The Monster Of The Week Trope In Fiction, Explained

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Tons of TV series tell their stories one episode at a time, pitting their heroes against a fun new enemy every outing and resetting the status quo by the ending. This Monster of the Week format is one of the most popular tropes in a wide variety of genres for a lot of good reasons.

Television has changed a great deal as a result of the big move to streaming. While the entire medium is in a never-ending battle between episodic and serialized storytelling, the platform shift has changed each option's weight. Despite the changes, the Monster of the Week format remains popular and iconic.

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Monster of the Week is a descriptor for a type of episodic fiction. It refers to shows that feature a new enemy and a new fight in each episode. The basic structure of the average Monster of the Week story starts with the characters living their normal lives. Often some mundane problem will plague their waking life, but traditional problems will have to go on hold when this week's new threat appears. The heroes take on this new threat, win, and return to their largely unchanged lives. It's the equivalent of the classic «Status Quo is God» rule of old sitcoms, but for series with a more action-oriented structure. Pitting the heroes against a new foe every week allows the show to explore the main characters in a variety of situations and to avoid growing stale by fighting the same foe every week.

The «Monster» of the trope need not necessarily be an actual monster. It might be a new criminal in a police procedural, a new supervillain in a superhero show, or a new alien in a sci-fi series. Often a larger villain waits in the shadows to supply or create the weekly threats, but they could also just