Common
Mystery-box show
Television series with complex plots based on mysterious secrets
Mystery-box show
In episodic television, the term mystery box or puzzle box refers to a form of storytelling and genre of high concept fiction that features large and complex stories based on enigmatic happenings and secrets, with multiple interlocking sub-plots and sets of characters that eventually reveal an underlying mythos that binds everything together. The Guardian defined it as "the idea of narrative as an endlessly open puzzle-box of allusions and intimations that simultaneously invites and resists exegesis". Slate summarized the idea as being that "the mystery is more enjoyable than the revelation". Lost and The X-Files have been cited as early examples of mystery-box television. The 1960s series The Fugitive and The Invaders have also been cited as early pioneers of the genre. Other examples of the mystery-box genre include The Good Place, Dark, Fringe, Westworld, The OA, Heroes, Manifest, 1899, Severance, Stranger Things, Yellowjackets, Carnivale, and From. Pluribus, although sometimes described...
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