Why TV Series Belong on Screen Devotions
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Screen Devotions is finally opening a new category: TV Series. Until now, this blog has focused on films, animation, and documentaries, using their stories and characters as a way to reflect on faith, relationships, choices, and the way we live. With TV Series now added, the four main categories of Screen Devotions are finally complete.
I personally watch a lot of series, especially on streaming platforms like Netflix, so I have wanted to create this category for some time. Films, animation, and documentaries can tell incredibly deep and meaningful stories, but TV series offer something different. They give us more room to stay with a character, a relationship, or a conflict long enough to see how it develops over time.
Because of that, I do not want this category to be limited to saying, “This show was entertaining,” or “This character teaches us this lesson.” Instead, I want to follow an entire season and pay attention to how people change, how relationships grow or fall apart, what choices keep repeating, what fears or wounds influence those choices, and where those patterns eventually lead.
Movies Tell a Story Within a Limited Time
Films, animated movies, and documentaries usually have to tell a complete story within a limited runtime. They need to introduce the characters, establish the world around them, reveal the central conflict, show who helps or opposes them, build toward a crisis, and eventually bring the story to some kind of conclusion.
Of course, not every film follows the exact same structure, and some stories continue across sequels or entire franchises. Still, each individual movie usually needs to feel complete enough on its own. That naturally limits how much time can be spent exploring every character, relationship, or internal struggle.
A character’s past may be compressed into only a few scenes. An important relationship may need to be established through a handful of conversations. The audience is often asked to understand a great deal about a person in a relatively short amount of time.
That does not mean films are less meaningful or less complex than TV series. In many ways, one of the greatest strengths of film is its ability to communicate something powerful within a limited space. TV series simply create depth in a different way.
TV Series Give Characters Time to Become Human
One of the greatest strengths of a TV series is the amount of time it can spend with its characters. The first episode can end before the real conflict has even begun. Sometimes we may not yet know which character will ultimately matter most.
A person’s past may be revealed little by little over several episodes. A decision that seemed confusing at first may make much more sense later, once we understand what that person has experienced. Characters do not always have to be introduced as clearly good or clearly bad. Instead, we can watch them change through the choices they make over time.
A good person can make a terrible decision. Someone we dislike at first can surprise us with unexpected kindness. Rather than allowing one dramatic moment to define everything, a series can show us how small decisions accumulate until they reveal what kind of person someone is becoming.
I find that especially interesting because real people are not easy to understand from a single moment either. We cannot define someone only by the worst thing they have ever done, just as one good action does not tell us everything about a person. People are revealed over time. Relationships shape us. Repeated choices slowly form our character.
TV series give us the space to watch that process unfold.
Relationships Have Time to Change
Relationships also develop differently in long-form storytelling. In a movie, two characters may meet, clash, reconcile, and move forward within a couple of hours. In a series, the same relationship can change over many episodes or even several seasons.
People who do not trust each other at first may slowly become close. A relationship built on deep trust may begin to fracture through small disappointments. Love can become possessiveness. Competition can become friendship. Family members can care deeply for one another and still fail to understand each other.
That slower development fits naturally with the kind of reflection I want to do on Screen Devotions. Faith itself is not completed in a single moment. Our relationship with God grows over time. It can be tested, strengthened, neglected, and restored. The same is true of our relationships with family, friends, and the church community.
Because of that, following a relationship through an entire series can sometimes feel much closer to the complexity of real life.
Our Lives Look More Like a Series Than a Two-Hour Movie
Perhaps one of the main reasons I believe TV series fit Screen Devotions so well is that real life often looks more like a long-running series than a two-hour movie.
Our problems rarely begin, reach a climax, and resolve neatly within one dramatic moment. Some struggles last for months or years. Some relationships take a long time to heal. Some wounds stay with us even after much time has passed. There are also experiences we do not fully understand until much later.
One chapter of life may end while the conflict itself continues. Some problems follow us into the next season. New struggles appear unexpectedly. Sometimes an issue we thought we had already resolved comes back again.
The Christian life is similar. One powerful worship service or one important spiritual decision does not make every struggle disappear. Faith grows through repeated choices. It can deepen through failure, repentance, patience, and restoration. Doing well yesterday does not guarantee that we will automatically do well today, and one failure does not mean the story is over.
In that sense, the long-form storytelling of a TV series often resembles the way real life actually unfolds.
More Time Means Deeper Questions
Because a series gives us more time with its characters, it also gives us more time to ask questions. As we follow an entire season, we can ask: Why did this person make that choice? Where did this behavior begin? Was this person always like this? How did that wound change them? Why did this relationship eventually fall apart?
Those questions can quickly become personal. What would I do in the same situation? What kind of person do I become when I am afraid? When I am hurt, do I push people away, or do I try to control them? What kind of person are my repeated choices shaping me into?
On Screen Devotions, I do not want to force a spiritual answer onto a story before listening to what the story itself is saying. Whether I am writing about a film, animation, documentary, or TV series, I want to first pay attention to the work itself and consider the questions it raises. Then I want to bring those questions into conversation with Scripture and with the lives we are actually living.
TV Series May Be One of the Best Fits for Screen Devotions
I actually think TV series may become one of the formats that fits Screen Devotions best. They allow us to follow a person long enough to see not only what they become, but how they become that person.
We often judge people by the final outcome. A series can show us the road that led there. It can reveal where a problem first began, how a small decision became a pattern, how one relationship changed another, and the moments when a person might have chosen a different path.
That process creates room for deeper spiritual reflection.
Perhaps one of the most important things Screen Devotions can do is not simply attach a Bible verse to a scene. It may be more meaningful to watch a person’s choices, relationships, wounds, failures, and restoration, and then allow those things to turn our attention back toward ourselves.
What kind of person am I becoming before God?
TV series give us the time to keep asking that question.
A New Chapter Begins
Through this new category, I hope to have longer and deeper conversations with you. In some shows, we may focus on one character’s choices. In others, we may talk about family, love, friendship, betrayal, power, desire, wounds, forgiveness, or the slow process of change.
Sometimes one small moment in a single episode may raise a major question. Other times, an entire season may become one long reflection.
We have already been looking at life and faith together through films, animation, and documentaries. Now I want to continue that same journey through TV series.
How does this story reflect our own lives?
And as we look at that story,
how are we learning to love God and love people in the lives we are actually living?
A new chapter of Screen Devotions begins here.
Explore More Screen Devotions:
- 🎬 Movies: Explore Other Faith-Based Film Reflections
- 🌍 Documentaries: Biblical Perspectives on Real-World Issues
- 🎨 Animation: Spiritual Insights in Animated Films
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
