Spoilers Reshooting The Season Two Finale?

[fireproof78]

The weird thing to me is Season 1 of SFA felt like it was all tied up neatly with a bow, in spite of the second season being given to them straight off the bat.

If there was ever a time that a cliffhanger/teaser for the next season would be safe...

Perhaps season 2 wasn't so certain with the initial writing.

 

[No Grave Dug]

During my entertainment career I was three times on shows where this was the producers motivation behind a cliffhanger. (at least three times... I might be forgetting some)

All of the shows got renewed for reasons having nothing to do with the cliffhanger, so it all worked out and no audiences were outraged.

But it was always just such an annoying thing to have to sit in the meetings and listen to and act like it wasn't stupid. "Let's make it impossible for them to cancel us!" I mean, I appreciated the impulse to do everything possible to keep us all employed, but it seemed so self-deluding to think this particular point would matter, when we knew that shows were cancelled all the time without resolution.

Kurtzman has been pursuing that strategy aggressively at the end of this era, at least that's what it has looked like to me. I think the impressive accomplishments of it are getting the 2nd season of SFA and the 5th season of SNW at all. They rushed those into production so much quicker than usual, hoping the sunk costs would make them a more attractive proposition to keep going, and also trying to beat the threat that the new regime would reverse the renewals.

I don't know if I'd agree with that.

Examples:

Yes, SNW ended S2 on a cliffhanger, but BOTH the S3 and S4 season enders were written as series finale.

PIC was always going to run only 3 seasons because that's what Patrick Stewart agreed to.

Even ST: D ended it's 4th season on an episode that could be a series finale and the S5 ender wasn't a cliffhanger although they also thought it would get a S6.

So, yeah, I don't see this as a 'strategy' by Alex Kurtzman at all.

 

[camdudetenger2018]

If it ends with no proper ending ill think 'oh well'. I dont feel invested in any of the characters and don't see that changing.

Might be time for a riker and troi ending on the holodeck looking into a fictional take on the 32nd century.

its most likely that star trek starfleet academy will still continue there crazy adventures along with the hijinks shenanigans and antics but off screen in the audios hardcovers paperbacks comics

althought what if the off screens does do proper endings of starfleet academy

 

[Sakonna]

I don't know if I'd agree with that.

Examples:

Yes, SNW ended S2 on a cliffhanger, but BOTH the S3 and S4 season enders were written as series finale.

PIC was always going to run only 3 seasons because that's what Patrick Stewart agreed to.

Even ST: D ended it's 4th season on an episode that could be a series finale and the S5 ender wasn't a cliffhanger although they also thought it would get a S6.

So, yeah, I don't see this as a 'strategy' by Alex Kurtzman at all.

I wasn't referring to the strategy pursued throughout the entire NuTrek era. I was talking specifically about the behavior of producers when they feel the ax of cancellation looming. Your examples are from the gold rush days when it felt like it would go forever, so that's the baseline comparison that highlights how different the end-stage approach appears to be.

As you point out, we can see from Disco & Picard that when this team is confident the boom times will keep rolling, they are not particularly interested in cliffhangers. (Even Disco S2 isn't an "open" cliffhanger in the way SFA S2 has been suggested to be - the Disco S2 story is fully wrapped up and something new is teased, but we don't actually start the new thing yet, we stop the season at a "clean break" moment).

The SNW 3 & 4 finales do have that "possible series finale" vibe, but I suspect most of that effect is garden-variety bad writing. That was the case in season 3... that episode's writer was on Cirroc Lofton's podcast talking about how no one was thinking about the series ending, but explaining the hack-y reasons it might feel that way (he knew he wasn't coming back for season 4, so it's his own sense of "final voyage" that he was writing into the script). Season 4 was also ordered while season 3 was still in production.

I can't point to direct statements from the writers, but I'd be surprised if "possible series finale" was the thought in season 4, given how the problem with that season was a swaggering overconfidence. I don't think it's possible to be that overconfident and planning for it to end at the same time. (That being said, I know they've talked about tossing out their original finale plan at the last minute and quickly substituting it with "Tomorrow's Enterprise", so I could also buy that after a season of cockiness, they suddenly realized there was reason to fear at the finish line) But I'd bet they felt confident they'd get a final season five, because that was one of the industry-wide rationalizations going on at the time, and also the apparent takeaway from Disco's truncated run ("even successful shows can't get past five seasons in streaming" - conventional wisdom has since adjusted down to three seasons as the best case, outside of the biggest breakaway hits).

I didn't get into it in my first post, but all that brinksmanship with the sets and "we can use them to launch a new show!" is part of the same strategy as well. At least in my experience. The same team where I was rolling my eyes at "we'll use this cliffhanger to make it impossible to cancel us!" would also go right into "here's the pitch for a new show on the old sets!" the minute one of their shows did get cancelled.

 

[No Grave Dug]

The SNW 3 & 4 finales do have that "possible series finale" vibe, but I suspect most of that effect is garden-variety bad writing...

Um no. The Producers specuifically stated they were BOTH written as Series finales because at the time, it wasn't certain S4 or S5 would be greenlit. That happened after both scripts were written.

As for 'bad writing' please. Berman Trek is 90% horrible writing in general (and that's being generous to them.)

And anything after SNW S2 is hardly the 'boom times' for Streaming. Streaming changed as a result of the WGA and SAG/AFTRA and Director's Guild strikes; and SNW S2 was still in production at the start of those strikes.

 

[Sakonna]

Um no. The Producers specuifically stated they were BOTH written as Series finales because at the time, it wasn't certain S4 or S5 would be greenlit. That happened after both scripts were written.

That's interesting, do you recall who said that about season 3, or in what interview? I'm always so interested when the key creators give directly contradictory answers on the same question.

And like I said, I can believe that's what was going on with "Tomorrow's Enterprise", the only thing I definitely don't believe is that they spent the majority of the season 4 production thinking it might be the end. But becoming scared by finale-writing time, yeah, that tracks for me with the rest of it.

As for 'bad writing' please. Berman Trek is 90% horrible writing in general (and that's being generous to them.)

If you want to have a Berman Trek vs NuTrek fight, I'm not your guy. I'm a huge fan of both eras. I was talking specifically about the shitty writing of two specific episodes, not the entire era.

And anything after SNW S2 is hardly the 'boom times' for streaming. Streaming changed as a result of the WGA and SAG/AFTRA and Director's Guild strikes; and SNW S2 was still in production at the start of those strikes.

I guess I should have been even more precise in that last post, but I thought it was crazy long as it was. But yes, there were gradations to the boom times, and the strike times were quite a decline from the peak of a few years prior to that.

But the point of comparison I was using for that phrasing was today, not 10 years ago. Compared to today, still boom times. At least psychologically. It might read as the moment of no return with hindsight, but to most everyone on the inside, the coping was strong. It took most people a long time to realize how dire things had become, and see that this was more than some temporary disruptions and the underlying industry conditions had truly changed.

Oh, also, season 2 was done filming almost a year before the strikes. They were supposed to start shooting season 3 almost exactly when the first strike was called. You might be remembering that no one could promote season 2 because of the strikes being on while it was airing.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

This is what made Lower Decks so magical, it could take the piss and loving celebrate all in the same sentence somehow. It could point out some of the wonky sides of the franchise but did so whilst saying I love this.