10 Episode Seaons vs. 26 Episodes

[GulBahana]

I miss the longer seasons. Waiting over a year until the next season seems like a long time. It was nice to only wait a few months. I'm sure the actors prefer the shorter seasons though. They also can have a higher budget for effects with 10 episodes. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

Right now, with Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds coming, we’re going to likely have more Star Trek episodes a year than ever before.

Discovery has anywhere from 10-13 episodes this season, according to conflicting reports (non official), Picard and Lower Decks have 10 a piece, with 20 episodes for Prodigy’s first season, and 10 episodes in Strange New Worlds, according to sources from Toronto’s film production union.

Previously, when there were 2 Trek shows airing simultaneously in the Berman era there were 52 episodes of Trek a year, and with the 5 series currently in production, if Prodigy’s entire first season airs within a single cycle, depending on the number of episodes Discovery has this season, there will be 60-63 new episodes.

If the 20 episode season for Prodigy is split the way ‪‪I suspect it will be, the back half of their season will air in the fall next year, around a year from the premiere, making it essentially 10 episodes a year, splitting Prodigy seasons across two years/cycles. That would still put the number of episodes at 50-53, also depending on Discovery’s season length.

Although the animated series are shorter in length, they don’t feel like any less of an episode to me, and ‪‪I prefer the current era, with around the same number of episodes every year/potentially more, and more variety as a result of being split across so many series. And with five series in production at a time, we’re getting close to/maybe already arrived at getting new Trek all year round, which to me is also better than the old era, with no new episodes during the summers.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I think that short seasons aren't producing the quality that is often expected with fewer episodes. Lower Decks has had a number of great episodes, most notably wej Duj, I can't say the same for the other new series. Between Discovery and Picard, I think there is only one episode, If Memory Serves, that arguably is in the top 1-2% of episodes. The Michael-Spock story got a lot of workup to that episode, and obviously the episode make great use of previous Trek stories, which made for a highly successful episode. The first two seasons of the previous series offered City on on Edge of Forever, Doomsday Machine, QWho, Measure of a Man,, Emissary,, Duet, The Thaw,, and Carbon Creek. If 26 episode seasons produce a few duds, they also, IMO , provide more opportunities to create great episode AND the build up required to realize them.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's just the way of television today. And it means no filler episodes like "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", which is a BIG plus.

Be glad it's not the BBC Sherlock episode schedule!

 

[The Wormhole]

26 episodes were way too many anyway. Seriously, during the 90s the Star Treks were the only ones that had that many episodes a season. Modern television is all about shorter seasons, and it's about time Star Trek became modern in at least one regard.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think 13-16 is more the sweet spot. Short enough to tell a tight focused story, long enough to be something you can get excited about and speculate and discuss over a longer period.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I think 17 episodes a season per year at 1-hr long worth of content is that right sweet spot.

Then alternate between various series, you can have 3x series in production concurrently and cover a yearly schedule with 51 weeks worth of new content.

You can use the "Short Treks" format to cover what would've been B-C plot stuff in a traditional 90's Berman Braga series or use the "Short Treks" to help build up the world and explain things.

 

[valkyrie013]

Depends.
If we got better episodes out of it, than sure, lower the count.
To me it all depends on the story your trying to tell. It may require 7, it may require 20. So to me, let the story decide.
If you do lower the count then you up the # of series so we would get 26+ episodes a year. That's kind of what there doing.

 

[FederationHistorian]

26 episodes are better to flesh out characters and their backstories – both main and supporting – but unless they adopt the ENT S4 miniarc approach of 2 to 3 part episodes with the occasional standalone episode, or the DIS S1 approach where they split the season into chapters comprised of anywhere from 6 to 9 episodes, 26 episodes aren’t palatable for today. Its too much for the streaming era.

Plus, its not like Lower Decks is struggling with only 10 episodes a season.

 

[Farscape One]

Personally, I find it easier to follow episodes from the older eras than the Kurtzman era, with the exception of LOWER DECKS. Seasons these days are tied so tightly together that episodes blur each other out. I think SUPERNATURAL hit the sweet spot... have a long season arc, but several standalones that are like delicious side dishes. (Many of those ended up being among the BEST episodes of that show... "MYSTERY SPOT", "THE FRENCH MISTAKE", "FAN FICTION", "BABY", "SCOOBYNATURAL", and "LEBANON" just to name a few.) They did 22 episodes for seasons 1-6 (Except season 3, which was 16 episodes due to the WGA strike.), 23 for season 7-13, and 20 for seasons 14-15.

I think we'll get a better gauge of the current era after STRANGE NEW WORLDS finishes their first season. By all accounts I've read, it's more or less episodic with only characters themselves being an arc. I think that will work best, but only time will tell.

 

[Tosk]

I like short seasons when they have something worth telling. But all too often now, the cart comes before the horse. "We have a short season and people like season-long arcs, so that's what we'll do."

There are many, many, great episodes of yester-Trek that just wouldn't get made on the live-action shows currently airing. Or if they did somehow manage to squeeze onto the roster, they'd be saddled with also carrying baggage from whatever arc was going on at the time. My preferred model would be like DS9, The X-Files, or Buffy. Arcs that don't override all else. That come and go, sometimes weaving into other stories, but not at the expense of stand-alones when warranted. Yeah, you might say I'm looking forward to SNW.

Seriously, during the 90s the Star Treks were the only ones that had that many episodes a season.

For twenty-six maybe, but there were many shows that ran for 20+ ep seasons. Excluding half-hour shows, there was Quantum Leap, Highlander, Sliders, Xena, X-Files, La Femme Nikita, Farscape, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, West Wing...

 

[Alexander Corrino]

I like long seasons, but then, I’m an 80s soap opera fan, so maybe that plays into it… Nah seriously, I really find shorter seasons a bit off-putting if all they do is work towards one arc. There’s no time for individual characters to shine properly because everything has to be somehow related to that big plot they’re trying to stuff into ten episodes. It’s basically a ten episode movie nowadays, and I just find this… unimaginative? When I want to watch a movie, I watch a movie. When I want to watch a television series I expect more than a movie plot hammered into ten episodes.

Also, I miss filler episodes. As ridiculous as they could be sometimes on TNG, at least they told us something about the characters. And really, one of the most popular Trek episodes of all time, “The Inner Light”, is basically a filler episode. Today an episode like that would be turned into an entire season.

All that being said, I do like it when there’s a plot going on in the background that gets put into the spotlight every other episode or so. Like they did on X Files. This would be my preferred model for Trek as well. Would actually make me watch their newer shows if they introduced this. Maybe Strange New Worlds will do so.

 

[at Quark's]

If you consider The Inner light a filler episode, you could probably consider the great majority of TNG, TOS, VOY, and the first 2 seasons of ENT to be just filler (because of lack of an overarching story), and I doubt many people would go that far. So I'd argue there must be some more specific set of criteria that makes an episode 'nothing but filler'.

 

[Tosk]

I've certainly seen people (frustratingly) refer to any episode that doesn't carry part of an arc as "filler". One of the reasons I've come to loathe the phrase.

 

[thribs]

The more the merrier I’d say. The “filler” episodes are sometimes the best episodes

 

[The Wormhole]

For twenty-six maybe, but there were many shows that ran for 20+ ep seasons. Excluding half-hour shows, there was Quantum Leap, Highlander, Sliders, Xena, X-Files, La Femme Nikita, Farscape, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, West Wing...

Yes, I'm aware of that. Those shows usually did 22-24 episodes a season. The Star Treks were the only ones doing 26, and I think they suffered for it.

Shorter seasons are preferable, and short does not need to mean a serialized arc. To run the risk of paying a tithe to the coin jar, you'll note The Orville only does 13 episode seasons of mostly standalone episodes, outside of character arcs. Indeed, it sound like that's the format SNW will be adopting.

That being said, I'll admit there are shows which know how to pull off a 20+ episode season, Star Trek's problem in the 90s was they didn't do it properly. You can't really do over twenty episodes a year of purely standalone stories, there needs to be some level of serialization, progression, an arc of some sort. Which Star Trek usually avoided like the plague, mostly for Berman's dreams of syndication.

 

[Paul755]

I think right around 20-22 episodes per season would be the right amount for the live action stuff. Animated should stay around 10-12. But adding 6-8 eps a year for Disco and Picard would help to alleviate one of the problems I think both shows have in that they try to do too much in too little amount of time. Like the episode where we meet Elenor in Picard Season 1, it was a good show but considering how rushed the last few episodes were it feels like it was a waste of time.

People like to dump on “filler” or “bottle” episodes. But if done right those episodes can flesh out characters or just be a nice distraction from the overarching storyline for the season. Plus it gives the show a chance to breathe. Not everything has to move at a breakneck pace. Look at the Holosuite Heist episode in DS9 season 7 (for example). It had zero to do with the war, or Ezri/Worf, etc…it was a fun little distraction that let you see the characters have some fun. Even the Ferengi episodes…while mostly terrible had some value in that they expanded what we know about that society.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Personally, I find it easier to follow episodes from the older eras than the Kurtzman era, with the exception of LOWER DECKS. Seasons these days are tied so tightly together that episodes blur each other out. I think SUPERNATURAL hit the sweet spot... have a long season arc, but several standalones that are like delicious side dishes. (Many of those ended up being among the BEST episodes of that show... "MYSTERY SPOT", "THE FRENCH MISTAKE", "FAN FICTION", "BABY", "SCOOBYNATURAL", and "LEBANON" just to name a few.) They did 22 episodes for seasons 1-6 (Except season 3, which was 16 episodes due to the WGA strike.), 23 for season 7-13, and 20 for seasons 14-15.

I think we'll get a better gauge of the current era after STRANGE NEW WORLDS finishes their first season. By all accounts I've read, it's more or less episodic with only characters themselves being an arc. I think that will work best, but only time will tell.

I concur, SuperNatural did season long arcs very well.

Spreading out the season long arc episodes and spreading it about the season.

Intermediately have one off stand-alone episodes.

Every now and then, have 2/3/4 episode long arcs.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Shorter seasons are preferable, and short does not need to mean a serialized arc. To run the risk of paying a tithe to the coin jar, you'll note The Orville only does 13 episode seasons of mostly standalone episodes, outside of character arcs. Indeed, it sound like that's the format SNW will be adopting.

The Orville does 13 episodes because the network keeps giving them the runaround, refusing to renew in a timely manner, etc. The season length is not a feature of the series, and it does not prevent MacFarlane from putting out a few duds.

 

[Lord Garth]

It really depends on the show.

• Discovery could benefit from a 20-episode season. Not 26, but more than just 13. Especially Seasons 1 and 3.
• Picard would benefit from 13. 10 is too short.
• Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks seem like they'd be fine at 10. They're not doing arcs.
• Prodigy seems like it's doing 20. I think that's good because it's also arc-based and because this will help to get the show up to the point where Nickelodeon can play it every day faster. This is important because this show, more than the others, is where you'll get the new Trekkies from.