Do you prefer the shorter, more focused seasons?

[DarKush]

My viewing habits and tastes have changed over the years and so I'm fine with shorter, more concentrated seasons. That doesn't preclude that you still can't have character development episodes inside of that, just find a way to tie it to the overarching story.

I don't feel that contemporary American television shows can sustain 20 plus episode seasons without a good deal of those seasons being a waste. I would prefer no more than 8-16 (and I'm being generous with 16) episode seasons from now on.

 

[Campe]

I am fine with individual or serialized stories. I would prefer good stories. If that involves 13 as opposed to 26 episodes giving the writers more time to develop something worthwhile. My time is limited these days and prefer quality over quantity.

 

[Jadeb]

I don't need 26 eps, but I don't think shorter seasons necessarily means better quality or fewer filler eps. The two big story arcs last season felt like two-part episodes stretched waaaay out, IMO, and then we still got two fillers (the Mudd story and the Mysterious Planet of No Consequence).

I would guess it's really hard to come up with enough story to fill a serialized season, and there's real danger to trying to write to fill time. You saw this on the old Doctor Who, where they would stretch stories over more episodes to save costs. You got lots of running down corridors and people getting captured and imprisoned. (Sound familiar, L'Rell?)

Just let the stories be whatever length they need to be, whether one ep, three or 10.

 

[eschaton]

Just let the stories be whatever length they need to be, whether one ep, three or 10.

I noticed recently with some of the shows my kids watch on Netflix that very short "seasons" (like six episodes or so) come out 2-3 times per year. It's probably only feasible for animated shows, but it seems an interesting way to do things.

Hell, if you release shows the Netflix/Amazon Prime way and drop entire seasons all at once why even bother having episodes at all? You could just have one nine-hour movie, but people would want to take 3-5 breaks at various points. Maybe it makes more sense with that model if everything eventually drifts to a "movie" format. The average outing could be 1.5 to 3 hours long, with occasional two or three parters. It certainly would seem to fit the serialized "no discrete episodes" format better.

 

[Campe]

I noticed recently with some of the shows my kids watch on Netflix that very short "seasons" (like six episodes or so) come out 2-3 times per year. It's probably only feasible for animated shows, but it seems an interesting way to do things.

Hell, if you release shows the Netflix/Amazon Prime way and drop entire seasons all at once why even bother having episodes at all? You could just have one nine-hour movie, but people would want to take 3-5 breaks at various points. Maybe it makes more sense with that model if everything eventually drifts to a "movie" format. The average outing could be 1.5 to 3 hours long, with occasional two or three parters. It certainly would seem to fit the serialized "no discrete episodes" format better.

Now, that's an interesting idea. I think with kids, putting them together is a terrible idea. In fact, as a soon-to-be-parent, I would want episodes shorter. But I also don't want my children's lives spent in 25 minute increments in front of a screen. (That's just me. No judgment.)

But for adults, I kinda agree with the idea of just dumping a 2.5-3 hour movie, particularly if it would normally just be dumped in 3-4 episodes over a period of time (or all at once.) Interesting thinking. Don't know that it will ever happen but maybe.

 

[marlboro]

I'm a fan of older tv shows, and the best ones were able to produce high quality content even when they had to do 25 to 30 episodes per year. Even the best shows will have some clunkers. It's unavoidable.

I understand the mindset of using all of your resources to produce the best episodes possible, but that only works if you expend your assets wisely. If you have a 50 million dollar budget and instead of hiring high quality writers you spend all of it on creating a photorealistic image of a turnip, what was the point?

So, if you have the writers, actors, and money to do 25 episodes per year - do it. If you only have the resources for 13 that's fine, too. But if you have the budget to do 26, but spend it all on 13, you better make sure they're damn good.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Thing is: Those 10 "filler" episodes sometimes are the absolute best episodes Trek ever mad: DS9's "Duet" was a mere bottle-show to save costs. It's my favourite DS9 episode. DIS "Magic to make the sanest man go mad" was one of the "cost-savers" - only made to feature a time-loop to save on costs. It's often refered to as the best or second-best episode of the entire first season of DIS.

I'm a big fan of one-concept episodes, because that's where we can truly see the imaginative stuff. Whereas their overly plotted "main" arcs often feel created by comitee - which they are. They have to. But sometimes I just like to see writers-gone-wild, giving us two or three bad episodes in a row, only to deliver a truly magnificant stand-alone once in a while.

I don’t think you understand what “okay” means, it does not mean filler and “Magic” was far from one of Disco’s okay episodes. It was a great episode.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I think 10-13 episodes works fine if we'd get them actually every year. Taking ~2 years like now is too little content for too long.

There was only 11 months between seasons, not two years. Assuming a third season is announced, we'll likely get it in 2020. That sounds pretty good to me. It's how cable shows have worked for a long time now where they drop a series of episodes for 10-15 consecutive weeks, as opposed to the traditional Fall to Spring broadcasting schedule with a lot of arbitrary breaks in between. Looking back at the scheduling of past shows, particularly Berman era, it's weird how sometimes a show would be on break for a month, then we'd get only two episodes before another break hit, and so on.

http://startreklist.blogspot.com/2011/04/list-of-all-star-trek-episodes-sorted_05.html

 

[eschaton]

Thinking about it more, short seasons is different from serialized. You could easily have short seasons and mostly episodic storytelling. It's harder to imagine a long season which is fully serialized and done well. I suppose ENT tried, but many of the stories were (despite what people think) basically standalones except for the framing device of the Xindi threat.

 

[DS9ers]

Back in the day, I loved having so many episodes of Star Trek. A lot of bottle episodes allowed for character studies.

But there have been a ton of changes to viewing habits over the last 20 years. Seasons have become shorter and shorter. I have a love/hate relationship with them. Some shows do this really well. While others, not so much.

If we only have one show a year I would hope we end up with 18-20 episodes season. I feel like you could easily split that into two meaningful arcs plus have some fat to add character development outside of the main cast.

If we are getting multiple shows a year I am good with 13-15 episodes a season. But because they excise the fat, it will take a long time for us to have any clear indication of who everyone is.

 

[Vger23]

I much prefer the shorter seasons. I don't have time to devote that much effort into following a show....even Star Trek.

I would prefer better use of the run-time flexibility however. 13-15 episodes at an hour each are far better than 13-15 at 43 min each. Use the longer run-time to organically flesh out characters and secondary story ideas...rather than horrific "Insert Character's Name Here Episodes" that plagued the Berman Era of Star Trek.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I was listening to "The Good Place" podcast the other day and Kristen Bell noted regarding their show's 13-episode season, that modern network shows with a 22-episode season start strong enough every year, then spend episodes 14-19 with nothing to do but stretch and fill time. I can arguably see that in the full-season shows with strong story arcs that I watch today, notably the CW superhero shows.

For Trek, people do like both, and so a mix of both is good for me. I don't mind paying attention enough to remember salient points from week 2 that have a payoff in week 15; but plenty of others (my wife included), can't be bothered and would rather enjoy the ride in discrete hour-long chunks. I'm happy splitting the difference and having some good, focused standalones peppering the main arc, assuming they don't get in the way. Real life may not work like that, but I personally prefer the idea that our heroes don't spend every waking moment of their lives wholeheartedly working to resolve one big threat to the Federation, but do get the odd week off to put out a brush fire or explore some weird planet (and have a laugh while they're at it).

Mark

 

[cultcross]

Thinking about it more, short seasons is different from serialized.

Exactly; you can still have standalones like "Duet" (although this is the first time I've ever heard that called 'filler'!) And have 10-13 episode seasons. It also doesn't have to mean infinite budget - I think there is good evidence that having to scrimp makes writers more clever and creative. There's nothing about a shorter season that requires total serialisation - it is just that the two trends have coexisted in contemporary television.

 

[eschaton]

Real life may not work like that, but I personally prefer the idea that our heroes don't spend every waking moment of their lives wholeheartedly working to resolve one big threat to the Federation, but do get the odd week off to put out a brush fire or explore some weird planet (and have a laugh while they're at it).

The thing is, having a 10-to-15 episode arc which involves a galactic threat every single season (which is then mostly wrapped up) is just as arbitrary as having a 1-2 episode arc which involves a smaller threat which is mostly wrapped up by the credits. In both cases the stories are being either artificially lengthened or shortened due to the needs of the broadcaster, rather than flowing organically.

The more I think about it, I think my preferred way for Trek to be released in the modern era is basically short seasons of variable lengths, released with gaps. Like, say Season 3 of Discovery started was a tight, six-episode arc about a particular conflict. Then there was a little break. Then we came back and a block of 3-4 standalone adventures. Then, after another few months, another five-episode arc. It would be a much more organic way to produce the series, because you wouldn't have to worry about screwing up momentum mid-season.

 

[Gabriel]

I definitely don't miss the 26 episode seasons because generally there would be about 16 shit episodes, about 8 ok ones and 2 classic ones. When I do rewatches of the older series, i find myself skipping a lot of episodes, even DS9 and I love DS9.

I find out that’s only thing I do consistently with all series. Skipping the not so good episodes

 

[Gabriel]

Yeah shorter seasons are better maybe not 13 episodes but 20 or something would be good because if you take a look back at much older shows in the 50s and 60s most of them burn out because they had so many episodes in seasons they just end up running out of material or repeating and just changing a few things

 

[Jadeb]

it would have been a tragedy if TOS season one had been only 10 episodes.

Conversely, I doubt season three would have been great even had it only been 10. Water finds it level.

 

[Gabriel]

it would have been a tragedy if TOS season one had been only 10 episodes.

Conversely, I doubt season three would have been great even had it only been 10. Water finds it level.

Hey season three has its moments. Very few but it does

 

[Turtletrekker]

I like the approach that Agents of SHIELD took in its fourth and fifth seasons in order to keep it interesting through 22 episodes. They told tighter stories by breaking the story down into two or three distinct "story pods" with a common thread running through. It helped to avoid the tire-spinning that plagued the third and most particulary the first season.

 

[Mudd]

"Filler" means nothing other than "I didn't like that one." The idea that shows produce filler episodes is the same kind of Internet Stoopid that invents notions like "head canon."