657653 t1_j9y1o4s wrote on February 25, 2023 at 11:42 AM

Idk what everyone else is talking about. The shield is a fully serialized show where our main character (Victor Edison Mackey) has a 7 season arc. There are episodes where the main story doesn’t progress as much as others, or where it is just character building, particularly in the first season. There are 2 side arcs throughout the show (Acaveda, and Danny+julien) as well.

spitefulcum t1_j9y99ht wrote on February 25, 2023 at 1:10 PM

it is serialized throughout but on an episode by episode basis the first three seasons have a lot more self contained episode

GeronimoSonjack t1_j9yhyog wrote on February 25, 2023 at 2:29 PM

Well it's not fully serialised as the non strike team cops tend to have a case of the week each episode.

Lil_Mcgee t1_j9yj00v wrote on February 25, 2023 at 2:37 PM

The strike team deal with a lot of episodic storylines as well in the first couple of seasons and there are instances where Vic's storyline overlaps with Dutch/Claudette and others at the station.

The show is constantly building on itself, it's definitely not a procedural that resets to a baseline at the end of every episode but yeah it's also not accurate to say it's fully serialised.

I think it's a good balance for long form storytelling, it gives the characters time to breathe, the world feels more realised when it's not constantly about the high stakes main plotline.