Follow TV Tropes

Following

Story Arc

Go To

A Story Arc (arc as in "overarching storyline") is a sequence of series installments, TV episodes, comic issues, or a certain period of time in a Video Game that puts characters through their paces in response to a single impetus; basically, an ongoing storyline. This can be a few episodes, an entire season, or even the focus of the entire series.

Arcs are not necessarily consecutive episodes. The story may reach a point where, although the arc is not completely resolved, it ceases to be of immediate concern to the characters, thus allowing the writers to intersperse (or insert) non-arc episodes. This is the case whenever an episode or a series of episodes have self-contained storylines, which are then cut-off by a continuation of the arc. Usually, the filler/self-contained stories don't have any major effect on the arc itself, set up character development to be used in the arc, or show off character development displayed in an early storyline.

Writers may decide to use a stand-alone episode to lighten the mood during a dark arc, or to feature a character not involved in the arc.

Episodes that form a Story Arc cannot be run out of order, or at least they shouldn't be. Not that this always stops networks or syndicators from doing so.

While the Soap Opera has been exclusively arc-based since the beginning of television and before, the subsequent popularity of arcs doesn't seem to come from soaps. Back in the '90s, when half-funny Sitcom reruns and poorly constructed Saturday morning cartoons ruled with an iron fist, the consensus among writers was that casual viewers wouldn't be able to get into the show. Hill Street Blues was the first American prime-time drama to rely on arcs, and is probably when the term came into the American TV vernacular. British shows have a longer-standing tradition of arcs (See Doctor Who).

According to Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies, the term is not used by UK TV writers. However, it is becoming increasingly well known by UK viewers, and UK Comic Book writers certainly use the term.

Story arcs also occur in most other serial media; Super Hero and dramedy comic series (especially online series in the latter case) are well known for them, and since they lack the seasonal format of most Western television shows, some of them take years to resolve.

A character who serves as the Big Bad for a story arc is called an Arc Villain.

Super-Trope of Myth Arc (a Story Arc that spans the entire series) and Half-Arc Season (a season with half standalone episodes and half a Story Arc). Compare Rotating Arcs (multiple serialized stories in one work, each focused on a certain set of characters) and Plot Threads (several separate sequences of events that are all part of one narrative). Contrast Arc Welding (a series that so far has been episodic, retcons itself so that it's all linked in a story-arcing plot), and Aborted Arc (an important Plot Point is abruptly abandoned). Related to Season Fluidity and Layout of a Season (the kinda Strictly Formula structuring of a show's seasons).

Sometimes the term is interchangeable with "Saga", especially in Shōnen manga and anime.


Specific types of story arcs:


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The vast majority of anime and manga series are built around arcs, which further distinguishes them from American cartoons, which are very often episodic (though less exclusively so as time passes on). In various Shōnen series, the arcs are structured in a way such that the main characters face the minions of a Big Bad first (sometimes from the lowest rank to the highest, if there is a hierarchy), and then the Big Bad himself/herself to settle the climax of that arc. And whenever a competition approaches, the episodes covering it are encased into a Tournament Arc. Examples of series with these properties include:
    • Saint Seiya: Sanctuary (itself divided into Galaxian Wars, Black Saints/Pope Ares' minions, Silver Saints and Gold Saints; the total is 73 episodes, and is the largest major arc in the series), Asgard (26 episodes), Poseidon (15 episodes), and Hades (13 episodes for Sanctuary, 12 for Inferno and 6 for Elysion; the total is 31).
    • Fist of the North Star: Southern Cross (22 episodes, God's Army & Jackal mini-arcs moved here for filler purposes), Fang Clan (7 episodes), Jagi (3 episodes), Cassandra (11 episodes), Ken-Oh (6 episodes), Yuda (8 episodes), Souther (11 episodes), Raoh's Return (9 episodes), Gosha Stars (23 episodes), Musou Tensei (10 episodes, overlaps with the last 6 episodes of the Gosha Stars arc), Jakoh (13 episodes), Shura (30 episodes). The manga went on for several more arcs as well: Kouketsu (7 chapters), Sava (12 chapters), Baran (10 chapters), Bolge (8 chapters).
    • Dragon Ball: The first quest for the Dragon Balls (Emperor Pilaf, 13 episodes), 21st Tournament (15 episodes), the second quest for the Dragon Balls (Red Ribbon Army, 17 episodes; General Blue, 12 episodes; Commander Red, 10 episodes; Fortune-Teller Baba, 16 episodes; 55 episodes total), 22nd Tournament (Tenshinhan, 18 episodes), the third quest for the Dragon Balls (King Piccolo, 21 episodes), and 23rd Tournament (Piccolo Jr, 31 episodes).
    • Dragon Ball Z: Saiyan/Vegeta (39 episodes), the fourth quest for the Dragon Balls (Namek/Freeza, 68 episodes), Garlic Jr. (10 episodes), Androids/Cell (84 episodes, including the Cell Games), Saiyaman and 25th Tournament (20 episodes), and Majin Buu (72 episodes).
    • Dragon Ball Z Kai: Saiyan/Vegeta (26 episodes), the fourth quest for the Dragon Balls (Namek/Freeza, 25 episodes), Androids/Cell (Androids, 24 episodes; Cell, 20 episodes; 44 episodes total), and Buu (Majin Buu, 34 episodes; Evil Buu, 25 episodes; 60 episodes total)
    • Dragon Ball GT: Black Star Dragon Balls (15 episodes), Baby (25 episodes), Super Android 17 (7 episodes), and Shadow Dragon (17 episodes).
    • YuYu Hakusho: Spirit Detective (25 episodes), Dark Tournament (41 episodes), Chapter Black (28 episodes), and Three Kings (18 episodes).
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is quite notable in the sense that each story arc is a self-contained story in an overarching continuity, which helps prevent Continuity Lockout in this rather lengthy series. The arcs are: Phantom Blood (5 volumes; 9 episodes), Battle Tendency (8 volumes; 17 episodes), Stardust Crusaders (17 volumes; 48 episodes), Diamond is Unbreakable (19 volumes; 39 episodes), Vento Aureo (17 volumes; 39 episodes with 3 Recap Episodes in between), Stone Ocean (17 volumes), Steel Ball Run (24 volumes), and JoJolion (27 volumes, currently the longest in the series as of 2022).
  • In various shoujo series, since they tend to follow the Monster of the Week format, the arc sorting is based on which Big Bad becomes the ultimate source of all the weekly monsters; so when that Big Bad is defeated, then the arc ends and another starts with another villain releasing their own weekly monsters. Examples of series following this style include:
    • Sailor Moon: Original series (46 episodes, introduces the Inner Senshi: Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus), Sailor Moon R (43 episodes, introduces Chibiusa and Sailor Pluto), Sailor Moon S (38 episodes, introduces Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn), Sailor Super S (39 episodes), Sailor Moon Sailor Stars (36 episodes, introduces the Sailor Senshi from outside the solar system). The Sailor Moon manga also has named story arcs: the Dark Kingdom arc, the Black Moon arc, the Infinity arc, the Dream arc, and ending with the Stars arc.
    • Cardcaptor Sakura: The arcs don't have any particular names, but they're sorted by season. The first one has 35 episodes, and focuses on Sakura sealing most of the stray cards with her power, starting with Fly and finishing with Fire. The second has 11 episodes, in which Sakura seals the remaining cards and initiates a Final Judgement trial with Yue. The last season has 24 episodes, and focuses on Sakura enhancing the cards' powers with a new incantation, followed by a climactic confrontation against Clow Reed.
    • Pretty Cure, as a whole, has spanned eighteen series, but only two of them are sequels to previous series.
    • Corrector Yui has two. In the first, Yui's first priority is to reunite all Correctors and then eliminate the viruses originated from the Big Bad, Grosser. The second season introduces a new villain, Bogles, as well as a new Corrector who is first introduced as an Anti-Villain.
  • Pokémon: The Series, true to its original source, sorts the story arcs by league and generation, and some of them are long enough to span more than one season. In the case of the Johto saga, there are several sub-arcs in which the main characters are looking for (or even helping) a Legendary Pokémon.
    • In Japan, the series is sorted as such: Original Series (Indigo, 80 episodes; Episode Orange Islands, 36 episodes; Episode Gold & Silver, 158 episodes; 274 episodes total), Advanced Generation (Hoenn, 145 episodes; Battle Frontier, 47 episodes; 192 episodes total), Diamond & Pearl (191 episodes), Best Wishes (142 episodes), XY (XY, 92 episodes; XY & Z, 43 episodes; 140 episodes total), Sun & Moon (146 episodes), Pocket Monsters (136 episodes; Aim to Be a Pokémon Master, 11 episodes; 147 total).
    • In the United States, while the series is arranged identically to the Japanese one, it is divided between seasons rather than by game equivalent. The current arrangement is:Note Indigo League (52 televised episodes; 79 home video episodes), Adventures in the Orange Islands (52 televised episodes; 36 home video episodes), The Johto Journeys (52 televised episodes; 41 home video episodes), Johto League Champions (52 episodes), Master Quest (52 televised episodes; 64 home video episodes), Advanced (52 televised episodes; 40 home video episodes), Advanced Challenge (52 episodes), Advanced Battle (52 episodes), Battle Frontier (47 episodes), Diamond and Pearl (51 episodes), Battle Dimension (52 episodes), Galactic Battles (52 episodes), Sinnoh League Victors (34 episodes), Black & White (48 episodes), Rival Destinies (49 episodes), Adventures in Unova (45 episodes), XY (48 episodes), Kalos Quest (45 episodes), XYZ (48 episodes), Sun & Moon (43 episodes), Ultra Adventures (48 episodes), Ultra Legends (54 episodes), Journeys (48 episodes), Master Journeys (42 episodes), and Ultimate Journeys (54 episodes).
  • Pokémon Horizons: The Series is divided into story arcs that, unlike its predecessor, are given their subtitles. First story arc is titled Liko and Roy's Departure while the second story arc is titled The Sparkling of Terapagos.
  • The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's six-episode arc was broadcast with eight Breather Episodes that flashed forward to after the arc. It also successfully broke the rule of never showing a story arc out of order. Helped largely by Arc episodes being still in order, just with the Breathers inserted in-between.
  • Naruto: The manga is remarkably well organized, being easy to tell where one arc starts and where it finishes. The anime adaptation derails this by the sheer amount of filler. More often than not, the arcs are defined by the dynamics changes of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship.
    • Arcs of part I:
      • Introduction Arc — General introduction of the ninja world and revelation of Naruto's status as the unfairly hated jinchuriki of the Nine-tailed Fox. Also, Team 7 is created.
      • Land of Waves Arc — Team 7's first C-rank mission. They have to protect a bridge builder, but misinformation puts the characters in peril. Faced with an S-rank ninja, Naruto and Sasuke must prove themselves and both uncover new powers (Tailed-Beast chakra and the Sharingan). Sasu and Naruto start getting along better.
      • Chunin Exam Arc — Kakashi volunteers Team 7 for the Chunin Exams, deeming them capable of fending themselves well even if they won't probably be promoted yet. The rest of the Konoha 11 and the Sand Siblings are introduced. Also, Orochimaru plants the Cursed Seal on Sasuke. Sasuke and Naruto start respecting and acknowledging each other.
      • Invasion of Konoha Arc — Hidden Sand and the Hidden Sound villages unleash a joint invasion against the Hidden Leaf village. One of the Sand Siblings is revealed to be a jinchuriki too as he transforms into a giant, sand-made tanuki. Team 7 (Naruto in particular) defeats him, but the Third Hokage is killed after crippling Orochimaru.
      • Search for Tsunade Arc — For safety reasons, Jiraiya impromptu grabs Naruto in a quest to get Konoha a new Hokage. The candidate is Jiraiya's former teammate, Tsunade, who has become disillusioned with the ninja lifestyle. They must convince her before Orochimaru recruits her. Before meeting her, a mysterious but nefarious organization, the Akatsuki, attacks Naruto. One of them is the man Sasuke seeks to kill. Jiraiya and Naruto succeed, but Sasuke revives his trauma.
      • Sasuke Retrieval Arc — Humiliated by the power gap between him and his brother (plus the fact Itachi was targeting Naruto), Sasuke's trauma and thirst for revenge are rekindled. He deserts the village guided by Orochimaru's Praetorian Guard, who offered him power in exchange of being Orochimaru's new body. Newly-minted chunin Shikamaru and a bunch of genin are assigned to retrieve him. Sasuke declares Naruto is his best friend, but that his priority is to avenge his clan.
    • Arcs of part II, aka Shippuden:
      • Kakashi Gaiden — In the midst of the Third Shinobi War, the former Team 7 takes an ill-fated mission that causes the death of two of its members: Obito (crushed by rocks while saving Kakashi) and Rin (kidnapped and had to sacrifice herself). It's revealed how Kakashi got his Sharingan eye and how he used to be as selfish and standoffish as Sasuke.
      • Kazekage Rescue Arc — Two members of the Akatsuki kidnap the new Kazekage to extract the Tailed-Beast sealed inside him. Its ally, Konoha, sends reinforcements but they arrive too late. The Kazekage survives, though. Akatsuki's goal is revealed.
      • Sasuke and Sai Arc — Sai, Team 7's designated replacement of Sasuke is a mole for a shadowy political figure, so the original members distrust him. Also, a new jonin instructor is assigned while Kakashi recovers in the hospital. They receive the mission to find Sasuke and bring him back before Orochimaru wears his body like a new suit.
      • Hidan and Kakuzu Arc — The Akatsuki continues capturing and extracting Tailed-Beast from the jinchuriki of other villages, so Konoha decides matters into its own hands. Team 10 is send to deal with two Akatsuki members, losing its jonin instructor in the process.
      • Itachi Pursuit Arc — The POV changes to Sasuke who has betrayed Orochimaru and actively hunts his brother seeing he's powerful enough now. Uncomfortable truths are uncovered ( the Uchiha Massacre was secretly ordered by Konoha and Itachi did it to avoid a Civil War). In the meanwhile, Jiraiya infiltrates the Akatsuki's headquarters, the Hidden Rain village, to put a name to its leader. Jiraiya dies.
      • Invasion of Pain Arc — Enraged by the truth and pained by his brother's demise, Sasuke now seeks revenge against Konoha, so he joins the Akatsuki. Said organization launches a crushing invasion on Konoha, utterly destroying it. To save the few people left, Naruto must learn the Sage Arts in a race against time.
      • Five Kage Summit Arc — Even if Pain has been defeated, the Akatsuki is still rampant and dangerous. Furthermore, Tsunade is in a coma and Danzo (the shadowy councilman) is crowned interim Hokage. To add salt to the wound, more than one village and Sakura want Sasuke's head in a platter and he himself wants them (and Danzo) gone. The villages are left with few options and, to conquer, they have to establish an unheard-of alliance.
      • Shinobi World War Arc — Akatsuki's Tobi and Orochimaru's former dragon Kabuto unite to start a World War against all of the ninja villages. Their army, among other unsavory characters, includes several revived shinobi. Several of them used to be the character's loved ones or otherwise impacting figures. The Man Behind the Man is revealed to be first Madara Uchiha, but ultimately Black Zetsu. The final Big Bad is the goddess Kaguya and is uneasily reunited in Team 7's hands to defeat her. Naruto and Sasuke fight for the last time before rekindling their friendship.
      • Epilogue — Ten years after the war, Naruto is the Seventh Hokage (after Kakashi resigned) and Sasuke is often out wandering the world in search of peace. Most of the Konoha 12 have Babies Ever After.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion can be divided into four arcs:
    • Prologue Arc, from the beginning to the Jet Alone filler (Episode 1-7). This arc establishes characters, character relationships, and settings, having an overall melancholy tone due to it being a deconstruction of the mecha genre.
    • Action Arc, starting with Asuka's introduction and ending with Iruel. Though there are some melancholic and introspective moments, the main focus is firmly on humor and action, and all episodes are Monster of the Week episodes; this part is in many ways just like any other mecha series (Episode 8-13).
    • Descent Arc, starting with the Recap Episode and ending with Zeruel (Episode 14-19). There are still Monster of the Week episodes, but they start having overt lasting effects on the characters, and a couple of episodes focuses exclusively on the human drama between the characters. There are still the occasional humorous moments, but they get gradually exorcised and stop appearing all together after Episode 18. Mind Screw kicks into high gear in this part and the viewer starts having an inkling things are not what they seem to be; with the appearance of Bardiel, the show takes one hell of a nosedive into the Darker and Edgier zone.
    • "The Bitter End" (Episode 20-24, 25-26/End of Evangelion). Even more Mind Screw with a side order of Nightmare Fuel. Most of the cast's backstories are revealed in all their dark and troubled glory, and most of them are pretty much completely worn down, both physically and mentally, and the Monster of the Week episodes tends result in at least one character getting pushed completely over the edge whenever they appear. Also The End of the World as We Know It occurs at the end. The part that made the franchise famous.
  • Black Lagoon is notable for having a story arc that ended up being 33 chapters long. This wouldn't be very impressive if it weren't for the fact that it's a monthly series - so said arc lasted for nearly half the series at the time it ended.
  • In the anime adaptation of Little Busters!, each girls' route was adapted into a separate story arc of 4 or 5 episodes in a row (Kud's arc is a minor exception, as it had a Rin episode in between the first and second episodes).
  • The arcs in Captain Tsubasa are sorted by the teams Tsuabasa and his friends are playing for, as well as the competitions in which they are participating. The first arc has them play the national Japan tournaments; World Youth has Tsubasa play in Brazil, and later in Japan again for the AFC Youth Championship before moving to Spain to play for FC Barcelona (by this point, his friends join teams of other European teams); Road to 2002 has the characters prepare to play for the Japan national team in the 2002 edition of The World Cup.
  • Attack on Titan: Interestingly, the anime identifies its episodes as belong to these as well as each episode being part X of an arc. They are: The Fall of Shiganshina, The 104th Trainees Squad, The Battle of Trost, Night Before The Counteroffensive, 57th Expedition Beyond the Walls, and The Raid on Stohess District. Fans commonly refer to the last 3 as sub-sections as part of the Female Titan arc.
  • The Sword Art Online anime has adapted six of the light novels' arcs, each one usually revolving around a new virtual-reality MMORPG. The arcs are:
    • Aincrad, which deals with Kirito, Asuna, and thousands of other gamers being trapped in the MMORPG Sword Art Online (SAO), and their efforts to escape by defeating the boss on each of the 100 levels.
    • Fairy Dance, which deals with Kirito's attempts to rescue Asuna from her Jerkass fiance, who has taken control of the SAO game engine and trapped her and many other SAO victims in another game, Alfheim Online (ALO), for some nefarious purpose, after he and most of the other gamers escape back to the real world.
    • Phantom Bullet, which introduces new character Sinon, and details her and Kirito's investigation of Death Gun, a player in the Cyberpunk MMO Gun Gale Online, who seems to be able to kill players in the real world by killing them in the game.
    • Caliber, which is a bit of a breather, mini-arc following Kirito, Asuna, and their friends as they attempt to win an ALO game event and prevent an in-game apocalypse.
    • Mother's Rosario, which focuses on Asuna instead of Kirito, and deals with her Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with new character Yuuki, her helping Yuuki's guild, the Sleeping Knights, to defeat a particularly deadly Aincrad boss, and her fraught relationship with her mother.
    • Alicization, which follows Kirito as he participates in a government research project using VR technology to develop AI for the military, which leads to him getting stuck in a virtual world called Underworld. Being longer than all previous arcs combined, it is further divided into numerous sub-arcs.
  • Starting in Season 5 of Tamagotchi, there is a story arc where the Tama-Friends go collecting Tama-Hearts formed by The Power of Friendship. The Tama-Hearts factor heavily into the last episodes of Season 6, where they're used to undo a curse that causes everyone to slowly turn into eggs with no personality.
  • As one of the longest-running mangas ever, One Piece has naturally had plenty of arcs (and that's not even counting the anime-only ones). For convenience, these have been grouped together into sagas:
    • East Blue Saga: We see Luffy's origin story and him gathering his first crew members, while the first parts of the Myth Arc are laid down.
    • Baroque Works Saga: The Straw Hats befriend Vivi and through her are dragged into a conflict with a criminal organization seeking to overthrow a national government.
    • Skypiea Saga: Having been joined by a post-Heel–Face Turn Robin, the Straw Hats venture to a Floating Continent and come into conflict with its God-Emperor.
    • Water 7 Saga: While facing the impending loss of their ship to prolonged damage, the Straw Hats learn Robin's Dark and Troubled Past and come into conflict with a black ops unit, leading to them taking the Myth Arc up a notch by declaring war on the World Government.
    • Thriller Bark Saga: The Straw Hats wander into a dangerous stretch of ocean, meeting a new ally in Brook and having to confront Gecko Moria.
    • Summit War Saga: The Straw Hats are scattered, just before Luffy has to break into the world's greatest prison to try and save his brother, leading to a major battle that completely upends the status quo.
    • Fish-Man Island Saga: After a two year Time Skip, the Straw Hats are reunited and travel to an island steeped in Fantastic Racism in preparation for entering the New World.
    • Dressrosa Saga: Now in the New World, the Straw Hats confront their most dangerous enemy yet.
    • Whole Cake Island Saga: The Straw Hats go up against Big Mom as they try to rescue Sanji from his Big, Screwed-Up Family.
    • Land of Wano Saga: The Straw Hats sail straight into a war against some of their most powerful opponents ever, while the aforementioned upended status quo is completely wrecked.

    Asian Animation 
  • In Happy Heroes, multi-episode story arcs are occasionally interposed between the regular episodes. Two notable examples are the "Fairy Tale Adventure" story arc from Season 4 (episodes 27 to 32) and the "God of War Legend" story arc from Season 7 (episodes 47 to 50).

    Audio Plays 
  • Big Finish Doctor Who has a mass of story arcs going on.
    • With the Eighth Doctor there was the Anti-Time story arc, as changing history by saving his companion Charlotte Pollard was causing the Web of Time to break down. Finally the Doctor gets infected with Anti-Time, leading to the Divergent Universe arc where he travels into a different Universe to suppress the Anti-Time.
    • There is the Viyran story arc, involving various strange diseases spread throughout time and the Viyrans trying to stop this.
    • Throughout several stories, there is an arc involving The Forge, an organization dating back from at least World War 1, performing secret experiments during that time frame, including turning people into vampires against their will. 6th Doctor and Evelyn encounter the remnants of their experiments as well as a member of their's in "Project: Twilight", while the revived in modern time Forge is revealed in "Project: Lazarus", before the 7th Doctor has much more active involvement fighting against them, especially due to his new companion's, Thomas "Hex" Schofield's, mother being involved in the organization during 6th Doctor's encounters with them.
    • Parallel to that arc, as well as continuing after it, another story arc for the 7th Doctor is his battles against the Elder Gods, as well as TARDIS losing it's color and becoming white. Early on, the Doctor, Ace and Hex fight against the Celestial Toymaker in "The Magic Mousetrap", before continuing properly after the Doctor takes down the Forge and deals with the plan of another villain (from from "Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge" onward). In addition, during the events of "The Angel of Scutari" right before the Forge arc reached it's conclusion, TARDIS's outer shell gets destroyed at the start and rebuilt at the end of the story, though it is white instead of blue, the TARDIS team travelling in the white TARDIS for a while. Parallel to that is an arc of Doctor travelling solo in a TARDIS distinctly described as black in color. All these arcs culminate in the trilogy of stories "Protect and Survive", "Black and White" (where the black TARDIS is explained, and the white TARDIS regains it's color), and "Gods and Monsters".
    • The later 8th Doctor stories show the opening stages of the Time War, with the Time Lords and Daleks working against each other and the Master being resurrected.
    • This also ties into the Eminence storyline, involving a Fog of Doom who are so dangerous the Doctor is willing to help the Daleks against them, although the Time Lords are trying to help the Eminence in the hope they will prevent the Daleks becoming the supreme life form.

    Comic Books 
  • Cerebus the Aardvark is broken down into 10 major arcs: Cerebus, High Society, Church and State, Jaka's Story, Melmoth, "Mothers and Daughters", Guys, Rick's Story, "Going Home", and "Latter Days." Church and State has two parts, and the arcs in quotation marks have two to four distinct sub-arcs fitting under the general title.note  Each arc and sub-arc tells a distinct story, lasting anywhere from 11 issues (Flight) to almost 60 issues (the entirety of Church and State), and each is collected in its own TPB.
  • Since most American comics are now published with collected editions in mind, they tend to come out with five-or-six issue storylines that are usually connected to each other to tell a larger Myth Arc, but are just as easily read as their own self-contained stories.
  • The Shazam! Captain Marvel had one of the earliest such arcs in the 1940s when he took on The Monster Society of Evil that ended with him discovering that its leader is the worm Mr. Mind.
  • Judge Dredd stories generally come in two different modes. The one-shot comics are "Day in the life" stuff and are generally more darkly comedic in tone, with Dredd often showing how much of a zero-tolerance asshole he can be. The so-called Mega-Epics are huge story lines that generally last about half a year to a year, are more serious in tone and tend to make several changes to the status quo.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) is broken down into smaller arcs which lead into each other as part of a single larger narrative.
    • The first arc, unofficially dubbed the "Neo Metal Sonic's Revenge Saga" by lead writer Ian Flynn (but lacking an official name) and running from Issues #1-12, features the Sonic characters rebuilding after the events of Sonic Forces, dealing with Eggman's army as it comes under the control of Neo Metal Sonic, and trying to figure out the mystery of where Eggman himself disappeared to.
    • The second arc, officially called the "Metal Virus Saga" and running from Issues #13-32 (plus the 2020 Annual), has the newly-returned Eggman unleashing the Metal Virus and turning heroes and villains alike into Zombots. When the Deadly Six hijack the plague, the remaining survivors — good, bad, and neutral — must team up to stop both threats from destroying the world.
    • The third arc, unofficially dubbed the "Eggman's Legacy Saga" by Flynn and running from Issues #33-61 (plus the Bad Guys, Imposter Syndrome, and Scrapnik Island miniseries), has the heroes tying up loose ends from the Zombot Apocalypse while Starline plots to overthrow Eggman and conquer the world himself, creating Surge and Kit to that end. Eggman eliminates Starline in Issue #50, but Sonic and Tails must still contend with their new doppelgängers.
  • Invader Zim (Oni) is mostly composed of standalone issues, with a few two-parters thrown in, but has also had a couple longer arcs:
    • The Virooz Arc (Issues 22-25), about Zim hunting down a mysterious figure who infected GIR with a virus that made him turn on Zim.
    • The Battle Void Arc (Issues 46-49), about Zim and Dib being trapped in a Pocket Dimension full of alternate versions of Zim.

    Comic Strips 
  • Beetle Bailey doesn't usually have much continuity, but over the decades, there have been a handful of arcs connecting the strips (actual longer stories for albums notwithstanding), including at least "Beetle arrives at college," "Beetle joins the army," "Beetle goes home on holiday alone," "Beetle goes home on holiday with Sarge," "Beetle goes on holiday at home with Sarge and Otto," "Zero goes on holiday home with Beetle and Sarge," and "Sarge briefly tries to leave the army but comes back."
  • Calvin and Hobbes has several, some of them connecting into larger arcs, like the ones involving different uses of the same invention (all of which inventions tend to be the same cardboard box in different positions anyway).
  • Garfield had weeks-long story arcs throughout the 1980s; some had him winding up far from home and trying to get back while others would put him in an increasingly ludicrous situation (i.e. getting caught in a windowshade, which escalates into him, Jon, Odie, and other people trapped in it).
  • Prior to becoming a Sundays-only strip, Foxtrot did a number of weeks-long stories. Many just had the Foxes going on vacation (like a trip to Washington DC or camping in the desert), but others had things like Jason attending a summer camp, Roger quitting his job to spend time more time with his family, and Peter tricking Paige into thinking she had a Secret Admirer.
  • Tumbleweeds sometimes would go out of Grimy Gulch for weeks at a time. He'd often get lost, meet tertiary characters and have characters back in town wondering about him. Eventually Tumbleweeds would return to town weeks later.

    Fan Works 
  • Child of the Storm:
    • The first story has an overall plot of Harry readjusting to life as the son of Thor, while Lucius Malfoy allies with HYDRA and the Necromancer Gravemoss to destroy the Avengers and Take Over the World.
    • The sequel, Ghosts of the Past, has doubled down on this, with interconnected plot arcs with separate names and separate Big Bads. So far there's:
      • The Prelude, which establishes how everyone's doing after the climax of the first story, and sets the groundwork for other plot threads further on in this story.
      • Forever Red, featuring the Red Room and Sinister going after Harry as a base for new Super Soldiers.
      • Bloody Hell, featuring Dracula going after Carol Danvers, and separately, the Heirs of Kemmler, Voldemort, and Selene Gallio fighting each other and Harry Dresden and the Scarlet Witch for the Word of Kemmler.
      • Of Dungeons and Dragons, featuring the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament accidentally awakening an Elder Wyrm, which goes on a rampage.
      • Mirror Image, featuring Harry Thorson trying to protect Clark Kent from a Power Parasite.
      • The Fallen Fortress, featuring Ron and Hermione being lured into a malicious Eldritch Location deep in the Forbidden Forest by Voldemort, which in turn draws in Harry, Sirius Black, Dumbledore, Betsy Braddock, and Viktor Krum.
      • Unfinished Business, a side-story parallel to The Fallen Fortress, which features Carol and Peter Parker on a school trip in New Orleans, getting caught up with Gambit's involvement in a superpowered Mob War and the legacy of Project Pegasus, both of which are orchestrated by Nimue to achieve ultimate power.
  • A couple of these can be identified in The Good Hunter, with one currently in progress due to the fanfic's ongoing status.
    • Chapter 1-7: Lescatie Arc. Amidst the ever-going conflict between man and monster, the Order and the Demon Lord, Cyril tries to find a home for himself in Lescatie, a powerful seat of the Order, hoping to rid himself of any attention. Meanwhile, the monsters plan an invasion on the city.
    • Chapter 8-15: Sheffield Arc. Leaving the remains of Lescatie behind, Cyril heads to Sheffield, one of the few city states with a neutral stance towards man and monster, to try one more time at settling down. Neutrality has never been any harder than ever, when the monster faction seeks retribution for their losses in Lescatie, while Order zealots aim to force the city to join their ranks.
    • Chapter 16 and beyond (for now): Slaver Slayer Arc. Cyril, accepting his role as the hunter, is tasked with rooting out slavers within the federation of the Oberon League. Little did he know that the state of affairs has gone through an upheaval due to his presence, as the politicking between the Order, the Demon Lord, and the Oberon League begins to unravel.
  • Family Guy Fanon has a few story arcs that were just three-episode arcs in the original:
    • Brian's Death: The now expanded full season story arc in Season 11 that concerns Brian's death and the Griffins getting a new dog named Vinny to replace him, with Stewie having to accept the fact Brian's gone and grow a new friendship with Vinny.
    • Brian Moves Out: A story arc in Season 16 that's now expanded to last the first half of the season that concerns Brian moving out of the house after he makes a bad tweet.
    • Griffin vs. Thompson: The first original story arc in Season 21 that concerns Meg's finding her real father Stan Thompson and kicking Peter out of his house, and him needing to get his family back.
  • The New Adventures of Invader Zim has the ongoing search for the lost Meekrob weapon, though it's more of a Half-Arc Season given that the story alternates between this and more standalone events.
  • In A New Chance Series, there are several story arcs ongoing, some of them originating in the first story of the series and continuing into the second:
    • Larvitar's search for his mother.
    • Team Rocket's plan for world domination involving capturing Legendary Pokemon with powerful Poke balls/
    • Team Magma and Team Aqua's own respective plans for the world.
    • The plans of the being that killed the Father Latios and tried to destroy Altomare, as well the Father Latios' own revival and his efforts to stop his mortal enemy and reunite with the Eon twins.
  • The original version of The Night Unfurls is separated into these:
    • Chapter 1-3: Assault of the Black Fortress Arc: Kyril is recruited by Celestine, the Goddess Incarnate, to end the war with her former friend Olga, via launching an assault alongside the Black Dogs, a mercenary group that the Seven Shields heavily rely on. At this point, the Black Dogs' ambitions are laid bare, and another war is imminent when one ends.
    • Chapter 4-5: Interaction Arc 1: Transition between the Assault of the Black Fortress Arc and the Feoh/Ur Arc. As the Black Dogs suffer a heavy blow from Kyril and his company, people are getting to know more about this seemingly bloodthirsty legend, praying that they won't die by his blade in the process.
    • Chapter 6-8: Feoh and Ur Arc: Kyril and his company free Feoh and Ur, home to Alicia and Prim of the Seven Shields respectively from the Black Dogs' clutches.
    • Chapter 9-11: Liberation of Ansur Arc: Kyril turns Ansur's criminal underworld upside down to root out any Black Dog supporters.
    • Chapter 12-13: Interaction Arc 2: Transition between the aftermath of the Ansur Arc and the beginning of the Rad Arc. As Celestine and Olga discover that the rabbit hole that is Sir Kyril goes deeper than they thought, he finds himself dragged into an ordeal out of his league.
    • Chapter 14-16: Tragedy of Rad Arc: The appearance of a sorcerer meant that Rad and its people are beyond saving. While Kyril and his company head to Rad in hopes of cleaning up the mess, he cannot help but feel the familiarity of its atmosphere.
    • Chapter 17-22: Leaping Lizards Arc: While Kyril and his company continue hunting down another group of Black Dog supporters, the Leaping Lizards, as well as any remnants of the sorcerer's forces, it is clear that traitors exist amongst Celestine's kingdom, and it paves way for future scandals and political intrigue.
    • Chapter 23-26: Rebel Scum Arc: In order to prevent a war of two fronts, Celestine has no choice but to put down an uprising by force.
    • Chapter 27-30: Hunt for Mandeville Arc: The political intrigue set up in the previous arcs head to a climax as trails of Mandeville are exposed.
    • Chapter 31-33: Hunter's Secrets Arc: Transition between the aftermath of the Hunt for Mandeville Arc and the "discontinued" Thorn Arc. Certain people are lucky enough to proceed one step closer to the Kyril's secrets, for better or for worse.
  • Pony POV Series:
    • The series is built on interlocking story arcs — freeing Trixie from her Discording and her Enemy Within, rehabilitating Fluttercruel and Fluttershy breaking into a Nightmare, the origins of Celestia, Luna and Discord, various Worldbuilding threads, etc. — that all together tell the story of the characters moving on from what Discord did to them... as well as a Myth Arc of Discord planning his second escape.
    • There's also the Dark World Arc, which was originally just meant to give closure to the Bad Future, but grew so large that it was eventually declared its own series, subdivided into its own story arcs: the Redemption of the Elements Arc (up till the Duel of Tears and Rainbow Dash's redemption), the Storming the Castle Arc (up till Pinkie's redemption), the Off The Rails Arc (up till Odyne!Fluttercruel's defeat), the End of Days Arc (up to and including the Final Battle with Nightmare Paradox), and the Alicorn Ascension Arc (which acts Dark World's Grand Finale).
    • Dark World has a companion piece of sorts in the Shining Armor Arc, which was published alongside it (and is kinda-sorta connected to it). This arc is based on the basic premise of showing where Shining Armor and Cadence were during the rest of the series, as well as how their friendship developed into romance. It is also divided into two smaller arcs — the first, and longer of the two, has Shining and Cadence's forces coming into conflict with the plans of General-Admiral Makarov of the Hooviet Empire; after his defeat, the story moves back to developing their relationship, even as Shining seeks a way to escape the threat of the Blank Wolf.
    • After the conclusion of Dark World and the SA Arc, the series returns to the Reharmonized Timeline with the Wedding Arc, which sees the Mane Six and their friends attending Shining Armor and Cadence's wedding, only for the presence of a much more dangerous than canon Queen Chrysalis to turn it into a War Arc.
  • RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse:
    • The first season, in addition to the overall Myth Arc of the struggle against Corona and standalone threats, is built around the manipulations of the corrupt Night Court, which comes to a head in At The Grand Galloping Gala.
    • Season 2 deals with both Corona's forces and the Luna 6 developing alliances in preparation for the eventual final confrontation between the two sides.
  • Summoning Our Country NHS Kai:
    • "Japan Appears to the East" (1-4.5): This arc focuses on the titular nation's appearance in the world and its struggle to keep it from collapsing on itself.
    • "Crisis Looms Over Rodenius" (5-10): In this arc, Japan faces no other alternative but to deploy the Self-Defense Forces as Louria threatens to undo the progress it made so far.
    • "The West Erupts into Conflict" (11-16): This arc focuses on the other side of the world with the Gra Valkas Empire involves itself in a dangerous power play.
    • "The New Status Quo in the East" (16.5-24.6): In this arc, Parpaldia Empire, the superpower of the Third Civilization Area, finally moves in response to the abrupt appearance of a powerful foe in its front yard, cementing a new status quo in the region as the two big nations on the block confront one another in a diplomatic showdown.
    • "Distress in the Altaras Straits" (25-): In this arc, the tensions across the straits between Altaras and Parpaldia are coming to a head while its surroundings braced themselves for a flashpoint that will pit the region into chaos.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: The Story We Never Told is broken up into several arcs: the Digimon Emperor arc (Chapters 1-18), the Spire-Born arc (Chapters 19-30), the Regaining The Crests arc (Chapters 31-41), the Dark World arc (Chapters 42-51), the Digimon World Tour arc (Chapters 52-58), the Invasion of the Deep Ones arc (Chapters 59-61), and the Secrets Uncovered arc (Chapters 62-70).
  • Halloween Unspectacular is an anthology series, but each one has a longer story told in multiple parts, which come together to form larger Myth Arcs. There's usually another unconnected multipart story in each one.
    • In the first one, there's a three-chapter arc about E350 and his friends trying to defeat a witch version of Ember McLain, and an arc concerning the creation — and rampage — of a creature only known as ReGenesis.
    • In the second one, there's a four-parter about Spongebob's attempts to stop the Underworld King, and a larger story arc in which a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits try to keep the Fiddley Thing away from a German scientist working for Dan Phantom.
    • In the third one, E350 retells the story of the ship Batavia with fictional characters. The first Myth Arc also officially begins with this collection, as the heroes face off with an Ancient Conspiracy of anti-magic fanatics and encounter the forces of Avalon for the first time.
    • In the fourth one, there's an arc centered on a colonial-era prison only referred to as "the Gaol" (an alternate spelling for jail), and another involving several villains coming together to destroy the heroes. It turns out both are connected to the Myth Arc, as the Gaol's Governor is the lead villain, and his search for El Dorado leads into the next story.
    • The fifth one has a three-part "Freaky Friday" Flip story. And the Myth Arc comes to a conclusion as the previous Big Bads ally under Galahad's banner to collapse The Multiverse.
    • The sixth one had a two-part story about Ford and Wirt getting trapped in a strange land. The new Myth Arc begins, as PURITY prepares to make its move.
    • The seventh one has PURITY preparing a new plan, which goes into motion at the climax.
    • The eighth one has the various heroes waging a war and a rebellion against PURITY, which now controls America.
    • The ninth one has a mysterious figure known only as the Stranger plotting against E350 and his friends, while E350 is busy trying to keep from being evicted from his house.
    • The tenth has E350 and his remaining free friends fighting back against the Downer Ending of the previous year's arc.
  • While the Main Stories in Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee are lighthearted episodic style one shots, the Shonen oriented Side Stories on the other hand are composed of 4 part Story Arcs that are more faithful to the Pokémon portion of the crossover and also focus on characters who don't typically appear that often in the Main Stories or don't appear in them at all.
  • Code Prime: Whereas R1: Rebellion mostly followed the first season of Code Geass, R2: Revolution is split into a series of arcs.
    • The first six chapters serve as an introductory arc, showing the new characters that have appeared during the Time Skip and establishing dynamics with said characters.
    • Chapters 7 through 16 cover the events of Akito the Exiled, while also covering the Chinese Federation and revealing the origins of Geass.
    • Chapters 17 through 25 comprise of the Iacon Relics arc as Synchronous Episodes.
    • Chapters 26 through 29 is the Geass Order arc, covering the assault on the Geass Order.
    • Chapters 30-33: The UFN Arc, where the UFN is officially formed, and the Decepticons strike back with Damocles and Predaking.
    • The final story arc, comprising of Chapters 34 to 37, covers the Neo-Ragnarok Arc, where Megatron reveals his endgame and the Autobot-Black Knight Alliance makes the ultimate stand to stop it.
  • The Punch-Out!! fanfic Ma Fille and its Sequel Series Shining and Sweet have a few arcs:
    • Near the end of Ma Fille is the Aran Ryan arc, which is about the initiation of both Aran Ryan and Glass Joe's daughter, Katrina/Chaton Cheri into the WVBA.
    • Early on in Shining and Sweet is the Take Back the Belt arc, where the champion of a rival boxing league takes the WVBA World Championship belt, and the WVBA boxers have to get it back. This arc is notable for featuring Von Kaiser's last fight before retirement, as well as introducing Aran Ryan's previously unseen sister, Brigit/Dust Bunny.
    • Shining and Sweet also has the Glass Kitten/Tiger Quest arc, two arcs that happen back-to-back with one another. The Glass Kitten arc begins when Katrina/Chaton Cheri agrees to take her father's place in a series of matches after he falls sick with a mysterious illness, and the Tiger Quest arc follows Great Tiger on his quest to find a final cure after Joe succumbs to the illness.
  • No Chance for Fate is divided into smaller arcs, each of which has a theme or goal (chapter numbering corresponds to the numbering in the story, not what ff.net does):
    • Chapter 1 - 4, "Life in Minato Ward": No actual villain activity, it mainly revolves around Ranma getting used to no longer living on the road and Ami helping him with school. Has cameos from future cast members and mainly serves to introduce the setting.
    • Chapter 5 - 8, "So you want to be a Hero?": The Dark Kingdom starts its attacks, Jadeite is the villain and his schemes closely mirror canon. Ranma gets drawn into the battle when the Senshi start to become active and he decides to stand by their side.
    • Chapter 9 - 16, "The Battle for Energy": Nephrite takes over after Jadeite falls into disgrace, but doesn't prove any more effective, while the Senshi team is now complete and starts training. In the end, Nephrite is imprisoned by Beryl and Jadeite manages to secure the needed energy.
    • Chapter 17 - 22, "The Silver Crystal": The hunt for the Rainbow Crystals, and in the end, the Silver Crystal, begins. In the end, a big confrontation with the Dark Kingdom reveals not only the Moon Princess but also another surprise.
    • Chapter 23 - 25, "Interlude": Everyone recovers while the Dark Kingdom licks its wounds. However, new threats already loom when after various trouble, the Death Busters make their first move.
    • Chapter 26 - 32, "Double the Evil": The Death Busters enter the scene, making everything way more complicated. Then things really escalate when the Dark Kingdom awakens Nehellenia early, forcing the Senshi to face their own nightmares.
    • Chapter 33 - 36, "Riddle of the Old Kingdom": The Senshi are embarking on a quest to solve the riddle of the old Earth Kingom to find the entrance to Elysion and thus Mamoru's Golden Crystal. Their enemies are not idle, however.
    • Chapter 37 - 41, "Prelude to the Storm": After the recovery of the Golden Crystal, unknown to the Senshi things move towards a final confrontation. They don't know the new omnicidal stance towards the world by the Phoenix Tribe starts the countdown.
    • Chapter 42 - 47, "Battle for the World": The final battles begin, as both Pharaoh 90 and Queen Metallica make their moves at the same time, turning all of Tokyo into a war zone. The fate of the earth hangs in the balance as the Senshi and their allies prepare for the fight of their lives.
  • Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends is released in five-chapter arcs, as the author apparently doesn't want to be constantly leaving people on cliffhangers:
    • "Invasion of the Freeloaders" (Chapters 1-5): Zim's new Quirky Miniboss Squad comes to Earth one by one, and he reluctantly lets them stay with him in exchange for service.
    • "Ramping Villainy" (Chapters 6-10): The Big Bad Ensemble is established, as Tak returns to Earth, Lex arrives on the planet as well, and Aldrich Coathanger is revealed to also be evil.
    • "Normalizing Doom" (Chapters 11-15): A series of unconnected adventures showcasing the four factions all adjusting to dealing with each other.
    • "Mayoral Wars" (16-20): Aldrich launches his campaign for Mayor of The City, while the conflict between the Irken factions hits a boiling point.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • The Animorphs series can neatly be divided up into a couple story arcs. The first arc concerns itself with the development of the children into soldiers and explanations about morphing, the Yeerk invasion, et cetera. The second arc concerns itself with the day-to-day missions, and is cut in half by what you could call Story Arc 2.5, which concerns itself with the seventh Animorph, David. The third story arc deals with the escalation of the war and the reorganization of the Yeerk Empire - the execution of Visser One, Visser Three's promotion, Operation 9366, et cetera. The final story arc begins when the Yeerks discover the kids' identities.
  • The Baby-Sitters Club:
    • Some plotlines spread over a couple of books, such as Kristy adjusting to her stepfamily. At the end of the series Mary Anne's house burned down, which was the background for the Friends Forever spinoff.
    • The Dawn-considers-moving-back-to-California plotline lasted for so many books that many fans were extremely glad when she ultimately did move back and she finally stopped agonizing about this decision.
  • The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids usually runs more on standalone stories with Character Development carrying over from one to the other, instead of full-on story arcs. However, this only serves to make the exceptions more momentous:
    • The "Mandragora arc" dealt with the aftermath of the Downer Ending of The Resurrection of the Wellsians, with Pythe travelling the multiverse trying to catch up to the extremely slippery Evil Sorcerer Mandragora.
    • The "Rifts Saga", seeds for which were planted as early as the sixth story in the series, but which more properly refers to Lupan Evezan's 2020 prose stories from Planet of the Shapeshifters onwards, dealing with the consequences of mysterious Rifts spreading across dimensions and hindering the Cupids' ability to travel across the Void.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe: The Eighth Doctor Adventures had two major story arcs—one leading into the other—and several smaller ones, as well as several individual character arcs for the Doctor and his companions. The first story arc, almost more of a Myth Arc, involved a massive, destructive, universe spanning temporal war (not actually the New Series's Last Great Time War — or is it?) fought between the Time Lords and and an unnamed enemy, and the fallout that affects the rest of universe after the Doctor destroys Gallifrey (for the first time). The second deals with an issue that arose as a result of the first—a time traveler called Sabbath is worried that with the Time Lords dead, the universe is collapsing into chaos, and that the Doctor, by not doing anything about it, is harming the Web of Time by default. His attempts to fix this by destroying alternate timelines are in fact what's causing the problem in the first place. The series also deals with smaller story arcs like Sam learning the truth about her Mirror Universe counterpart, Compassion becoming a TARDIS, Fitz coming to grips with being a clone and having to face Father Kreiner, and Anji's inability to get home.
  • Harry Potter: J. K. Rowling has stated that, unlike the first five books which are thematically autonomous and self-contained while still carrying over the overall continuity of the universe, the last two books (Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows) are meant to be two volumes of the same arc, which is evident not only through the fully interwined link between the end of the former and the start of the latter, but also through the plot devices that both books share; they also heavily reference the events of the past five books to solve any pending plot points and then settle the climax of the story.
  • The first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire focus on the War of the Five Kings, while the following two books deal with its aftermath. The disconnect was originally going to be even starker (heh); A Storm of Swords is filled to the brim with so much climactic and shocking events, as well as many plot-relevant deaths, because it was written to be the final entry before a five-year Time Skip. Hence why the book ends with the teenage/child POVs in relatively comfortable places (Jon being made the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch through Sam's clever ploy, Sansa serving as Littlefinger's Bastard Understudy in the Eyrie, Arya going to Braavos to train as an assassin, Bran receiving a helping hand from Coldhands in his adventures, and Daenerys choosing to reign as queen of Meereen), as the idea was for them to quietly grow up and train as badasses. But George R. R. Martin decided that he couldn't just leave all of the character developments offscreen and abandoned his plans for the time skip.
  • Star Wars Legends: Galaxy of Fear is a book series. Each book is self-contained, but the first six have an underlying plot about the connections between the Big Bad, Hoole, and The Empire.
  • Each series in Warrior Cats is its own story arc that contributes to the overall Myth Arc (although series 3+4 were really one long arc, and series 5 was a prequel): the first series followed Firestar's rise to leadership and defeat of villain Tigerstar, the second series was about the forest's destruction and the Clans finding a new home, as well as Hawkfrost's attempt at following in Tigerstar's pawsteps, the third and fourth series dealt with three cats discovering that they have special powers and the Dark Forest's attempt to destroy the Clans, and the sixth series is about the discovery of the modern remnants of SkyClan.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 24 has one constant ongoing storyarc per season, each of which can also be broken up into 3-4 sub-arcs.
  • The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. had two intertwining story arcs throughout the series (The Search for The Orb and The Capture of the John Bly Gang).
  • Alias — So heavily, in fact, that there was significant Continuity Lockout experienced by casual viewers.
  • Brit Com 'Allo 'Allo! might be the most humorously convoluted example of this and certainly for a sitcom, being a comedy gave the writers numerous excuses to resolve them in absurdist manners.
  • Arrowverse:
    • Arrow, due to essentially running two shows simultaneously (the present day and flashbacks), manages to have two distinct, but usually connected, story arcs per season (though this formula ends with Season 5):
      • Season 1: The flashbacks are about Oliver first arriving on the island and becoming caught in a fight against Edward Fryers' mercenary forces; the present day storyline is about Oliver returning to Starling City, first becoming a vigilante, and uncovering the truth of Malcolm Merlyn's conspiracy to destroy the Glades.
      • Season 2: The flashbacks are about Oliver and his allies facing off against Dr. Ivo for the Mirakuru and Slade's Face–Heel Turn; the present is about Oliver trying to become a true hero, while dealing with the schemes of Brother Blood and Slade.
      • Season 3: The flashbacks deal with Oliver's time in Hong Kong as an ARGUS agent trying to prevent the outbreak of a deadly bioweapon; the present has Oliver struggling with his identity as the Arrow after being dragged into a conflict between the League of Assassins and Merlyn.
      • Season 4: The flashbacks see Oliver returned to the island by ARGUS in order to deal with Baron Reiter's operation there; the present has Oliver remaking himself as the Green Arrow, and trying to protect Star City from Damien Darhk and his plans.
      • Season 5: The flashbacks have Oliver travel to Russia, where he joins the Bratva in the pursuit of avenging a friend from the previous season, before setting up his return to Starling City (as seen in the pilot); the present has Oliver building a new team, which comes under siege from Prometheus.
      • Season 6: Oliver must juggle being Mayor of Star City, a vigilante, and a father, while facing off with a Legion of Doom led by Cayden James, who's been tricked into thinking that Oliver killed his son. When James is defeated halfway through the season, Oliver still has to deal with Ricardo Diaz, who secretly took over Star City's criminal underworld and bought off many key government officials while everyone was distracted by James.
      • Season 7: The first portion of the season features Team Arrow trying to get Oliver out of prison (where he's been since being publicly outed as Green Arrow at the end of Season 6); after that, it focuses on Team Arrow working with the SCPD and clashing with the terrorist organization known as the Ninth Circle including Oliver's half-sister Emiko. There's also a Flash Forward storyline set twenty years in the future, focusing on Oliver's son William returning to a rundown Star City to unite with the remaining heroes and save the city from destruction.
      • Season 8: Most of the shortened season is built around either the heroes preparing for the Crisis, or dealing with the aftermath. There's also a flashforward storyline dealing with the New Team Arrow struggling to work as a team and deal with the Deathstroke gang, though this gets cut short as they're brought back in time by the Monitor before the Crisis, and then their time period is completely changed by the multiverse being rebooted.
    • The Flash (2014):
      • Season 1: Barry learns how to use his powers and fight the metahumans, and the threat of the Reverse-Flash, while Dr. Wells pursues his own agenda.
      • Season 2: Team Flash has to deal with the arrival of metahumans from Earth-2, led by Zoom.
      • Season 3: Barry deals with the fallout from his creation of Flashpoint, not least of which is the arrival of Savitar.
      • Season 4: Barry's escape from being imprisoned in the Speed Force creates a group of new metahumans, whom Team Flash must track down, while figuring out how they fit into the machinations of Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker.
      • Season 5: Team Flash deals with the arrival of Barry and Iris' Kid from the Future Nora, while handling the rampage of the anti-metahuman Serial Killer Cicada.
      • Season 6: The first half of the season is built around Team Flash preparing for the Crisis, while also having to confront Ramsey Rosso, whose Mortality Phobia leads him to transform himself into Bloodwork and going on a rampage. Post-Crisis, the first half's B-plots of the team investigating the mysterious Black Hole and Ralph looking for the missing Sue Dearborn become dominant, with an added threat in the form of Eva McCulloch, who engineers a plot to escape the Mirrorverse she's trapped in, which includes abducting Iris and replacing her with a copy.
      • Season 7: After the first three episodes tie up the loose ends from Season 6 (which was cut short by the pandemic), the rest of the season is split into two arcs. The first is about the team having to deal with people empowered by new Forces created by the restoration of the Speed Force, while the second is about the threat of Godspeed and his army of clones arriving from the future to steal the Flash's speed.
    • Legends of Tomorrow:
      • Season 1: Rip Hunter gathers the Legends in order to try and avert Vandal Savage's conquest of the world, while the Time Masters' repeated attempts to stop them.
      • Season 2: The Legends find themselves facing off with the Legion of Doom, who are seeking the Spear of Destiny, which would let them rewrite reality.
      • Season 3: The Legends face off with the followers of the mysterious demon Mallus, who are creating anachronisms that threaten time, while competing with the new Time Bureau.
      • Season 4: The Legends and the Bureau, now joined by John Constantine, must hunt down all the magical creatures scattered through time by Mallus' escape in the previous season's finale, as well as deal with the demon Neron's attempts to take advantage of the situation.
      • Season 5: The Legends have to hunt down the Encores, damned souls returned to life by Astra Louge to spread chaos on Earth. In the back half of the season, however, this shifts to hunting for the pieces of the Loom of Fate before it can be reunited by the Fates (to whom Astra was an Unwitting Pawn) and used to remove free will.
      • Season 6: The Legends try to track down Sara, who was abducted by aliens in the previous season finale, while also hunting the various other aliens scattered across the timeline by Sara's own attempt to save herself. After she's reunited with the team midway through the season, they continue to track down the aliens, while also dealing with the dark measures that Constantine is taking in his desperate efforts to restore his dwindling magic.
    • Supergirl (2015):
      • Season 1: Kara learns the ropes as a superhero, while having to face off with the escaped Fort Rozz criminals led by her aunt General Astra.
      • Season 2: Supergirl and the DEO are at war with the anti-alien terrorist organization CADMUS. Later, they also have to deal with the arrival of Queen Rhea of Daxam.
      • Season 3: Kara deals with the emotional fallout from the previous season's finale, and the threat of Reign and the Worldkillers.
      • Season 4: Kara must contend with a rising tide of anti-alien sentiment, spearheaded by the Children of Liberty. Meanwhile, a clone of Kara's created at the end of the previous season is trained by the rogue nation of Kaznia for a mysterious purpose.
      • Season 5: The first half of the season has Kara and the DEO going up against Malefic Jonzz, J'onn's brother who wants revenge on him, while the second half has the heroes adjusting to the post-Crisis reality where Lex Luthor now runs the DEO. Running through both halves of the season is Lena Luthor trying to brainwash the world into a peaceful state, and the group of aliens known as Leviathan preparing to enact a culling on Earth.
      • Season 6: The first half of the season sees Kara trying to escape the Phantom Zone after being sent there by Lex, with the rest of the Superfriends trying to rescue her from their end. She makes it back to Earth midway through the season, but this also allows the 5th dimensional imp Nxyly to escape as well, with the rest of the season being about stopping her from regaining her full power at all costs.
    • Batwoman (2019):
      • Season 1: Kate learns to be a superhero while engaged in conflict with the terrorist known as Alice, who is really her long lost sister Beth.
      • Season 2: With Kate seemingly killed in a plane crash, everyone has to cope with her loss, while ex-con Ryan Wilder finds the Batsuit and uses it to become the new Batwoman. This brings her into conflicts with Alice, the mysterious Safiyah (a Greater-Scope Villain alluded to repeatedly in the first season), and Black Mask's False Face Society.
    • Stargirl (2020):
      • Season 1 is all about Courtney inheriting the Cosmic Staff and building a new Justice Society out of her friends and leading them against the Injustice Society's Project New America.
      • Season 2 sees the JSA having to deal with the emotional fallout from the previous season's finale, while also confronting the Shade, Cindy's attempt at building a new Injustice Society out of her generation, and most importantly, the threat of Eclipso.
  • Barney Miller had several subplot story arcs running over several years. The most memorable is Ron Harris' development as a published author, which lasted most of the series.
  • Battlestar Galactica had plenty of story arcs, particularly in the first and second seasons, which led to Executive Meddling in the third season for more standalone episodes so that new viewers were not alienated. As a result, the third season is generally not as well liked, and the fourth and final season has resumed a more arc-based approach. The main arcs throughout the series are:
    • Finding Earth.
    • Roslin's cancer.
    • Baltar's treachery.
    • Starbuck's destiny.
    • The Identity and Origins of the Humanoid Cylons.
  • Surprisingly, The Beverly Hillbillies used story arcs in a Network Sitcom all the way back in the early 1960s.
    • Mrs. Driesdale's multi-episode psychotic breakdown after living next to the Clampets, combined with the Clampets' attempts to "help" her.
    • The Clampets' acquisition of an English Manor and their subsequent "War of the Roses" with their alcoholic neighbor. This was spread over several seasons.
    • Ellie May's engagement to a "Naval Frogman" and Granny's belief that this means he turns into a frog from the bellybutton down when he gets wet. Lasted most of a season.
  • The Brittas Empire: Series 5 of the show had Brittas preparing to leave his job at the leisure center for the role of European Commissioner in Brussels, which lasts the whole season.
  • Each season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has an arc spanning half its run.
    • Season 1: The Master's attempts to escape his can and open the Hellmouth.
    • Season 2: Technically the fights between Buffy and Spike count as an arc, but the real arc doesn't start until Angel loses his soul and becomes Angelus again.
    • Season 3: The Mayor's plans to become a pure demon, and Faith's fall from good and her eventual Face–Heel Turn.
    • Season 4: Buffy adjusting to college life and dealing with The Initiative, whose experiments ultimately lead to the rise of Adam.
    • Season 5: Buffy dealing with Dawn's arrival, Joyce's death, and Glory's plans.
    • Season 6: Willow dealing with her addiction to magic, and Buffy trying to provide for Dawn while also getting tormented by the Trio, whose actions ultimately push Willow over the edge into Dark Willow mode.
    • Season 7: The First Evil attempts to open the Hellmouth, while Buffy builds an army of Potential Slayers to fight it.
    • Spinoff Angel also had several storyarcs per season:
      • Season 1 focused on Angel's first attempts of going against the law-firm Wolfram & Hart while also growing accustomed to his new "family" of Cordelia, Doyle, and later Wesley.
      • Season 2 featured Wolfram & Hart using Angel's old flame Darla in a plan to cause him to cross the Despair Event Horizon, with a shorter sub-arc at the end featuring the Angel Investigations team having to travel to Lorne's home dimension to rescue Cordelia.
      • Season 3 had Angel becoming a father while an enemy from his past arrived in the present day to try and get his final revenge on the vampire.
      • Season 4 focuses on the now broken Angel Investigations team joining up again to ultimately go against a threat that has ties with Angel's son.
      • Season 5 features the team now taking control over of Wolfram & Hart while Angel suffers an internal Heroic BSoD that makes him question what he's fighting for that's brought upon thanks to the arrival of Spike.
  • Chouseishin Series:
    • Chouseishin Gransazer is divided into four arcs. The first (episodes 1-12) is a Mêlée à Trois between the Gransazers as they work to awaken the rest of their members and unite together, all while facing the alien who manipulated them into fighting. The second (13-24) sees the Gransazers joined by the last of their Tribes and having to fight a trio of Gransazer-like aliens sent to destroy Earth. The third (25-41) involves the Gransazers facing a series of aliens of the week while they work to learn more about their ancestors and their conflict with the Warp Monarch long ago. The fourth (42-51) sees the Earth on the verge of being destroyed by the Warp Monarch, and the Gransazers needing to expose the truth before it's too late.
    • Genseishin Justiriser has three arcs. The first (1-16) sees the Justirisers fighting against Doctor Zora, who wants to unseal the Big Bad Kaiser Hades. The second (17-33) sees the Justirisers having to do battle against the now-unsealed Kaiser Hades. The third (34-51) has Kaiser Hades's big brother stepping in to invade Earth, and sending his lieutenant to prepare the planet for his arrival.
    • Chousei Kantai Sazer X also has three arcs. The first (1-13) has Sazer-X traveling back in time to stop Earth from being conquered by the Descal. The second (14-27) has the Descal's descendants, the Neo Descal, traveling to the past to stop Sazer-X from undoing Descal's conquest. The third (28-38) has more Neo Descal forces arriving from the future and putting in motion their end plan to make sure Earth is conquered and polluted.
  • CSI did one with the "Miniature Killer", so called because they would leave a perfect scale model of the crime scene there, and which served as the set up at the end to put one of the regulars on a bus.
  • CSI: Miami did one between season 4 and 5, focusing on the Mala Noche gang.
  • CSI: NY had two in season 4, the 333 Stalker in the first half and the Cabbie Killer in the second half. There was also the Shane Casey arc that started fairly early in season 3 and finally concluded in the season 7 opener.
  • Dexter has naturally fallen into this, as its entire first season was an adaptation of one novel. Subsequent seasons have each carried their own story arc, which coincides with the season's Big Bad.
    • Season 1 focuses on the hunt for the ruthless Ice Truck Killer, who is revealed in the end to be Dexter's lost brother Brian Moser.
    • Season 2 revolves around Dexter's victims' bodies being discovered. Miami Metro Homicide names the mysterious serial killer the Bay Harbor Butcher and, with the help of the FBI, begins their hunt for him. This means Dexter needs to be a step ahead of his team at all times, particularly Doakes, who already suspects him. Paralleling the story is Dexter's relationship with Lila, his sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous.
    • Season 3 introduces Miguel Prado, who ends up discovering Dexter's secret. The next few episodes explore the consequences of this discovery.
    • Season 4 centers around Dexter's life as a family man; fathering Harrison, living with Rita and the kids, etcetera, while in the meantime Miami is visited by a serial killer called "Trinity". Dexter ends up befriending him while secretly investigating him.
    • Season 5 pits Dexter and his new partner Lumen against a gang of serial rapists led by motivational speaker Jordan Chase.
    • Season 6 opts for a religion-centric plot, where a mysterious force dubbed the Doomsday Killer strikes in Miami and uses his victims' bodies to enact tableaus from the Book of Revelations. It also sees the promotion of Debra Morgan to the position of Lieutenant, and further explores her relationship with her brother.
    • Season 7 opens with Deb having walked in on Dexter having killed Travis Marshall. The rest of the season deals with Deb's loyalty to Dexter being tested. Especially when her Captain LaGuerta comes across a blood slide on the crime scene and starts trying to look into the Bay Harbor Butcher again, believing Doakes to be innocent.
  • Doctor Who has a few, used for combo DVD sets, when a clear follow-on is present.
    • "The Daleks' Master Plan", a thirteen-episode Space Opera arc concerning the Daleks' collusion with Mavic Chen to build a weapon that destroys time. Consider that this aired over seventeen weeks (with "The Myth Makers", an unrelated story, happening between the first episode of the storyline, "Mission to the Unknown", and the second, "The Nightmare Begins"). This is usually regarded as one serial nowadays, but it happened back in the days of episodes being titled separately and can be broken up roughly into several shorter stories if one so chooses (one storyline concerning Bret Vyon, another storyline starting when the Doctor gets teleported, another storyline involving ancient Egypt and the return of the Monk, and the concluding storyline revolving around the Daleks' inevitable betrayal of Mavic Chen).
    • Season 8's arc introduced the Master, who was a common villain in each serial and was captured by UNIT in the Season Finale.
    • Season 12 was an experiment at more arc-based plotting, as an attempt at Revisiting the Roots. This was done by having the Doctor lose access to his TARDIS for much of the season, instead relying on various teleporters or personal time travel devices to move him about, which gives a stronger continuity between stories. On top of that, every story in the season takes place either on Earth or the Nerva Beacon orbiting Earth, with the exception of the Wham Episode "Genesis of the Daleks".
    • The Key to Time arc (all of Season 16) — the search for pieces of a Cosmic Keystone.
    • The E-Space Trilogy ("Full Circle", "State of Decay" and "Warriors' Gate"), in which the Doctor finds himself in the pocket universe of E-Space and searches for a way out.
    • Following directly on from this was the season-crossing Return of the Master trilogy, comprising "The Keeper of Traken", "Logopolis" and "Castrovalva", released as New Beginnings on DVD as it also took in the Fourth Doctor's regeneration into the Fifth.
    • The Black Guardian Trilogy ("Mawdryn Undead", "Terminus" and "Enlightenment"), involving Turlough's relationship with the Black Guardian.
    • The Trial of a Time Lord (Season 23 — the first 12 episodes consisted of three distinct stories with a common Framing Device, which took over as the main story for the two-part Season Finale.)
    • In addition, thematic arcs showed up in the classic series: season 18 concerned the theme of entropy and decay, in preparation for the regeneration in the final episode; and each serial of season 20 involved the return of a classic enemy, building up to the movie-length special "The Five Doctors".
    • Seasons 25 and 26 had a story arc of "the Cartmel Masterplan", implying the Doctor had some great secret. The series was cancelled before this could conclude, but some elements made it into the Virgin New Adventures, which concluded the arc with Lungbarrow. Here it was claimed the Doctor might be the reincarnation of a mysterious figure from the Dark Times of Gallifrey. However there was also a story arc about Fenric; in "Silver Nemesis" the Doctor seems to be playing chess with an unknown opponent, leading to "The Curse of Fenric", where it is revealed an evil being from the Dawn of Time had been manipulating the Seventh Doctor's adventures. This involved Arc Welding with "Dragonfire" in Season 24, revealing the time storm that sent Ace to Iceworld was caused by Fenric so she would travel with the Doctor.
    • There was a loose story arc from "Destiny of the Daleks" to "Remembrance of the Daleks" involving the Dalek/Movellan War and Davros attempting to regain power over the Daleks.
    • Similarly, there is a loose arc concerning the Cybermen from "The Moonbase" onward, leading to some major Continuity Lockout when the arc returned with a vengeance in "Attack of the Cybermen".
    • There is a very loose story from "The Deadly Assassin" through to "The Five Doctors" which follows the Doctor becoming Lord President of Gallifrey, his Presidential "career" and his subsequent (and deserved) ousting from the post.
    • Since the revival, the series has opted for season-long loose arcs, mostly linked together through recurring phrases and motifs, though usually unnoticed and not really interfering with the episode's main plots. Series 6 adopted a tighter arc format, though the episodic format remained.
      • Series 1: "Bad Wolf" was either mentioned or written in the background of every episode apart from "Rose" and "The Empty Child". It was discovered that this was a link between the Doctor and Rose, written through time and space, by the time vortex itself.
      • Series 2: "Torchwood", like "Bad Wolf", was incorporated into the Christmas special, and nine of the 13 regular episodes, unbeknown to the main characters. It was discovered in the finale that Torchwood was in fact an organisation devoted to anything alien, but fuelled by their eagerness to catch the Doctor.
      • Series 3: Mr. Saxon was mentioned in the episodes set in the present, plus "42", once again, not to the attention of the main characters. Mr. Saxon was the new, present Prime Minister, who is also one of the Doctor's greatest enemies — the Master!
      • Series 4: Missing planets, bees disappearing, memory loss, Doctor Donna, building up to a Human-Time Lord metacrisis between Donna and the Doctor, Donna being Mind Raped by the Doctor, and Davros and the Daleks building a reality bomb out of 27 planets.
      • Series 5: Based around the phrase "The Pandorica will open"/"Silence will fall" from the very beginning, which was spoken as a warning from many of his foes/friends. The Pandorica was revealed to be a giant box designed by "The Alliance" to contain the Eleventh Doctor..
      • Series 6: The Doctor's (ultimately faked) death, the identity of River Song, Amy's pregnancy, the Silence, and The Question: Doctor Who?
      • Series 7A: Exploring the consequences of making Amy and Rory part-time companions.
      • Series 7B: The identity of the Doctor's new companion, Clara Oswald, whom he met in different identities twice before, and how it relates to The Question. From there, a mini-arc ensues as he undoes the destruction of Gallifrey and faces his final death in two follow-up specials.
      • Series 8: Clara romances Danny Pink, the Doctor undergoes an identity crisis after coming to terms with saving the Time Lords and receiving a new cycle of regenerations, and Missy is introduced and her identity is teased; paths cross when Danny is suddenly killed.
      • Series 9: As the Doctor faces long-term consequences of huge decisions — such as turning a Viking girl Ashildr into a virtual immortal — Clara becomes his distaff counterpart and he's determined to never lose her. A prophecy about "The Hybrid" sets up a tragedy that eventually brings him back to Gallifrey. The two Christmas specials that follow form a mini-arc setting up Series 10 as the Doctor "completes" his relationship with River Song.
      • Series 10: The Doctor and Nardole are undercover at a university guarding a vault, but the Doctor still takes Bill Potts on as a companion. A mid-season mini-arc involving alien Monks sees the Doctor blinded and reveals that the vault contains Missy. The Doctor subsequently tries to redeem her, culminating in a multi-episode Grand Finale that starts with the return of the Harold Saxon Master and the origins of the Cybermen, and ends with a regeneration crisis involving his current and original incarnations while resolving the question of the Twelfth Doctor's identity for good.
      • Series 11: The Doctor adjusts to her new gender and traveling with her new "fam" of Graham, Ryan, and Yaz. The season premiere and finale both feature them facing off with the Stenza warrior Tzim-Sha.
      • Series 12: The Doctor is haunted by the mystery of the "Timeless Child" revealed to her by the Master, something that drove him to destroy Gallifrey again, which evolves into trying to understand her own past after encountering an unknown regeneration of herself. Meanwhile, Jack Harkness pops up to warn the Doctor against giving the Lone Cyberman what it wants, and the two arcs converge in the series finale.
  • The Good Place
    • Season 1 focuses on Eleanor's attempts at not being discovered and sent to hell.
    • Season 2 focuses on Michael teaming up with the humans after repeatedly failing to torture them, and deciding to find the Judge, a celestial being who can help the humans get into the real Good Place
    • Season 3 sees the humans return to Earth so that they can have a second chance at improving their lives
    • Season 4 sees the Soul Squad try to replicate the original Good Place experiment with a new batch of humans
  • When Gotham started, Gordon's storyline nominally had a driving arc (solving/dealing with the fallout of the Wayne murders, with a side order of upcoming Mob War), but for the most part episodes were fairly self-contained. This changed about half way through Season 1. Then Season 2 started following up on Season 1's dangling plot points while holding its own arc; from that point on, every Season has been divided into two main arcs.
    • In Season 2 all the storylines converged on Theo Galavan, who also brought back several villains from Season 1. The second half of Season 2 followed up on the "possible corruption at Wayne Enterprises" and "What's really going on at Arkham Asylum?" plot points, as well as finishing the Start of Darkness for Riddler and Penguin.
    • Season 3 is about rounding up the escaped Arkham patients, Mad Hatter debuting, Penguin running for mayor, and Jerome's resurrection; the second half of the Season cuts to the Court of Owls.
    • Season 4 is about all the classic Bat villains finally stepping into their familiar roles while Bruce takes his first steps into vigilantism.
    • Season 5 is an adaptation of Batman: No Man's Land, with Gordon and Bruce trying to protect the innocent as Gotham is cut off from the outside world after the events of the previous season finale and carved up by the various villains and gangs.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street often had murder investigations last for multiple episodes, most memorably the Adena Watson case, the impact of which lasted for the entire series. The rise of the Mahoney crime family also lasted multiple seasons.
  • House of Cards (US):
    • Season 1 focuses on various political schemes by Underwood — manipulating an education reform bill, supporting Russo's bid for Governor, etc — as part of a larger plot to endear himself to the President enough to gain his nomination as a replacement Vice-President.
    • Season 2 is primarily driven by a conflict between Underwood and Raymond Tusk, as well as Underwood weakening the President enough to force him to resign.
    • Season 3 has President Underwood juggling his election campaign, his controversial jobs program, and a Middle East power struggle with Russian President Petrov.
    • Season 4 has Underwood continuing his campaign, while also having to deal with Claire's own political ambitions, as well as the threat of a Islamist terrorist group called ICO.
    • Season 5 has the Underwoods resorting to every dirty trick they can come up with in order to win the election, as well as to counter a journalistic investigation into Frank's past misdeeds.
  • iCarly has an arc that started from the final episode of Season 4, titled "iOMG" and continues in the first four episodes of Season 5, dealing with Sam's feelings for Freddie. Notable in being one of the only examples of a Kid Com having a Story Arc, especially for the big two of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
  • Probably the oldest one in television is I Love Lucy, which featured several long-running arcs. The most famous is Lucy's pregnancy, which took up a full season from her first learning of it to giving birth and bringing Little Ricky home. Subsequent seasons followed the Ricardos and Mertzes on long trips through Europe, the US, and a stay in Hollywood.
  • The major story arc for the first four seasons of JAG was Harm’s search for his long lost father, although it was latent in most episodes not directly addressing it.
  • Kamen Rider does this from time to time.
    • Kamen Rider Double has three major arcs. The first focusing in introducing the premise of the show and its characters (1-18), the second arc introduces complications while intensifying the conflict (19-36), while the last arc finally ties up loose ends, reveals all the twists, and closes everything off. (37-49) Interestingly, these arcs are denoted of when they begin and end with the arrival/defeat of a general.
    • Kamen Rider Gaim has four arcs. Each focusing on a different antagonist. The first arc had rival dance teams (1-11), the second arc dealt with the MegaCorp (12-23), the third arc introduced the rulers of the central antagonist (24-32) and the final arc is an all-out war (33-47). Some people tend to break up the second arc into two small arcs, the first going from 12 to 19 and the second going from 20 to 23.
    • Kamen Rider Ghost has three arcs. The first involves collecting the fifteen Eyecons (1-12), the second involves the main character connecting his heart to the spirits of the Eyecons and the true nature of the Ganma World (13-33), and the final arc involves a former antagonist adjusting his life in the human world while his brother completes his master plan with the help of a mysterious power that is involves with the existence of the Ganma World (34-49).
    • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid also has four arcs. The first arc is about the effort of the Riders to complete and gain the original 10 Gashats and the secret surrounding the mysterious "Black Ex-Aid" (1-12). The second arc focuses on the secret to the main character's immunity to the Bugster Virus and the arc villain's master plan (13-24). The third arc has the heroes dealing with a Deadly Game that the villains has unleashed upon humanity (25-40). The final arc has the main characters and former foes joining forces to finally defeat the Big Bad(41-45).
    • Kamen Rider Build has five arcs. The first arc introduces settings, main characters and the mysterious evil organizations they fight against (1-14). The second arc is a War Arc focusing on Hokuto's invasion of Touto and the toll it takes on the main characters (15-22). The third arc (23-33) sees the war escalating with Seito becoming another faction in the conflict. The fourth arc (34-41) finally reveals the Big Bad and has former foes joining the heroes for the fight. The final arc (42-49) reveals secrets about the main characters and the people close to them right before the final battle against the Big Bad.
    • Kamen Rider Zi-O has four arcs. The first arc introduces the characters and has the mysterious group of time travelers erase the past history of previous Kamen Riders with tributes to Build, Ex-Aid, Fourze, Faiz, Wizard, OOO, Gaim, Ghost, and Decade (1-16). The second arc involves the alternate version of a main character coming from a timeline where the Evil Overlord was defeated with tributes to Ryuki and Blade (17-30). The third deals with the fallout of the multiple Time Paradox as well as learning more about the female lead's past with tributes to Agito, Hibiki, Kiva, Kabuto, and Den-O (31-40). The final arc reveals the motivation of the Big Bad and how the heroes must fix the time distortion before their universe is destroyed with tributes to W and Drive as well as the Movie Riders (41-49).
    • Kamen Rider Zero-One has four arcs. The first has the main character become CEO of a company going up against a terrorist organization consists of androids (1-16). The second involves his company trying to prevent a buyout from a rival company through a workplace competition (17-29). The third involves the main character keeping the intellectual property away from the rival company and teaming up with former rivals (30-35). The last arc involves the an artificial intelligence taking over one of the main antagonists and creating a cycle of revenge (36-45).
    • Kamen Rider Saber has four arcs. The first (1-16) involves Touma joining the Sword of Logos, meeting all their members and helping them in the fight against the Megid. The second arc (17-27) sees Touma trying to uncover the Hidden Villain in Sword of Logos responsible for Calibur's corruption and the disappearance of his childhood friend Luna, all while having to fight his former friends who've been led to believe he's a traitor. The third arc (28-40) starts after the true villain is revealed to be Isaac, the current Master Logos and Touma and the other swordsman coming together to stop him. The fourth and final arc then sees the swordsman going up against Storious, who was lurking in the background for the previous three arcs.
  • Lab Rats is mostly an episodic sitcom with self-contained stories, but several episodes fit into some larger arcs. The first two seasons contained an arc about an android named Marcus pretending to befriend the Lab Rats in order to eventually capture them. The second season’s primary arc focused on Douglas Davenport, the original creator of the Lab Rats and later Marcus, in his attempt to regain ownership of the Lab Rats from his brother Donald. The third season involved Douglas partnering with a billionaire named Viktor Krane and finding a road to redemption after Krane betrays him. Later, the Rats have to deal with being unveiled to the public for the first time and causing worldwide outrage after a botched mission, while Krane develops an army of bionic super-soldiers who will dominate the world. The fourth season takes place at a bionic academy that the soldiers were sent to after Krane’s death, and the first major arc is about a student who idolizes Krane leading a rebellion against the leadership of the academy. The second is about a robot inventor who wants to destroy all bionic humans, first by making a fake movie and later by kidnapping all the academy students. There is also the character arc of Leo, the boy who befriends the Lab Rats, introduces them to the outside world, and strives to be like them, later gaining bionic powers of his own after getting into several accidents and learning to become more responsible.
  • Each season of Lost has a main Story Arc, each with numerous subplots and mini-arcs, and each contributing to the Myth Arc (which can best be summed up by the question "Why are these people on the Island?"). Each season's Story Arc also has a central conflict and/or division:
    • Season One is about the Losties learning how to survive on the Island and dividing into two camps: one on the beach and one at the caves.
    • Season Two is about finding the Hatch, pushing the button and the psychological effect of it; the Tailies, another group of plane survivors, are introduced.
    • Season Three reveals a lot about the Others, the Island's native inhabitants, and builds towards a confrontation between them and the Losties.
    • Season Four is about the arrival of the "Freighter Folk", who are supposedly offering rescue, while flash-forwards show that some of the Losties eventually leave the Island, only for their lives to completely fall apart.
    • Season Five is split between those Losties left behind on the Island, who start jumping to different points in the Island's history, and the "Oceanic 6", who set about returning to the Island.
    • Season Six is about Jacob and the Man in Black recruiting the Losties for a final conflict, and finding out the true purpose of the Island.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Agent Carter
      • Season 1 has Carter running a secret investigation to prove that Howard Stark has been framed for treason, uncovering in the process a conspiracy by Russian intelligence program Leviathan.
      • Season 2 sees Carter and company head out to California to investigate mysterious deaths, entangling them in the machinations of the Council of Nine and Whitney Frost, as well as with the mysterious substance known as Zero Matter.
    • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
      • Season 1 has a storyline that cleverly evolves over the course of the season: Initially, it's about Coulson's team investigating and combating the machinations of Project Centipede, but about halfway through, the group is all captured, save for their mysterious leader, The Clairvoyant. The series then becomes increasingly about the hunt for the Clairvoyant, until near the end of the season, when he's revealed to be one of HYDRA's moles in SHIELD. After this, the remainder of the season is dedicated to the Civil War between the loyal SHIELD agents and their HYDRA counterparts.
      • Season 2 is divided into two main storylines, connected by the shocking events of the midseason point. The first half has Coulson's ragtag SHIELD waging war against HYDRA, fighting them and Skye's father, "the Doctor" for control of the Diviner; the second half has them drawn into conflict with both Robert Gonzales' "real" SHIELD organization and the Inhumans led by Jiaying (Skye's mother).
      • Season 3 is entirely about SHIELD dealing with the global outbreak of Inhumans gaining powers. In the first half, this means facing off with HYDRA and new rival agency the ATCU. This results in the arrival on Earth of the season's true Big Bad, Hive, who seeks to turn all humans into Inhumans that he can control.
      • Season 4 is broken up into three "pods", which are self-contained but linked through the Darkhold: The Ghost Rider arc (episodes 1-8) features SHIELD investigating the titular entity, and his connections to the titular book and a group of ghost-like beings. In the LMD arc (episodes 9-15), SHIELD ally Holden Radcliffe (having read the Darkhold at the end of the previous arc) goes full Mad Scientist and becomes determined to use the Darkhold to create the Framework, a "perfect" virtual world free of regret; to aid this, he kidnaps and replaces several SHIELD agents with Life Model Decoys. And finally, in the Agents of HYDRA arc (episodes 16-22), Daisy and Simmons enter the Framework in order to save the rest of the team, only to find that Radcliffe's robot assistant AIDA has usurped control and turned it into a Villain World run by HYDRA; this is all part of a larger plan to use the Darkhold to make herself human.
      • Season 5 has a single overarching plot which is divided into two connected but separate stories in each half of the season. In the first half, the SHIELD team find themselves in a Bad Future where Earth has been shattered, and what's left of humanity is crammed into a space station where they're enslaved by the Kree, and must find a way back to the present. In the back half, the team does manage to return, and must, while on the run from a rogue General formerly aligned with HYDRA, find a way to change the events leading to that future.
      • Season 6 starts with two major storylines — Daisy and Simmons leading a team to search for Fitz in space as they're hunted by the Chronicoms, while the rest of SHIELD on Earth deal with an infestation of alien parasites called Shrike being hunted by commandos led by a mysterious doppelgänger of Coulson. These storylines are tied together in the back half of the season, as the Shrike's master Izel hijacks the return to Earth as part of her agenda.
      • Season 7 is all about the SHIELD team chasing the Chronicoms through time to try and prevent them from erasing SHIELD from history.
  • Two of the same writers behind LOST created Once Upon a Time, which follows the exact same structure of arcs and mini-arcs per season contributing to the overall Myth Arc.
    • Season One follows Regina the Evil Queen casting the Dark Curse and sending fairy tale characters to a town called Storybrooke in the real world, where they remain trapped and without the memories of who they really are, and how it's the destiny of Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter, Emma Swan, to be "the Savior" and break the curse. The mini-arcs are Emma accepting her role as mother to her newfound son Henry and her place in Storybrooke, ultimately becoming sheriff after the old one is killed (episodes 1-9); an amnesiac Snow and Charming having an affair that creates trouble with the wife Charming has in Storybrooke, who then goes missing leaving Snow the prime suspect (episodes 10-18); and Emma being made to believe in her true identity and destiny by both a mysterious writer named August and Rumpelstiltskin, the mastermind behind everything (episodes 19-22).
    • Season Two follows how all the people of Storybrooke cope with the curse being broken and their memories restored but still being trapped in the real world, which now has magic in it thanks to the machinations of Rumpelstiltskin. And magic always comes at a price. The mini-arcs are Emma and Snow being transported to the Enchanted Forest and teaming up with Sleeping Beauty and Mulan to find a way back to Storybrooke, which Charming is now in charge of (episodes 23-31); Emma helping Rumpelstiltskin finally find his long-lost son Baelfire while Regina's even wickeder mother Cora plots to obtain ultimate power (episodes 32-38); and two anti-magic zealots from the real world infiltrating Storybrooke in order to destroy it (episodes 39-44).
    • The first half of Season Three follows Emma, Snow, Charming, Regina, Rumpelstiltskin, and Captain Hook traveling to Neverland to save Henry from Peter Pan, who enacts dark and twisted schemes on all of them that forces a character study of who they really are inside.
    • The second half of Season Three has the residents of Storybrooke having to deal with their missing memories from a year banished back to their world, which turns out to be part of a plot by Regina's half-sister Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West.
    • The first half of Season Four has Emma dealing with the arrival in Storybrooke of both Elsa and Ingrid the Snow Queen, as well as learning to properly control her growing powers. Meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin falls back into evil, and tries to free his power from its limitations by use of the Sorcerer's Hat.
    • A tertiary storyline from the first half, Regina's search for the Author in order to find her happy ending, dominates the second half of Season Four, as it becomes a race against Rumpelstiltskin and the Queens of Darkness and Zelena, who want to use the Author to get their own happy endings, at the heroes' expense. And then there's also the matter of Lily, Maleficent's daughter, who was banished to the real world due to Snow and Charming's actions.
    • The first half of Season Five deals with the fallout from Emma becoming the Dark One, as well as the heroes' missing time from the six weeks they spent in Camelot (explored through flashbacks).
    • The second half of Season Five sees the heroes traveling to The Underworld in order to rescue Hook, leading to them confronting figures from their pasts. They then work to help these people find and complete their unfinished business, so that they can move on, all while Hades tries to stop them.
    • Season Six is devoted to Emma coming to terms with her duty as the Savior when she learns she is doomed to die in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger. Regina must confront the now-separate embodiment of her Evil Queen nature along the way.
    • Season Seven, a Retool, is about the now-adult Henry being brought to the neighborhood of Hyperion Heights in Seattle by his forgotten daughter Lucy to break a new curse. The first ten episodes deal with Victoria Belfry (Lady Rapunzel Tremaine)'s custody battle against Jacinda Vidrio (Cinderella); then segues into Eloise Gardener ( Mother Gothel)'s release, the Coven of Eight and a serial killer targeting people in Hyperion Heights.
  • Only Fools and Horses: First done due to Real Life Writes the Plot in series 4, the first three episodes of which saw Grandad's death and Uncle Albert's introduction to the family. The show started doing full story arcs after the the Retool, with series 6 encompassing Rodney and Cassandra's relationship and marriage, series 7 featuring the troubles of the same relationship alongside Raquel's re-introduction and subsequent pregnancy, and the 1996 and 2001-2003 trilogies both containing their own Story Arcs.
  • The Outer Limits (1995): Even though it is an anthology series, several episodes are linked to form an overall story arc.
    • Innobotics Corporation Arc: includes the episodes "Valerie 23", "Mary 25", "In Our Own Image" and "Resurrection" in chronological order. It deals with robots created by the Innobotics Corporation with Valerie 23 and Mary 25 being direct sequels. It's possible that "In Our Own Image" and "Resurrection" take place in an alternate universe or alternate timeline.
    • Major John Skokes of Earth Defense Arc: consists of "Quality of Mercy" and its direct sequel "The Light Brigade" which deal with humanity's war against an alien foe.
    • Theresa Givens Arc: follows the time traveling adventures of Doctor Theresa Givens, consisting of "A Stitch In Time" and "Final Appeal"
    • Genetic Rejection Syndrome Arc: includes "Unnatural Selection" which deals with a couple deciding to have a child with genetic enhancements despite the risk of it contracting the syndrome turns them into mutated psychopaths and "Criminal Nature" takes place roughly a decade later when all the GRS sufferers have grown up.
    • The New Masters: in "The Camp", the last of the world's humans are kept by the android guards, simply because the guards are following the last orders they received. Several humans escape and their story is continued in "Promised Land" where they must interact with aliens still on Earth.
    • Geneticist Dr. Martin Nodel Arc: "Double Helix" and "The Origin of Species" involve Ultraterrestrials who seeded Earth with their DNA 60 million years ago.
    • The Eastern Coalition-Free Alliance Cold War Arc: starting in "Phobos Rising" the world has been divided once again into east and west leading to the colonization of Ganymede in "The Human Factor" and is concluded in "Human Trials".
    • Kimble and Gerard Arc: starting in "Ripper" and ending in "Better Luck Next Time"", it follows to aliens who over the centuries have been in a friendly rivalry possessing and murdering humans for sport.
    • Time Traveler Nicholas Prentice Arc: the episodes "Tribunal", "Gettysburg" and "Time to Time" follow the adventures of Nicholas Prentice and his travels through time.
    • USAS Arc: "The Joining", "The Vessel" and "In the Blood" all involve the USAS.
  • The canonical British TV show with a Story Arc is The Prisoner (1967), which was created from the get-go with a beginning, middle and end, and is also used as an example of the TV Novel.
  • Each season of Round the Twist has a different arc. The first two seasons contained different ghost stories, for Season 3 it was a Viking Love Book, and Season five concerned a mysterious knight from Atlantis.
  • Seinfeld, despite being a "show about nothing", did have a few plotlines that ran in the background of several seasons: Kramer writing and publishing a coffee table book (about coffee tables), Jerry and George writing a TV pilot, George's engagement to Susan, etc.
  • Seven Star Fighting God Guyferd is split into three arcs over its 26 episode run. The first arc (1-8) follows Gou trying to find out what happened to his missing brother Masato, all while battling Mutians sent out by Crown. The second (9-16) sees Gou fighting Crown's Metalferds, who are gathering resources for Crown's big Evil Plan to forcibly evolve humanity with Fallah. The third (17-26) sees the shadowy leader of Crown finally step forward and begin working towards a scheme to Restart the World with an Artifact of Doom.
  • Sherlock:
    • Series 1 has Sherlock investigating Moriarty's criminal empire.
    • Series 2 has Sherlock and John becoming celebrities, Sherlock mellowing, and the eventual confrontation between Morirty and Sherlock.
    • Series 3 has Mary Morstan, Charles Augustus Magnussen, and Sherlock and John's friendship becoming closer than ever.
    • Series 4 has Moriarty's apparent return, Mary's death and its affects on Sherlock and John, and the third Holmes sibling.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has several, featuring battles against the Maquis, the Jem'Hadar, and finally the Dominion as a whole. The characters also grew and changed over time far more than in any of the previous shows. Most of the characters are very different by the end of S7 to how they were in S1.
  • Star Trek: Voyager found a middle ground between DS9's arc driven plots and characters and TNG/TOS's more episodic formats, though this was more through network pressure than creative choice. There were only a few narrative story arcs, such as the early integration of the Maquis crew with the Voyager crew and the ongoing conflicts with the Kazon. Though character growth could be inconsistent, the Doctor and Seven of Nine are regarded as being some of the most developed characters in all of Star Trek due to their arcs.
  • Previously episodic in format, Star Trek: Enterprise introduced an epic story arc with the Xindi war in season three, before settling into a series of loosely-related smaller story arcs in season four.
  • Supernatural has one every season so far, generally building on the previous arc and moving toward the series' overall Myth Arc.
    • Season One has the boys' search for their father, and the demon that killed their mother by extension.
    • Season Two is essentially the same as the first season, save for the fact that they Brothers Winchester are now searching solely for the Yellow-Eyed Demon, who has now killed John as well.
    • Season Three deals with the repercussions of Dean's deal with the Crossroads Demon, Sam's attempts to get Dean out of this deal, and the rise of Lilith later in the season.
    • Season Four begins to really wrestle with the Myth Arc, with the boys trying to prevent Lilith from breaking the 66 Seals and the rise of Lucifer, and introducing angels, Dean's own destiny and Sam's growing demon powers.
    • Season Five is, so far, all about preventing the Apocalypse now that Lucifer has risen, Sam and Dean's destinies as the true vessels for Lucifer and Michael, and to a smaller extent, rebuilding the brothers' relationship.
    • Season Six has multiple interconnected plot lines: the loss and return of Sam's soul (and in turn, the potential return of his memories of Hell), the civil war in Heaven, Crowley's search for Purgatory, and the coming of the Mother of All to Earth.
    • Season Seven deals with the fallout from Castiel opening Purgatory at the end of the previous season, primarily the release of the Leviathans and their plans to Take Over the World.
    • Season Eight deals with an attempt at closing the gates of Hell forever.
    • Season Nine has multiple plot lines dealing with the fallout from the previous season — Dean trying to save Sam's life and the consequences, Castiel dealing with the loss (and eventual regaining) of his grace, the civil war among the angels cast out of Heaven, Metatron acting to secure his place as new ruler of Heaven, and the power struggle between Crowley and Abbadon for control of Hell.
    • Season Ten is dominated by Sam trying desperately to save Dean from the Mark of Cain, while Crowley has to deal with the machinations of his mother Rowena.
    • Season Eleven is built entirely around the conflict with the Darkness.
    • Season Twelve has two main storylines. One is the Winchesters reluctantly working with, and later coming into conflict with, the British Men of Letters. The other is them having to deal with Lucifer walking the Earth again, leading to him conceiving a Nephilim child that may destroy the world if born.
    • Season Thirteen is focused on the Winchesters trying to teach the Nephilim, Jack, how to exist in the world without threatening it, while protecting him from Heaven and Hell, both of whom want him for their own goals, and hoping to use his power to rescue Mary from the apocalyptic Alternate Universe discovered in the previous season's finale.
    • Season Fourteen has the Winchesters and their allies having to deal with the aftermath of Alternate!Michael possessing Dean in the previous season finale and attempting to conquer the prime universe. Meanwhile, there's also the matter of Lucifer's former host, Nick, who is revealed to be psychotic even after being freed, and the fallout from Jack having his grace stolen in the previous finale.
    • Season Fifteen is about the Winchesters trying to figure out how to defeat God.
  • T.J. Hooker had a two-episode arc in the last two episodes of season two, "Payday Pirates" and "Lady In Blue," where Stacy Sheridan (Heather Locklear), formerly a desk officer at the LCPD Academy Precinct, graduates to actual street duty and is paired w/no-nonsense training officer Jim Corrigan (James Darren); these two episodes were apparently a sort of pilot for what the show would be like for Seasons 3 and 4 on ABC (1983-85), and Season 5 on CBS (1985-86, that last one not having Adrian Zmed).
  • The Twilight Zone (1985): In-Universe in "Special Service". The JSTV executive Arthur Spence tells John Selig that his losing his job formed a major recurring storyline in the TV show of his life two years ago. However, viewers eventually became bored of watching him look for work and ratings began to slip so JSTV arranged for him to get a new job.
  • Veep:
    • Season 1: Selina's attempts to pass the "clean jobs" bill, and the political fallout when it falls through.
    • Season 2: The hostage crisis in Uzbekistan and the resulting Presidential scandal.
    • Season 3: Selina running for President.
    • Season 4: Selina as interim President while campaigning for her own election, trying to pass her "families first" bill, and the scandal when it falls apart.
    • Season 5: Team Selina trying desperately to engineer a win in the election tiebreaker vote in Congress.
    • Season 6: Team Selina deal with life post-Presidency, with Selina trying to publish her memories and open a Presidential library.
    • Season 7: Selina running for President again.
  • Weeds contains over-arcing storylines, although they aren't necessarily clearly-defined between seasons, and they sometimes aren't so much resolved as they are escaped from. This gives it a quality of drifting from situation to situation that fits its stoner subject matter, while characters from unresolved plotlines sometimes resurface later.
  • The West Wing had plenty of story arcs, though they didn't always break down along the lines of a season (for example, the arc about Bartlet being investigated by Congress for hiding his multiple sclerosis began late in season 2 and carried on into the first half of season 3, and the re-election arc stretched from late season 3 to early season 4). Even the Democratic party's primary (for more on what that is, see here) to nominate their candidate to succeed Bartlet was an arc stretching across the second half of the penultimate season. The final season was mostly one long arc about the election of the next president, though that season did have a few other arcs as well.
  • Each season of White Collar revolve around a specific overarching storyline that continues from the previous one:
    • Season 1: Neal's search for Kate and the music box that would lead to her.
    • Season 2: The mystery of Kate's music box, and its connection to Vincent Adler.
    • Season 3: Vincent Adler's U-boat treasure that the box hid, Matthew Keller's return, and Neal's commutation.
  • Wizards of Waverly Place is known for its many story arcs. Each season had quite a few of them, most of them running concurrently.
    • Season 2: The "Wizards vs. Vampires" arc, which dealt with Justin's relationship with Juliet and her parents.
    • Season 3: The "Chronicles of Moises" arc, which dealt with Justin becoming a monster hunter, and Max releasing his conscience. This arc ended with Juliet being captured by the mummy. The next arc in Season 3 was the "Wizards vs. Werewolves" saga, which detailed Alex's growing relationship with Mason, and eventually tied itself with the "Chronicles of Moises" arc. The "Stevie" arc followed, and dealt with Stevie's arrival in New York and her wizard revolution. The "Wizards Exposed" arc came next, where the Russo's are captured and taken to a government facility.
    • Season 4: The beginning of Season 4 continued the "Wizards Exposed" arc, which ended with Alex and Justin having to start over in the wizard competition, and Alex deciding to get back in so she could be with Mason. The next arc was the "Maxine" arc, where Max was transformed into a little girl named Maxine. It began with "Three Maxes and a Little Lady", and concluded with "Back To Max". The "Maxine" arc ran concurrently with the next major arc, the "Wizards vs. Angels" saga, which dealt with the Angels of Darkness. The last major arc was the "Apartment 13B" arc, starting with "Wizards of Apartment 13B" and ending with "Wizards vs. Everything". The last arc merges the "Wizards vs. Angels" arc with the "Wizards vs. Werewolves" arc.
  • Disney's Zorro, which ran in the late 1950s was organized into arc stories, rather than simply being episodic. Each episode set up a new set of troubles that Zorro would have to deal with in the next episode in logical, linear fashion.

    Roleplay 
  • Each "chapter" of The Mad Scientist Wars is usually a self contained storyline - but as the gae has been going on, more and more storylines will run somewhat through other chapter. For instance, 'Chic's Family' has been going on since the Mad Sci Con chapter.
  • Although the setting in We Are Our Avatars is easily changed with some effective roleplaying, some longer arcs have been implemented. After the move to Role-playing, there's always been one.
    • Also, an Alternate Universe resolution to the final conflict of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S tied in to Mapi's Mega Crossover fanfic.
    • A truly epic arc concerning vampires, which began with the introduction of an Alternate Universe Future Badass version of Flandre Scarlet and came to its conclusion with the defeat of none other than The Lord of Evil, Dracula himself. The more over-arcing Are machines sentient? arc, began with the freeing of Dee and her sister Bit.
    • One of the largest involved Father's attemps to remake the multiverse, and destroy the Fourth Wall.
    • Anyone who wants to can usually kick off an arc, and several plots sometimes run at once. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to have become too confusing.
  • Pokémon/Digimon Mon Wars is divided into three arcs so far;
    • Orange Islands Arc: Based on the Filler Arc and Pokémon 2000 from Pokémon: The Original Series'':
    • Myotismon Arc: A variation of Myotismon's invasion of Tokyo, but instead on a large chunk of kanto
    • Dark Masters Arc: Current arc, with the Dark Masters merging the digital world with Johto and Orre into Spiral Mountain
  • We Are All Pokémon Trainers has numerous arcs brought into several sagas:
    • J-Team Assemble Saga: The assemblage of the J-Team and its codification as a concept, consisting of the Sinnoh, PMD-1, Unova-1, Ranger, and Gold Conference Arcs.
    • Upheaval Saga: The AU Arc.
    • Aftershock Saga: Dealing with the aftermath of the AU and consisting of the OI, Hoenn, and Infinity Keystone and Kanjoh-1 arcs.
    • Paths Saga: The PMD-R and Kanjoh-2 arcs, taking place partially concurrently.
    • Cipher Saga: The J-Team's fight against Cipher, consisting of the Unova-2, Holonquest, and Orre arcs.

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE had multiple story arcs each involving a single location or a set of themes. These were in turn divided up into chapters, each one (mostly) representing a single year of the toyline.
    • BIONICLE Chronicles/The Mata Nui Saga:
      • 2001: The Coming of the Toa (also known as The Rahi War)
      • 2002: The Bohrok War
      • 2003: The Bohrok-Kal Strike and The Mask of Light
    • BIONICLE Adventures/The Metru Nui Saga:
      • 2004: The City of Legends
      • 2005: The Web of Shadows
    • BIONICLE Legends/The Ignition Trilogy
      • 2006: The Island of Doom
      • 2007: The Sea of Darkness
      • 2008: The Heart of the Universe
    • BIONICLE Glatorian
      • 2009: The Legend Reborn
      • 2010: Journey's End

    Video Games 
  • Jet Force Gemini: The game's first half has the three main playable characters (Juno, Vela and Lupus) head towards Mizar's Palace to defeat the leader of the insectile Drones responsible for the Bug War in the galaxy; in turn, each character goes to the intended destination by completing their own roadmap, dealing with different events as situations as they face the Drone army along the way. The second half, which starts with Mizar's first defeat, is a quest to repair an ancient ship to intercept the villain's asteroid to prevent its impact against planet Earth.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Resident Evil 2: Leon's and Claire's campaigns.
    • Resident Evil 6: Leon's, Chris's and Jake's campaigns, followed by Ada's campaign which is available after all others are completed.
    • In Resident Evil 4, there are two characters and each has a campaign as well, but the second character's (Ada) is more of an Another Side, Another Story variation, available after beating Leon's campaign (itself divided into three arcs based on the major locales of the setting: Village, castle and military island, in that order).
    • The whole series can be fit into a series of arcs: Beginning (Zero, 1), the Fall of Raccoon City (2, 3, and both Outbreak games), the Fall of Umbrella (Code: Veronica, Survivor, Dead Aim, and the last scenario of Umbrella Chronicles), the Fall of Wesker (4 and 5), the FBC Interludes (Revelations and Revelations 2), and the Family (6 and ongoing).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were also part of an arc called the "Death Egg Saga", as the games deal with Sonic's attempts to stop Dr. Eggman from launching the Death Egg. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is a continuation of the "Death Egg Saga", since Eggman launches the Death Egg mk. II in Episode II.
    • The classic trilogy and Sonic Adventure form a storyline centered on the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic 1 introduces them. Sonic 2 introduces the seventh Emerald and Super Sonic, and reveals part of the Emeralds' backstory. Sonic 3 & Knuckles introduces Angel Island (their place of origin), the Master Emerald and its guardian, and expands on their backstory. Sonic Adventure further expands on it, even letting players witness the events that led to Angel Island's creation, and gives finality to a plot point introduced in Sonic 3.note 
    • There's also a Story Arc dealing with Shadow. It started in Sonic Adventure 2, continued in Sonic Heroes, and was resolved in Shadow the Hedgehog. Sonic Battle also works as an extension of the arc, revealing major background details about Shadow's creator Gerald Robotnik.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story form a story arc of Fawful going from being the loyal underling of Cackletta (the first game's main villain) to becoming the self-serving main villain of the third game, far surpassing her accomplishments in the process and essentially winning for most of the game. Along with this, the arc also shows him developing a genuine hatred against Mario and Luigi after losing to them in the first game, to the point it seems to be almost all he thinks about.
  • In City of Heroes series of missions are actually referred to as story arcs, another way to capture the feel of comic books.
  • Each of the original games in the When They Cry series are their own arc. Later remakes tend to have multiple arcs in one game though.
  • The King of Fighters splits up its ongoing, sometimes confusing plot into arcs, each with rotating protagonist duties. Fans can generally expect a new arc to pick up if the last title was a Dream Match Game, though this isn't always the case.
  • The Kirby series had a Story Arc nicknamed the "Dark Matter Trilogy" consisting of Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards because all three deal with Kirby and his animal friends dealing with the threat of Dark Matter on Pop Star and its solar system. These games were not produced by Masahiro Sakurai but Shinichi Shimomura. This is noticeable because all three share a puzzle-solving structure instead of the more combat-oriented structure of the other games.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has four story arcs. The first one is the Xord arc, where the heroes first leave their attacked hometown and have their first encounter with a talking Face Mechon. The second arc, the Prison Island arc, continues their search for Metal Face, the Mechon that destroyed their hometown, climaxing with a battle at the titular Prison Island. The third is the Egil arc, when the heroes infiltrate Mechonis to fight against Egil, the leader of the Mechon. After the Mechonis Core event, the final arc is the Zanza arc, where the Monado/Zanza takes over Bionis and threatens to destroy everything.
  • The Castlevania series is often organized into two-part arcs which take place during one generation of Belmont. For example, Castlevania/its remakes and Simon's Quest detail the story of Simon's attacks on Dracula, while Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow form a duology that deals with Soma Cruz and his attempts to escape his supposed destiny as the reincarnation of the aforementioned Dracula. Typically, these two-parters feature the same Belmont as the protagonist if a member of their clan is the player character, though they may be downgraded to a supporting role in the sequel (such as Alucard taking over for Richter in Symphony of the Night) or, in the case of Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin, succeeded by an offspring.
  • The Silent Hill series has the Harry Mason/Alessa Gillespie story arc in Silent Hill, 3, and Origins (a prequel).
  • In EarthBound, the game has two main goals: Enhance Ness's power by finding eight melodies and shattering a "nightmare rock," then defeat Giygas. However, Giygas causes many sub-plots that break into two major story arcs. The first is the Eagleland arc, which has four sub-arcs and mainly deals with the illusion device known as the Mani Mani Statue and the growing threat of one of its victims, Pokey/Porky Minch. After destroying the Mani Mani Statue and the Clumsy Robot, the bodyguard of the Statue's last victim Geldegarde Monotoli, there is a small interlude involving obtaining the fourth melody which leads to the Summers-Scaraba-Deep Darkness arc, involving the mysteries presented about a pyramid in Scaraba and a swamp called Deep Darkness, which is revealed to guard the last two melodies. After all eight melodies are gathered, one small, last story arc begins: the completion of the original two goals given, which is accomplished by defeating Ness's Nightmare inside his mind and then defeating Giygas and Porky after travelling to the past.
  • Ōkami: The game is neatly divided into three story arcs: The Orochi story arc, regarding the release of Orochi and the terror he tries to release upon the world; the Capital Arc regarding a strange mist covering the capital and the threats of the Water Dragon terrorizing the seas and the Dark Lord that seems to be the mastermind behind everything; and the Kamui Arc, which takes place on the northern, frozen mountains of Nippon. Several mini-arcs take place as different plot points are solved so there's nothing undisclosed by the end of the story: The backstory of Issun and his hometown, the threat of two twin demons in the shape of mechanical owls that plan to freeze the land of Kamui over, the true backstory of the first arc and, finally, the appearance of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and every aspect related to it (its origin, the fate of its former inhabitants, and the nature of the Greater-Scope Villain in the form of Yami, the Lord of Darkness).
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Some games in the series start with a story arc that involves exploring a trio of dungeons to find Plot Coupon tools that may help Link defeat Ganon, or another villain, the easy way. When plans don't work as intended or something unexpected happens, then Link has to reconsider his plans and then it's when he tries to do what it takes to defeat the Big Bad the hard, but more effective way. The games that follow this pattern are A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, The Wind Wakernote , Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass and A Link Between Worlds. Skyward Sword follows a similar pattern, except the unexpected twist comes before he even attempts to get rid of the villain (during the first third of the game, his only objective is to find Zelda; in the second, he seeks to create the Master Sword just to manage to reunite with Zelda again); only after six dungeons, eight boss battles and lots of adventuring, it's when he finally starts a new quest (long on its own) to get rid of the Big Bad once and for all. Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, offers a major twist on the two-arc structure by having the game proper take place entirely during the "second arc"; the "first arc" is instead presented as a Jigsaw Puzzle Plot through the recovered memories.
    • There are also story arcs that span multiple games in the series:
      • The first and most famous is the arc dealing with the Hero of Time (sometimes called the "Hero of Time Saga"), which strictly encompasses his own adventures in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask and loosely includes two Distant Finales in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess that have different Links across two timelines dealing with the consequences of his adventures in Ocarina of Time.
      • Another arc is the saga including and following Wind Waker (sometimes called the "Wind Saga"), which stars the Hero of Winds and Tetra on their initial adventure to free the Great Sea from Ganondorf's grasp, then later features them in Phantom Hourglass on a bump in their journey to find a new land. Spirit Tracks functions as a Distant Finale to this saga, featuring a different Link and the descendant of Tetra fighting against a new Demon King.
      • Yet another arc follows the "Hero of the Wild", starting from Breath of the Wild where an amnesiac Link wakes up in a mysterious shrine and has to save Hyrule from Calamity Ganon and recover his memories of Princess Zelda. It is given a prequel in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which tells of the coming of Calamity Ganon itself and the Champions' efforts to stop it though it ends up being an Alternate Timeline where they succeed. The "Wild Saga" is later given a proper continuation in Breath of the Wild's sequel Tears of the Kingdom, where the Hero of the Wild encounters the Calamity's original form of Ganondorf and must save Hyrule again from his menace.
  • Kingdom Hearts has 8 whole games, from the original to the long-anticipated Kingdom Hearts III, forming what Tetsuya Nomura refers to as the "Xehanort Saga" or "Seeker of Darkness Chronicle." Also, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II in of themselves form a story arc of Sora, Donald and Goofy attempting to save the universe while seeking to reunite with their friends (Riku, Kairi and King Mickey).
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising is split into multiple arcs. It starts with the Medusa arc, which spans the first nine chapters. But then the game pulls a Your Princess Is in Another Castle! and Hades shows up, and Viridi a chapter later. Those four chapters deal with the three-way war of the gods. Then we get three chapters of an alien invasion. Then the Chaos Kin throws the story off the rails, and that arc lasts for five chapters. After a one chapter arc of getting Pit back into shape, it takes one more three chapter arc for him to get the necessary equipment to take down Hades once and for all.
  • The Descent trilogy has a continuous arc, each sequel directly continuing from the previous game.
  • In Megadimension Neptunia VII, the game is split into three parts that are all connected together. It starts out with the Zero Dimension arc which deals with the new Zero dimension, and then that gets solved and goes to the second arc, the Golden Third arc, where each CPU becomes a protagonist of their own and tries to figure out what has been happening to their own nations and who is behind all of the mess. Finally, the third arc, the Heart Dimension arc, focuses on the character who was from the first arc figuring out who she is and the main villain is introduced in the story.
  • The first two generations of Pokémon featured a story arc revolving around the rise and fall of Team Rocket, a terrorist organization that exploited Pokémon for profit. Though this arc concluded with Team Rocket's second dissolution by Archer, one final thread was let loose by a Unovan grunt that attempted to shut down the Kanto Power Plant before returning to his home region to reform Team Rocket again; this thread (and by extent, the Team Rocket arc) would finally be tied up in Pokémon Black and White, which revealed that the grunt ended up falling in love and abandoning the last vestige of Team Rocket to start a family.
  • While most Monster Hunter games have a single story through the quests and rank chapters, the G expansions (Monster Hunter G / Freedom, Freedom Unite, 3 Ultimate, 4 Ultimate, Generations Ultimate, Iceborne and Sunbreak) have at least two: The original story of the games they're expanding upon, and their own arc that is spanned through the added High Rank quests. For example, 3 Ultimate starts with the original story of Tri about finding and defeating Lagiacrus to get rid of the earthquakes (and later Ceadeus when it is revealed to be the true responsible), then continues with the quest for the Ultimate Mask and how to give back its power; 4 Ultimate starts with the original story of 4 about chasing Gore Magala and stopping its spread of the Frenzy Virus (for which Gore's evolved form, Shagaru Magala, has to be defeated as well), then adds the new story of Dundorma and its hunters continuously stopping the attacks of Kushala Daora. And so on.
  • The massive The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Game Mod project, Beyond Skyrim, has announced that the different storylines will be structured as such, with each different region of their rendition of Tamriel featuring a main quest line of their own, though the different main quest lines might occasionally acknowledge the others with a reference here and there.
  • The chronology of Metroid is divided into four arcs: The original story where Samus storms the base of the Space Pirates in Zebes (Metroid / Zero Mission), the Phazon incident (the Metroid Prime Trilogy sub-series), the story where Samus has to exterminate all Metroids except the one she spared and then rescue it from the Pirates (Return of Samus / Samus Returns and Super Metroid), and the story telling the consequences of the Metroids' near-extinction plus the dubious ethics of the Galactic Federation and even those of the Chozo (Other M, Fusion and Dread).
  • The first four Sakura Wars games feature a story arc for Ichiro Ogami, an Imperial Japanese Navy ensign who becomes captain of the Imperial Combat Revue in Tokyo (Sakura Wars and Thou Shalt Not Die) before he's transferred to Paris to lead their own Combat Revue (Is Paris Burning?). The story concludes with Fall in Love, Maidens, which depicts him leading the Imperial and Paris Combat Revues for one final battle.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening: Has 3 main story arcs, with Lucina's character arc happening more or less simultaneously. The first one is about the conflict between Ylisse and Plegia as Gangrel tries to stir up war between the countries, the second one is about Walhart's attempts to Take Over the World, the third one is about Grima's resurrection. In the meantime, Lucina attempts to prevent the Bad Future.
  • Professor Layton: The first three games in the series tell about the adventures of the eponymous professor and his young assistant, specifically the unique mysteries they have to solve while also dealing with aspects from their respective friends and families. The following three games are prequels which form a trilogy of adventures that, while seemingly standalone, are all related to the overarching backstory about the Azran civilization. The seventh main game is standalone, being a distant sequel to all previous games and starring one of Hershel Layton's daughters.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY goes through several short arcs each season, with a larger arc always on the backburner that comes into play for the season finale. Season 1 had the Beacon initiation ritual (episodes 1-8), Ruby and Weiss's rivalry (9-10), Jaune's bully problems (11-14), and Blake running away because her team finds out she's a Faunus (15-16), with the overall arc being Roman Torchwick's mysterious crime spree. Season 2 had Team RWBY hunting down Roman (episodes 1-4), the Beacon Dance and Blake's health problems (5-7), and the team's mission to Mountain Glenn (8-12), with the overall arc being Cinder's infiltration of Beacon. Season 3 has the Tournament Arc, which then segues into the Fall of Beacon arc.
  • SMG4:
    • The Waluigi Arc - Or, "when SMG4 got hit by the Cerebus Syndrome". Waluigi gets rejected from Super Smash Bros. again, causing him to embrace the power of rejection and use the power to turn everyone into T-Pose zombies and cause an apocalypse on the Mushroom Kingdom.
    • The Rapper Bob Arc - Bob has betrayed his friends to finally become a successful rapper, including ending his friendship with Fishy Boopkins, it's up to Mario, Saiko and the gang to end his rapping career once and for all.
    • The Anime Arc - After Bob accidentally destroys Peach's castle using Goku's blast, Anime is banned from the Mushroom Kingdom, including Saiko (who is a real life anime character), the gang bands together to unban anime with the help of Axol, later on after anime is unbanned, Meggy and Axol were kidnapped by Francis, who wants to make an island of waifus with the inklings ink, so it's up to the gang (including Desti, of all people) to save Meggy and stop Francis.
    • The YouTube Arc - SMG3 has gotten his production studio destroyed by SMG4, which caused the former to return to villainy, afterwards he gets his own crew which are copycats of the Glitchy Gang, who will help him to erase SMG4 and the gang (sans Mario) from existence.
    • Genesis Arc - SMG4 seeks out to find out who he really is and where exactly he came from with the help of his friends, while also running into Zero, who wants to find the Avatar of the SMG4 universe, Mario. Reason being is that the death of Mario will cause everything in this universe to cease to exist.
    • Revelations Arc - Long after SMG0's defeat and Axol's death, Melony has decided to train for any more upcoming threats, in fear of losing any more of her friends, but she has discovered that anything that reminds her of SMG0 will cause her to go into Fierce Deity mode. So Meggy has decided to take Melony to college to help her get her (Melony's) powers under control. Meanwhile, Mario has become part of a college club called the "Box Club", in hopes of finding a club suitable for him. Also, Melony makes a harsh, but well-meaning friend whilst at college. Or so we thought...
    • The Lawsuit Arc - SMG4 faces the greatest threat to his channel's existence yet: getting sued by Nintendo. In this arc, Mario's IP contract with his corporate overlords forces him to star in a new game against his will. When Meggy takes a stand for her friend's freedom, Nintendo strikes back with serious legal consequences that could not only keep SMG4 from using any of Nintendo's characters again, but also spell doom for his entire cast of Original Characters.
    • Season 13 actually doesn't have a "main" story arc, but it does have smaller character arcs for some of the main cast. However, many of them appear to be connected to a mysterious TV Guy that has the ability to see the audience. Among them is the following:
      • SMG3 rising to fame on the internet and accidentally causing SMG4 to go insane when he attempts to create his "perfect" video as well as permanently destroying Peach's Castle in the process and causes Peach to become a horrific monster after being stranded due to SMG4 buying a keyboard from the TV Entity. After SMG4 finally comes backto his senses, he spends the middle of the season building a brand new castle for his friends as a way to atone and buys The Showgrounds from the same TV Entity in the process.
      • Meggy taking Tari on as the first person she successfully coached to be braver like her idol One Shot Wren as well as finally graduating from college. Meggy later learns that Wren "Fell Off" in his career and later became enraged after learning her group's vacation idea to the wild west was actually a planned trap that places the group in a simulation made with technology from the TV Entity controlled by none other than One Shot Wren himself so he could have a Worthy Opponent and fight her. Thanks to Tari's ability with digital worlds however, they manage to escape and defeat Wren in the process with Meggy beginning her official coaching career afterwards.
      • Mario starts his own Pizza shop and the stress of the job getting to him because he has commitment issues. Because of this, Mario creates a cardboard drawing oc named Marty to help run the shop as he manages to gain the funds needed to build a new castle. However, Marty is actually sentient and is heavily hinted to be sinister, especially after he has Mario steal SMG3's notebook. At The end of "War Of The Fat Italians 2023", it's revealed that Marty wanted the Notebook because he received a fax from the TV Entity that told him it had a special Pizza Recipe and Mario a new Club Penguin Hat. By the end of the episode, both of them end up in prison.
      • SMG4 and SMG3's relationship and teamwork being put to the test as they continue to deal with scenarios that force them to work together. SMG3 also begins keeping a notebook that he doesn't want others to read. Mario is later hired by Marty to steal the notebook as both SMG4 and SMG3 perform a heist at Marty's casino to get it back during "War of the Fat Italians 2023". After they successfully retrieve it, SMG3 reveals that he was going to move to the Showgrounds and build a new coffee shop while he draws a picture of him and SMG4.

    Webcomics 
  • The Bug Pond has the Masquerade Mayhem story arc.
  • Both Dragon City and Jix both started off as a gag-a-day strips, despite having an ongoing story, but both became arc based. This is because the writer has a hard time writing jokes without having a story in place to joke about.
  • Erika and the Princes in Distress : The story is divided in arcs that each focus on a specific Prince, and take place in their respective kingdom.
    • The first arc takes place in the sugary kingdom of the Floating Island, and centers around the disappearance of Prince Egg-White after he went to seek pastry ingredients, along with the schemes of his stepfather King Parfait and his devoted wizard Glucose.
    • The second arc is set in the therapeutic kingdom of Terapia, and features Prince Aurel, who has been cursed to fall asleep forever if he breathes the smell of a certain flower; only a kiss from a princess can break the curse, but the spell has also made it so that his breath smells absolutely horrible.
  • Girl Genius:
    • The webcomic has overarching arcs that have not concluded after 14 years (finding out what happened to the Other and defeating her), arcs that have only just started to wrap up but have left more questions (the apparition in the first few pages) and arcs that seem like they're going to take a while to wrap up but have only just begun (the timestop), location-based arcs that generally take a year to three (Beetleburg, Castle Wulfenbach, the circus, Sturmhalten, Mechanicsburg pre-Castle, Castle Heterodyne, Mechanicsburg post-Castle, the train, Paris, and underground in Paris), and smaller arcs within each of those that focus on solving a particular problem (the Si Vales Valeo arc, fighting the wasps). Then there's the radio theater breaks and the short stories.
    • The first page of Girl Genius was posted in 2002, and it has updated three times per week ever since. The fourteenth volume began in 2014 and is entitled Act Two: Book One. It's going to go on for a while.
  • Everything except filler in El Goonish Shive. Also has a Myth Arc, though it has spent the past few years lurking in the background.
  • In the tradition of old-style Newspaper Comics serials (the author/narrator has mentioned a fondness for Lee Falk's catchphrase, "Next—New Adventure!"), the story arcs in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! each have a clear beginning and ending, usually with a couple of stand-alone strips in between arcs. These arcs run for months, although they usually only cover a day or two in-universe.
  • Living with Insanity used to be a comic strip with the occasional story arc, but now is mostly story arcs.
  • The Packrat had only one Story Arc so far, and that was the time travel story from January 2011 to February 2012.
  • You'd be hard pressed to find a Sluggy Freelance strip that doesn't lead up to or follow up on another strip. Most of them do both. Even if you counted sub-chapters (technically called stories, so calling them arcs as well is a bit redundant) or even chapters for "episodes", there are still storylines arcing over those, up to Myth Arc level. Even the Filler Strips often come in series (of stories, not just strips): The Return of Stick-Figure Week!
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent: The first arc/adventure took a couple months short of five years to be completed, and is to be followed by a second one.

    Web Original 
  • Animated Critic is an unusual case as most review blogs don't have ongoing story arcs. Currently he has 3
    • The Kevin Arc in which a mysterious being named Kevin comes on to the blog and starts to form a friendship with Evan. This one has been completed.
    • Revenge From The Past Arc in which a person from Evan's past vows revenge on him. This one is still ongoing.
    • The Ghist Boy Arc in which Evan gets a mysterious box from his grandma and meets the ghost of a boy who could be related to him.
  • The web fiction serial Dimension Heroes has an ongoing story arc, broken up into several smaller books.
  • The Epic Tales series Shadow Hawk has an ongoing arc about Shadow Hawk wanting to get revenge on the Shapeshifter, who killed his father. It also has a subplot arc about how he got a girl pregnant in the first story.
  • The website Neopets has featured several, called plots. Some plots still remain as webcomics on the site.

    Web Videos 
  • As deemed by Davvy himself in the preamble of Session 14, Belkinus Necrohunt can be separated into at least three "Arcs":
    • The initial brief adventuring that help establish the main cast's backstories and connections to the world.
    • The events in Chester City that end with fighting Thyrmelius Cog
    • The inevitable confrontation with Necromancers at Cloveway that quickly turns into helping Kara redeem her name.
    • Arguably, the third arc ends with the reveal of Thorne's true identity, and a fourth and final arc starts when the party accesses the Spine of Death's real headquarters in Verteheim, which lasts until the final session's conclusion.
  • Board James has one in season 3 which was propelled by the season 2 Dream Phone episode.
  • Atop the Fourth Wall has had these ever since Mechakara's introduction.
  • The Nostalgia Critic's had a long-running, slightly Yo Yo Plot Point one about his love/hate relationship with his job.
  • The Nostalgia Chick's had a few, the most obvious being the Dark Nella Saga.
  • Demo Reel had Donnie's Dark and Troubled Past, a SWAG leader wanting to destroy the production team and general learning-from-your-mistakes.

    Western Animation 
  • At first glance, Adventure Time appears to deal almost exclusively in goofy one-off episodes — but within that format are multiple complex arcs. Many relate to the origins/histories of Ooo and its different inhabitants, but their ongoing relationships and possible destinies have become more dominant since the end of season three (which introduced the show's first real villain, the Lich). The show also makes prominent use of returning buses, and just about everything is guaranteed to become a Rewatch Bonus at some point.
  • American Dad! has several:
    • The infamous "Golden Turd" saga, which was seen in "Homeland Insecurity", "Failure is Not a Factory-Installed Option", "Blagsnarst: A Love Story", "Father's Daze" and concluded in "300".
    • Then there's the arc about Hayley's relationship with Reginald the koala.
    • Another began when Roger tricked Jeff into being carried off into space at the end of "Naked to the Limit, One More Time", which led to Hayley coming to terms with his loss in "Spelling Bee My Baby" and "The Missing Kink" before we focus on Jeff's attempts to return to Earth in "Lost in Space" and "The Longest Distance Relationship". He finally returns in "Holy Shit! Jeff's's Back!".
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • The first series' Myth Arc is divided by three seasons, which are titled "books". Book 1 is Water, Book 2 is Earth, and Book 3 is Fire. As the names suggest, each arc deals heavily with Aang mastering the elements involved. Also, while Book 1 was more or less one whole arc, each half of Book 2 and Book 3 could be divided into arcs: the Earthbending Training arc, the Ba Sing Se arc, the pre-Solar Eclipse Invasion arc, and the pre-Sozin's Comet / Firebending Training arc.
    • The Legend of Korra is divided by four books with their own respective arcs, this time named after aspects or ideas Korra learns. Book 1, Air, is Korra learning to master the element of air with sub-arcs of her adjusting to society. Book 2, Spirit, is Korra becoming more spiritual with sub-arcs of politics in the Southern Water Tribe, her relationship with Mako, and Varrick's schemes, etc. Book 3, Change, is Korra and the world learning to accept change, with sub-arcs of the Red Lotus getting free, readjusting from Book 2, the Beifongs in Zaofu, and so on. Book 4, Balance, is Korra putting the world back into balance with sub-arcs of Korra's lonely journey, Bolin's denial that Kuvira is evil, Bolin and Varrick's Fugitive Arc, and so on.
  • Though Batman: The Brave and the Bold mostly uses stand-alone stories, they do occasionally throw in hints of story arcs, such as Equinox, the Starro story arc, and the arrival of Darkseid.
  • Big Hero 6: The Series has Season 1 focusing on the team trying to figure out who Arc Villain Obake is, what his plans are, and him constructing his Legion of Doom, the season ending with his defeat. The first half of Season 2 is the City of Monsters arc, surrounding Liv Amara and her sinister monstrous plans with Sycorax, and the second half of Season 2 is about Big Hero 6 being outlawed by San Fransokyo's newest police chief. Season 3 is about Noodle Burger Boy assembling a villainous team of other food mascots.
  • The Deep (2015) has the Nekton family searching for a sunken city known as Lemuria.
  • Defenders of the Earth has three five-part story arcs among its sixty-five episodes:
    • In the "Book of Enigmas" arc, Kshin finds a mysterious Book (whose pages constantly change) in Mandrake's library. Over the next few episodes, the Book helps Kshin to solve a number of mysteries, before it is eventually revealed that it is really a being from another dimension who was turned into the Book and banished to Earth.
    • In the "Prince Kro-Tan" arc, Ming is overthrown by his own son, who "moleculises" his father and seizes power for himself. But Kro-Tan is unaware that he is being manipulated by Suramong, a former Overlord of Mongo, who needs Ming's molecules in order to regain his full power. In the end, the only way the Defenders can stop Suramong is to reconstitute Ming.
    • In the "Necklace of Oros" arc, Graviton, an evil being from another universe, manipulates Jedda into taking the Necklace he once used to rule his universe from the treasure room in the Skull Cave, where it has lain since a rebel from Graviton's universe entrusted it to the first Phantom. Over the next few episodes, the Defenders fight to protect Jedda from Graviton. But Ming also wants the Necklace, as does Hadea, the Queen of the Netherworld, and Jedda eventually decides the Necklace's powers are too great.
  • The first season of the Dilbert animated series had a story arc regarding the company's new flagship product: The Gruntmaster 3000. It covered things such as producing, marketing, and site-testing. The story was frequently broken up with non-arc episodes.
  • Every season of DuckTales (2017) had two arcs; one focusing on one of the triplets, and one focusing on the Big Bad of the season:
    • Season 1: Dewey's quest to find out what happened to Della, and Magica de Spell's plan for revenge on Scrooge.
    • Season 2: Louie Incorporated, and the Lunarian invasion.
    • Season 3: Huey's search for the Missing Mysteries, and F.O.W.L.'s plot to stop Scrooge once and for all. (Although this quickly turns out to be the same arc.)
  • Exo Squad had not only the primary story arc (the struggle between the Terrans and the Neo Sapiens), but it was also broken into smaller four or five episode long mini arcs, with the action typically focusing on a particular theater of the war. On the DVD release, each mini-arc gets its own name in addition to the episode titles.
  • In Family Guy, Peter's cut-away-battles with the giant chicken eventually form an arc, of sorts.
    • In season 16, a three-week story arc was made that centered around Brian getting kicked out of the house and forced to live on his own after he writes a racist comment on Twitter and becomes the most hated person in town.
  • Overall, Final Space is a story about astronaut Gary Goodspeed and his ragtag crew dealing with the titular dimension. The first season is about him trying to save the Earth from the effects of Final Space. The second season is about him trying to rescue Quinn from Final Space after she got trapped there in the previous season finale. The third season is about Gary and is crew trying to escape final space before they succumb to "Final Space poisoning".
  • The Flintstones: The third season had an arc involving Fred and Wilma having a baby daughter and adjusting to parenthood.
  • Gargoyles had a subtle arc about Brooklyn's coming of age that became a flaring beacon of story awesomeness in the episode, "Kingdom," when you realize this is what the previous Brooklyn stories have been building toward. Also, there are multi-episode arcs that are more blatant, most infamously the "Avalon World Tour".
  • Gravity Falls has its second season consist of three story arcs. The first eleven episodes have the twins attempting to discover the identity of the Author of the Journals. The next six episodes deal with the aftermath of that story arc's conclusion as Dipper and the Author must prevent Bill Cipher from gaining access to a dimensional rift that would allow him to connect our world with his own. And the final three episodes of the series, collectively titled Weirdmageddon, have the main characters attempt to save the world after Bill successfully gets the aforementioned rift.
  • Green Lantern: The Animated Series had about two major story arcs. The first thirteen episodes dealt with the Interceptor's efforts to stop the Red Lanterns led by Atrocitus from crossing into Guardian Space and waging total war. The second arc had the heroes pitted against the Anti-Monitor, until Aya pulled a Face–Heel Turn halfway through and took over as the Aya-Monitor for the remainder of the series.
  • Inspector Gadget's second season switched format from stand-alone episodes to three-part arcs, usually involving Arc Villains who continually evaded justice.
  • Iron Man: Armored Adventures, in addition to its main Myth Arc, features other story arcs, usually following a specific character over the course of the show (for example, the Living Laser's origin and him figuring out what to do with his new powers and then his eventual downfall). These story arcs also end up combining and become more narrow as the show goes on (The Living Laser story arc ends up fusing with the A.I.M story arc later on).
  • Jackie Chan Adventures and its seasonal arcs.
    • Season One: The search for Shendu's talismans.
    • Season Two: Defeating Shendu's demon siblings.
    • Season Three: Finding the animals with the talismans' powers.
    • Season Four: Finding the Shadowkhan masks.
    • Season Five: The search for the chi of the demon sorcerers.
  • Justice League Unlimited had one in the second season, dealing with the fight between the League and Project Cadmus, and another in the third season focusing on the Secret Society/Legion of Doom.
  • Let's Go Luna!: "Andy's Big Show" and "Leo Moves It" together form a story arc about the kids going to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: Beginning in season 2, the series started to use it's own series of story arcs that start or progress throughout the entirety of the season. These include:
    • In Season 2, Marinette's arcs dealt with learning new information about the Miraculouses, her friendship with Adrien strengthening, Chloe's arc dealt with her first redemption, and Gabriel learning new information about the Miraculouses and the Guardians of Paris.
    • In season 3, Marinette's love for Adrien began to get strained, Adrien focused on his friendship with other friends besides Ladybug, Hawkmoth and Mayura's plan to create struggles for the heroes, Chloe reverting back to being her mean self, Master Fu's past, Lila causing more trouble, and Kagami building her life in Paris, finding friends and enemies along the way, and becoming her own person under the strong influence of her mother, Tomoe.
    • Season 4 will see Marinette's life under pressure now that she became a guardian and will have to encounter Shadow Moth. She will likely have less time and the opportunities to tell Adrien her true feelings. Other story arcs have yet to be confirmed.
  • Molly of Denali: While the cartoon itself isn't really serialized, it has a tie-in podcast with an overarching plot every season.
    • Season 1 focuses on Molly's 10th birthday, the mystery of who stole her birthday cake, and her family taking over the Denali Trading Post.
    • Season 2 focuses on Molly and Trini on board a mystery train.
    • Season 3 focuses on Molly and Tooey preparing a dogsled race.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'
    • The first season has a loose arc about the Mane Six preparing for the Grand Galloping Gala, culminating in them attending it in the season finale. It's only mentioned in about three or four episodes total in the season, but that's still more acknowledged continuity than the show normally has.
    • Season 3 begins featuring an arc concerning the Equestria Games that's continued into the fourth season, with a few episodes featuring the cast preparing for it.
    • At the end of the Season 4 premiere, the Mane Six receive a mysterious box from the Tree of Harmony after giving up the Elements of Harmony with six keyholes in it. Then, over the course of the season, each of them minus Twilight has at least one focus episode that ends with them receiving a gift that gives off a rainbow glow. The season finale reveals that these are the keys in disguise, with Twilight receiving hers just in time to open the box and use its contents (the Rainbow Power) to defeat the finale's Big Bad, Lord Tirek.
    • Season 7 tells the various legends of the "Pillars of [Old] Equestria", the Precursor Hero group to the Elements of Harmony. It culminates in the season finale where the heroes investigate why they disappeared from Equestria.
    • Season 8 is almost entirely built around the Mane Six opening and running a School of Friendship. Even episodes not directly involved in this tend to still reference it in some way.
    • Season 9 deals with a final story arc where Celestia and Luna plan to retire and make Twilight their successor, and a legendary villain named Grogar assembles a Legion of Doom of past enemies which the Mane Six must defeat once and for all.
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has this in the second season:
    • There's the five-episode P.O.I.N.T. Prep arcnote , in which Enid enrolls at the titular P.O.I.N.T. Prep (a school that trains future members of P.O.I.N.T., the superhero team Carol and Gar were once part of) and reconciles with her old friend Elodie, a fellow student; however, they, K.O., and Rad soon discover that there's something shady going on at the school. The end credits theme even changes for these five episodes to reflect that it's a special story arc.
    • The above arc itself is part of a season-wide story arc with P.O.I.N.T. as a whole. There's an episode before it in which they get involved with Plaza affairs, and this is what sparks Enid's interest in attending P.O.I.N.T. Prep. Later in the season, it's revealed that Carol is secretly still working for P.O.I.N.T., and possibly never even left in the first place, and we learn more details about Mr. Gar leaving (or more accurately, getting kicked out of) the organization. All of this culminates in the Season 2 finale, in which P.O.I.N.T. (particularly its leader, Foxtail) acts as the Arc Villain.
  • Ready Jet Go!:
    • The secret identity arc. The Propulsions are aliens, but they can't let anyone find out. They have a hard time keeping the secret. This comes to a head in "Back to Bortron 7" where Mitchell almost exposes the Propulsions, but fails thanks to Jet 2.
    • Sean's Character Development arc. Over time, Sean becomes less nervous of going into space, and more open to trying and failing. In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", he learns that he doesn't have to worry about training to be an astronaut for years, and he should just enjoy life since he's still a kid.
    • Mindy's turning five arc. Over the course of Season 1, Mindy's boundaries get expanded beyond Jet's yard. In "Mindy Turns Five", Mindy finally turns five and goes to space.
  • Downplayed in Rick and Morty, which is a largely episodic series, further enforced by the fact that Rick specifically dislikes serialization and prefers standalone episodes. There have, however, been a few arcs:
    • Season 3 is a season-long arc that starts with Jerry's and Beth's marriage breaking up and Rick replacing Jerry as head of the family. The rest of the season deals with the negative effects that the divorce and Rick's toxic personality has on the Smiths, culminating in them deciding by the finale of the season to reject his nihilistic worldview and work on themselves, complete with Jerry reconciling with Beth and returning to the family once more.
    • Rick's, and by extension the rest of the family's, conflicts with his two greatest enemies—the Galactic Federation and the Citadel of Ricks—and the aftermaths of these conflicts each take up their own small arcs, spread out across multiple seasons each:
      • The Galactic Federation story arc primarily plays out across the episodes of: "The Wedding Squanchers" (Season 2 finale), "The Rickshank Redemption" (Season 3 premiere), "Star Mort: Rickturn of the Jerri" (Season 4 finale), and "Rickternal Friendshine of the Rickless Mort" (Season 5).
      • The Citadel of Ricks plays a major role in "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" (Season 1), "The Rickshank Redemption" (Season 3 premiere), "The Ricklantis Mixup" (Season 3), and "Rickmurai Jack" (Season 5 finale).
  • Scooby-Doo:
  • The Secret Saturdays has this:
    • Season One: The Kur Stone Puzzle
    • Season Two: Finding Kur
    • Season Three: Zak IS Kur
  • The second season of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) started off more continuity-based to begin with, then kicked into full-on, development-a-week arc mode with the launch of the Doomsday Project.
  • South Park has had several story arcs along with multi-part episodes.
    • Season 3 had the "Meteor Shower Trilogy", which were three seperate episodes all taking place at the same time about what the four boys were up to on the night of a meteor shower - Cartman was being babysat by Shelly, Stan's Big Sister Bully, Stan gets dragged out to a party by his parents, and Kyle, Ike, and Kenny get taken to a Jew Scout camp.
    • A three-part mini-arc in Season 4 involved Mr. Garrison coming out of the closet.
    • An arc lasting through the entirety of Season 6 involved the absence of Kenny after he was (temporarily) Killed Off for Real the previous season, and the boys' attempts to replace him.
    • Season 11 brought us the Emmy-winning Imagionationland trilogy, where after Cartman makes a bet with Kyle that the latter would suck his balls if Cartman could prove that leprechauns were real. The Leprechaun in question turns out to be from "Imaginationland", a world where all imaginary characters co-exist - and after it's attacked by terrorists, it winds up coming down to Butters to save it...all while Cartman desperately tries to get Kyle to suck his balls. All three episodes were collected into one DVD movie, simply titled Imaginationland: The Movie.
    • Season 14 has the "Coon & Friends" trilogy, where the boys play as superheroes while BP inadvertently releases cosmic horrors onto the world - horrors that Cartman is all to eager to exploit. Notable for explaining where Kenny's resurrection powers come from.
    • Season 17 has the "Black Friday" trilogy, a tie-in to the then-upcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth game (and an Affectionate Parody of Game of Thrones) has the kids of South Park doing a fantasy-themed LARP while attempting to buy the brand new eighth-generation consoles on black friday. They end up caught in a faction war between those who want PS4s and those who want Xbox Ones. This being South Park, things quickly go off the rails.
    • Season 19 is a season long arc involving the town attempting to gentrify itself, contrasting the noble, politically-correct posturing of its residents with their still-clueless and selfish mindsets.
    • Season 20 is an attack on the Nostalgia Filter trope and presents the destructive effects of unchecked nostalgia (referencing both and the backwards-facing fervor that fueled Donald Trump's presidential campaign and overabundance of sequels and reboots in The New '10s), with a plot involving Mr. Garrsion becoming president (and becoming a Trumplica) and a misogynistic troll online known as "skankhunt42" who is harassing women on the internet.
    • Season 24 (which consists of two specials and two hour long Made-for-TV movies) is about the COVID-19 Pandemic, how the town copes with it, and how it affects everyone's relationships.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man has four story arcs per season (with one arc having four episodes and the rest having three). Each episode in an arc has a Theme Naming title.
  • Spider-Man (1981) had a story arc, stretched across five episodes, surrounding Doctor Doom's attempts to conquer the world and the developing situation in his home country of Latveria.
  • Though his higher-ups demanded a strictly Merchandise-Driven series, story editor John Semper managed to "sneak in" overarching storylines and development into Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Naming each season and referring to episodes as "chapters" probably didn't hurt. By the time they realized what he had done, and despite limited animation and extremely restrictive censorship, the show had become the #1 cartoon in America. Nonetheless, they still didn't let him join in on the Spider-Man Unlimited spinoff, which was primarily stand-alone format and petered out after barely reaching 13 episodes.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil has an arc about a Government Conspiracy to hide the existence of Queen Eclipsa's illegitimate, half-monster daughter, who grew up to become Miss Heinous, as well as Heinous' rediscovery of her monstrous heritage and plot to take over Mewni.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars has many arcs, the most prominent being the Mandalore/Shadow Conspiracy saga, involving among other things the return of Darth Maul, who had been presumed dead.
  • Steven Universe often premieres new episodes in week-long events called "Steven Bombs" that form mini-arcs that either concern the overarching Myth Arc or character relationships, such as the first one dealing with the oncoming approach of Homeworld Gems or the third one dealing with a loss of trust within the team after it's discovered that Pearl has been manipulating Garnet.
  • Each Teen Titans (2003) season has an overarching plotline, related to one of the core characters:
    • Season One focuses on Robin, with Slade as the Big Bad; the story is mostly about how the two characters are and aren't similar.
    • Season Two focuses on Beast Boy and moreso on Sixth Ranger Traitor Terra, who is manipulated by Slade to become The Mole and ultimately The Dragon.
    • Season Three deals with Cyborg and his escalating enmity with Brother Blood, who has stolen and abused Cyborg's own technology.
    • Season Four is about Raven and her attempts to avert her destiny- opening a portal to allow her demonic father Trigon the chance to escape his can and conquer the universe.
    • Season Five focuses on the team as a whole and their efforts to stop the Brotherhood of Evil from wiping out a generation of superheroes.
  • Each season of the Total Drama series is essentially this, with a different cast lineup, elimination order, and winner in each one.
  • Transformers:
    • Beast Wars had arcs a-plenty. The first season often leaving a viewer wondering What Happened to the Mouse?, until, several episodes later, just when they'd almost forgotten, it was revealed. The second and third seasons, however, are more serialized. Skip an episode, and you'll miss at least one thing that's worth knowing later. You won't be left completely hanging, but you won't get what's going on as well as a more devoted viewer, either.
    • Beast Machines has some of the strongest continuity of any cartoon ever aired. The whole thing is a series of Arcs.
    • Transformers: Animated follows arc structure as well, with Season 1 focusing on Megatron's attempts to rebuild his body (with his eventual success covered in the finale), and Season 2 dealing with the Decepticons' plot to build a space bridge to Cybertron. Season 3 is a bit more fluid, possibly because a lot of loose ends are getting tied up.
  • Every season of Tangled: The Series consists of an overarching arc with a different plotline:
    • Season 1: The mystery of the black rocks popping out of nowhere, and the reappearance of Rapunzel's long, golden hair.
    • Season 2: Following the black rocks outside of Corona to the Dark Kingdom so Rapunzel can follow her destiny.
    • Season 3: Cassandra's rise to power and the eventual awakening of Zhan Tiri.
  • Winx Club has a major arc in every season.
    • Season 1: Bloom's awakening of her powers and coming to accept herself as a true fairy.
    • Season 2: The introduction of new Winx member Aisha and the villainous Lord Darkar threatening to take over the magic dimension.
    • Season 3: The Winx earning their Enchantix and Bloom continuing her search for her birth parents, among this is the sorcerer Valtor who harbors a connection with her. Culminates in the movie The Secret of the Lost Kingdom.
    • Season 4: The Winx going to Earth to help humans believe in fairies and magic.
    • Season 5: The Winx stopping Tritannus from polluting all the magic dimensions' oceans.
    • Season 6: A witch named Selena unlocks the Legendarium book and releases several fictional creatures, and the Winx must lock it for good.
    • Season 7: The Winx must protect the animals of the magic dimension.
    • Season 8: The Winx go on an intergalactic adventure to restore all stars to the galaxy.
  • The X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon of the 90s did this as well, going through a number of arcs that were featured in the comic books, including the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas.
  • Sofia the First is mostly standalone, but late in the show has episodes occasionally featuring the Secret Library — essentially Sofia traveling around the world to help others — and later the Mystic Isles — Sofia learning to be a Protector of the EverRealm while dealing with Prisma and Vor's schemes, culminating in the Grand Finale.
  • Elena of Avalor: Season 1 focuses on Elena learning the basics of what it takes to be a ruler, Season 2 focuses on the return of Shuriki as the Arc Villain with Elena training to fight her and cope with her PTSD, and Season 3 focuses on Ash as the Arc Villain while also delivering the consequences of Esteban's mistakes.

Alternative Title(s): Arc, An Arc, Plot Arc

Top