I've seen stories of the type of B5 referred to as heavily serialized. It's also the kind of story that's the hardest to sell to the networks. Not sure they have a term for the 'normal' kind of story, though. Although, at least in today's world, all series that I can think of ATM have a more or less serialized b-plots. Then again, that's likely not that big of a problem for the occasional viewer, given they are probably not invested in the characters but can easily pick up the current A-plot.
Michael
