I agree with most of what you said except this bit. Fuller definitely created Paul Stamets, as he had done on Hannibal as well, named after the real world 21st Century Mushroom man. (And the DSC one was a quasi-apology for the Hannibal one being a killer.) There's no way he added a mushroom expert but no reason for a mushroom expert.
But with streaming is there really a need to "replace" it.I voted 5 seasons but that is just a guess.
CBS probably likes the idea of making it the longest running Trek series, so 7+ seasons is possible. But there is nothing special about 7 seasons. TNG/DS9/VOY went 7 seasons because they wanted to build up the number of episodes to make a nice strip syndication package. But strip syndication market is not as good these days (as it is dominated by comedy shows) and even after 7 seasons Discovery will not be close to 170+ episodes of those other shows.
It seems like they are creating a pipeline of Trek shows (Lower Decks is next, followed by Section 31). So ending Discovery will depend on how confident they are in the show that will replace it.
However they may try to get an episode count between 80-100 so they can still sell a large enough syndication package years down the road. (I doubt either cable or broadcast TV will truly and completely be replaced by streaming 100% - and you always want to have as many revenue avenues available as long as production pays for itself - which it seems ST: D has been doing to date.)Hard to say, but, I definitely think we're long past the days where a Trek series would end up with 170+ episodes.
Very good point. I was talking to someone at work today, actually, about the duration of the episodes and why they didn't run longer because of the platform they were on. I opined that it was probably because at some point down the line, CBS may just throw a few on the network to air during summer repeats or just to fill in a time slot somewhere -- and perhaps, to your point, being aired on a cable network elsewhere after the show ends production for good. Short of having ads on All Access, I figured that's why the show is still structured like it's being broadcast on a network.However they may try to get an episode count between 80-100 so they can still sell a large enough syndication package years down the road. (I doubt either cable or broadcast TV will truly and completely be replaced by streaming 100% - and you always want to have as many revenue avenues available as long as production pays for itself - which it seems ST: D has been doing to date.)
My guy says S3 will be the last, but I hope for 5 season. Enough time to get in some good stroytelling 1000 years post TOS!
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