This is kinda a mundane question, but I think an important one: how long should a season be in this new Star Trek show? Traditionally Star Trek seasons have been around 26 episodes, but that seems like par for the course for the 90s, rather then now. A lot of recent shows have much smaller seasons and there is a advantage to that, you spend more money on fewer episodes and you can focus on tighter story telling. I think it would make sense for a new Star Trek season to be 13 episodes, rather then 26.
How long should a season be in this new Star Trek show?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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January 2017 is a midseason premiere, which makes me think it'll be a tighter 13 episode season.
When you look at the best and most popular shows today like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Mr. Robot, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Fargo, they all have 10-13 episode seasons which are heavily serialized, as it allows for better storytelling and higher quality per episode.
Then you look at other modern sci-fi shows like Doctor Who, The Expanse, Orphan Black, Sense8, etc., they all have 10-13 episode seasons too.
One of the largest flaws that past Trek shows had was the amount of filler episodes, and that could be attributed to the 26 episode format which was largely episodic. In this day and age, there's no reason to do that other than "tradition", I guess.
When you look at the best and most popular shows today like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Mr. Robot, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Fargo, they all have 10-13 episode seasons which are heavily serialized, as it allows for better storytelling and higher quality per episode.
Then you look at other modern sci-fi shows like Doctor Who, The Expanse, Orphan Black, Sense8, etc., they all have 10-13 episode seasons too.
One of the largest flaws that past Trek shows had was the amount of filler episodes, and that could be attributed to the 26 episode format which was largely episodic. In this day and age, there's no reason to do that other than "tradition", I guess.
We still don't know how they plan on releasing them, weekly or all at once, will it be more serialized or standalone, or a combination of both, ensemble cast or only several leads, how big of a budget are we talking about, etc. so I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what they're actually planing.
I'm fine with whatever really, if I had to pick a number then 20. Released in two batches of 10.
I'm fine with whatever really, if I had to pick a number then 20. Released in two batches of 10.
I agree shorter seasons allow for better quality. Look at some of the shows with longer seasons nowadays, Arrow and the Flash come to mind. While fun to watch the quality dips throughout the season. 10-15 episodes would be best but even if the first season is short who's to say subsequent seasons won't be 20 episodes or longer. Voyagers first season was short (16 episodes) but then went to 26 episode seasons.
Hmm what if not a year between seasons getting CBSAA subscribers to have it more than a 3 month subscription in a calendar year for their year-end earnings?
Of course CBSAA would milk this by making it say 13 episodes making you subscribe for 4 months rather than 3 if they release 12 episodes in 12 weeks. Now doing it in 2 batches is interesting from a story perspective not a business perspective.
What about if season 1 was 16 episodes and season 2 was 18 episodes but started being released in October 2016 with a 2-week pause between December 20 and December 31?
Will they even call them seasons?
Probably yes since on linear TV in foreign markets.
I agree that 18 is a good compromise. Allows them to cut the filler out but still short enough to serialize.
I would bet on 13-16 episodes. Get everyone to subscribe to All Access 4 months.
I'd like a long season.
You get some gems when they're scraping for ideas and roll the dice on some off the wall episodes, but yeah some bad ones too.
I think it'll be 12 or 13 episodes though.
You get some gems when they're scraping for ideas and roll the dice on some off the wall episodes, but yeah some bad ones too.
I think it'll be 12 or 13 episodes though.
At least 13, with a maximum of 22.
10 to 13 episodes sounds good to me. Currently I am watching the final season of Person Of Interest. Despite its weird release schedule I think the writing is much better with less filler. You could argue PoI needed several season of procedural stories before it could tap into its mythos. Would there be a risk with Star Trek as well? Ret-conning will be harder if there are fewer loose ends to stories.
I'd say yes, not because of foreign markets, but this pretty much happens anyway. Several longer seasoned shows have a half-season finale. Supernatural and Once Upon a Time spring to mind.
It depends. If it's one continuing storyline like Game of Thrones, Daredevil or Fargo not more than 13 episodes, preferable 10.
If it's only loosely-connected standalone episodes (which I hope for) it should be in the range of 20 - 25 episodes. The quality actually doesn't correlate with the number of episodes, but with the number of writers and the time and care each script gets. The biggest problem with Enterprise was, that the very first 10(!) episodes were all written by the same two people (B&B), which led to a certain feeling of repetition, which you absolutely don't want during the beginning of a series.
If they can afford a larger number of writers (and they absolutely can), I really like to have a larger number and variety of episodes. Some of the "bottleshows" or the really weird "throw a concept on the wall"-episodes in the middle often turn out to be quite good and memorable.
If it's only loosely-connected standalone episodes (which I hope for) it should be in the range of 20 - 25 episodes. The quality actually doesn't correlate with the number of episodes, but with the number of writers and the time and care each script gets. The biggest problem with Enterprise was, that the very first 10(!) episodes were all written by the same two people (B&B), which led to a certain feeling of repetition, which you absolutely don't want during the beginning of a series.
If they can afford a larger number of writers (and they absolutely can), I really like to have a larger number and variety of episodes. Some of the "bottleshows" or the really weird "throw a concept on the wall"-episodes in the middle often turn out to be quite good and memorable.
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I'll take 13-16 episodes a season especially if it's going to be an anthology series.
There is an exception.
Season 4 of babylon 5, JMS thought season 4 might be the last season of babylon 5 in a story planned over a 5 season arc, so he crammed as much as he could into that 4th season, it was some of the most dense and compelling seasons of television of all time, virtually no filler, and what little there was was interesting.
Exactly. He had to cram two seasons of television into 26 episodes which provided some very compelling TV, some of the best ever.
Now, spread those 26 episodes back into two seasons, and you have 13 episodes each
And when B5 was renewed for its final, 5th Season, the writers had to come up with a seasons worth of episodes on fairly short notice. They produced some outstanding shows, but there were a lot more filler and the overall story was much weaker.
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