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Continuity Lock Out (view source)

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This is one of the main bones of contention between creators and executives. Executives want each episode to potentially bring in new audience. Creators want to entertain the audience they have. In a rare case of this wiki taking the side of the [[Executive Meddling|executive meddlers]], we have to admit that continuity lock-out is never caused by the execs. It has to be written.
 
The standard answer to this issue is the [["Previously On..."]] segment: many shows on this list open each episode with a short capsule summary of events you should be aware of. Of course, [["Previously On..."|Previously Ons]] have their own drawbacks, such as inadvertently providing [[Spoiler|spoilers]] or flat-out not working. The better answer is [[Better On DVD]]: after all, the best way for anyone to understand ''any'' show is to buy the DVDs and watch it from the beginning, sometimes more than once or with the help of fan annotations.
 
Why bother with the intense continuity at all? Simple: An intricate series-spanning plot often results in a stronger and more interesting overall show. You may not catch as many fans, but the ones you do get are yours for life. This does mean that you have be sure to rope in as many as possible early on before the Lockout effect takes hold to make the effort worthwhile.
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** Example: ''[[X Men Origins Wolverine (Film)|X Men Origins Wolverine]]'' could have used footnotes to explain the significance of its story elements. Since the Weapon X scene was so brief, it could have said "To learn more, please read ''Weapon X'' by Barry Windsor-Smith." One benefit is that you get to spend more time with your non-comic-savvy friends explaining the plot. Whether they'll care or not is another story...
*** Origins: Wolverine is relatively unfaithful to the comics anyway (Sabretooth and Wolverine suddenly being brothers, mutilation of Deadpool, Gambit being a bumbling Cajun instead of a smooth one), not to mention its horrible continuity within the film franchise.
** The [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] does do a good job of adapting the comics while being accessible to a new audience, but the movies often contain numerous in-jokes and [[Shout -Out|Shout Outs]] that you won't understand unless you are a fan of the comics. Little things like Nick Fury's reference to the "Avengers Initiative" or the Cosmic Cube at the end of ''Thor'' likely have no real meaning for a large portion of the audience.
*** Considering that the first is a reference to/foreshadowing for [[The Avengers (Film)|The Avengers]] and the latter is relevant to [[Captain America the First Avenger]] they're less [[Continuity Lock Out]] as hints or [[Sequel Hooks]] to tie the various films together.
** Probably the worst is Hawkeye's appearance in ''Thor''. Non-comic fans are left clueless why the movie spent five minutes bringing in a big name actor to play a random wisecracking guy with a bow and arrow, who never appears in the film again.
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** Interestingly, the author later wrote two prequel novellas (with a third on its way), starting with ''The Hedge Knight'' which essentially reproduced the Ice and Fire themes about power and politics down to a much smaller and far easier-to-digest form, and radically less intimidating to newcomers, particularly the graphic novel adaptations.
** Also interesting to see how the apparently very faithful HBO TV adaptation ''[[Game of Thrones]]'' (currently in production) handles the uber-serialised, densely-plotted structure and the vast cast of characters in the story.
*** Answer: basically the same. The plot is reproduced quite faithfully and getting lost is easy. Having said that, the TV series benefits from the presence of "[["Previously On..."]]" intros. They only cover what happened in the episode just prior to this one, but it still helps. (Also, it seriously helps to have faces and voices to hang onto character names. Even some characters who were [[The Scrappy|Scrappies]] in the books are getting a better reception on screen.)
* [[Stephen King]] hired author Robin Furth to be his archivist and continuity editor to assist him in writing the final books of ''[[The Dark Tower]]''. She compiled an encyclopedia that King referred to during writing that was published itself as Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance. He says in the foreword to that book that there was no way he could have completed the series without such a document.
** And sadly, it shows. Many of the books most important plot points are mentioned only in passing, which can result in a whole mess of confusion even for those who have read all the books in order.
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* ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'': It is possible, if not a bit difficult, to start reading the second series without reading the first series. However, by the third series, things apparently get nigh incomprehensible for people who haven't read all of the previous books.
* Katherine Kerr's 15-book ''[[Deverry]]'' series is divided into four parts; starting at the beginning of any one of the three latter will cause you to only miss '''half''' of the significance of what's happening... The Dragon Mage (3rd series) is probably the worst offender, since it tells about the end of the civil war, which has been earlier covered in three other books.
* To keep up with all the various plots and [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] in the ''[[Honorverse (Literature)|Honorverse]]'' by [[David Weber]], you not only need to read the mainline titles, but the sub-series and short story collections, which are ''themselves'' not in chronological order. [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Honorverse#Stories_listed_by_internal_chronologyStories listed by internal chronology|Go here for a reading order]]. The books are mostly free, so it won't set you back much.
* Eric Flint's ''[[1632]]''-verse is a "shared universe" open to anyone who wants in. In other words, any fan of the series can write their own contributions to it and have them entered into canon. Flint and his co-writers then tend to take characters introduced in these stories and work them into the main series. Thankfully, the short stories that have the most impact on the main story have been collected into their own "Ring of Fire" anthologies.
* The Harry Potter ''books'' partially avoid this trope thanks in large part to the film series, the popularity of Harry Potter in general and some exposition on JK Rowling's part. You can watch the first couple movies, pick up the third book and pretty much get everything. Likewise, if you know the basic story of the first book/movie, you can read the second book without much trouble. After those points, though, it gets kinda muddled.
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* The ''[[Stargate]]'' franchise has been accused of this. A newbie coming it at the eighth season of ''[[Stargate SG-1]],'' for instance, is going to need some help understanding who and what all those species are meant to be about. Some people almost gave up after sitting through the ''pilot episode'' -- without seeing the movie first. "Who are all these people?!" Somehow it did not occur to the writers that it carried over a whopping six characters from the movie without bothering to give them any proper introduction, ''in addition to'' introducing five new major characters in this episode alone. The fact that they moved through Abydos and Chulak in large crowds didn't help. Starting with "Emancipation," when it became obvious that they were focusing on a four-person team, things started to look more manageable.
** Hence why ''[[Stargate Universe (TV)|Stargate Universe]]'' features a new cast in a new setting with few links back to the other series (really only cameos) and a different style: to capture new audiences.
* ''[[Babylon Five|Babylon 5]]'' freely admitted that it was a "novel on television," and no one starts reading a novel in the middle. [[J Michael Straczynski]] said he dislikes the use of [["Previously On..."]] segments, preferring instead to have characters recap the plot with [[As You Know]] speeches, which is arguably worse.
** Many times in the message boards, JMS would say something like "If you've got some friends you've been trying to get into the show, the episodes in the next few weeks aren't too arc-heavy and/or should be able to catch them up on the arc." Which sounds nice at first, [[Fridge Logic|until you realize]] that with most shows, you can jump right in without fear at any point in the season.
* Most of the jokes on ''[[Arrested Development (TV)|Arrested Development]]'' barely make sense unless you have an intimate knowledge of the episodes that have come before (and, in some cases, the ones that come after...). This is why the show [[Vindicated By History|developed something of a cult following once it was released on DVD.]]
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** It doesn't help that the show's continuity is all over the map. Even hard-core fans of the mythology have a rather hard time keeping up with it. You could make a drinking game out of all the plot holes in the mythology, ''especially'' in the last two seasons. There is a reason it's called [[The Chris Carter Effect]].
** Fans of the show are forever locked into a debate as to which episodes are better, specifically the [[Myth Arc]] verses the [[Monster of the Week]] episodes. They're pretty evenly split between the seasons, with the Arc marketed more to the hardcore fans while the Monsters are marketed to the casual viewer, who is used to not keeping up with the show.
* The 2000s ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. The series premiere follows immediately from the events of the pilot miniseries, which was not initially included on the Season 1 DVD, and any given episode relies on the viewer being aware of plot details introduced several episodes or seasons earlier.
* ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]''. There's dozens of major and minor characters, all of whom have their own unique and complicated backstories. The fact that these backstories often intersect in unlikely (and often downright implausible) ways makes things even more confusing.
** They hang a lampshade on it in Season 5, with [[The Summation|Hurley explaining why the Oceanic Six lied]] to his parents in his [[Crowning Moment of Funny|trademark Buffy Speak]]:
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* Try watching ''[[Glee]]'' mid-season without the "previously on" segment to clue you in. The pregnancy plot was confusing enough in context. One can only imagine trying to watch an episode that contained that plot without knowing the context.
** Averted hard in the second season, which can be easily summarized as "a bunch of teenagers doing some random stuff, acting different in every episode for no particular reason. Also, there are choir competitions in three episodes". This was the huge complain why the second season was considered mediocre compared to the first one by most critics. The writers promised to fix this for the third season, however.
* This trope is often blamed as one of the contributing factors to the cancellation of the original series of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' - amongst a lot of other issues that the show was facing at the time, the fact that a fairly large portion of the stories broadcast during the 1980s seemed to hinge upon the audience being aware of characters, events and storylines which hadn't been seen for upwards of ten or even twenty years didn't make the show any easier to watch. Matters weren't helped by the fact that this was well before VHS and DVD was prominent enough to allow [[Better On DVD|people to catch up on the old stuff]], ''and'' that a lot of this old stuff had been deleted from the archives anyway, meaning that even if the technology had existed, the original material didn't.
** In the new series of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', the later into any given series an episode occurs, the lower the likelihood of a casual viewer having any clue who the characters are or what is going on. The most extreme example is the cliffhanger of "Turn Left": the [[Arc Words]] from ''the first series''. We are then introduced to nearly every Companion or character who had appeared in multiple stories from the past four years, as well as a few of the main characters from the spin-off shows.
*** [[David Tennant]]'s [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E17 E18 The End of Time|final episodes]] suffered from this as well.
** Also one of the problems with [[Doctor Who (TV)/TVM the TV Movie/Recap|the TV movie]]--they'd included enough from the old series without properly explaining it that it wasn't going to make nearly as much sense to anyone unfamiliar with ''Doctor Who''. Given that this was long prior to YouTube and BBC America, most Americans knew little to nothing about it, and while it tossed in all kinds of plot-points from the series it failed to give them nearly enough context.
** "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon" may leave people baffled as to why {{spoiler|why the future Doctor and the girl in New York are glowing some strange light}}, or why the Doctor seems visibly concerned with the word "Silence".
* ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]''. Good Lord, ''Heroes''. The writers really wanted to give the impression that there were characters with powers ''everywhere'', which is one of the reasons it was so interesting and complex. On the other hand, even viewers who watch every week could be confused with all of the new characters and [[Put On a Bus|old characters simply disappearing]]. Not to mention all of the [[Face Heel Turn|Face Heel Turns]] and [[Heel Face Turn|Heel Face Turns]]. Just [[Better On DVD|buy the DVDs]]. It's more comprehensible that way.
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** Lampshaded again in a hilarious, fast-paced exchange between Buffy, Giles, and Principal Wood in season seven while discussing all the things that have happened to Spike.
* ''[[Dollhouse]].'' [[Joss Whedon]] loves this trope. This was particularly true of the s2 episode "The Attic": the concept of the Attic had been mentioned only once since the previous season, and there was no explanation of who Mr Dominic is (and he hadn't been seen or mentioned since season 1, either).
* An early version of ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' story "Secrets Of The Stars" would have featured aliens named the Mandragora who had last apppeared on ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' in the 70s. This was one of the reasons why they were replaced with the Ancient Lights in the final product, the story would have been relying too much on one from around 30 years ago and thus locked out the young target audience.
* It's ''possible'' to watch Seasons 1 & 2 of ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' without first seeing ''[[Life On Mars]]'' - which introduces you to [[Noble Bigot With a Badge|Gene]], [[The Ditz|Chris]], and [[Cowboy Cop|Ray]], and tells [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|Sam Tyler's]] story - but if you haven't seen LOM by the time A2A hits Season 3, you're almost completely lost. Sam and what may or may not have happened to him play a huge part in {{spoiler|1=the ongoing battle between Gene, Alex, and [[Big Bad|Jim]] [[Magnificent Bastard|Keats]], and virtually all of 3x05 - the return of DCI [[In-Series Nickname|"Bastard"]] Litton - is nigh-incomprehensible if you haven't seen LOM. Fully understanding 3x07 and 3x08, which pull a [[Cosmic Retcon]] on LOM and cause anyone who watched it to immediately start second-guessing everything they know? Forget about it.}}
* ''[[Weeds]]'' tends to reveal major plot points in the current arc each episode, making it very difficult to get on track if you miss even one episode. And watching an episode in the middle of the season with no previous context will basically make no sense.
* ''[[Smallville]]'', particularly in the final season.
* The ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' spinoff ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' is sometimes reliant on continuity from its parent show, and its writers stubbornly refuse to explain the connections any more than is absolutely necessary.
** ''Torchwood'''s main character, Captain Jack Harkness, is shrouded in mystery. Some of his backstory is revealed on ''Doctor Who,'' while some remains hidden. A viewer of ''Torchwood'' alone could wait forever for explanations that already happened on another show. The same is true of the Torchwood Institute itself.
** The Series 1 episode "Cyberwoman" assumes a familiarity with the ''Doctor Who'' Series 2 finale episodes for viewers to understand why the villain is so frightening. Without that information, viewers would be baffled by references to recent historical events that bear great significance to the plot.
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* ''[[Supernatural (TV)|Supernatural]]'', especially since season four, when the angels started getting involved. Considering the show's high HSQ, watching a newer episode without following the story makes for bizarre and incoherent viewing.
** Take season 4, episode 16: So, the guy torturing that dude who looks like a paedophile is the good guy? And what the hell are the angels stabbing each other over?"
* ''[[Fringe]]'' avoided this problem during seasons one and two, thanks to its heavier focus on self-contained [[Monster of the Week]] plots, with the occasional [[Wham! Episode]] for the longtime fans. According to JJ Abrams and the other [[Fringe]] producers, they specifically wanted to make the show more accessible and avoid the impenetrable-for-newbies style progression that [[Lost]] did. However, by the time season three came around, the plot became too tough for new viewers to follow, so the show's structure became far less episodic. It's understandable though, as the more procedural feel of the first two seasons would have watered down the major plot developments (with many of them reaching [[Mind Screw]] territory) that season three unraveled.
* Around 20-25% of ''[[How I Met Your Mother (TV)|How I Met Your Mother]]'' is comprised of flashbacks -- not just distant flashbacks to the characters' youth, but flashbacks that occurred during the show's run, during distinct canonical periods of the show's run, and even precise episodes or even ''scenes'' of the show's run -- and is full to the brim with running gags, in-jokes, huge quantities of detailed backstory, and plot elements and assumptions that are rarely if ever lampshaded and utterly inexplicable if you haven't seen the previous (or sometimes, like ''[[Arrested Development (TV)|Arrested Development]]'' above, even future) episodes (or flashbacks, or flash''forwards'') that explain them. The only reason the show isn't the most insular and locked-out show ever broadcast is because of Future!Ted's narration, which reminds viewers of events or situations relevant to the episode at hand and often recaps essential plot points with a quick "Kids, remember how I told you about..." so that at least the plots make sense, even if many of the jokes and character reactions will leave new viewers scratching their heads in bewilderment.
* "[[Mad Men]]" suffers from this in spades. The episodes are generally not self-contained, and most of the subtext is built upon episodes from previous seasons. The problem is that this series built on subtext. Viewers must watch from the absolute, [[S 1 E 1]] beginning. The [["Previously On..."]] segments absolutely do not help.
 
 
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== Professional Wrestling ==
* Usually avoided in pro wrestling, since most of the characters (at least if the fall between the two extremes of "irrelevant" and "universally popular") will switch from [[Heel]] to [[Face]] and back again (or vice versa) quite a few times over the course of their part in an overall story arc, with other characters all but forgetting about the bad deeds they committed as Heels or the good deeds they committed as Faces (unless, of course, a character is [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?|explicitly confronted with his/her past]]). However, since [[WWE|World Wrestling Entertainment]] has a video archive going back to the ''1960s'' and everything (or almost everything) that occurred within those 40-plus years is regarded as canon, it often becomes helpful to play vintage video clips in the montages in order to bring everyone up to speed.
 
 
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*** It also doesn't help that the [[Updated Rerelease|Final Mixes]] in the series [[No Export for You|are unavailable outside Japan]], despite containing critical plot points. This makes it difficult to follow the [[Kudzu Plot|already complex plot]] of the series, unless you look up fan translations.
** '''[[Averted Trope|Averted]]''' in ''[[Kingdom Hearts 3D]]'', for the first time in the series, thanks to the recap-like [http://kh13.com/forum/topic/30377-memoirs-feature-in-kingdom-hearts-3d-explained/ "Memoirs" feature.]
* Strangely averted by ''Zelda'', despite having a humongous [[Continuity Snarl]] of a timeline. For example, one can play both ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'' without ever needing the knowledge that they are set in two parallel timelines created by Link's time travel in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', though both games do have plenty of [[Continuity Nod|Continuity Nods]] to their predecessor. This is all because the sequels are isolated, so it the overarching plot between the games doesn't really matter.
** In the case of direct sequels (like ''[[The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass]]'' is to ''[[The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', for example), you get a summary of the events from the last game (and even then, the information isn't really needed, as the new adventures always take place somewhere different).
* The ''[[Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|Ace Attorney]]'' goes out of its way to avoid this, to the point of characters avoiding references to other games even when it would make sense to do so. See: Miles Edgeworth in ''Investigations'' constantly mentioning that he no longer follows the von Karma way without mentioning the fact that {{spoiler|von Karma murdered his father and raised him that way as revenge for a small courtroom slight.}} You would think that would be a big deal.
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[[Category:Audience Reactions]]
[[Category:Continuity Lock Out]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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