The moment a series usually loses its character is not a generation — it is a crossing, where one gear hands her to the next. The stills are hers; then the work crosses to video, or to swaps, and the new tool receives a new description, and the woman who arrives is a near relative of the woman who left. Crossings are where cards earn their keep.
The rule at this bench is that the card crosses first. Whatever the destination tool, the same five lines are pasted word for word at the head of the brief, and the result is judged against the card before anything else about it is discussed. A clip whose performer fails the card is a cull at the crossing, not a keeper to be finished.
Crossings also have an order, like the train itself. Stills prove her. The editor repairs the stills. Swaps carry the proven face. Video moves the proven still. Upscalers finish what every earlier gear has passed. Skipping a gear does not save its cost; it moves the cost, with interest, to the gear where the failure is finally noticed.
Eight tools, one train, one card. That is why the woman who arrives at the last gear is the woman the first gear proved.