2 types of reading (there are more)

1. reading for cursory understanding -- or recreational reading with little real time for full comprehension; yeilding fluency of 70%

2. reading for content -- recreation or education, reading everything for memory, knowing that parts in section C, page 96 will have relevance and importance (another part of a whole) for part A page 201. A series is especially true for this, in that a character or characters are generally kinetic and a fullness and richness is found through parts and pieces here and there throughout the book and series.

Using television as a reference, as most people do watch it on occasion. Law & Order (the original series) had each episode start and finish. After season one, they found that they would have more seasons, so they started building the characters, but actually finished each episode. The build up and development of each character didn't take the whole forefront of the show. After 6 seasons and many different police partners, Jerry Orbach's character, Lenny, had a jaded past of alcoholism spanning 5 or so years of his police work, several failed marriages and a daughter who got into drugs and was killed being a witness against her dealer. Lenny, it was supposed, hired a killer to kill him, but the dealer died in jail, so that was only a tease that his hate was that thick. His alcoholism lead to a night falling off the wagon, unable to drive, an assistant D. A. , Jill Hennesey, Claire drove him home and was stuck and killed by a drunk driver.
Jack McCoy, you find out, who was her lover, for a while -- bad idea of mixing work and love (demonstrated many times over the seasons), tried to vindicate her death by harshly punishing the drunk driver, then found that his attack would have amounted to personal vengence, at benefit of another person with a personal agenda.

I know that all sounds neat. It is. It also covered 30 some episodes to get that. Unlike Lost where, you have 40 some episodes saying little about what they are doing, but you know all about characters on the island including two who were killed off. Since the writers like to play off the idea of all the characters being linked (Kevin Bacon game) to each other, it will be difficult to see how they will connect the two dead "semi-main" characters to others without bringing them back -- at a wrongful pay for their lack of foresight.