The ‘monster-of-the-week’ (MoTW) format was a structure followed by a plethora of popular television shows in the 90s and early 2000s, in which the same set of characters face a different antagonist or ‘monster’ in each episode. It often culminates in the series finale with a battle against a more advanced monster or “big bad”, if you’re a Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) fan. Sometimes, by the next episode the problems of the previous are forgotten; the characters live in a sort of vacuum or cycle of unusual events. However, occasionally, events and memories span across multiple episodes, seasons or even the entire show, but the format of an individual ‘monster’ per episode remains.
The MoTW format allowed for a unique style of storytelling because long and delicate plot lines could be dragged out without the show becoming tedious; writers could maintain audience interest with new and exciting monsters. This format allowed for screenwriters to integrate rich and intricate character arcs in more subtle ways than the average drama format, as character development appears less heavy-handed when it develops through short, contained stories.
MoTW existed long before the 90s, with the original Doctor Who (1963), Outer Limits (1963) and even Scooby Doo, Where are you! (1969), but it was shows like The X-Files (1993) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) that brought the term into fan circulation. It continued on into the early 2000s; Supernatural (2005) put a paranormal and biblical spin on the structure and BBC’s Merlin (2008) shifted the typically sci-fi form into the world of fantasy.
Since the second official hiatus of Doctor Who (the last survivor of the MoTW boom that began in the 90s) was announced on 10th June 2026, the form that we knew it seems to have finally died. The format dwindled as traditional live-broadcast television was consumed by the behemoth of modern day streaming. MoTW thrived in the live-broadcasting world; viewers would look forward to the specific time of the week that the same group of (usually) quippy and rag-tag characters would encounter and defeat a new villain. The next day you would go into school or work and unpick the episode with your friends. If you missed an episode you couldn’t just search for it on-demand; the experience was interactive and precious.
The format was friendly to the inexperienced viewer. Since the aim of live-broadcasting was to capture the largest audience possible, writers were careful not to alienate. By making each episode exist as its own individual story, a viewer who was completely unaware of the show’s wider plot and themes could still engage with the story and start watching the show at any point.
This viewer-friendliness does not transfer well into the world of streaming. The aim for streaming companies is often to encourage viewers to ‘binge’ entire shows as fast as possible, but the contained episode form slows down the binging process. Continuity and consistency was less of a priority for the writers of ‘monster-of-the-week’ shows, as viewers often had a week to forget about what had happened in previous episodes, so it didn’t feel that odd that recent events in a show were quickly forgotten. But when watching these episodes back-to-back, the short-term character arcs and events often ring discordant. Instead, shows on streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus, opt for linear plotlines that span seasons and often punctuate the series with cliff-hangers throughout to keep viewers engrossed.
MoTW shows invited a community feeling and can be attributed to a massive contribution to fandom culture, so it is with a heavy heart that we wave goodbye to wide-spread influence of the ‘monster-of-the-week’, though to call it dead would be an exaggeration. The format still lives on, just on a lesser (and less conventional) scale. It’s still suitable for children’s television as the contained, single episode plots are perfect for shorter attention spans. We’ve also seen it expand into different mediums altogether as the style has been adopted by audio dramas and podcasts like The Magnus Archives. It is in these smaller formats that MoTW lives on, and we can only hope that the “big bad” of online streaming doesn’t destroy the form entirely.