You Know What's Great About Episodic Stories?

This is a small brag, but not a personal one: mystery series have cracked the meta.

I realized this when I found the YouTube algorithm kept shoveling critiques of the fantasy genre at me. (I haven't read fantasy for a minute or two. I think Sir PTerry was still alive when I did, since I loved him dearly. I need to start hunting for more mystery critiques.) Disregarding that, the complaint that many of the fantasy videos aired was that they didn't want to start a trilogy or similarly long, multiple-book plotlines because they don't know if it will be finished. Other issues: bridge-book syndrome, where the plot really doesn't merit the wordcount, but the writer stretches it over three books, and too many added characters that get their own long story that has little to do with the plot.

Basically, way more book than story.

Murder mystery series always gives you a whole story in each book. Are you tired of this particular character or world after the first book? You aren't missing anything by dropping the whole thing. Start on the sixth book and decide to get the rest of the series as you find it, in any order you like? Again, you aren't missing anything. Continuity between books is a bonus, but the new situation is explained at the beginning of each book. You don't need a primer on what happened in the last book to know what is going on now.

This doesn't hurt the depth of the characters- they stay consistent, and characterization continues through the whole story. The only drawback is that you have to be reminded of an element of from another story occasionally to make sense of a character's reaction, but that can be treated as a reveal/kept to a minimum in each story. Again, you can pick up or drop off wherever without losing sense of anything. Maybe, Fantasy just needs to drop the trilogies.