Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Confirmed.
- Thread starter HotRod
- Start date
If they order another series, it is doing well.
Star Trek will never go back to the purely Episodic format of TOS and TNG; at best, we'll get what I refer to as the "Serialized Procedural" approach of Voyager and Enterprise and non-Trek series like ANGEL and BONES.
Fixed that for you. Fans tend to be hesitant for a property to move forward in any way because it is a threat to status quo.
I like serialized television when it's shows like "Narcos". It works really well there - also because entire seasons are dropped, not episode after episode. Having a serialized show and dropping an episode each week is just not really a very good approach unless you're doing a soap opera (soap operas are written in a specific way that allows viewers to easily follow along even if they haven't seen the previous episode). I know All Access is doing this in the US - and effectively forcing Netflix and Prime to do the same - because they need subscribers and if they dropped one season as a whole, people would just use the free trial option, binge the show and then get rid of All Access again. But this was effectively what made me abandon DSC in season 2, despite my adoration for Pike - I just didn't have enough interest to sit and wait for another episode, and when the next one aired I was too bored to check it out because I had forgotten what had happened in the previous episode. I only went back to the show once the entire season had dropped and I could binge it from beginning to end. Maybe I'm not a good indicator since I'm not much of a Trekkie, but hey. (For me personally it's also the genre - I'd much rather watch a serialized drama series than a serialized science fiction series, I'm just not into sci-fi as a genre. But that's REALLY just me.)
Putting all that aside, there's just SOMETHING about Trek and self-contained episodes. It was what was originally intended (I'm not talking GENE'S VISION, I'm talking from a production viewpoint) - a show with little morality tales every episode. That's what the franchise was built on, and that's - naturally - what fans are used to and what they expect. But, of course, these days the whole approach of "push a reset button at the end of every episode" no longer works because audiences expect for actions to have consequences. But... can't they find a compromise here, like they're seemingly now trying to do with the Pike series? A compromise that no longer forces the whole "we either go totally episodic OR totally serialized" argument to happen?
I for one favor some kind hybrid model - a serialized arc going on across a season or maybe even an entire series but also standalone episodes. (Similar to what ENT or X Files did.) I know we don't have 25 episodes a season anymore, but I for one think this approach could be applied to a 10-or-13-episode-a-season show just as well - you just need to stop trying to push too much material into your show.
Putting all that aside, there's just SOMETHING about Trek and self-contained episodes. It was what was originally intended (I'm not talking GENE'S VISION, I'm talking from a production viewpoint) - a show with little morality tales every episode. That's what the franchise was built on, and that's - naturally - what fans are used to and what they expect. But, of course, these days the whole approach of "push a reset button at the end of every episode" no longer works because audiences expect for actions to have consequences. But... can't they find a compromise here, like they're seemingly now trying to do with the Pike series? A compromise that no longer forces the whole "we either go totally episodic OR totally serialized" argument to happen?
I for one favor some kind hybrid model - a serialized arc going on across a season or maybe even an entire series but also standalone episodes. (Similar to what ENT or X Files did.) I know we don't have 25 episodes a season anymore, but I for one think this approach could be applied to a 10-or-13-episode-a-season show just as well - you just need to stop trying to push too much material into your show.
Revolt? No. But if they don't have the chops to pull it off, you end up with a season that is pretty much unwatchable, at least for me. The current crew writes themselves into corners with "everything is going to end" non-sense then end up with horrible endings.
A bad episode is a bad episode, you move on to the next when it is episodic. A bad episode/ending sours the whole batch in a serialized story. I went and rewatched "Brother" because I was going to rewatch season two of Discovery, then all the memories of that ending came flowing back and I went on to other things. Like everything, it is a mileage may vary situation.
Now, you get me Westworld's writers to do an season arc, and you'd have my attention.
I have no problem with serialisation in Star Trek per se, it's simply hasn't been done well up to now IMO which is probably because the basic concept of Star Trek as a ship exploring the galaxy lends itself easier to episodic adventure of the week type story telling than season long arcs. That's what's worked the best in Star Trek up to now in TOS and TNG.
Having said that, to stay relevant and to have a future Star Trek has to embrace serialisation and find the right formula that works to marry the types of stories and themes that made Star Trek great like making first contact with alien species and encountering weird phenomena with a modern story telling approach that audiences now expect. Perhaps Strange New Worlds will manage to square this circle.
I have no doubt that with so many Trek projects in the works and different writers working on them that an approach will eventually be found that strikes the right balance.
In my opinion we need to stop trying to recreate the past.
I was under the impression you were a DS9 Fan. So you don't like the opening six episodes of S6 or the last 10 episodes of S7? If you isolate them, they're effectively modern serialized seasons.
But doesn't a series worth of character development help elevate those episodes? I mean if you just looked at those sets of episodes without anything else in DS9, you would lose the context and they might not be as good.
I don't mind serialization in TV, but I much prefer the balance of big picture serialization and episodes with a beginning, middle and end. Basically, give me the B5, DS9, Buffy, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 (Since I just finished that series) approach. Sometimes the smaller episodes are great for character development. Everything doesn't need to lead to doomsday, like what Discovery Season 1 or 2 had. Maybe it's not a matter of episodic vs serialization. Maybe it's the whole thing of thinking too big when it is better to just think small and keep it tight.
So lower the stakes?
DS9 did benefit from the build-up, I'm not denying that, but it doesn't take me long to connect to a character. I don't need five seasons. I can only speak for myself, but I either connect with them or I don't. It's that simple. It doesn't even need to be deep. It just needs to be there.
I started with the TOS Movies. I didn't need to see TOS first to connect to the characters.
Except for Parks and Recreation, every show I've watched in the past decade-plus has been serialized. From the beginning. Every show you listed is from the '90s.
Yeah, the concept of DS9 allowed serialisation to work in that instance and there was a coherent plan in place that built things up over the course of years with writers who knew what they were doing. That said, although competently done it still serves as an example of serialisation taking away the essence of what Star Trek is supposed to be about and instead making it about war and grimness. Similarly, ship based Trek series like ENT and DIS had season long arcs not about exploration but also about war, time travel and stopping some disaster.
Another problem with serialisation in Star Trek is that you can't just have a self contained story of exploring a planet or discovering something is space - it has to now devote time to including aspects of whatever the story of the season long arc is about.
Last I checked shows could have two plots.
Sometimes more!!!!
Maybe that is what helped Picard over Discovery. I wish the Borg Plot had actually led to something greater (Like maybe a Reformed Borg revolution, trying not to dive deep into spoilers), but because it was there originally and you also had what was happening with Picard, it felt like a much more "variable" season. I connected to the characters better on Picard than Discovery, and I like some of the characters on Discovery like Suru and Stamets, even though I didn't like the whole Stamets/Culber plotline in season 2.
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Connecting with characters cannot be overstated. I think much of the struggles come down to that.
My two cents:
I don’t need to see young Lt. Kirk or Ensign Uhura or Sulu on Pike’s crew, or even as “guest stars” in this new series. Let this show be about Pike and Number One, the adventures of the crew that we all know about, yet never really got to know all that well.
As a TOS fan for over 45 years, it is still my favorite series, and I love all of those characters, but they have had their time. Also, there is no bigger fan of the 1964 Matt Jefferies Enterprise design than myself, but I have absolutely no issues with the “Discoprise”, it is a respectful reimagining that retains enough detail to tie it back to the original, yet state-of-the-art for a show being produced in the 2020s.
I don’t need to see young Lt. Kirk or Ensign Uhura or Sulu on Pike’s crew, or even as “guest stars” in this new series. Let this show be about Pike and Number One, the adventures of the crew that we all know about, yet never really got to know all that well.
As a TOS fan for over 45 years, it is still my favorite series, and I love all of those characters, but they have had their time. Also, there is no bigger fan of the 1964 Matt Jefferies Enterprise design than myself, but I have absolutely no issues with the “Discoprise”, it is a respectful reimagining that retains enough detail to tie it back to the original, yet state-of-the-art for a show being produced in the 2020s.
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Strange as this will sound coming from me, I'm glad SNW will be taking the approach it's taking. If CBSAA wants to cater to as many people as possible, there are some who don't like serialization but still like Star Trek.
And I can't imagine them visiting Delta Palma II and sticking around for 10 or 13 episodes. So episodic seems like it would work better for SNW.
And I can't imagine them visiting Delta Palma II and sticking around for 10 or 13 episodes. So episodic seems like it would work better for SNW.
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