That latter is something that's struck me about television from the era too, when watching older episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. If something was popular enough, it might run in syndication, but there was no guarantee the episodes would be in order, so they had to be pretty standalone, and whenever there was a bigger arc they were referring to, there'd always be a recap. It's kind of fascinating to me how changes in technology (in this case, the rise of DVR/TV seasons on DVD and now Netflix and binge-watching culture) have led to a real flowering of longer-form, serialized storytelling in a way that was unusual even twenty years ago. (On the other hand, audiences are now much more fragmented; my mother told me about working as a waitress when Roots was running, for instance, and how the restaurant would be dead empty during prime dinner rush because everyone was home watching it. It does kind of feel like Event Television is less of a thing now...although that may just be because everyone's watching it at different times.)