Miniseries

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A drama that lasts longer than a Made for TV Movie but less than a season. A Miniseries is broadcast over several nights (usually at least three), often consecutively. Production values are frequently more lavish than for a regular series, and the cast usually includes big-name non-TV stars.

Miniseries are most commonly adaptations of large books, and as such differ from other shows in that they place a high value identifying the author, to the point that the author's name is frequently embedded in the program's title.

Although the miniseries format has produced some of the most outstanding television in history (Rich Man Poor Man, Roots), it has also been responsible for some of the worst TV as well (Princess Daisy, Hollywood Wives).

Parts of a miniseries are not always shown on consecutive nights. Recent Stephen King miniseries in particular, for some reason, tend to go with a Tuesday/Thursday/Friday or Monday/Tuesday/Thursday sequence. This is usually done when the network broadcasting the miniseries has one particularly strong night (Ratings-wise) and doesn't wish to pre-empt it for the miniseries.

Note that this means different things to different people. An American viewer would consider a eight-episode run to be a mini series, especially if it doesn't get a renewal, while such a run is commonly a full season in the UK. Not to mention in Asian countries such as China and Japan, where the the concept of TV seasons is much weaker, miniseries tend to be the de facto style of TV programming for dramas, with anything from 10 to 100 episodes per series.

Examples of Miniseries include: