TOS was mostly "premise-based." It's essentially an anthology show which happens to have a set main cast. Gene Coon & Co did work the episodes to make sure the dialogue mostly fit the characterization (particularly for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy) but in 95% of the episodes, you could see the exact same story being told with a different crew/cast, with the outcome only slightly different.
And that's why TOS was the absolute GOAT.
Don't like mystery stories? Next week is a drama. After that we have a monster.
And I'd argue throwing the same characters into so many different situations created very consistent characters.
Like, for Benjamin Sisko I know very well how he'd handle a confrontation. But for Spock, I know how he'd act in
pretty much any situation. Be it a mystery, getting falsely accused, a romance, or having a science problem to solve.
Modern streaming shows are mostly plot based though, not character based. The writing hinges on the big twists that will keep the fans engrossed from episode to episode. However, once a season is over, many of them lack anything resembling an arc for the main characters. The characters move to follow the plot, rather than the inverse.
I'd also argue that something like the stereotypical soap is not character-based writing. It's plot-based writing, it's just that the character twists are the plot, if it makes sense. They'll completely subvert earlier character development and give characters entirely new personalities if they think it's needed to bump the ratings. Real character-based writing starts with an understanding of who the characters are, and putting them into a scenario that challenges them and makes them grow as a person (or decline, decline is fine too, but it must make sense).
I understand what you mean, but I wouldn't call this "plot-based" writing. It's
"scene-based" writing, or "
moments-based" writing.
Basically we get an intimidating villain-introduction scene. We get a "fuck-yeah"-victory scene. And we get a big cliffhanger moment at the end. But not so much effort is actually put into connecting these moments well, it's more important that many big moments happen, with as little "filler" as possible between them.
For me "plot-based" writing would be what TNG or even ENT did. They put a lot of effort into setting up A, B and C, and then have the consequences of C help with the resolution of A. For TNG it's often about rules, regulations, negotiations etc. On ENT (e.g. the Xindi war) it's often about when do which characters learn about what information, talk to whom, are on which ships when stuff happens and meet up where again.
This is a lot less "exciting" than the more emotional scene-based writing. On TNG even the big, emotional resolution moments were usually just two guys standing straight in a room & talking to each other. And a majority of scenes before that are just set-ups & info-dumps without an immediate resolution or "highlight".
This is also my personal favourite type of storytelling in sci-fi. For purely character-based drama often other genres (dramas, historicals) are a better fit. And the "scene"-based writing is inconsistent with good worldbuilding (internal consistency, logic, set-ups & pay-offs), which is nowhere as important as in sci-fi or spy stories.
I'd say DS9 was the only Star Trek show that was predominantly character based. SNW dabbled with it a tiny bit at the start, but is moving to premise-based writing ala TOS.
Yes, DS9 was "character-based" storytelling (at least once it got good). The same team went much further on BSG, which was almost exclusively a character drama show.
We may, finally, be getting character-based Trek again with SFA. Time will tell.
This is where I disagree. We already saw two episodes now. This is the same type of emotional, "moments"-based show like Discovery or the JJmovies were. It's much more important that Caleb has an exciting, visually appealing moment when meeting a girl ("sitting on the fence"), than having this line up with his struggles & choices in the previous episode, or go into details why the girl was there alone.
