TV

Well, flash-forward to Monday at the Beverly Hilton and Fox's first day at this summer's Television Critics Association and guess what? Serial-style storytelling is dead and long live stand-alone episodes. The first hint of this change of tune came during the morning session with the producers and cast of Fringe, the new sci-fi-themed series from Lost creator J.J. Abrams and his Alias collaborators, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.

Responding to a question that referenced the confusion and difficulty that many people experienced in trying to watch Lost, Mr.Abrams recalled the time he was at a friend's house and started watching an episode of Alias. "Within a few minutes I was totally lost. I found it totally impenetrable, so that gave me the chance to experience it from that direction."

To avoid viewer confusion and frustration, Fringe will try to be "an experiment" in which there is an overarching "end game," with all the embedded clues and codes fans of the serial genre love to blog about and theorize over, and a show in which each episode is its own "stand-alone experience."

"You don't have to watch episodes one, two and three to watch episode four," Mr. Abrams said. "it's going to be a different sort of paradigm week to week," offering the further reassurance that Fringe "doesn't require insane, absolute dedication."

The anti-serial backlash was expressed even more explicitly during the afternoon panel with the producers and cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. After a questioner noted the show's strong opening and subesequent dip in ratings during its debut season, creator Josh Friedman explained that on "both a macro and a micro level," the show was making some second season adjustments. "The first season was heavily serialized and this season the episodes are going to be more self-contained."

When asked why, producer James Middleton snappily replied "because we wanted to."