Do you prefer Star Trek TV shows to have stand alone episodes or serialized stories?

I disagree with you on Voyager, how did Tuvok, Harry Kim or Chakotay change at all during the course of that show? Really that show smashed the reset button so often, that at least half the cast felt static.

 

Standalone episodes and the occasional 3-4 story episode arcs.

 

Stand alone episodes with maybe some general idea behind it all.

Just like TNG, stand alone episodes which all create the trial of humanity.

With serialized program, there's the problem that one little plothole along the way can "ruin" the rest of the series.

 

I will agree that the standard is higher for serialized shows than episodic shows. A bad plot point in an episodic show ruins one episode, a bad plot point in a serial show ruins several episodes. That doesn't mean you don't be ambitious and aim high because when they pull that off is when you get the truly memorable shows.

Characters can evolve across seasons in episodic shows but it rarely happens as a result of what you see on screen. Writers may get together and decide "This personality trait is testing poorly, so let's focus on this one instead", and the character 'evolves'. But they aren't revolving as a result of the story because every time they 'learn a valuable lesson' it's completely forgotten by the next episode.

There's also the middle option found by shows like Parks & Recreation where there are standalone episodes that support a main continuous arc. The middle option fosters character growth a lot better than the first option, because that way when a character 'learns a valuable lesson' or something, that lesson can be referenced later and used for further development rather than being forgotten completely next episode.

 

Mostly standalone and some short arcs.

 

Overall, the serialized Discovery will have to mash the reset button. Nothing of consequence is going to happen to Mudd or Sarek or Amanda, the Spore drive will be a failure and the Federation will at the very least end up in a stalemate with the Klingons.

It is much like a Pocket Books novel. All the toys will have to be put back in the box at the end, just the way they found them.

 

Stand alone or 2 episode arcs.

 

That's fine, as long there are consequences for the characters in the show and if something happens in one episode is followed up in another and the characters change and grow over the course of the show. They do not have to kill off Mudd, Sarek or Amanda to have a big impact, we just get see new sides to these characters, not everyone in real life will bring up every event in their life time to everyone they meet (heck there was whole Cardassian Federation war going on that no one mentioned in TNG, so this is not new). The spore drive being a failure is fine, because real life not every bit of tech will succeed (look up the avro arrow) and if this tech is a failure, it could teach the Federation some things about breaking past the warp 5 barrier.

That is better then Voyager being trashed in one episode and being fine in the next one, at that point it felt like nothing mattered and Voyager never had an Inner Light or City on Edge of Forever to justify the endless stream of truly mediocre episodes. Nothing felt like it mattered in most of the episodes of Voyager.

I care about consequences within this show far more then on some boarder canon.

 

You could make the same argument with Better Call Saul, yet everybody is glued to that.

With prequels it's not about where you end up, the audience knows where you'll end up, it's about how you get there.

 

Short arcs until ratings go down, then they can come up with something a bit longer to finish off the series.

 

Serialised or short arcs for me. Not very interested in standalones...

 

The best shows for me now are the ones that do both like the Flash. He fights the villain of the week but has an over arching super villain like Zoom or Reverse Flash that keeps a story going all season.

The whole Marvel Daredevil/Defenders universe is wearing thin for me as they have had this one arc with the Hand going on through Daredevil, Iron Fist and The Defenders. They really need to add in some one off episodes/villains.

 

While TNG is my favorite of all of the series, I really liked the serialized format of DS9 (especially with the Dominion War arc). For me, this is why DS9 is my second favorite of all the series as it did a good job of storytelling.

 

Stand alone is so 1990's.......... and reset button make for lazy, unimaginative and formulated writing.

 

Having grown up with more episodic television I tend to prefer that. But if they do serialized storylines I would prefer they did it like Stargate SG:1. In Stargate you would have an "arc" episode then several stand alones, and then an arc episode that directly builds on the earlier one. But they would include a brief recap at the beginning of the second arc episode to summarize how the new episode was connected to earlier events.

 

I feel that serialization has come to mean something very extreme, in which a longer plot is carried over several episodes. They tend to be very deterministic, and the characters tend to change in radical leaps in order to get to the big spectacle at the end of the season.

What I like is that characters develop naturalistic over the course of the series, in their own episodes and over the course of arcs, such that they've been through a journey over the course of the series. What I don't like is when characters and relationships are sacrificed to either episodic or serialized TV, either to reset the show or to sacrifice those characters in a big ending.

Now, let's be honest: both DS9 and ENT, in its third season, wove together episodic and serialized elements. Every episode in the two big arcs landed at a definitive point, where we could see where the characters are going and there was some clear purpose to the episode (beyond hitting a specific plot point). Both Rocks and Shoals and Damage hit on issues that could be understood in the context of the episode and left the characters in a new place. It was not just another day. On the other hand, they had what could have been stand-alone episodes, but which were woven into the larger narrative of the series, producing rewarding results. In the Pale Moonlight, Twilight and Similtude could have been stand-alone episodes, but giving them the context of a larger narrative helped to raise the sense of jeopardy in the individual episodes.

I want Discovery to do the same.

 

I like episodes that stand strongly on their own, while having an arc in the background. Mad Men is the superlative example of this.

Kor

 

I like both. I like standalones because you can jump in with no prior knowledge required. But I also like serials because they dive deep and longer arcs tend to have bigger payoffs.

 

A little of each will go a long way. You can tie a larger story together and still have the sophistication of telling a complete individual story(in each episode). A balance between anthology, and soap opera. I've heard TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise all referred to as "serialized procedurals," and I think that's a good way to put it. There's an overarching theme that spans the whole series, that is more than just a setting, with actual goals.
Example:
Bajor/wormhole aliens/Sisko chosen one, etc.
Or Voyager get home, merging different crews, etc.

Then there are seasonal arcs, such as DS9 s5- a new Klingon war, or season 6-dominion war, etc. Or in Voy, "The Kazon are out to get us, There's a spy on the ship" or "helping the Borg, rescuing a Borg, consequences of that." And obviously in Ent, "The Xindi have attacked earth, and will destroy it."

And of course there are character arcs for many of the characters in each series.

As for the more heavily serialized shows, like on HBO, or Showtime: If they have a clear story to tell(like HBO's "Rome" or "Band of Brothers"), they are more a miniseries. Band of Brothers was never going to be more than ten episodes, and Rome was never going to be more than 2 seasons(22 episodes?).
If they go on and on, season after season, beyond their original story, they are more of a high budget soap opera, which rely heavily on soap opera elements to hook the viewer in, like "plot twists," "big reveals," shock value, and cliff hanger endings.

The new Star Trek show is actually telling somewhat self contained stories in addition to having carry over elements from each episode to push into the next,

Spoiler: Discovery

like the surprise ending of episode 3 that the Tartigrade was beamed onto the Discovery, or the introduction of ash at the end of episode 5. The A-plot of episode 6 was "Rescue Sarek." and this was concluded. Then they introduced a plot twist at the end with the Admiral's capture.

It's more serialized than Enterprise, but they still have a clear story to tell, with a beginning and ending(right?). I would say it's like a miniseries. I've no idea what season 2 will bring, as we seem to be heading towards the tragic ending. As of right now, I just can't picture "The continuing adventures of Lorca and Burnham." Season 2 could be anything at this point.

 

None of the Star Trek shows so far have been serialized (maybe Discovery but too early to tell). I would love to see a fully serialized Star Trek, although I've been extremely disappointed by Discovery for other reasons.

People point to DS9 as serialized but it really wasn't, it just had a semblance of chronological logic, but most episodes worked fine as stand alones, it wasn't like BSG where you're screwed if you haven't seen what came before.