Perhaps the most famous example of the serial drama is the soap opera. The same story line runs from week to week (or program to program), and devoted watchers comment on the action on forums and read magazines and websites to find out the latest dish on characters, actors and story lines. Some sitcoms and action programs follow story lines from week to week, but not usually as consistently as the soap opera; instead, many action programs and sitcoms mix self-contained episodes, in which no story lines continue to the next week, with two-part episodes that continue, usually at the beginning or end of a season.
Miniseries are basically films that have been made for television, because they are too long for a theater audience to sit and watch in one sitting, and they can range from six to 12 hours in length. This was a more dominant genre in the 1970s and 1980s in American television, with such epic features as "Shogun," "The Winds of War" and "Roots" earning permanent places in the pantheon of American entertainment. They usually play out in three to six episodes over a series of nights.
Some movies do so well at the box office that the producers decide to roll out a sequel, or a series of sequels, and these film series can develop groups of devoted followers as well. The six movies revolving around Rocky Balboa and the periodically rebooting series based around comic book characters, such as Batman and Spiderman, and the seemingly immortal "Star Trek" franchise, are among the most well-known examples of series in American film.
The cutting edge of serial entertainment can be found on the Internet. Such amateur productions as "The Annoying Orange" feature new episodes each week and have their own collections of fans out there in cyberspace. The advent of such sites as YouTube gives the opportunity of exposure to many filmmakers who would have a difficult time entering the mainstream through traditional channels.