Do we deserve more? 38 minutes

[balls]

I have not paid for CBS All Access yet. I took the free month earlier this month and caught up on Discovery. My feelings are mixed and I don't know if I'd pay for it on a regular basis - not because of feelings about how it fits canon or violence or language. I'm really disappointed that episode 12 was 38 minutes long. It strikes me that it's a limited season and people are paying for it, shouldn't they provide more? If I remember correctly TOS was originally 48 minutes and got cut down to 42 in syndication in the 70s. With DIS being on All Access, they have freedom to go long and still get the advertising dollars.
I apologize if I'm being too harsh in that sentiment, but for some reason, this fact of the episode troubles me. Maybe I am the "get off my lawn" old guy. To be fair, I haven't paid them anything yet (so I should stop my bitching)...

 

[Hey Missy]

When they expanded the first season episode count from 13 to 15, my impression is that "Vaulting Ambition" and a previous one (I can't remember which) clocked in under 40 minutes due to the fact they were last-minute additions.

 

[Romulan_spy]

With a streaming service like CBSAA that is not restricted to an on-air schedule, I would hope that they would make the episodes as long or as short as they need to be to properly tell the story that they want to tell. One of the problems with traditional TV is that since every ep has to be ~42 minutes long, they often have to do filler or edit things weird to make the ep fit. CBSAA should not have that issue. So, if one or two episodes are a bit shorter because that is all they need to tell a good story, I am ok with that. And if they give us some longer episodes because they need more time to tell the story, I am ok with that too. Basically, I want them to focus on telling good, creative stories and take as much as time or as little time as they need to do that well.

 

[Lord Garth]

I wonder how they'll handle this episode if they ever decide to syndicate the show on broadcast TV? SyFy, BBC America, or somewhere else might want to pick it up someday.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I don't get why people are so upset about this. I know there have been Star Trek episodes in the past with runtimes under 40 minutes.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I wonder how they'll handle this episode if they ever decide to syndicate the show on broadcast TV? SyFy, BBC America, or somewhere else might want to pick it up someday.

Add about 20 minutes of commercials?

 

[fireproof78]

"Deserve?" No. It is a product and if the consumer doesn't like it then we don't buy it. It's up to the producer to decide to respond.

 

[Cox of Seagulls]

They managed to tell the story in that amount of time. I'd rather it was shorter than padded out.

 

[Lord Garth]

Add about 20 minutes of commercials?

The horrible thing is I think they actually would do this.

No, I can't afford a Ford Minivan and I don't have to take Levitra. I'm not interested in a Reverse Mortgage either... and I don't need to see that Attorney at Law.

 

[Romulan_spy]

The horrible thing is I think they actually would do this.

No, I can't afford a Ford Minivan and I don't have to take Levitra. I'm not interested in a Reverse Mortgage either... and I don't need to see that Attorney at Law.

Honestly, this is a big reason why I love no commercials streaming. Finally, I get to just watch my show straight through without annoying commercials every 8 minutes.

 

[Mudd]

Have they done any episodes that ran long?

One of the advantages of streaming is obviously that there can be more variation in length from episode to episode. The only reason for consistently keeping them substantially under an hour would be a plan to eventually syndicate to basic cable, which seems pretty unlikely.

More likely is that when they added two additional episodes to the season late in production they removed some material from a couple of shows to include in later episodes because they felt it fit the story flow better. It can be expensive and complicated to go back, reshoot and "pad" shows that then run short.

 

[CorporalClegg]

They managed to tell the story in that amount of time.

Actually, I'd argue it's quite the opposite. It was more of a transitional/juncture episode - something common in serial stories. I'm not really a fan of them, but I understand their purpose.

And it ended with the natural break.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

If that's how long the story was that they had to tell, I'm fine with them not adding a bunch of pointless filler to beef up the run time for the sake of making it conform to typical Trek broadcast episode lengths. Besides, this episode never felt short to me or that it rushed by.

I could sort of see your point if they were consistently offering only shorter episodes, that as a paying customer it might not be worth the expense, but just a few is no big deal.

Also bear in mind that the streaming format and lack of time slots and blocking for commercials means that if they need to tell a longer story than you'd typically do for a one hour broadcast episode, they can do that too. I know The Vulcan Hello clocks in at 43:30, which is consistent with your typical 42 minute broadcast episode, but Context is for Kings came in at 48:34, so they added a bit for what was essentially a second intro episode showing us the Discovery and her crew.

 

[Mage]

This is one of the most silly complaints sofar about this show.

"Oh no, I was robbed of a few minutes of Star Trek!!" On actual tv, these shows NEED to be an exact number of minutes, to (including commercials) fill in a timeslot. That's why previous shows were always near to the second in terms of length. Thankfully, with streaming services, they can either add or take away to make sure the story is told properly, instead of trimming away stuff or adding fillercrap.

 

[CorporalClegg]

It kind of reminds whenever the servers [insert your favorite online game here] crash and are down for any length of time. People always complain about being refunded extra game time - even if the value amounts to about a quarter.

 

[Dijeirusan]

Sweet Jesus. You have an entire season of episodes that run well over 42 minutes, and you're complaining one episode was 4 mins shorter. Get some perspective and change your attitude. The episode was exactly the right length, and ended organically where it should have.

 

[Mudd]

This is one of the most silly complaints sofar about this show.

So much so that not even I can "ditto" it.

 

[guyute03]

Discovery is not traditional TV. It's on a streaming service which allows them to tell stories at the length they see fit without having to worry about filling a time slot. The show doesn't even have a firm start time. They throw it up online whenever they want to, usually very early.

Whether this is worth the price of a subscription to a streaming service, possibly only for one show, Trek, is a personal, subjective thing. Everyone should obviously decide this for themselves.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

One of the things I really like about a streaming model like this is that the writers aren't beholden to filling time slots and catering to fixed commercial breaks. They can tell the story they want to tell in the time it takes to tell it. Working a story around ads and time slots has sometimes caused episodes to have weak or unnecessary B plots or pacing issues.

I prefer a great, breezy 30 minute episode over a bloated 50 minute episode.

 

[seigezunt]

We don't deserve it. We aren't worthy.