
Those shifts created the conditions for the first wave of genuinely serialized science fiction on American television. Babylon 5, which J. Michael Straczynski had conceived as a single five-year narrative arc and plotted in full before a frame was shot, debuted its pilot in 1993. Deep Space Nine, premiering the same year, broke from the episodic reset-button format that Star Trek had used since its inception and introduced ongoing character arcs and multi-episode story threads. Even The X-Files, arguably the most successful sci-fi series in the 1990s, mixed monster-of-the-week episodes with a serialized mythology. As studios recognized that audiences would follow a continuing story across seasons, sci-fi miniseries became rarer in the 1990s, even though a handful of noteworthy titles exist.