering new planets and alien species, and solving the problem presented in each episode. However, a few of the episodes build up Foreshadowing elements that culminate in a bigger story arc later on and some characters received promotions. Voyager and Enterprise followed this mold.
- Unforgettable spent Season 1 at Level 4 but was switched to here after being Un-Canceled and retooled as a summer series. The Myth Arc of Carrie Wells investigating the cold case of her sister's murder is dropped completely, though it gets a Continuity Nod every once in a while.
- The Ace Attorney games have a stronger (Level 4) continuity between cases within each game, but are this with respect to one another, featuring the same characters (bar Apollo Justice) and explaining things like spirit mediums at the beginning of each game but otherwise having independent stories and not depending on the player knowing the previous games.
- Left 4 Dead is Level 0 without DLC. Each level is completely stand alone as far as the game leads you to believe. With the release of the DLC, it jumps to Level 3 as we find out that the survivors ended up transitioning from one area to the next. Left 4 Dead 2 is pretty firmly Level 3, with the start of the next area being a direct result of what happened at the end of the last. For example: fueling up a race car to escape from a zombie infested mall only results in them abandoning the car when they reach blocked traffic, thus having to travel through a dilapidated carnival on foot.
- The Legend of Zelda. The games tend to be standalone but there are three timelines that diverge at Ocarina of Time. Yet the games only get a Continuity Nod or Mythology Gag at best and can be played with any knowledge of the other games.
- Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers was one of the earliest American animated series to experiment with a Myth Arc. Most episodes could stand alone, but the war against The Crown Empire, the renegade Supertroopers, thrying to establish diplomatic relations with Tarkon, and the unfortunate Fate Worse than Death of Zach's wife would creep up from time to time, along with other minor elements like the Mind Net device and a substantial Rogues Gallery that learned from and discussed their previous mistakes.
- Futurama tends towards Status Quo Is God, but there were a few major lasting changes in the later seasons.
- Gravity Falls, with the season one finale bumping the show up to Level 4.
- Hey Arnold!: Nearly every episode is standalone, but several episodes introduce characters that become regulars, such as "New Teacher" and "Ms. Perfect".
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic started is a Level 3; there are Continuity Nods and Call-Backs to previous episodes but with the exception of certain two-part episodes, all the episodes are standalone. The show Moved up to a Level 4 in Season 4, having an arc related to opening the box from the season-beginning two-parter.
- The Owl House starts off as this through most of Season 1, before going straight up to a Level 5 in Season 2.
- Rick and Morty, although episodic, does have Character Development, Call-Backs, and status quo changes. Outside of Season Premieres, it's easy to understand what's going on even if you had never seen a single episode.
- South Park is normally Level 3 but occasionally goes into Level 4, especially when a major event happens or characters go through major Character Development, as well as in Season 18.
- ThunderCats (1985) hovers between Levels 2 and 3 in its first season. Later seasons, however, fall more into Level 3 territory, with the introduction of three new Thundercats, the promotion of Snarf's nephew to the regular cast and the addition of a new team of antagonists in the form of the Lunataks. Later still, the show's regular villains (with the exception of Mumm-Ra) get written out and, for the most part, stay written out. Oh, and the Thundercats' home planet reforms.
- Adventure Time: Most episodes are self-contained enough that they can be understood with only the basic premise. The show begins to slide towards level 4 in later seasons, and each of the three miniseries have their own internal continuity that briefly bumps it up to level 5.
- The Patrick Star Show: While the Stars themselves don't change much over the series, there are plenty of Continuity Nods and it's rare to see something get introduced and never brought back in some way. For example, "The Wrath of Shmandor" and "Backpay Payback" both put an end to series-long running gags, and many events from "Klopnodian Heritage Festival" are plot points in later episodes.
Level 4: Arc-Based Episodic
These works do divide into episodes or installments with each (usually) introducing and resolving its own mini-plot, but there is a continuous ongoing storyline going on in the background. While most episodes may be enjoyed individually, any watching out of order will probably leave you wondering where characters who died three seasons ago are, or why they're suddenly having dinner with the guy they had sworn to defeat in the last episode you watched, or who the hell this new villain they're talking about is, even if you can follow the actual plot of the episode. Shows often try to combat the resulting Continuity Lockout — with varying degrees of success — with Previously on… recap openings. See also Story Arc.
Examples:
- One interesting example is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which explicitly identifies each episode as either "Stand Alone" (episodic) or "Complex" (part of the series arc). The episodic ones rarely contain any reference to other episodes.
Film — Live-Action
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe that started with Iron Man is in this category, courtesy of Marvel deciding to create its own movie label after they were bought by Disney.
- The individual films (the Iron Man series, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger) are pretty self-contained but each contributes to an ongoing Myth Arc that hit a climax with The Avengers, which in turn used The Stinger to set up the next major villain, Thanos, who would take part in Guardians of the Galaxy. Meanwhile Phase 2 of the MCU deals directly with some of the fallout from the climax of The Avengers (i.e. Iron Man 3: Tony Stark has PTSD after nearly dying at the climax; Thor: The Dark World: Loki is chastised for causing the alien invasion; Captain America: The Winter Soldier: SHIELD is gung-ho about stopping threats before they become threats).
- The Winter Soldier itself has its own ramifications for the MCU with the revelation that HYDRA rebuilt itself from within SHIELD. While the only effect it has in later films is that the Avengers now work independently, in the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the revelation of HYDRA's continued existence loses some impact if you haven't seen The Winter Soldier before watching the final third of Season 1.
- The Netflix shows are also mostly self contained much like Phase 1 of the MCU though it too has its own ongoing Myth Arc as well as plenty of Continuity Nods, namely Hell's Kitchen being what it is because of the damage caused in The Avengers.
- The Infinity Stones/Gems and their build-up to Avengers: Infinity War will be lost on anyone who hasn't seen the key films where five of the six have respectively appeared so far.
- The Ciaphas Cain novels are a fusion of this and Anachronic Order, numbered thematically rather than chronologically. The first trilogy tells the story of how Cain became attached to the Valhallan 597th Regiment and their early campaigns. The second covers much more ground time-wise but is tangentially related to the shadowlight, a mysterious pre-humanity artifact discovered on Perlia. "Echoes of the Tomb" and The Emperor's Finest cover his time as Imperial Guard liaison to the Reclaimers chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, and shed light on a Noodle Incident repeatedly alluded to in previous books and why Cain is so terrified of necrons. The last two novels, The Last Ditch and The Greater Good, deal with tyranid incursions.
- Most of the Discworld books are Level 4.
- The Dresden Files slides quickly from Level 3 to here as the books become less "investigating a case" and more "investigating something deeply connected to just about everything else while dozens of old characters reappear and stuff that happened five books ago suddenly turns out to be vitally important," though there is still a plot with its own resolution in each book.
- 'Allo 'Allo! is a rare sitcom to reach this level; each episode began with the lead character summarising the ongoing events of the mini-arc so far and the background arc of the painting(s) and British airmen ran through the whole series.
- Andi Mack is this and teeters on Level 5, very impressive for a Disney Kid Com.
- Blake's 7 always had the ongoing struggle against the totalitarian Federation, but whether it was the foreground concern or subordinate to the current crisis depends on the episode.
- The first two seasons of Blue Bloods fall here, with season-long arcs starring Jamie Reagan independent of the Body of the Week format of each episode's A-plot with his older brother Danny.
- Most of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though it started to edge towards Level 5 as the series went on.
- Doctor Who post-2005. Pre-2005 DW is more a hybrid of Level 4 and Level 3, with 4-6 episode story arcs that have a strict continuity in themselves but overall have virtually no connection to each other. The only difference a casual viewer would notice between a Season 10 story and a Season 20 story is the new lead actor.
- The Good Place has a tendency to set up an arc that looks like it could last a whole season, subtly settle into a formulaic pattern that the audience will find familiar, and then pull a Mid-Season Twist that irreversibly reveals a Plot-Driving Secret, ends whatever conflict that characters were going through, and launches a new arc with little resemblance to the previous arc.
- Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis follow this model. Each show has multi-season Myth Arcs but the individual episodes are pretty self-contained, and they usually have a Previously on… segment in the continuity-heavy episodes.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fits into this catagory and was known for having greater levels of continuity compared to earlier Trek shows.
- Supernatural tends to do this in later seasons, as compared to the Level 3 of the earlier ones. As it recaps all plot points relevant to the episode right before the episode, it's in no real danger of becoming Level 5.
- USA Network's summer series are noted for this:
- Burn Notice: With the arc being the titular burn notice and Michel Westen's attempts to get back into proper intelligence work. It gets much more arc-heavy starting in Season 5.
- Royal Pains: With the arc being Hank working out his family issues and growing his business.
- Suits: With the arcs being Mike Ross' dubious past in the legal profession coming back to bite him, and the constant intrigue among partners (and Louis Litt) at Pearson Hardman.
- The Walking Dead and its companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, generally fall on this side of the scale. Each season is self-contained enough that you'll immediately understand what's going on, who the major players are and the general threat, but there are enough continuity nods and references to prior events that establish a strong sense of the overall arc (a group of people struggling to survive, and losing allies along the way).
- The West Wing has two or three major arcs per season, but segments of the arc are usually wrapped up within episodes with some exceptions. Being as it's a show about politics, things from the past often affect the present. Each episode starts with a Previously on….
- The X-Files would have about a fifty-fifty shot between standalone "monster of the week" episodes and heavy-duty Myth Arc. The Myth Arc eps sometimes cranked the scale all the way up to 5, while monster of the week episodes were a 2.
Multimedia
- BIONICLE, a line of LEGO figures with tie-in comics, books, web games, films and animations started out with loose but continuous storytelling before turning lore-heavy around its 3rd or 4th year, introducing connected story arcs spanning years. Dozens of recurring characters, callbacks and plot points from years before would affect the main story, and mysteries were laid out to be resolved years later. Even LEGO became savvy of the convoluted story and created the now defunct website BIONICLEStory.com just to get new fans up to speed. When the web serials were introduced, the franchise went full Continuity Lockout, with minor characters and objects from 7-8 year old side plots being brought back and separate arcs becoming unending, expanding, intertwining storylines. But the basic points of the main plots were easy to understand on a surface level and their connections to past stories were always explained.
Podcasts
- The Magnus Archives begins as a cosmic horror Genre Anthology with a Level 4 seasonal plot happening alongside the single-episode stories. While the show holds onto those anthological roots for its entire run, the final season takes a turn into Level 5, to the point that it would be incomprehensible without prior knowledge of the overarching plot and worldbuilding.
Roleplay
- Destroy the Godmodder is this. You can jump in as you like, but certain events are oftentimes confusing if you don't really know exactly what's going on. There were many complaints about this during the Homestuck Invasion, as many players had issues with having no idea what was going on because of how many references there were to Homestuck at the time.
- The Dragon Age series is notably more lax about its continuity than its sister series Mass Effect: while there are definitely several enduring Myth Arcs, each installment so far (including supplemental novels and comic mini-series) is a largely self-contained story that happens to push one or more overarching plots along. This is helped by the fact that individual installments usually focus on different (albeit often overlapping) main characters and are set in different parts of the world at different times; also, an occasional retcon by the writers prevents the established canon from being too reliable.
- The Elder Scrolls main series of games (i.e. the ones with numbers in the title) fit here. Each has a brand new protagonist (the Player Character) but take place chronologically (with Time Skips ranging from four to 200 years) after the previous games in the series. In the background looms the (mostly) benevolent Third Tamriellic Empire whose involvement with the main plot of the game varies from relatively loose (Daggerfall, Morrowind) to being an essential player in the game's events (every other game). The first four games, in fact, all take place during the rule of the same Emperor (Uriel Septim VII). Other consistent elements are the inclusion of (or at least mention of) various Guilds and Factions (Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves' Guild, Dark Brotherhood, etc.) as well as the presence of the same gods and deities (save those you kill or otherwise alter).
- Final Fantasy XIV has the base game and several expansion packs that all continue from one another. Each expansion has their own story that is also built upon from the previous story and sets up for the next story. While you can skip certain arcs and still get the gist of it, you'll won't understand certain plot points, characters, or other references that are brought up from events that happened earlier.
- King's Quest lands here, with the games themselves being standalone, but characters frequently reference past adventures, and the plotlines sometimes lead into one another, like the events of King's Quest V being set into motion over events in King's Quest III (the Big Bad of that game takes revenge for his brother being turned into a cat), and the events of King's Quest VI built on events in King's Quest with many references to King's Quest III in dialogue and flavor text. There's also an incriminating letter in King's Quest VI that hints that at least three of the previous villains may have been working together. It can get up to a 5 if you get your hands on a Fan Remake or Fan Sequel like AGD Interactive's remakes of KQII and KQIII or The Silver Lining.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Gold and Silver carries on with the major events from Pokémon Red and Blue. The Johto Pokedex is considered as an extention of the Kanto Pokedex, you have to stop Team Rocket from returning to its former glory, and the Pokemon League is the same Indigo Plateau. Most, if not all, characters from Kanto returns, including the previous game's protagonist, who is now the true Pokemon Champion. And many of them have moved on with their lives. The only reason this isn't Level 5 is due to having to start with a new protagonist.
- Pokémon Black and White have direct sequels and are the only main series games to do so. Black 2 and White 2 can be played with no problems to their story, but it it is appreciated more if you've played Black and White first. There's even a feature where you can connect a Black 2 or White 2 game to a Black or White game and transfer the latter's data (such as the player's name and what team they had) to enhance the story further.
- Quest for Glory is one of the most serialized franchises Sierra ever made, and unlike other games released around this time (like the aforementioned King's Quest), the QFG series allowed the player to carry their character over from one game to the next. However, this series wasn't quite as restrictive from a continuity standpoint. Each game (despite following a single hero) dwelt with a separate problem in a separate location. Although it worked in characters and continuity nods from previous installments, the games were self-contained enough that you could immediately understand what was happening without playing prior titles.
- Space Quest, like its "brother" King's Quest has games that stand alone mostly, but later entries reference the hell out of previous ones. Even if Roger is always busted back down to mopping floors, there's always some hint of his previous adventures that comes up when playing. In Space Quest 6, this is referenced by showing Roger with a collection of inventory items from previous games. Space Quest 4 spoofs this with Time Travel by having Roger go to his future (The Latex Babes of Estros), where he gets in trouble for something he technically hasn't done yet, and the first game where the bar owner complains about the slot machine Roger broke. Space Quest 4's plot was kicked off by a Virtual Ghost Vohaul wanting revenge over Roger killing him off in Space Quest II, and much of the subplot in Space Quest 5 (in addition to why Beatrice getting killed means Nonstandard Game Over for Roger) has to do with events in Space Quest 4.
- Post-Continuity Reboot, Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. The fact each major installment (including the Gaiden Game sequel) have a dedicated, episodic name ("Divine Wars", "The Inspector", "Unified Wisdom" and "Gaia Saviour") proves it's better to play them in successive order than to skip one. The Spin-Off Endless Frontier duology and Another Century's Episode: R, although occurring in Alternate Universes, take elements directly from main continuity, though are not necessary to fully enjoy Original Generation. However, they provide details as to why some characters are temporarily missing in main installments and extend the Mythology Gag prevalent in the continuity.
- Most of Red vs. Blue belongs here starting with the Recollection Trilogy. There's a lot of space to goof around and tell jokes that aren't usually important to the plot, but with the way episodes follow one-after-the-other to the point where the DVD releases compile them into long movies, the plot is crucial whenever it does. And speaking of said jokes, they themselves half the time can be far-reaching callbacks to the beginning of the series that make little to no sense without the context. The Project Freelancer Saga and The Chorus Trilogy in particular are borderline Level 5, barring season 11 which dips into Level 3.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive is divided into storylines, which, while not necessarily self-contained, are by themselves more a bit more accessible than the comic-spanning larger story, which requires a full understanding of most things that have happened before to follow. And the EGS:NP B Side Comic is mostly Level 1 with a few storylines having level 3 continuity with the main comic and one (the Playing With Dolls storyline) having Level 5 continuity.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender is mostly like this — while Team Avatar is always traveling the world to find bending masters to teach Aang and there are plenty of episodes that belong in Level 3, there are pretty steady continuous developments on the villainous side that would be very jarring to anyone who just watched individual episodes here and there. Episodes almost always air with Previously on… segments, though they don't explain everything.
- Gravity Falls as of Season 2 has the overall story of the main characters attempting to uncover the secrets of the titular town and discover the identity of the individual who documented these abnormalities. Though there are can plot-relevant clues hidden in the background or credits of every episode, only a handful have the characters actively advancing the plot.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic became this in Season 4, having an arc related to opening the box from the season-beginning two-parter, and having details of Season 2 episodes come up in the season finale. Season 5 set a similar trend.
- The eighteenth season of South Park has each episode picking up from where the previous episode left off or takes a minor plot point from an earlier episode and goes into greater detail with it. This is lampshaded in Episode 2, in which the unexpected increase in continuity plays a role in the plot.
- Steven Universe jumped from what appeared to be Level 3 to 4 after the events of the two-parter "Mirror/Ocean Gem". With the introduction of alien Gem Lapis Lazuli, it became apparent the Crystal Gems were on Earth for a reason and appear to be fearing contact with others off-planet. After the events of "The Message", Peridot and Jasper shook up the status quo in a major way. Although many episodes feature self-contained stories, the show has a tendency to sneak in bits of characterization and seemingly innocuous dialogue that can pop up in later episodes to be revealed as critical to the plot without warning. The most important details will be briefly summarized, but most of the significant Character Development and hints of it's Myth Arc will not, and rewards careful examination of background details. After a few episodes in Season 2, the show's jumped to Level 5.
- Season 3 of Tabaluga's animated adaptation. Earlier seasons had only some changes, mostly near the beginning and end of series.
Level 5: Full Lockout
If you haven't seen the whole series so far, or at least the entirety of the current season, you're screwed. Each installment expects you to have seen every previous installment; though it may make some effort to try to clue you in if you haven't, you will probably be thoroughly confused, and there is no guarantee there will be any sort of resolution to anything by the episode's end; in fact, it's quite likely to end with a Cliffhanger. Often Better on DVD. The specific trope here is Continuity Lockout.
Examples:
- In general, Full Lockout is extremely common in anime. Especially in 13- or 26-episode series as they are devoid of filler and even more so when they are short anime series based on pre-existing material (usually manga).
- Attack on Titan has lots of Wham Episode worth of character deaths, revelations, and plot twists. You miss one chapter or episode, and the next one has you lost.
- On an internal scale, the Dragon Ball manga fits here, and to a lesser extent the two anime based off of it. If you skip twenty or thirty Chapters you'll generally be quite out of place as to where the story is. On a larger, franchise-wise scale, however, it's more a Level 1.
- PandoraHearts. You can read the first three chapters and infer well enough what came before, but as each follows directly from the last chapter, and the unexplained events and foreshadowing pile up as early as chapter one...
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, especially as it goes on (though the Parallel Works are Level 0).
- Many Crisis Crossovers assume that not only have you read all the previous and tie in issues of the event but also that you are familiar with events published much further in the past. Fallout from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths affected the DCU from 1986 until the New 52 reboot in 2011.
- Albedo: Erma Felna EDF is a rather extreme case of this, since you need to read each and every single piece of information from not only the comics, but also every single piece of extra information Word of God has published outside the comics like the tabletop RPG games, fanzines, info from almost every single piece of published media like interviews, websites, Usenet posts, etc., some of them were published from the 80s.
- Each season of 24 is a continuous real-time story arc.
- Most of the various AMC dramas:
- Mad Men: The ongoing story of Don Draper and the firm of Sterling Cooper.
- Breaking Bad: Or, Two Years In The Life of Walter White. And boy, are they eventful ones.
- Babylon 5 later on, though the first season or so was more Level 4.
- Damages is Level 5, due to the Anachronic Order and following the case instead of a Monster of the Week format.
- Farscape's heavy reliance on continuity, mainly from the latter half of Season 1 onwards, was deemed to be one of the reasons leading into its lower viewing ratings and eventual cancellation.
- HBO does this too.
- Game of Thrones: What do you expect from an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire?
- The Wire: Most episodes push multiple arcs forward, along with continuity nods that don't just stretch across multiple episodes, but multiple seasons. Even missing a single episode can leave a viewer lost as to what's happened in the interim.
- Lost is a frequently cited example of Continuity Lockout because of this.
- Once Upon a Time: Same writers as Lost, and same twisted plotlines that can cram several Wham Episodes inside Wham Episodes. Sure, they're all fairy tale and literary characters, but that means very little with their love of Composite Characters and Decomposite Characters and at least five Magnificent Bastards scheming against one another.
- Person of Interest fits here to a similar degree as Babylon 5, with the first season and a half being pretty episodic but featuring continuous story arcs in the background. After about the middle of Season 2, the importance of knowing the continuity rapidly ramps up because the show's cast gets huge and the various arcs begin to interconnect frequently.
- Raumschiff GameStar: The series swung between Level 5 (Full Lockout) in Seasons 1, 2, and 4 and Level 4 (Arc-based Episodic) in Seasons 3 and 5, occasionally tapping into Level 3 (Subtle Continuity) at some points in the third and fourth seasons.
- ReGenesis, through all its interwoven multiple-episode story and character arcs, is probably impossible to understand episodically despite the lengthy Previously on… recaps.
- Stargate Universe was heavily arc-based, which had the misfortune to occur at the same time Syfy changed its scheduling strategy to where it would air part of a season, then replace it with another show, then bring the first show back, and so on. The SGU showrunners partly blame the series' cancellation on the resulting confusion driving away viewers.
- The Kurtzman-era Star Trek series fall into this, except for Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which are both 4s. There are some exceptions in Discovery, where the episodes"An Obol for Charon" and "Time Loops Together" dip to level 4.
- Under the Dome features extremely tight continuity such that even the inclusion of a Previously on… segment at the start of each episode isn't much help.
- Both Higurashi and Umineko: When They Cry count. Ye gads, get out of order or miss a segment or two in either, and you can end up so lost. And, this is the same, whichever medium you're playing/watching/reading them in.
- Kingdom Hearts: From the second game onward the games head straight into Kudzu Plot with any detail potentially foreshadowing future games (Xigbar's cryptic lines in II being an example). Dream Drop Distance has "memoirs" thought that record the plots of the preceeding games and unlocks them when a Continuity Nod/Call-Back to the respective game first occurs. This makes the series a Level 4 at least, though without that game it still remains at 5.
- The King of Fighters:
- KOF currently* has four (technically five) arcs: "The Orochi Saga" ('94-'98note ), "The NESTS Chronicles" ('99-2002), "The Tales of Ash" (2003-XIII), and "The Shun'ei Saga" (XIV-present). note While the NESTS chapter of the story isn't too hard to follow without prior knowledge (as the protagonist of those titles, K', distances himself from previous hero Kyo despite being genetically engineered with his DNA), Ash's saga almost requires that you played the first four games given that 2003 introduces a plot to unseal Orochi and the children of Rugal. This is made worse if you look past the main plot and focus on the supporting cast, as you then have to deal with allusions and plot points carried over from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, Athena/Psycho Soldier, The Last Blade, Savage Reign/Kizuna Encounter, Buriki One, etc. as well as interconnected subplots involving the Dragon Spirit inside of Kensou and the Hizoku clan of assassins that haven't been resolved since they first appeared in 1999. While it's Continuity Porn and Fanservice for those who have followed SNK since its heyday, it's borderline Continuity Lockout for anyone else. Remember that this series originally existed as a storyless gathering of fighters.
- XIV, though giving off the appearance of a standalone entry point as opposed to the beginning of a new arc outright, has its fair share of this. Notably, though the Final Boss has the look of a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere at first glance, it's later revealed to be a byproduct of the Temporal Paradox Ash caused at the end of XIII and, according to Geese, was foretold in the Jin Scrolls that lied at the center of 1995's Fatal Fury 3. There's also the matter of said Temporal Paradox opening up a dimensional rift that allowed Nakoruru, Mui Mui, and Love Heart note to cross over, while another subplot involves remnants of NESTS running around in the background, with Angel (a former operative last canonically seen in 2001) being on the run from NESTS loyalists whereas newcomer Sylvie Paula Paula was deemed a "defective" experiment by the cartel. XV continues to build upon by the central storyline with Shun'ei while also bringing back a large number of characters with ties to the previous arcs like Chizuru, the Orochi Team, Krohnen (better known as K9999), Ash, and Elisabeth.
- The original Mass Effect trilogy is probably the most continuity-restrictive series BioWare has ever produced. Thanks to the ability to carry over the main character (and thus most of the plot) across all three installments, Mass Effect 2 and particularly Mass Effect 3 depend on the previous installments to such degree that it is literally impossible to get some of the best outcomes in the third game (such as the peace between quarians and the geth) without having completed the previous ones.
- When it comes to the Metal Gear franchise, if you aren't starting from square one (or the other square one, or the other other one), you'll be able to make more sense of a story by vomiting up alphabet soup, since the series has an extremely complex, continuity-driven plot that is still almost impossible to decipher even if you play the games in order.
- The Most Popular Girls in School takes continuity very seriously.
Webcomic
- Sluggy Freelance creator Pete Abrams recently acknowledged the phenomenon at this stage of the comic's lifespan and narrative density. He still tries to link back to details in previous strips, but now that it's become necessary even in filler arcs, it's extremely daunting to new readers.
- Final Space falls into this category. Although Season 1 involved recaps, protagonist Gary was an Unreliable Narrator. Season 2 lacked recaps except for the premiere, and had episodes that were completely self-contained, but still was more plot-driven than the previous season.
- The Legend of Korra may perhaps be the most continuity-heavy cartoon to date. Barring the first season, each season directly leads into the next, with the resulting fallout shaping the events of each. Although the villains and arcs they generate were separate, the characters and global politics constantly changed. By Season 3, it'd more or less become an adult drama that just so happened to be in animated form.
- Season 2 of The Owl House fits this nicely, with there being no filler episodes and plot points almost never being resolved in the episodes they were introduced in.
- Though covered on the earlier point, Steven Universe received a further jump midway through Season 2 and hasn't looked back. The show's gone beyond the occasional two-part episode and heavy background plot to long stretches of continuous storytelling. The Peridot arc featured 4 episodes, took a brief respite to detail Garnet's backstory and a one-off episode, followed by 3 episodes in a row to resolve it, then 6 episodes in a row dealing with the Cluster and its aftermath. The Season 3 finale featured a four-parter, and the fourth season arc to retrieve Greg from Blue Diamond was a five-parter that leaves off seconds after the last episode stops, hinging on the aforementioned Garnet backstory. If you missed that one, you're going to be very confused.
- W.I.T.C.H. relies heavily on continuity and long-term storytelling to the point that it's practically a cartoon serial by the time it ends.
