‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Renewed for Fifth and Final Season
- Thread starter Precious Tritium
- Start date
Folks still harping about not getting 26 episodes and seven seasons seem to have no grasp of the reality of the television business landscape. If viewers still want that, they're not doing any favors abandoning terrestrial television networks in favor of streaming. That's where all the money AND talent have gravitated towards. Nobody with aspirations of writing for a television series would want to work on a terrestrial network like CBS unless you were fine with settling for procedural/medical dramas. And genre shows? Forget about it.
I'm not surprised it's ending after season 5. I am a little surprised it's not getting the same 10 episodes last the previous, but the streaming landscape has drastically changed even in the last 5 years.
I mean NCIS still has ~20 episodes per season, with also a smaller cast, but high production value.
It's definitely do-able.
It will just be even less able to compete with Star Wars & Marvel streaming shows on the level of action, vfx, set pieces, alien make-up and costumes etc.
With genre shows being so common today, and having such a high expectation of looking like a fucking movie did ten years ago, they just don't dare to do some cheap bottle-episodes and planet-of-the-weeks.
NCIS is a procedural drama, they're very cheap and easy to produce. Waaaay different from a Trek production. Even if Trek returned to a network channel doing bottle episodes and planet of the weeks it would still be considerably expensive.
I didn't make that first comment, but I do think it is sad! Predictable, unsurprising, and also sad.Not saying it’s a widespread thing, but without wanting to call people out, just a couple of posts up we have someone in this thread calling the news that it’ll go to five seasons “very sad news”.
I used to work in entertainment and announcements like these always bum me out. It's sad how the idiots in charge wrecked the industry economy so completely that even highly successful series can no longer financially justify long runs.
You are right. Sad ≠ surprised. “Very sad news” conveyed as sense of being surprised about the fact that it is so; but I probably read that wrong.
NCIS also experienced budget cuts recently, due to declining viewership. That's not a NCIS problem, that's a terrestrial network problem.
SUPERMAN & LOIS had an average budget of $5 million. That's probably what Trek would get today on CBS if they wanted to bring Trek back to the airwaves. That would be perfectly fine by me. Have plenty of bottle episodes, planet of the weeks, save the bigger shows for sweeps weeks.
However, viewership has significantly dropped over the last decade. It's gotten so bad that Trek would stand no chance. This is partly why CBS opted for streaming instead of bringing back Trek to the airwaves. They saw the decline, even though at the time broadcast and cable still had more viewers than streaming. That had completely flipped during COVID. Trouble is, the streaming bubble is bursting, and viewers aren't going back to traditional networks.
It's similar to how back in the day people were outraged that UPN canceled Enterprise and renewed Veronica Mars despite the fact that Enterprise had higher ratings, not taking into account that they could probably make three episodes of Veronica Mars on the budget of one episode of Enterprise.
That's right. We're not even at the half way point. And we have no real idea what that 5th season will be like. Will it be 6 episodes and a movie? Will it be 6 episodes with bigger budgets and longer running times? I'm taking the news as positive. Could it be Doom and gloom once SNW is done? Sure. But that's YEARS away at this point. I'm just happy more SNW is on the way.
Another option is that S5 is more of a mini-series story rather than six standalone episodes. Perhaps have it be about the final mission with Pike in command. Last shot of the show is Kirk stepping onto the bridge with his captain stripes on his sleeves.
If they were going to cut the amount of episodes for the final season...
At least make it 7. A STAR TREK series should end up with 47 episodes at some point. This was a missed opportunity...
At least make it 7. A STAR TREK series should end up with 47 episodes at some point. This was a missed opportunity...
I like that idea!
Starfleet Acaemdy is one of those? And what's the other one?
Tawny Newsome's workplace comedy
Looking at the timeline on Memory Alpha...
It seems there is going to be a time jump, and also is heavily rumored that the centennial of the founding of the Federation is going to take place in season 3, putting this season (or at least part of it) in 2261. Assuming the five-year mission started in 2259 with "Strange New Worlds," (and the logic of Spock's "Menagerie" line as referenced above), it would logically end in 2264. So there's got to be a lot of time jumping if the series will make it to either: the end of Pike's second five-year mission, Kirk taking command of the Enterprise or Pike's accident.
Unless they just say eff the timeline and just figure it out.
- Spock joins the Enterprise in 2253 ("Q&A")
- "The Cage" takes place in 2254.
- "Such Sweet Sorrow" takes place in 2258
- Apparently all of seasons 1 and 2 of SNW (and presumably "Hegemony, Part II") take place in 2259.
- Roger Korby sends his last transmission in 2261.
- Logically, because of Spock's service with Pike ("11 years, four months, five days" from "The Menagerie"), Pike leaves the Enterprise in 2264 (or early 2265).
- Memory Alpha suggests that "by 2265," Kirk takes command of the Enterprise.
- "Where No Man Goes Before" takes place in 2265.
- Pike has his accident in 2266.
- "The Menagerie" takes place in 2267.
- Kirk's Five Year Mission ends in 2270.
It seems there is going to be a time jump, and also is heavily rumored that the centennial of the founding of the Federation is going to take place in season 3, putting this season (or at least part of it) in 2261. Assuming the five-year mission started in 2259 with "Strange New Worlds," (and the logic of Spock's "Menagerie" line as referenced above), it would logically end in 2264. So there's got to be a lot of time jumping if the series will make it to either: the end of Pike's second five-year mission, Kirk taking command of the Enterprise or Pike's accident.
Unless they just say eff the timeline and just figure it out.
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