Should current Trek drop the serialized format?

Discussion in 'Future of Trek' started by Sim, Dec 25, 2022.

  1. Lord Garth

    Lord Garth Admiral Admiral

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    Georgiou, helped L'Rell, Tyler, and their baby son in "Point of Light". She stopped Kol'Sha from killing them, and she found a way to keep Tyler and the baby alive. She also helped L'Rell to retain power in the Klingon Empire with her plan, and that makes a huge difference because without L'Rell, someone worse would be in charge of the Klingon Empire, who would likely be quick to go back into war with the Federation.

    Georgiou helped Burnham to rescue Spock in "If Memory Serves". She was helping herself by making Leland look bad, but she was still helpful to Burnham and her mission of rescuing Spock from Section 31.

    Georgiou was nominally on the Discovery's side when stopping Control in "Such Sweet Sorrow".

    Georgiou is the one who saved Saru and Tilly's bacon in "Far From Home".

    Georgiou is the one who cut to the chase and exposed that the people attacking Earth in "People of Earth" were really Humans living on Saturn's moon, Titan.

    Georgiou helps Burnham rescue Book from The Emerald Chain in "Scavengers", which also brings them a step closer to uncovering what happened in The Burn.

    So Georgiou also tried to help. And I just gave you several examples (that I'm sure you'll try to find a way to move the goalposts with). The only difference is, you like Garak, and he's a character from the '90s, a time that gives you the warm fuzzies because that's when you were young, so he gets a pass.

    Oh, please. You're letting your liking the character get in the way again. He did horrible things, we just don't know the context or if they were fair game. But there's no doubt he probably did things where you'd clutch your pearls and be like, "Oh no! Not our Garak!" Some of what he probably did was probably justified, some of it probably not. The storytelling rules are different when it's Bad Guys vs. Bad Guys instead of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys.

    For the record: I like both Garak and Georgiou. It's Dukat who I don't like, but (other than that weird stage in the middle of the series) I'm not supposed to like Dukat, and it's not what the creators of the show intended, so I don't take issue with that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2023
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  2. Lord Garth

    Lord Garth Admiral Admiral

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    I don't think you've watched DSC Season 2 (or the other seasons, for that matter) in a while. You've forgotten a lot.

    Pike isn't just against Section 31, he's really against Section 31. He only cooperates with them because Admiral Cornwell orders him to, but he doesn't like it. At all. And he distrusts Tyler, who's assigned to Discovery as Section 31's representative.

    It looks like Pike and Leland used to be friends, but that became strained when their lives and careers took them in very different paths.

    At the end of Season 2, Tyler says he can try to reform Section 31 from within, so the show is acknowledging Section 31 needs to change. Obviously that doesn't end up happening, but we know how Section 31 turns out by the 24th Century, and Tyler doesn't. It's probably safe to say that despite his best intentions, they likely chewed him up and spit him out.

    EDITED TO ADD: These last two posts feel like such a throwback to the recent past. I'd say I miss it, but I think I don't.

    Back on the Main Topic: I like the serialized format. It offers a chance to tell larger stories and draw from a broader canvas. I'd prefer if they had more in the background ongoing from season-to-season. Not everything has to be wrapped up by the end of the season. I can understand the immediate story, but keep everything else ongoing for as long as it makes sense to.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2023
  3. Orphalesion

    Orphalesion Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'mnotso much against serialized shows, but I am against the over-used "mystery box" format where a whole season or even show is centered around a mystery/crime that the characters have to solve, often with a very drawn-out and underwhelming resolution. Current Trek example: the Burn.
    I'm simply so sick of this that I am very unlikely to watch any show that employs it.
     
  4. DirectorSloan

    DirectorSloan Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    I don't think that they need to drop the serialized format. It's been done successfully in the past with DS9 and with Enterprise season 4. Both used different styles. In DS9 there could be a plot or thread that ran across multiple seasons and in Enterprise Season 4 they had mini-arc of 2 or 3 part stories. But you have to have people who can map out the story and know how they want it to unfold and make it entertaining instead of a long drawn out story that should have ended long ago (kind of like for me, Phantom Menace was about an hour and a half too long IMHO).
     
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  5. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You're right. You and I differ extensively on Garak. I never warmed to him. He felt self serving, always with an ulterior motive. I generally don't like supposed loveable rogues.

    Mileage will vary.
     
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  6. Ometiklan

    Ometiklan Captain Captain

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    Yeah, I definitely need to rewatch season 2, which is good because it is the one I like best and is (hopefully the most rewatchable for me), and has Pike and Spock. All bonuses.

    As for Georgiou being helpful, sure. I don't think I ever disputed that. I was just listing positive qualities that Garak had that make his a semi-good and more likable character. Yeah, Georgiou might have one or two of those traits - like being helpful - but all her other, more numerous deficiencies make her a despicable and unlikable character, for me.

    I think a major difference in the "degree of importance" for Garak vs Georgiou (making it easier to like Garak) is that Garak was always a secondary character. He was a man with no country for the most part. So he could participate in an an episode if needed, bringing his shady past with him for color or specific needs in the storyline (see "Empok Nor" or "Our Man Bashir"). But he wasn't either aligned with Starfleet/our main characters (as Georgiou is for the most part) until the Dominion War is advanced. That meant he could always be present, often serving his own needs or motives, without betraying an oath to the Federation, our heroes, and without betraying the overall sense of what Star Trek holds up as "right".
     
  7. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Which is not something I need.
     
  8. brandnewfan

    brandnewfan Commander Red Shirt

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    I want a mix of serialized and episodic.
     
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  9. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think every individual episode should be a completely disjointed and unrelated series of scenes.
     
  10. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It should be a compilation of the crew's tiktoks
     
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  11. Bornin1980something

    Bornin1980something Captain Captain

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    What?
     
  12. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Exactly. Audiences should be saying "What?" after ever scene.
     
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  13. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    [​IMG]
     
  14. RuleofAcuisition17

    RuleofAcuisition17 Commander Red Shirt

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    Or DS9 which had already done this successfully 30 years earlier.

    The purpose of episodic episoding was very simple and very practical from a business standpoint.

    When you episodise a show you can (technically) throw it out into any old broadcast order and it doesn't matter. This was so networks could syndicate the shows to affilate and other networks and someone could catch an episode without any real hangups on the season. This is why characters effectively "reset" at the opening of each episode, the never grow our evolve past their baseline because syndication was very important.

    You can't watch SNW in any order, it's very much got its own season long arcs within, they're just all character driven rather than planet/monster/enemy of the week. Uhura's confidence crisis, Hemmer's introduction (and passing) La'an Noonien Soong's own past with the Gorn, Spock's duel nature, Nurse Chapel's own relationship and comitment issues, Dr M'benga's Dohtah (I'm sorry, I love his voice and pronunciation too much) Pike's ticking clock... In fact the only characters we've seen so far that don't get deep, own driven episodes so far are Ortega and Una, and she's clearly getting hers to hook in to Season 2.


    No.
     
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  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    To a limited extent. DS9 was mostly an episodic show, but it had a strong continuity (a concept that the word "serialization" is frequently confused with these days) and experimented with serialized arcs at the start of season 6 and the latter half of season 7. It was a forerunner of modern serialized shows, but it's oversimplifying to call its approach identical to theirs.



    There was more to it than that. Before home video, there was no guarantee you'd be able to see every episode of a show. You might not be home that day, or there could be so much interference in the TV signal that you couldn't tell what was going on. There was no guarantee you'd get to see the entire series, so the priority was to make each individual installment as self-contained and satisfying as it could be, a whole story in itself rather than just a chapter. The emphasis was on the parts, while today, because of the way viewing patterns have changed, the emphasis has shifted to the whole.

    Also, serialization did exist back then, but it was seen as the purview of daytime soap operas and children's shows, stories simple and repetitive enough that it wouldn't matter much if you missed the odd episode, and thus was seen as cheesy and disreputable. The classiest shows in early TV were the anthologies, so even shows with continuing casts aspired to be anthology-like, hence creating situations where the protagonists moved to a different town or planet every week or adopted a different identity because they were on the run.

    Modern audiences have this egotistical notion that we're smarter than people back then because they were too dumb to figure out serialization. But serialization has been around since the days of print magazines and radio. Heck, it's probably been around since antiquity, since there's no way an oral storyteller could've gotten through the entire Iliad or Odyssey in one night. It's only the fashions that have shifted.
     
  16. Farscape One

    Farscape One Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I am not really a fan of the heavy serialization of the seasons of DISCO and PIC because, as has been mentioned by others, they don't really stick the landing and a lot of the middle episodes just meander. A story that could have been done in 6 or 7 episodes is stretched to 10 or 13... it's really annoying.

    DS9 was the best of both worlds... episodic with serialization peppered in.

    Or an even better example... ENT season 4. Best case scenario... a season full of 2-3 episode arcs with a few standalones mixed in. It not only was great for storytelling, but it also helped the budget... instead of the cost of building new sets for 20 plus episodes, you cut that number 1/3-1/2, for example. (I know ENT season 4 budget was slashed hard, which likely was a factor that led to the mini-arc season. Necessity really is the mother of invention...)



    Regarding head writers, I will say this... people compare DS9 and VGR a lot. Both shows had serialization as a way to go almost built into the pilot. One show did many arcs, and did it well... the other hardly did it at all. The less arced one had many more missed opportunities, and jumped up and down on the reset button hard. A lot of things felt inconsistent, like Janeway's characterization at times. (Completely steadfast in respecting boundaries and borders one episode, the next violating territory on purpose because they were 'a bunch of bullies'.) I can attribute part of that to having so many changing heads over its run... MichaelPiller/Jeri Taylor, then Jeri Taylor, then Brannon Braga, then Kenneth Biller. DS9 had only one changeover... from Piller to Ira Steven Behr. Plus, their writing staff didn't change that much for a good chunk of its run. DS9, quite honestly, had a better flow to their seasons and their characters, and were far more consistent with both.

    By contrast, DISCO seasons 1 and 2 was an utter and complete mess. Both seasons had heavy issues with showrunners and writers. Seasons 3 and 4, while still not quite sticking the landing, are better at being more consistant.

    There's something to be said about stability at the top and keeping your writers around for more than a season.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Oh, on the contrary. The premise of Voyager was designed to be episodic. Voyager's journey toward home was merely an excuse to give the ship a mission that kept it moving continuously from world to world, episode to episode, in the same way that Richard Kimble being on the run from the law in The Fugitive compelled him to move to a new town every week. It's the same kind of setup as many episodic shows like Lost in Space or Battlestar Galactica, where the characters have a specific goal that keeps driving them but is unlikely to be achieved in the lifetime of the series, so it's more a MacGuffin than anything else. If anything, it lent itself to a lack of plot continuity, because Voyager kept leaving behind the people and places they encountered. When characters or hostile species did recur, like Seska or the Vidiians, audiences complained, "Shouldn't they have been left behind by now?"

    As for DS9, its basic premises -- Sisko's mission to bring Bajor into the Federation and the opportunity to explore the Gamma Quadrant through the wormhole -- were the kind of open-ended setups that work for an episodic series, because they can generate numerous separate plots in pursuit of the same long-term goal.

    Granted, both shows had the inbuilt potential for continuity in their character arcs, but as I've said, that's not the same thing as serialization. Serialization doesn't just mean that storylines advance and characters grow and change over the course of a series. That's just continuity. A serial is specifically a story structure where a single continuous story spans multiple episodes -- where episodes are chapters in a single volume, rather than complete volumes in a series. DS9's premise encouraged continuity in that the characters stayed in the same place and could experience the consequences of their actions, but those consequences could be months or years down the road, not in the immediately following episode.


    No, the reason VGR didn't have much continuity is because UPN wouldn't let them. The network wanted a traditional episodic show like TNG, something where they could have flexibility in choosing the airdate order, and where casual viewers could drop in on an episode without being confused if they didn't see previous ones. After all, they were a new network still trying to expand their viewer base, so much of the audience would be expected to come aboard in the middle.

    Also, serialization in non-soap opera prime time dramas was still a novelty at the time, and UPN wanted something conventional, something that didn't take chances, because VGR was the anchor for their whole nascent network and they wanted it to be safe and reliable rather than taking creative risks. By contrast, DS9 was a syndicated show, so it didn't have network restrictions and was freer to take chances.

    Another main difference is that Rick Berman was more hands-on with VGR and the TNG movies, while he pretty much let Ira Behr have free rein with DS9. People focus on the showrunners, but one factor that gets overlooked, I gather, is how effective the showrunners were at standing up to Berman and convincing him to change his mind. I think Behr was the best at that, while Braga was the least effective at it. After all, the one consistent thing about Braga's later career as a showrunner is its lack of a unifying voice or vision. Pretty much everything he's done was created by someone else or co-created with someone else. Braga's strength is in helping other creators express their voices and visions.
     
  18. Farscape One

    Farscape One Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I agree with you about the UPN interference, and I have said so in the past. I said that there was a lot of inconsistency with the characters, Janeway being a stark example, and I said I attributed part of that to the changing of head writers, not the whole reason. Because you can be episodic and still be consistent with your characters.

    And both might have been designed as episodic, but they very much had serialization as something that's baked in. DS9, for example... Bajor finding out what it means to be free and trying to get Federation membership, Jake growing up, Sisko rebuilding his life again, etc. DS9, because it was not set primarily on a ship, can do things and actions and see the consequences of them later that season, every other season, or even years later. TOS and TNG almost never did that. It's one of the things that help give DS9 a sense of grounding... actions can have consequences down the road, just like in real life. And DS9 had over 20 recurring characters, all fleshed out, along with 9 main cast.

    VOYAGER's premise also had a similar setup... limited resources, two different crews with different philosophies having to work together, etc. Both the limited resources and the two crews having to work together were basically dropped quickly. And with Voyager being the ONLY Starfleet ship in the Delta Quadrant, with no way to get more officers, they should have had a lot more recurring characters on the ship. How many did we get? Carey, who was completely forgotten after season 1 (unless it was a time travel episode to further show it was the past) and killed off right before the finale; Michael Jonas, who only appeared in those 5 episodes 'Kazon traitor' arc in season 2; Seska, killed at the end of season 2 ('"BASICS, PART II" was filmed as the final episode of season 2, so I count it as such); Hogan, the same; Suder, only appeared in 3 episodes (all produced in season 2); Vorik, who had 3 episodes in season 3 (who was played by Jeri Taylor's son... coincidence that it was also the only season she was sole head writer?) and appeared, barely, about once per season afterward; Samantha Wildman, who appeared only a few times and completely disappeared after early season 5, despite having a growing daughter on board; Naomi Wildman; the Borg kids, who all left barely half a season later after only appwaring a couple times, except for Icheb; and Icheb. So from season 3 onward, they really had only 3 recurring people (Vorik, Naomi, Icheb), and 2 of them were really the last couple seasons? On a ship of only 150 people? And they basically ignored 1/3 of their lead cast from season 4 onward. There's just no excuse for that.

    They did take quite a while to get through Kazon space, but given that they made significant detours and backtracked a couple times, like in "JETREL" and "RESOLUTIONS", I can see them taking longer to get out of the area.

    We never see them take long to get past vast territories ever again, even though it sounded like it should have, like the Devore supposedly had a large empire and Krenim space. (The Hirogen didn't have territory because they completely nomadic. But they really should not have encountered them in season 7, given how far they traveled in those jumps from "NIGHT", "TIMELESS", "DARK FRONTIER", and "THE VOYAGER CONSPIRACY". Same with the Malon in "JUGGERNAUT".)

    About the only real arcs they did was Tom and B'Elanna, which I felt they handled organically and well (from just shipmates to friends to dating to marriage), and later the Pathfinder Project. The Doctor and Seven both had character arcs, too, but they very much dominated the series from season 4 onward.
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Which, again, is continuity, not serialization. People need to stop misusing that word. Serialization refers to structure, not continuity. A series can be entirely episodic in structure yet still have a strong, evolving continuity.

    I agree about the Malon, but it made perfect sense for the Hirogen to keep showing up. After all, they had been a nomadic starfaring civilization for more than a thousand years. If it only takes 75 years for a starship to cross 3/4 of the width of the galaxy, then a thousand years is more than enough time for a nomadic civilization to propagate through the majority of the galaxy. There could easily be Hirogen in all four quadrants.

    By the same token, it made sense that the Kazon, another nomadic people, were widespread enough that it took two years for Voyager to get out of their space. It made less sense that they kept encountering the Nistrim and Culluh, but that's justified in that Seska and Culluh were specifically pursuing them.
     
  20. Farscape One

    Farscape One Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The Hirogen appearing in season 7? Agreed. But there is no way the ones they encounter in season 7 could have had holographic technology from Voyager, because the Hirogen Janeway gave it to was all the way back in season 4... BEFORE those huge jumps in "NIGHT", "TIMELESS", "DARK FRONTIER", and "THE VOY.AGER CONSPIRACY". So how did the Hirogen in "FLESH AND BLOOD" have holograms as prey?

    Unless they had some kind of advanced warp drive or other advanced form of propulsion, which was never established in any episode with the Hirogen. So again, inconsistent.


    And DS9 did do serialization, 'structure wise', at least three times... the Circle trilogy, the beginning of season 6, and the final 10 episodes. There were also character episodes that tied extremely strongly together that they can almost be considered serialized... for example, Sisko and his accepting his role as Emissary in "DESTINY", "ACCESSION", and "RAPTURE". (Seasons 3, 4, and 5 respectively.) Or what about helping to get Bajor admittance into the Federation (a story point, not a character ome), which were Sisko's orders in the pilot. That was also a major point in season 4's "CROSSFIRE", which was cutting the timetable for admittance, and season 5's "RAPTURE", which was about to happen if Ben didn't tell them about the visions.

    When did VGR do it? The Jonas episodes in season 2. That's it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2023