Think We'll Ever See A Trek Series Longer Than 7 seasons?

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
I was thinking the same thing.

[Knight Templar]

horatio83 wrote:

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Another feature of Who Trek might want to copy is 13 episodes instead of 26 per year.

Unlikely for accounting reasons I think. The initial investment in a series gets amortized over the number of episodes produced.

[Christopher]

Well, season lengths are shorter now than they used to be. Heck, the Trek shows continued doing 26-episode seasons long after pretty much every other show on US network/syndicated television had dropped to 22 -- and even there the norm is to start with a 13-episode order and then pick up the back nine if the show does well enough. On cable, it's typical for shows to have seasons between 13 and 20 episodes in length, often split into halves for fall/spring or winter/summer airing.

[skilzkid]

A lot of good shows are starting to be smart and call it quits before starting to run on fumes. Breaking Bad is a prime example where it will call it quits after 5 years, and that show is strong all the way through IMHO. Some other shows I liked such as House carried on for 7+ years, and I was almost waiting for that one to end. Dexter is about to start Season 7, and that is also starting to get repetitive minusthe huge endings to the even number seasons.

I think 13 episodes is too short for a season, especially one with 8 or so characters to develop like a Trek series. 26 episodes may have forced some of the plot and character development to be too elongated/filled in. 18-20 might be the magic number for Trek. As for number of seasons, 5-7 works for me. If/when we will ever see another Trek, given TV's propensity for all things over-the-top, is another question.

[Christopher]

skilzkid wrote:

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I think 13 episodes is too short for a season, especially one with 8 or so characters to develop like a Trek series.

No reason a Trek series couldn't have a smaller core cast. TOS technically had only three main characters and a handful of recurring players, few of whom got any development at all.

[MacLeod]

I think the core characters that you need are :-

Captain
First Officer
Chief Medical Officer
Chief Engineer
Secuirty/Tactical

The Helm doesn't need to be a regular, as for science that can be filled by whatever speciality is needed that episode.

[Temis the Vorta]

Amortizing the investment is possible if the plan is for several seasons that are 10 or 13 or 17 episodes long, whatever the writers deem to be the right amount needed to tell the story for that year. If the show is made for streaming, you don't even need to worry about the number of episodes to fit the network schedule, it's wide open,

The anthology idea could be as simple as having a large ensemble cast that all interacts in a certain location - planet, space station, spaceship. Characters can be killed off and new ones introduced.

The old broadcast TV notion that you must keep certain characters or actors because people watch the show for them, is one of the rules that can get thrown out on cable and streaming services. You might have one central character and everyone else is expendable, or maybe you kill off the presumed central character too.

MacLeod wrote:

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I think the core characters that you need are :-

Captain
First Officer
Chief Medical Officer
Chief Engineer
Secuirty/Tactical

You might have those as core roles, but there's no reason a certain character can't be killed or transferred or otherwise out of the action and a new character introduced. New roles/characters could be introduced too, not limited to standard Starfleet ranks.

It would really raise the stakes to have a show where no character was sacrosanct. In practice, I'm sure the writers would recognize when they have a great actor they shouldn't kill off lightly so the audience will probably catch on to which characters are unkillable for that reason.

[skilzkid]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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It would really raise the stakes to have a show where no character was sacrosanct. In practice, I'm sure the writers would recognize when they have a great actor they shouldn't kill off lightly so the audience will probably catch on to which characters are unkillable for that reason.

I'm trying to imagine a Star Trek that had the regular character rotation of Law and Order, and it just doesn't seem like Trek. Even in TOS, we got to know Kirk, Bones, and Spock fairly well, and I could see them killing off/transferring one of them, but most of Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Checkov, and the core crew would have to remain. One change I could live with, but with 2 changes I'm thinking there is actor disharmony, and with 3 or more changes it starts to lose too much. I'm sure opinions will differ on this

[Christopher]

I wouldn't mind seeing more crew rotation in a Trek series. As I just pointed out in another thread, in real life a typical military tour of duty is usually around 1-3 years, maybe even less. The same crew serving together on the same ship for 7 years is very unrealistic. Especially when they're facing traumatic, life-and-death crises a couple of dozen times a year. After a few years of that, they'd be basket cases.

[Knight Templar]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Amortizing the investment is possible if the plan is for several seasons that are 10 or 13 or 17 episodes long, whatever the writers deem to be the right amount needed to tell the story for that year. If the show is made for streaming, you don't even need to worry about the number of episodes to fit the network schedule, it's wide open,

The anthology idea could be as simple as having a large ensemble cast that all interacts in a certain location - planet, space station, spaceship. Characters can be killed off and new ones introduced.

The old broadcast TV notion that you must keep certain characters or actors because people watch the show for them, is one of the rules that can get thrown out on cable and streaming services. You might have one central character and everyone else is expendable, or maybe you kill off the presumed central character too.

You might have those as core roles, but there's no reason a certain character can't be killed or transferred or otherwise out of the action and a new character introduced. New roles/characters could be introduced too, not limited to standard Starfleet ranks.

It would really raise the stakes to have a show where no character was sacrosanct. In practice, I'm sure the writers would recognize when they have a great actor they shouldn't kill off lightly so the audience will probably catch on to which characters are unkillable for that reason.

I agree. I like the idea of there being no character who is immune from getting the axe (or even being transferred and becoming just a recurring guest star).

I've been annoyed with modern Trek for each Trek character (even completely irrelevant ones like Harry on Voyager or the black guy on Enterprise) having their own circle of fans.

[RandyS]

I doubt it. With the way ratings and such works anymore, we'd be lucky to get seven episodes.

[Bry_Sinclair]

Knight Templar wrote:

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I agree. I like the idea of there being no character who is immune from getting the axe (or even being transferred and becoming just a recurring guest star).

On Babylon 5, did all the characters not have an "out" written for them, a means of finishing off the character and allowing the actor to leave should they so wish? Such a system makes sense to me, as then if somone wants to move on to other things they have a means to go that finishes off their storylines without just killing them.

Knight Templar wrote:

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I've been annoyed with modern Trek for each Trek character (even completely irrelevant ones like Harry on Voyager or the black guy on Enterprise) having their own circle of fans.

I do admit that some characters are pretty pointless and annoying, but some people just like certain characters for whatever reason and dislike others as well.

Trek does need to avoid character like Token...sorry I mean Travis Mayweather, who really was there to tick the diversity box.

[Christopher]

Bry_Sinclair wrote:

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Trek does need to avoid character like Token...sorry I mean Travis Mayweather, who really was there to tick the diversity box.

That's really not fair. If you watch the first season, you see that Travis gets plenty to do and is given a good amount of character development. As conceived, he was an important part of the 22nd-century worldbuilding -- the "Space Boomer," the embodiment of the early generation of space pioneers who were now being displaced by faster starships. He was also a natural raconteur, a teller of ghost stories and practical joker, and he was a history geek who really embodied the enthusiasm for exploration that drove the cast in the first two seasons. He got more development in the first two dozen episodes than Sulu or Uhura got in three seasons and six movies.

It was only after the first season that he began to be marginalized. I think it's because he gave a disappointing performance in the climax of "Fortunate Son," his big focus episode that season, so afterward the writers started downplaying him. It's true that in seasons 2-4 he did tend to be relegated to the background. But given his greater prominence in season 1, it is clearly wrong to assume he was intended as merely a token character from the start.

[Temis the Vorta]

RandyS wrote:

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I doubt it. With the way ratings and such works anymore, we'd be lucky to get seven episodes.

On broadcast, sure. Audiences are lower for everything because more and more shows are competing for the same free hours people have for entertainment and the population isn't growing nearly as quickly as cable channels and now streaming channels with original content too.

So to make the math work, some factor has to change. That factor is how much each viewer is worth. Broadcast only gets ad revenues, but add in the fees tha basic cable gets or even better subscription based or pay per view premium cable or streaming, and that could compensate for the high budget/niche audience problem.

We can get Star Trek back, but we'll have to pay more for it that by just watching ads. That's why broadcast is out, especially since the broadcaster in question would be CBS.

If FOX or NBC had the rights, I could maybe see them rolling the dice with a pricely space opera series, and even then it would be a long shot and probably wouldn't work. Above all, I want the next series to be on a channel where it can live long and prosper!

As for Maywearher, he was pretty boring all the way thru ENT but that seems like something we can blame on broadcast TV that will be less likely to be repeated on cable or streaming where audiences are less likely to reward blandness.

[FreddyE]

How about doing more seasons with less episodes? Doctor Who for example, is having great success with its 13 to 14 episode seasons.