Agreed.
Discovery ending with Season 5
- Thread starter The Habs Fan
- Start date
We knew nothing of the helm officers in TNG once Wesley left. One woman was in dozens of episodes and we knew nothing about her. We knew nothing about those regular bridge officers standing behind worf pushing random buttons. What did they do? They were on the bridge and we knew nothing about their assignments, their names, or lives.
It's because people have their own ideas of how long a show should run for. If it stops short of what they expect, it's considered a cancellation. Some still expect a Trek series to run for as long as the shows in the 90s did.
I'm sure Discovery's life was cut shorter than the producers hoped, but that just happens sometimes. Other than season 1, I think Discovery could have technically ended with seasons 2, 3, or 4. Hell, I remember when season 4 concluded, a friend and I wondered, for a moment, if that was the final episode and we just missed some news.
Why do people still say this? Agreed GVN. These are background characters, they normally get zero development at all on any Trek series. The fact they do even a little bit on Discovery shows how much they develop characters. None are the same from when they started.
I dunno. Sounds like everyone was expecting a sixth season until quite recently, and there might be some selective reshoots/rewrites of the season finale to work as a series finale.
That sounds like cancellation to me. Just cancelation with enough advanced notice to fix things.
That's not how words work.
If we're defining a show coming to an end as being cancelled, every single thing that has ever aired on TV in the past and is not currently producing new content has been cancelled and should hereafter be referred to in that terminology, regardless of whether or not they were properly concluded.
And, yes, what I just typed is ridiculous, because, again, that's not how it works.
IMHO, it's always a cancelation unless it's a limited series/the show always had a planned arc of X number of seasons.
In retrospect I'd argue that even TNG was canceled, because it's clear the actors (and writers) would have liked to have gone for additional series, but Paramount wanted them free to do the movies.
DS9 and and VOY were not cancelled really however, because there was never any real expectation they were going to get more seasons than TNG.
Then please, tell us what is actually defined as a cancellation?
I would argue that any show that has enough prior notice that it isn't being renewed so it gets to have a proper ending is not cancelled, it just concludes.
The Expanse was cancelled on SyFy. It ended on Amazon Prime. (except it didn't, so maybe I picked a bad example).
I was dismayed they didn't even make a pretense -- they could have announced earlier that this would be the final season and pretended like that was what the show runners wanted. Instead, they straight-up canned it. It's nice that they're letting them film a little more to add an ending, but this is clearly a cancellation.
I do worry about what that means for the future of streaming Trek.
But by that standard, Enterprise wasn't canceled either. After all, they got enough advanced notice to have These are the Voyages...
Hell, ENT had in a certain sense more advanced notice than DIS. ENT was told they were canceled while Season 4 was still filming. DIS was told after season 5's principal photography was done.
that's fair, and I would include Ent in a series that wasn't cancelled but ended. In the end you're right, most shows ARE cancelled, and it just involves how much notice they get.
Problem is, that's what happened here. Even at Star Trek day 2022, everyone was saying we were going to see Discovery season 5 in 2023. Why was it moved to 2024 now? Because Paramount+ decided to cancel the show while it is still somewhat popular, and they want to leverage that popularity for the next year as it goes on a "farewell tour" over the next year.
It's just a fact that the Golden Age of streaming is over. Going forward all the streamers are going to be producing less content a year, and doing it more cheaply then they have been because to date no streamer has shown a profit as yet. Yes they have a large cash flow going, but they're spending more money on the content then they're taking in from the subscriptions.
Plus, if in the end streaming does completely kill cable, there's no rerun outlet for any of these shows; they just sit on the streaming service decides they're not even worth the royalty payments to keep them up on the streaming service.
As a contrast remember that in the days of broadcast and cable TV, most Network TV series Lost money during their network run. Where they made money was in the syndication deals for daily repeats after they went off the air.
So yeah, depending on how successful streaming is in ending that paradigm; the new paradigm will be every show needs to make money during its first run on streaming.
So all the streamers are now switching strategy, and they're going to be spending less money per episode, and probably producing less individual series.
I also really have to wonder if some of the higher-ups in Paramount management are now regretting buying out the Netflix deal they had for Discovery. That cost them a pretty penny, and it also may have factored into the decision to end the show now. Of course knowing Netflix, even have the deal remained as it was, Netflix themselves may have pulled out around this time as well; which would have left Paramount with a similar decision anyway.
And I'm sure all the haters like Doomcock and his ilk are ecstatic, because now they'll have fresh fodder for their YouTube monetization streams for at least the next year.
As was noted upthread, the entirety of streaming is going through a contraction phase now. I don't think we're going to get no new Trek, but I do think we're going to be getting less stuff more spread out.
I don't think we'll see more than two live-action Trek shows on the air at once any longer. I have not a clue regarding the animated stuff, as it's a lot cheaper to produce.
I wish Paramount would fill the gap with more one-off things - feature lengths, specials, miniseries, etc. - but given Trek shows require a lot of custom sets and props, I would guess this usually isn't cost effective.
Well we don't know the circumstances behind Discovery ending yet. Considering it was announced 4 months after filming concluded, makes it seem like it was decided after the fact.
True, but a show announcing the end of its run because it got cancelled is another story. It seems like in the case of Discovery, P+ cancelled it. Season 5 was not planned or designed to be the last season by the producers. They're going back to film new footage to give it some kind of ending. Had they announced a renewal for season 6 and said season 6 would be its last season, that would be a show announcing the end of its run.
I should also say that while it could be that DIS was "on the bubble" for Season 6 as it was, the recent announcements regarding belt-tightening at Paramount (like all the major streamers) undoubtedly hastened this.
Which is probably for the best, because at least this gives Michelle Paradise a shot to wrap this thing up with reshoots.
Which is probably for the best, because at least this gives Michelle Paradise a shot to wrap this thing up with reshoots.
Having to go back and film new material for an ending is pretty much the biggest clue a show was cancelled. Your definition fits Discovery to a T.
Regardless, Discovery's cancellation and Picard's planned ending being around the same time stings.
If they announce any new show to replace it, I think I'll feel better. (My guess will be the Seven of Nine spin-off). And even though I don't care for a Section 31 show, now's actually the time where I'd happily embrace it!
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