YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
Sell the cast and crew on 8-9 months of 16 hours shooting days when most of them have families. I dare you.
Maybe they could get back to writing more stories about an object oriented universe instead of only writing about the ego oriented universe. Every single star trek franchise since enterprise is a space soap opera.
Every single star trek franchise since enterprise is a space soap opera.
That’s always been Star Trek. Don’t make me go through the TNG back catalogue.
The interpersonal dramas are what separate the Trekkies from the SW nerds. You don’t need a planet killing superweapon to tell a story. It’s enough to have two people trapped on a deserted planet who don’t speak the same language, but need one another to survive.
I never said trek didn’t have any drama, only that modern star trek is nothing but egocentric soap opera, and pays lip service to the science and engineering part of the science fiction.
Previous trek iterations included both object science stories and subjective egoism in a very different ratio. How TNG, tos, voyager or Enterprise dealt with technology and exploration challenges is worlds apart from discovery, or even strange new worlds. The amount of screen time each show devotes to character development and the amount it focuses on the objective challenges of the world is very different. There is a clear direction to make politics, personal drama and interpersonal conflict both more dramatic and the center of the storylines in the modern star trek catalogue. These shows no longer being mostly episodic stories but season long, prolonged character development vehicles, is also part of the subjective egoism that now dominates the franchise. It’s almost all about character journeys, relationship conflicts and political posturing. The object oriented stories of science, engineering, exploration, discovery, philosophy or even technologies as a setting for character stories is largely absent now. It’s more reality tv show drama and less exploration and adventure, and even when they do have those object focused stories, they have little meaningful impact on the story or the audience.
pays lip service to the science and engineering part of the science fiction.
Star Trek has never been a properly science heavy franchise. You don’t get The Expanse style of gritty space survivalism (pilots dealing with g-force strain, Spacers having to mine their water reserves, politicians negotiating across an 8 minute transmission delay between Earth and Mars). Every common engineering problem is solved with tech so futuristic it might as well be magic, while the serious problems are more ethical or philosophical (can we morally turn off a sentient computer? should we give these primitive people access to our warp drive technology? how do we negotiate with Space Wizards?)
The object oriented stories of science, engineering, exploration, discovery, philosophy or even technologies as a setting for character stories is largely absent now.
They never really existed in the Rodenberry universe. He was far more interested in the politics and the social consequences of interstellar travel than the nuts and bolts of getting around space.
When it came to practical applications, even Heinlein and Asimov (themselves chronic abusers of the SciFi tech hand wave) did a better job in books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Foundation.
they have little meaningful impact on the story or the audience.
Early Trek was really bad about continuity, generally speaking. It wasn’t until late TNG and DS9 that you got real multi-episode arcs.
Later Trek was - if anything - too worried about continuity. They had to try and explain everything within the context of prior series, rather than just telling some interesting stories of a deep space exploration vessel chartered out of Earth.
You’re just bouncing to extremes to argue against things I didn’t argue for. The current star trek is less space exploration adventure with science and tech and more melodrama with interpersonal conflict than it has been, overall. That’s my observations and I’m not interested in trying to convince you if you’d prefer to be wrong.
The current star trek is less space exploration adventure with science and tech and more melodrama with interpersonal conflict than it has been, overall.
Go back to the original first episode of Star Trek, “The Cage” and tell me that’s not a melodrama with interpersonal conflict.
Eight episodes every two years, I don’t think so. That’s not going to be something you necessarily pass on to your kids. And I think that’s a loss.
That’s pretty profound.
Is this loss?
Fukken saved
Sounds a bit like a hack revealing himself. If they’re great, eight episodes every 2 years can absolutely have longevity.
Sherlock was 13 episodes over 7 years, critically acclaimed. Skyrocketed Eggs Benedict’s Career.
Look at what you’ve done; now I can’t remember his name any more…
Benadryl Camembert
Fell even harder once the drunken hype wore off and the hysterical fans realised it’d always been a nonsensical pile of shit
it will probably be better for the kids - not having to wait 8 years in between five seasons :D
Didn’t stop kids getting into Blackadder
Awesome!
Can we now also get rid of the lens flares the dumb pew pew, most of the CGI and action and just get back to well written show episodes where CGI is a lick of paint to make it pretty, not the soup you’re eating?
I want TNG style trek, DS9, I want the Orville for star trek!
The damage JJ Abrams caused is immense, and having one of his disciples on the helm doesn’t help things.
I miss the more ‘monster of the week’ type storytelling weaved through with season long (or longer) arcs that spanned 20-ish episode seasons. I liked the kind of storytelling where episodes stood on their own but had hints in them that formed a big picture. And every now and then there was an episode that was wholly dedicated to the overarching plot.
This kind of storytelling leaves a lot of room for characterisation episodes or exploration of an intriguing concept. And don’t you dare calling this filler. Filler is meaningless. Exploring concepts and characters is not meaningless.I want more filler episodes the same way Magic The Gathering wants bad cards:
The solution to the aforementioned problem leads to the second reason “bad” cards exist. Different cards have different functions and appeal to different players.
We make some cards for the multi-player crowd. We make cards for the flavor crowd. We make cards for the silly crowd. We make the big creatures and spells for “Timmy.” We make the combo cards for “Johnny.” We take each different group of Magic players and throw some cards their way.
The problem is players tend to define “bad cards” as cards that they personally see no reason to play. But certain cards aren’t meant for them in the first place.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28
Somewhere out there, there’s a single lonely soul who really, really gets Threshold.
I don’t judge that person, but I’m not inviting him to join my DND group either.
arnt people having problems with MTG right now, using Marvel and other IP, they dont like how its not original anymore.
I dunno, haven’t played it in ages. Wizards of the Coast has developed the mierdas touch 🤮
Yes, it’s a huge controversy in the game right now.
Bad or just plain meh eps stand out a lot fudther on shorter seasons though. I mean if i had the choice of watching s3 of SNW again or any given voyager season - even the first three- i’d choose the latter.
i prefer the enterprise and older over nutrek anyday. kurtzman or whoever is the replacement now, just dint respect the franchise at all. kinda blame JJ abrams for setting the precedents of the quality.
unless its like something like supernatural, every season after 5 was just filler aside from some ok seasons, they stretched out that show for way too long , and it shouldve died like 10years before it was cancelled.
Agree. You have to know when a story is told and needs to be allowed to end, even if it’s wildly popular.
But the early seasons of Supernatural are actually one of the best examples for what I mean.
I think what gave earlier Trek so much soul was the non-human characters that allowed you to explore humanity through them. Spock, Data, Odo all lived in and around humans, and explored what that meant.
And Seven and T’Pol.
and B’Elanna.
and Harry Kim.
the non-human characters
and Harry Kim.
Thank you, yes. I just started with the first 3, but those are perfect examples as well.
I agree. It’s what makes sci-fi good, in my opinion. It’s a useful tool to look at the failings of humanity, but in a way that subverts people’s self-defence mechanisms. For example, racist might agree treating intelligent aliens as animals is bad without thinking about themselves at first. With a tiny amount of reflection, they will realize it also applies to their beliefs. This can work for so many other topics, like DS9 covers the use of terrorism against Fascists using aliens as stand ins for actual groups that have and do exist in our world.
It gets tired though. And it inevitably puts humans on a pedestal as the thing the robot aspires to be, the thing the Vulcan needs to learn to embrace, the thing 7of9 needs to get back to…
Everyone’s in here arguing and dissecting filler episodes and serialized seasons and I see a lot of good arguments on both sides. But, no one is mentioning a modern Trek series that did a mix of filler episodes and episodic ones, developed characters, and had full season arcs: Lower Decks
Granted, it’s a cartoon so it’s much easier for a deus ex machina or goofy cop-out ending but for 10ish 30 minutes episodes a season, they did a great job of telling modern stories while feeling like Trek ClassicTM
while feeling like Trek ClassicTM
Because there was so, so much memberberries.
I found it mostly somewhar funny, but I don’t know if I got half the jokes if I hadn’t watched Old Trek so much.I would argue that it was a good show even without all of that but the nostalgia made it more fun for sure. LD had great writers who told interesting stories. And, it could go from strange and campy to highbrow and serious from one scene to the next but they were also telling stories with through lines and arcs and still providing the filler.
To be fair, I haven’t watched Discovery or much Strange New Worlds yet, so I could be off base. But, it seems like Strange New Worlds is trying to thread that needle.
Discovery is what people dint like(the klingons and thier strange appearance, cloaking tech before encoutering the ROMULANs, plus a ship that had technology that was pretty much centuries ahead of them at the time(they couldnt even tie it in that good when they WENT into the future to escape an AI(which was actually to escape the klingons discontinuity by Kurtzman), Picard was also pretty bad, it suffered the same end of season problems that STD, just dropped or the “big bad” was a bad storyline.
I wouldn’t say got all the jokes, but His Lordship enjoyed the fuck outta LD and he barely remembers any trek outside of some next gen and only knows DS9 through forced repeated exposure.
Different levels, but we had the same fun. We both absolutely lost it at the resolution in Strange Energies, some things are just universal
His Lordship?
nickname for the husband
Gotcha
Removed by mod
Not sure I should be engaging here but are you seriously stalking downvotes?
I was just curious. Seemed really weird to downvote.
As an old trekkie I’d be somewhat inclined to agree with you. But then I remember when I tried to get my ex into Star Trek and, while she enjoyed it, Lower Decks is the only one she actually loved and she was really sad when it ended. By the time we broke up she had just started her second run of LD.
But, no one is mentioning a modern Trek series that did a mix of filler episodes and episodic ones, developed characters, and had full season arcs: Lower Decks
lower decks is 10 episodes per season, what exactly is “full season” in this context?
lower decks/prodigy was so much better than the 3 “live” series.
For real though. 8 or 10 episodes is nothing, especially when they’re spread out intentionally to just keep people subscribed to a monthly streaming service.
TV shows of yesterday still matter largely because there is so. much. content. This shit was available for free with a basic ass television and some strips of metal wired into it. And you got 24 episodes a season. And sometimes there was more than one season in a year.
Artificial scarcity is obvious when things get that different.
sg1 split thier season 10 in the spring, 10 in the fall, it works. but current streams only doing 6-8episodes, 10 if your lucky. every 1-2years. even people are getting tired of shows like invincible, with such a LONG hiatus,not to mention the degrading animations.
To be fair, whilst modern TV shows are shorter - there’s more of them compared to shows in the 90s and 00s.
Big fat nope. Disagree. The British had it right before. Quality over quantity.
So when do we get the quality?
That’s the neat part!
I’m not expecting a return to the old 26 episode seasons, but damn, 15 would be a nice middle ground that would give the season’s story arc time to develop and breathe (if it even has one, which I don’t think is always necessary, tbh).
10 feels too short.
Besides, it just makes sense, given their goal is to keep people subscribed year-round. If new episodes are only coming out for 2 months of the year, that makes their service a harder sell.
I mean, I’d take only that one show (on a ship)(or space station) and just that show for 20 episodes .
And the things I would do for a directly post DS9 show are… unspeakable.
Agreed, this season of SNW felt like they were missing at least 5 episodes of interactions with the baddy. Like it was here is this season’s baddy and then 2 episodes and he’s dead. I remember when they would meet up with the baddy every few episodes and reveal more of their backstory before killing them.
I agree. We only had 2 episodes to see Spock and La’an get together, it felt like whiplash when we just saw him pining over Chapel. Looking back at shows like DS9 a season of romantic build up meant 23-24 45-minute long episodes with random encounters, drama, things left unsaid - which made the finales that much more enjoyable.
Not to compare too much, but look at Jim and Pam’s romance in the Office. Seasons 2 and 3 were long. It was meant to have us wanting the romance, to see every twist and turn. We had an entire episode for booze cruise, where we finally heard Jim admit it while seeing that they were obviously with the wrong people. We had entire episodes where there was reflection on just one moment of their relationship. You just can’t get that in a half-“season” 4 episode arc.
I think my favorite example is Brooklyn 99, and the Jake/Amy relationship.
First season introduces the idea (but really later on in the season that its apparent it could be more), season 2 is will they won’t they until a kiss at the end, season 3 they start a relationship, season 4 finishes with them moving in together, season 5 gets a proposal and the wedding, etc.
They take time developing the relationship as an idea, but they don’t do the silly “Oh no, misunderstandings made us break up again!” crap, just a progressing relationship over the course of the series.
I agree, that was a great one that I was happy to see took years to make
oh yea, like worfs/jadzia too like many seasons to fully develop, roms, obriens,etc.
It’s Brannon Braga, if you don’t want to click through to the article.
Ugh. Thank you for saving me the brain space.
He is a producer on The Orville, and that’s pretty damn good. Makes me think Rick Berman was always the real problem.
Rick Berman was definitely the problem, but I don’t know enough about the situation to know whether or not Brannon was a problem, too.
He did write “Threshold,” for what it’s worth.
Why not both?
Thank you. Saved me a click
That’s a dumb comparison but I’m all for longer seasons. TNG had like 20 something episodes per. I’m even okay if they aren’t all JJ Abrahms cinematic quality. Bring back cheap TV!
Thats the problem with modern trek, that need to be “cinematic”. Star Trek doesnt need it, it never did. Some of the best episodes were done on a shoe string budget. Like The Drumhead and Its only a paper moon for example. Its only a paper moon didnt even feature any of the main cast. Thats how good DS9s writing was. Even the side characters got the love from the writers.
Exactly. A lot of those episodes were like little stage plays. Imagine entertaining your audience with just a good story! Those were the days.
24 episodes was standard for Prime Time television unless you were a weird mini series of some sort or absurdly expensive
It used to be 26, so you could plan shows covering half a calendar year, then over the years it got cut down more and more. And it was probably not a bad thing because you typically had the same budget but meant you didn’t have to do a cheap clip show to pad out the numbers.
That’s also why you see a lot of shows with 13 episodes, that seemingly arbitrary number is “half” a traditional season. Even Netflix, despite not traditionally caring too much about seasonal stuff or drip feeding week to week, has a lot of 13 episode seasons.
I guess at some point people wanted even numbers (10) as 13 does feel a bit arbitrary even if there’s a reason for it.
Personally for me I’d rather have 10 great quality episodes than 26 episodes where maybe 8 of them are great, 10 are okay and the rest are utter dogshit. The problem is that even (what I consider) great shows like Strange New Worlds, despite only having those 10 episodes per season, still has the odd naff episode.
First, name one of these shows that fits that description. Seasons have a few stinkers, but a lot ot of them have great B plots.
Plus it leaves so much more room for the most important part. Characters. And their development.
The biggest problem with the new shows is there will never be another DS9 level of characters changing over the show’s run.
“Cheers”
I mean if we’re being honest then pretty much all 90’s trek fits the description I’ve given.
Don’t get me wrong, in principle I completely agree that more episodes can mean more character development and that’s a good thing, but it’s not as simple as “more episodes = better”, there has to be intent and desire there to make good things rather than a specific number of things.
I would say SNW, Lower Decks, and Prodigy, all have a clear desire to do that. And Id say the same for the Orville, which honestly may be my favorite, and I feel like SNW took a lot of notes from them.
I don’t know. I think there are good shows and bad shows and it doesn’t matter how many episodes per season they have. It doesn’t matter how much they split it up, if they just keep on making up stuff just for the sake of going on instead of working towards a planned goal. With the shorter shows I get the feeling that they knew where they were going when filming started more than with the older 24 episode shows. But as I said, you get good and bad examples for both long and short seasons.
I have been watching more older shows over the years and noticed they had more filler episodes. I do not miss that.
Lots of talk of filler in this thread, and it certainly can be a problem, but there are reasons to watch things other than a serialized plot, and if it’s good, it’s not filler. Exploring themes and context and setting and characters are perfectly valid, and longer seasons let a show do that. I very much like having at least a few serialized threads running through a show, and characters that never, ever change can be a bit boring, but IMHO the term “filler” gets tossed around much too loosely in a lot of online discourse around genre TV.
good filler episodes let you advance backstory of all the characters, which is something you may not have space for in the episodes advancing the main plot, so you do actually care about them.
not like strange new worlds (which i do like), where there is this asian woman pilot on the bridge and after 3 seasons i don’t even remember her name. i mean wtf is with that?
they did that with STD too, just marginalized all the pocs/and some of the actors that were very prominent in the 1st season into the background with no real arcs, and tried to push the unlikable ones to the forefront of the show.
One big thing is there are so many more things to watch now that I don’t want to commit to a huge season. I guess I like being a tinder tv slut
There’s no commit though; don’t like it, you can bail and forget about it.
