Sorry. And thank you.
Do you prefer Star Trek TV shows to have stand alone episodes or serialized stories?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
Both can work really well, and it really depends on the intent of the writing. Obviously serialised writing on The Sopranos and The Wire was necessary, and allowed the shows to explore their themes and characters in great depth, however too many modern shows are needlessly serialised and the writers don't have the chops to make it much more than soap opera. Lots of shows that would be fine throwaway entertainment spoil their allure by asking you to commit to a large mount of hours just to know what's going on, when nothing they are doing is particularly complicated in the first place.
A pet peeve of mine is when somebody recommends something but says it doesn't get good until season 2 or 3 etc. As if committing to 20 hours of story just for payoff is reasonable, some films give you more to think about in less than 90 minutes than some shows do in multiple season runs.
So in Star Trek it all depends what the writers are doing as well. Discovery, at this early stage, seems to be telling a war story, which is going to benefit from heavily serialised writing in order to explore the full scope of the war. However, if they wanted to do something more like TNG where they use the established characters and setting as a framework to explore a different concept every week, then there is really no need to make it heavily serialised. When they try to do this in shows they usually give you paint-by-numbers romantic interests which aren't really interesting (Troi and Riker's relationship was hardly gratifying television).
Although it is nice to have through lines and call backs that are well handled, there is a peculiar joy in noticing little details or having story lines that a show can come back to. Buffy and Angel, for example, balanced episodic and serialised television really well. The X-Files did too, until the mythology got a bit unwieldy.
TL;DR A little from column A, a little from column B. But it is all down to context and basically not up to us.
A pet peeve of mine is when somebody recommends something but says it doesn't get good until season 2 or 3 etc. As if committing to 20 hours of story just for payoff is reasonable, some films give you more to think about in less than 90 minutes than some shows do in multiple season runs.
So in Star Trek it all depends what the writers are doing as well. Discovery, at this early stage, seems to be telling a war story, which is going to benefit from heavily serialised writing in order to explore the full scope of the war. However, if they wanted to do something more like TNG where they use the established characters and setting as a framework to explore a different concept every week, then there is really no need to make it heavily serialised. When they try to do this in shows they usually give you paint-by-numbers romantic interests which aren't really interesting (Troi and Riker's relationship was hardly gratifying television).
Although it is nice to have through lines and call backs that are well handled, there is a peculiar joy in noticing little details or having story lines that a show can come back to. Buffy and Angel, for example, balanced episodic and serialised television really well. The X-Files did too, until the mythology got a bit unwieldy.
TL;DR A little from column A, a little from column B. But it is all down to context and basically not up to us.
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I guess it depends on what kind of series we're talking about. Both have their place.
TNG, stand alone episodes work well.
24, not so much stand alone episodes...
TNG, stand alone episodes work well.
24, not so much stand alone episodes...
I prefer stand-alone stories, as much more ground gets covered in episodic television.
Serialised episodes tend to just keep milking a half decent idea, instead of really doing anything with the string of shows. So many opportunities to get all into the minutiae of whatever the story's about end up wasted in favour of just having back-to-back episodes about the same thing. The more these shitty-assed writers drag out a single them or storyline, the more glaring their flaws become. And the more padding and filler content these shows contain.
Occasional two-parters are more than enough and are much better for being condensed, in that fashion. Can you just imagine how cliché-filled and unremarkable "Duet" would've become had it gone on for several episodes? These writers were never going to get all into it, making up intriguing detail after detail ... they would start to lean on standard TV tropes to meet their deadlines and make their ill-gotten jobs easier. That's not how to entice me into committing to watching a series that just drives one half-decent idea into the ground ... episode after episode.
Serialised episodes tend to just keep milking a half decent idea, instead of really doing anything with the string of shows. So many opportunities to get all into the minutiae of whatever the story's about end up wasted in favour of just having back-to-back episodes about the same thing. The more these shitty-assed writers drag out a single them or storyline, the more glaring their flaws become. And the more padding and filler content these shows contain.
Occasional two-parters are more than enough and are much better for being condensed, in that fashion. Can you just imagine how cliché-filled and unremarkable "Duet" would've become had it gone on for several episodes? These writers were never going to get all into it, making up intriguing detail after detail ... they would start to lean on standard TV tropes to meet their deadlines and make their ill-gotten jobs easier. That's not how to entice me into committing to watching a series that just drives one half-decent idea into the ground ... episode after episode.
Absolutely prefer serialized. I'm a big reader, and a serialized TV drama feels like watching a novel, chapter by chapter. I'm not much on collections of short stories, and that's what episodic TV feels like.
At the very least, I like the idea of an episodic A-plot and serialized B- and C-plots.
At the very least, I like the idea of an episodic A-plot and serialized B- and C-plots.
It depends there is nothing wrong with a mix of stand alone and more seralised or the semi-seralised shows.
But even in standalone shows (unless it's anatholgy) I still expect it continuity. Don't say you can't do something in one episode and you can suddently do it 4 episodes later without explaining it.
But even in standalone shows (unless it's anatholgy) I still expect it continuity. Don't say you can't do something in one episode and you can suddently do it 4 episodes later without explaining it.
A collection of short stories is like the Twilight Zone. The closest Star Trek to that is the original show. The other ones have all sorts of ongoing plotlines.
I think either format can be(and often is) guilty of that.
Serialized please. Episodic often feels a bit rushed or incomplete.
Yep. There's nothing better than watching six episodes of material stretched out to fifteen or twenty episodes, like many modern shows do.
Yeah, I like this flexibility. Some stories can be told in a stand alone. Some stories best unfold in a longer format-as I recall, even TOS had a two-parter.
And BTW, while I think Trek should emphasize drama, an occasional light hearted stand alone can be a nice change of pace.
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