i recently watched lars von trier's riget (the kingdom) (and riget II), each part a four-hour tv miniseries. it's about an advanced modern hospital in denmark at which very strange supernatural things happen. in the first series, a woman at the hospital with a special affinity for ghosts gradually unravels the 100-year-old story of a young girl's abuse and death at the hospital, freeing her ghost. in the second, a portal has been opened to the supernatural world, and satan and all manner of spirits cruise around. it's basically a sort of ER meets the x-files, an ongoing soap opera with supernatural themes, lots of humor, and a number of simultaneous plotlines. my overall review: the first series was very good. it focused primarily on the girl's story with various other interesting plotlines. the second series, however, lost focus by trying to move from that story to lots of general supernatural running around, and it didn't hold one's interest enough to overcome some of the more annoying aspects (including what i found to be an excruciating, nearly unwatchable plotline involving a very precocious and deformed child). i would recommend the first series to anyone, but the second was likely enough to put me off lars von trier for life (to be fair, i was already disposed to not want to see his other movies).

what i found interesting though was how much the show's downhill slide reminded me of the experience of watching both twin peaks and the x-files. twin peaks, as well, had a fairly focused story with supernatural elements to begin with, and once that story was (sort of) resolved, it kind of went off the deep end trying to stay weird and edgy and supernatural. when i watched it (and i didnt see it when originally broadcast, but in a series of weekly get-togethers where we went through the first two seasons 2-3 episodes at a time), i had the definite experience of, after the first season, an ever-decreasing interest in the story and an ever-increasing annoyance with the weird stuff thrown in from left field. similarly with the x-files, though it took much longer, because that central storyline was only brought in every few episodes, and the other episodes were generally good self-contained stories. but following the "central mythology" of the x-files became less and less interesting with time. for me, it started to go downhill after the point when mulder and scully "learned" that all the ufo/alien stuff was basically a lie to cover up things the government was doing. it was a great twist and would have been a fitting place to stop. but of course the show went on, and that moment was followed by mulder and scully "learning" that there were multiple alien races and an alien rebel army, etc etc etc. it started to become so arbitrary that it didn't hold my interest as a story. and without that central story to whet your appetite, the show overall became less compelling, especially as they seemed to start running out of good ideas for new scary stuff.

i think this kind of downhill slide is common in most tv series that survive a long time. but it's especially pronounced in any show that begins with some kind of mystery (like twin peaks and the kingdom) or some other kind of central question that must eventually be answered (the conventional wisdom about moonlighting, for example, was that it only worked well as long as you wondered whether bruce willis and cybill shepherd were going to do it). and it's maybe made worse by the supernatural aspect of these shows, perhaps because you can throw in pretty much whatever you want and make up some supernatural explanation for it; the writers are tempted to keep upping the score on weirdness to keep audiences interested, and at some point it just doesn't work any more. i guess the moral of the story is: if your tv series is fueled by some running mystery, better make sure you have something to replace it in the second season; and resist the temptation to go overboard with the weird stuff.