I disagree completely. If I'm writing a book or making a TV series and I decide to make some chapters longer or add more chapters and make the characters take some detours, so that the pacing, plot progressing and their world is more fleshed out and the book is longer, often while still including important stuff and progress about the main plot in those instances, just not developing it too quickly, I'm doing a completely different thing than a guy that is adapting the on going work of another person and stalls for time by adding stuff just so the plot in the adaptation doesn't get too close to the plot of the on going source.
And DB indeed has a few instances of good filler. However, most of it is just tolerable and inferior to the source material. The rest is bad.
If you are writing a book that's going to be published, you aren't going to be told how many chapters there are. When TV shows get orders they usually get a specific number of episodes they have to come up with. Those detours work in TV, but not in a novel. A plot is a purposeful progression of events leading to a climax and resolution. Taking detours just adds fat and padding to the book. If you can't flesh out the world and the characters while moving the plot forward, that's bad writing. TV isn't a novel. Each episode typically has a beginning middle and an end, and sometimes has one or two things that carryforward to the next week, but it's not a novel. The first Dexter novel and first season were pretty close, however, the novel was all one story. It was all about Dexter finding the Ice Truck Killer, whereas in the show, each episode had a case of the week and the thread of the ice truck killer was more prominent in some episodes than others.
I disagree with your last line but that's a matter of preference.
Yeah, I agree with rereboy. In fact, I've never heard what ABED describes as "filler". I usually hear them referred to as "breather episodes". As in, we don't want you to get bogged down with a serious story arc all the time, so it helps break the tension once in a while to have just a random, fun adventure. Like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, for example, right before the Dominion War started, and the bad guys took over the station, there was a comedy episode where Jake and Nog do odd jobs to win an old baseball card. It's not filler. It's just a break from what would otherwise be constant, oppressive, serious arcs, hence why it's called a "breather".
You're arguing semantics, and I've never heard it referred to as a "breather". Regardless, the reason for filler, standalones, chufa, padding, breathers, etc. are all the same. You have a large number of episodes, it's hard to make it all one giant story, give people a story with closure for that week and keep people wanting to come back for more. 24 tries to make it all one story and that's why it usually sags in the middle of the season.
Regardless of the term used it all just means material that is outside the story that is used to pad out other material.
Damn straight. 90K to 3 million. At least Vegeta constantly fought people so I make an minor exception for him. Lets not forget Gohan zenkais in that arc.
Yeah, he fought lackies. Goku was training in severe gravity for 6 days straight. Either way, I think Toriyama made a huge number for Freeza to make him a huge threat but didn't put much thought into the logic of how his protagonists could become a suitable threat to him.
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) and extended fightning scenes. In fact i hope they keep most of the Majiin Vegeta fight on Kai Buu Arc.
