"To be continued" redirects here. For other uses, see To Be Continued.
The 1914 film serial Perils of Pauline was shown in bi-weekly installments and ended with a cliffhanger.
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode[1] or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to incentivize the audience to return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.
Cliffhangers were used as literary devices in several works of the Middle Ages with One Thousand and One Nights ending on a cliffhanger each night.[2] Cliffhangers appeared as an element of the Victorian eraserial novel that emerged in the 1840s, with many associating the form with Charles Dickens, a pioneer of the serial publication of narrative fiction.[3][4] Following the enormous success of Dickens, by the 1860s cliffhanger endings had become a staple part of the sensation serials.[5]
History
Cliffhangers were used as literary devices in several works of the Middle Ages. The Arabic literary work One Thousand and One Nights involves Scheherazade narrating a series of stories to King Shahryār for 1,001 nights, with each night ending on a cliffhanger in order to save herself from execution.[2][6] Some medieval Chinese ballads like the Liu chih-yuan chu-kung-tiao ended each chapter on a cliffhanger to keep the audience in suspense.[7]
The Scottish comic magazine The Glasgow Looking Glass, founded by English artist William Heath, pioneered the use of the phrase 'To Be Continued' in its serials in 1825.[8]
Cliffhangers became prominent with the serial publication of narrative fiction, pioneered by Charles Dickens.[3][4][9] Printed episodically in magazines, Dickens's cliffhangers triggered desperation in his readers. Writing in the New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum captured the anticipation of those waiting for the next installment of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop;
In 1841, Dickens fanboys rioted on the dock of New York Harbor, as they waited for a British ship carrying the next installment, screaming, "Is little Nell dead?"[3]
Advertisement for Great Expectations serialised in the British weekly magazine All the Year Round, 1860. The advert displays the plot device "to be continued".
On Dickens' instalment format and cliffhangers—first seen with The Pickwick Papers in 1836—Leslie Howsam in The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book (2015) writes, "It inspired a narrative that Dickens would explore and develop throughout his career. The instalments would typically culminate at a point in the plot that created reader anticipation and thus reader demand."[10]
With each new instalment widely anticipated with its cliffhanger ending, Dickens' audience was enormous; his instalment format was also much more affordable and accessible to the masses, with the audience more evenly distributed across income levels than previous.[10] The popularity of Dickens's serial publications saw the cliffhanger become a staple part of the sensation serials by the 1860s.[5] His influence can also be seen in television soap operas and film series, with The Guardian stating "the DNA of Dickens's busy, episodic storytelling, delivered in instalments and rife with cliffhangers and diversions, is traceable in everything."[11]
Etymology
The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left hanging off a cliff.[12][13] According to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, the term's first use in print was in 1937.[14]
During the 1910s, when Fort Lee, New Jersey was a center of film production, the cliffs facing New York and the Hudson River were frequently used as film locations.[17] The most notable of these films was The Perils of Pauline, a serial which helped popularize the term "cliffhanger". In them, the serial would often end suddenly leaving actress Pearl White's Pauline character hanging from a cliff.[18]
Several Australian soap operas, which went off air over summer, such as Number 96, The Restless Years, and Prisoner, ended each year with a major and much publicized catastrophe, such as a character being shot in the final seconds of the year's closing episode.
During its original run, Doctor Who was written in a serialised format that usually ended each episode within a serial on a cliffhanger. In the first few years of the show, the final episodes of each serial would have a cliffhanger that would lead into the next serial. The programme's cliffhangers sometimes caused controversy, most notably Part Three of The Deadly Assassin (1976), which was altered for future broadcasts following a complaint from campaigner Mary Whitehouse.[21][22][23] Whitehouse objected to the violence of the scene (the Doctor's head is held underwater in an attempt to drown him). She often cited it in interviews as one of the most frightening scenes in Doctor Who, her reasoning being that children would not know if the Doctor survived until the following week and that they would "have this strong image in their minds" during all that time.[24] The producer of Doctor Who at the time, Philip Hinchcliffe, cited the 1950s radio serial Journey into Space as an influence for its use of cliffhangers.[25] A later serial, Dragonfire (1987), is notable for having a cliffhanger that involved the Seventh Doctor literally hanging from a cliff, seemingly by choice, which has been described as "the most ludicrous ever presented in Doctor Who".[26] Another British science fiction series, Blake's 7 (1978–1981), employed end-of-season cliffhangers for each of the four seasons the series was on air, most notably for its final episode in 1981 in which the whole of the main cast are seemingly killed. The final cliffhanger was never resolved.
From 1966 to 1968 and in broadcast syndication, “Same bat-time, same bat-channel” encouraged viewers to tune in the next night for 120 episodes of Batman.[citation needed][27] The next episode quickly resolved the heroes from each supervillain's trap. A few triple episodes had double cliffhangers.[28] The 1969 British film "The Italian Job," starring Michael Caine and Noel Coward, ended literally in a cliffhanger, with the villains' coach hanging precariously over a cliff.
Cliffhangers were rare on American primetime television before 1980, as television networks preferred the flexibility of airing episodes in any order. The sitcomSoap was the first US primetime television programme to utilise the end-of-season cliffhanger, at the end of its first season in 1978. Cliffhangers then went on to become a staple of American primetime soap operas; the phenomenal success of the 1980 "Who shot J.R.?" third season-ending cliffhanger of Dallas, and the "Who Done It" fourth-season episode that finally solved the mystery, contributed to the cliffhanger becoming a common storytelling device on American television.[29] Another notable cliffhanger was the "Moldavian Massacre" on Dynasty in 1985, which fueled speculation throughout the summer months regarding who lived or died when almost all the characters attended a wedding in the country of Moldavia, only to have revolutionaries topple the government and machine-gun the entire wedding party. Other primetime soap operas, such as Falcon Crest and Knots Landing, also employed dramatic end-of-season cliffhangers on an annual basis. Sitcoms also utilised the cliffhanger device. As well as the aforementioned Soap, the long-running sitcom Cheers would often incorporate cliffhanger season endings, largely (in its earlier years) to increase interest in the on-and-off relationship between its two lead characters, Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. These cliffhangers did not place the characters in peril of any kind, but rather left their relationship (which was at the core of the show) hanging in the balance.
Cliffhanger endings in films date back to the early 20th century, and were prominently used in the serial films of the 1930s (such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers), though these tended to be resolved with the next installment the following week. A longer term cliffhanger was employed in the Star Wars film series, in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) in which Darth Vader made a shock revelation to Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo's life was left in jeopardy after he was frozen and taken away by a bounty hunter.[30][31] These plotlines were left unresolved until the next film in the series, which was released three years later.[31] The first two films in the Back to the Future series end in cliffhangers, with the first displaying the "to be continued" title card.[32]
The two main ways for cliffhangers to keep readers/viewers coming back is to either involve characters in a suspenseful, possibly life-threatening situation, or to feature a sudden shocking revelation. Cliffhangers are also used to leave open the possibility of a character being killed off due to the actor not continuing to play the role.
Cliffhangers are also sometimes deliberately inserted by writers who are uncertain whether a new series or season will be commissioned, in the hope that viewers will demand to know how the situation is resolved. Such was the case with the second season of Twin Peaks, which ended in a cliffhanger similar to the first season with a high degree of uncertainty about the fate of the protagonist, but the cliffhanger could not save the show from being canceled, resulting in the unresolved ending. The final episodes of soaps Dallas and Dynasty also ended in similar fashion, though all three shows would return years later in some form or other to resolve these storylines. The Australian soap opera Return To Eden ended in 1986 with a dramatic cliffhanger in anticipation of a second season. However, the network chose not to renew the show and so a hastily filmed five-minute "conclusion" was filmed and added on to the end of existing final episode to provide closure. Some shows, however, became known for never being resolved. In addition to the aforementioned Blake's 7, the supernatural series Angel, the original 1984 series V and its 2009 remake, all ended with unresolved cliffhangers. On occasion, TV series are given the opportunity to resolve their end-of-series cliffhangers at a later date; examples include the 1999-2003 series, Farscape, which was cancelled after a cliffhanger ending, but which was able to resolve it in a later follow-up miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars and the aforementioned Twin Peaks 1991 cliffhanger, which was resolved 26 years later when a sequel to the series (considered a third season) aired in 2017.
The cliffhanger has become a genre staple (especially in comics, due to the multi-part storylines becoming the norm instead of self-contained stories) to such a degree, in fact, that series writers no longer feel they have to be immediately resolved, or even referenced, when the next episode is shown,[33] variously because the writer didn't feel it was "a strong enough opener,"[34] or simply "couldn't be bothered."[35] The heavily serialized television drama True Blood has become notorious for cliffhangers. Not only do the seasons conclude with cliffhangers, but almost every episode finishes at a cliffhanger directly after or during a highly dramatic moment, much like the primetime soap operas of the 1980s and 90s.[36]
Commercial breaks can be a nuisance to script writers because some sort of incompleteness or minor cliffhanger should be provided before each to stop the viewer from changing channels during the commercial break. Sometimes a series ends with an unintended cliffhanger caused by a very abrupt ending without a satisfactory dénouement, but merely assuming that the viewer will assume that everything sorted itself out.
Sometimes a film, book, or season of a television show will end with the defeat of the main villain before a second, evidently more powerful villain makes a brief appearance (becoming the villain of the next film). Occasionally an element other than a villain is also used to tease at a sequel.
Peter Høeg's novel Smilla's Sense of Snow ends with a deliberate cliffhanger, with the protagonist and main villain involved in a life-and-death chase on the arctic ice off Greenland - and in this case, the author has no intention of ever writing a sequel, the ambiguous ending being part and parcel of the basic ideas permeating the book's plot. Similarly, Michael Flynn's science fiction novelette The Forest of Time ends with a deliberate and permanent cliffhanger: readers are not to be ever told where the protagonist ended up in his wandering the "forest" of alternate history timelines and whether he ever got back to his home and his beloved, nor whether the war which takes a large part of the plot ended in victory for the Good Guys or the Bad Guys.
George Cukor, when adapting in 1972 Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt deliberately introduced a cliffhanger missing from the original. While Greene's book ended with the protagonists definitely choosing the adventurous and rather shady life of smugglers in Paraguay and closing off other options for their future, at the conclusion of the Cukor film a character is seen tossing a coin whose fall would determine their next move, and the film ends on a freeze frame shot as the characters await the fall of the coin.
A soap opera, daytime drama, or soap for short, is typically a long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns.
Dallas was an American prime time soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1978, to May 3, 1991. The series revolved around an affluent and feuding Texas family, the Ewings, who owned the independent oil company Ewing Oil and the cattle-ranching land of Southfork. The series originally focused on the marriage of Bobby Ewing and Pam Ewing, whose families were sworn enemies. As the series progressed, Bobby's elder brother, oil tycoon J. R. Ewing, became the show's breakout character, whose schemes and dirty business became the show's trademark. When the show ended on May 3, 1991, J. R. was the only character to have appeared in every episode.
Bellbird is an Australian soap opera serial broadcast by the ABC and written and created by Barbara Vernon, it screened for 10 seasons between 1967 and 1977, with the series centring around the residents of the small fictional Victorian rural township of the series title.
The reset button technique is a plot device for interrupting continuity in works of fiction. The reset button device is used to return all characters and situations to the statusquo prior to some major change. It can be employed in the middle of a program to negate some portion of what came before. It is often used in science fiction television series, animated series, soap operas, and comic books. The reset button technique accommodates dramatic changes to characters and the fictional universe that might otherwise invalidate the show's premise with respect to future episodes or other plot details. For example, writers may use the device to improve the audience's experience of the lead character's death, which is usually impossible without effectively ending the work or significantly altering its course.
Stephen Russell Davies, better known as Russell T Davies, is a Welsh screenwriter and television producer. He is best known for being the original showrunner and head writer of the 2005 revival of the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who, from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2023. His other notable works include creating the series Queer as Folk (1999–2000), Bob & Rose (2001), The Second Coming (2003), Casanova (2005), Doctor Who spin-offs Torchwood (2006–2011) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), Cucumber (2015), A Very English Scandal (2018), Years and Years (2019), It's a Sin (2021) and Nolly (2023).
A story arc is the chronological construction of a plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, video games, and films with each episode following a dramatic arc. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story arc is common in sitcoms, and even more so in soap operas. In a traditional Hollywood film, the story arc usually follows a three-act structure. Webcomics are more likely to use story arcs than newspaper comics, as most webcomics have readable archives online that a newcomer to the strip can read in order to understand what is going on. Although story arcs have existed for decades, one of the first appearances of the term was in 1973 by Time Magazine for a synopsis of the movie The Friends of Eddie Coyle: "He accomplishes this with no sacrifice to the pacing of his action sequences or the suspenseful development of his story's arc."
The Crimson Ghost is a 1946 American film serial directed by Fred C. Brannon and William Witney. Produced by Republic Pictures and written by Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Jesse Duffy, and Sol Shor, it was the last serial directed by Witney. It is divided into twelve chapters and stars Charles Quigley as a criminologist who attempts to thwart the efforts of the eponymous villain to steal a device that can render electrical devices powerless. The serial also stars Linda Stirling, Clayton Moore, and I. Stanford Jolley.
Texas is an American daytime soap opera that aired on NBC from August 4, 1980 until December 31, 1982, sponsored and produced by Procter and Gamble Productions at NBC Studios in Brooklyn, New York City. It is a spin-off of Another World, co-created by head writers John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington, and executive producer of Another World at the time, Paul Rauch. Rauch held the title of executive producer for the parent series and its spin-off until 1981.
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist ending or surprise ending. It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it, but it usually comes with some element of surprise. There are various methods used to execute a plot twist, such as withholding information from the audience, or misleading them with ambiguous or false information. Not every plot has a twist, but some have multiple lesser ones, and some are defined by a single major twist.
Commando Cody is the hero in two 12-chapter science fiction serials made by Republic Pictures, played by George Wallace in Radar Men from the Moon (1952) and Judd Holdren in Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953).
The Invasion of Time is the sixth and final serial of the 15th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 February to 11 March 1978. It features the final appearance of Louise Jameson as the companion Leela.
A recap sequence is a narrative device used by many television series to bring the viewer up to date with the current events of the stories' plot. It is usually a short montage of important scenes cut directly from previous episodes, usually short bursts of dialogue, which serve to lay the background for the following episode.
The Mind Robber is the second serial of the sixth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from 14 September to 12 October 1968.
Dragonfire is the fourth and final serial of the 24th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from 23 November to 7 December 1987. This serial marked the departure of Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush and the introduction of Sophie Aldred as companion Ace.
Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe is a 1953 twelve-chapter movie serial from Republic Pictures, which began life as a proposed syndicated television series. It consists of twelve 25-minute sequential episodes directed by Harry Keller, Franklin Adreon, and Fred C. Brannon. It stars Judd Holdren, Aline Towne, Gregory Gaye, William Schallert, Richard Crane, and Craig Kelly.
Bleak House is a fifteen-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, which was originally published in 1852–53 as itself a print serialisation over 20 months. Produced with an all-star cast, the serial was shown on BBC One from 27 October to 16 December 2005, and drew much critical and popular praise. It has been reported that the total cost of the production was in the region of £8 million.
"Who shot J.R.?" is an advertising catchphrase created in 1980 by American network CBS to promote the television soap opera Dallas. It referred to the fictional mystery surrounding a murder attempt against arch-villain J.R. Ewing in the show's third-season finale "A House Divided". The mystery and its catchphrase became a global phenomenon, with international odds-makers setting odds for the culprit. The mystery was not resolved until the fourth episode of the fourth season titled "Who Done It" which aired eight months later, with an estimated 83 million American viewers tuning in, one of the most watched television broadcasts in history. The catchphrase has a strong legacy in pop culture and the format helped popularize the cliffhanger ending for television series.
In film and video, a freeze frame is when a single frame of content shows repeatedly on the screen—"freezing" the action. This can be done in the content itself, by printing or recording multiple copies of the same source frame. This produces a static shot that resembles a still photograph.
In television and radio programming, a serial is a show that has a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode-by-episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the complete run of the series, and sometimes spinoffs, which distinguishes them from episodic television that relies on more stand-alone episodes. Worldwide, the soap opera is the most prominent form of serial dramatic programming. In the UK the first serials were direct adaptations of well known literary works, usually consisting of a small number of episodes.
A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Usually, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.
↑ "'World's first comic' is up for auction". The Times. Retrieved 19 February 2022. William Heath's Glasgow Looking Glass was a pioneering publication which is said to have coined the phrase " . . . to be continued".
↑ Schulz, Kathryn (May 20, 2024). "The Secrets of Suspense". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on May 20, 2024. Retrieved May 21, 2024. This is the plot device known as the cliffhanger, a word whose putative origins lie not in pulp fiction but in a lesser-known Thomas Hardy novel, "A Pair of Blue Eyes." In the relevant scene, a man named Henry Knight is strolling with his love interest along the cliffs of Cornwall when his hat blows off. He chases after it, one thing leads to another, and soon he is dangling from a sheer wall of rock, nothing beneath him but six hundred feet of air terminating in the fanged and foaming surface of the ocean.
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