Series Regulars: Can we determine who they are?

[DigificWriter]

@M "Series Regular" contracts automatically make the characters of the actors who are given said contracts "main characters", even if they were to essentially serve as "support" for SMG's Commander Burnham like you're suggesting, because they are going to be the characters with whom she interacts most regularly, even if she were to be interacting with a different 'set' of characters week-to-week. Even if Michael Burnham were to be the sole "POV character" for the series in the way that you're suggesting, she would not be the only "main character", because that is not how television works.

 

[Michael]

I think there's a danger to having the focus be only one character. Take, for example, Brent Spiner's character of Data from TNG. Of course Data became a beloved character over the course of the series, however there were quite a few people that disliked the Pinocchio storyline and therefore disliked that character, although these same viewers had the opportunity to be engaged in the show through the rest of the ensemble cast, where another character might apeal to them. Having SMGs character be the sole focus, and everything being from that perspective, increases the risk that a segment of viewers could drop off early on in the series if there are no other regular character options.

Of course the stories could carry the day and make it successful with a single character focus, but as I said, it increases risk.

Yeah, that's true. But isn't that kind of the risk with every show focussing on only one or just two characters? Shows like True Detective, Breaking Bad or Sherlock all started out with the same built-in risk.

@M "Series Regular" contracts automatically make the characters of the actors who are given said contracts "main characters", even if they were to essentially serve as "support" for SMG's Commander Burnham like you're suggesting, because they are going to be the characters with whom she interacts most regularly, even if she were to be interacting with a different 'set' of characters week-to-week. Even if Michael Burnham were to be the sole "POV character" for the series in the way that you're suggesting, she would not be the only "main character", because that is not how television works.

Hm, I'm not sure I can agree. Going back to the Game of Thrones example: characters like Littlefinger, Davos, Melisandre, Missandei, Ellaria Sand, Gilly, Gendry, Bronn or Jorah Mormont might very well be “series regulars” in season seven, but they are most certainly not “main characters”. At least not to me.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ You're free to disagree all you want; "main character" status in television is not determined by what you, or anyone else, believes.

If you are considered a Series Regular in television, you are a "main character", regardless of how much individual or collective focus you may or may not receive.

 

[Michael]

^ You want to discuss the semantics of it and that's fine, but I'm talking about concepts. Call it “main character”, “series lead”, “lead character”, “main protagonist”, “star” or whatever, I just think there's the possibility that's it's only going to be Martin-Green in Discovery in that position – which, again, would be in stark contrast to all the other Star Trek shows which featured an ”ensemble”, several “main characters”, several “leads” or a group of “stars”. That's all I wanted to say. Peace?

 

[Cake]

I think we are talking past each other. And I think I might be confounding all those terms like “series regulars” and “recurring guest stars”, and for that I'm sorry. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I don't believe Discovery will feature an ensemble cast in the sense that every week the story's focus might be on someone else, like with practically every incarnation of Star Trek since The Next Generation. Instead it will have one single main character that's central to the plot and to every episode. All the other characters might be “series regulars” in the sense that their actors have contracts to appear in the whole season, but they will *not* be main characters. For example, you might have Carice van Houten's “Melisandre” as a series regular on Game of Thrones, but you would never call her a main character. I just think (and again, hope, really) that Michael Burnham will be the single focus of Disovery, like Walter White and Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad, Clay Jensen on 13 Reasons Why or Sherlock and Watson on Sherlock.

So if Burnham is like the leading character in Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Highlander, Buffy, would that fulfil your wish? Or do the supporting characters get too many storylines of their own in those series?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I'm seeing what I believe to be a misconception in this discussion, and if I'm wrong, I'd like to know why. (Sincerely.) Discovery is going to be on CBS All-Access, and so I would tend to expect that it will be written and filmed like a Netflix series: all episodes written up-front for a season, and then a shooting schedule created that allows actors and actresses that have smaller parts to film all of their scenes closer together for scheduling purposes, even if that means filming a scene with three characters from the ninth episode followed by a scene from the second episode because a principle for that scene arrives then, and so on. If that is the case, then I'm not sure traditional TV roles like "series regular" even have much meaning - there could be a character and actor that they know they will only need for all of the episodes for this season but only one of the episodes for next season, and another actress that they only need for 5 minutes in this season but intend to have in half the episodes of season four. And they can negotiate those as appropriate, including working around any shooting schedules they may have for other projects, I would assume?

It isn't *a TV show*, is what I'm mainly getting at, here. It's a set of streaming media presentations that look a lot like one - at least, according to the lawyers. Aren't at least some of the rules out the window?

 

[DigificWriter]

Discovery may be airing for the most part via Online Streaming, but it is being produced by a Broadcast Television Studio (CBS) and will be released on a Broadcast Television Schedule (new episodes weekly on a specific day (Sundays), possibly at a specific time.

Therefore, it is likely that the production format of the series has adhered to traditional Broadcast Television Formatting procedures and protocols.

 

[Michael]

So if Burnham is like the leading character in Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Highlander, Buffy, would that fulfil your wish? Or do the supporting characters get too many storylines of their own in those series?

Unfortunately I haven't seen any of these shows, but if they handle it like for example House, Hannibal, 13 Reasons Why, Outlander, Designated Survivor or The Crown, i.e. with one central character that's driving the plot and a group of supporting characters around them, then yes, that's something I would love for Discovery. And not because I think ensemble shows don't work or anything like that, but because it would be a new thing for Star Trek and I'd like this new version to be different.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I also would like to know this.

Is Rekha Sharma's USS Discovery security chief Commander Landry a regular?

She is apparently in every episode.

Is that from the initial (or even current) IMDB listing? I think they assigned every single name as appearing in 13 (now 15) episodes.

Personally, I'll be glad to see Rekha as much as possible. I loved her as Tory.

 

[Mudd]

The original series was about two characters.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Television doesn't operate like that; you can't do a series (serialized or otherwise) if you only have one actor consistently and constantly under contract because you can't know who they're going to be interacting with week-to-week, which prevents you from actually writing anything.

I'm thinking of anthology series such as Fargo.

Each of the three seasons of Fargo had about three lead characters, and the rest of the ensemble of supporting characters came and went during the course of the season...

...And to top it all off, each single season had different actors, different characters, told a different story, and took place in a different time period than the other two seasons. But it was still clearly one TV show over the course of those three seasons, mostly due to the tone of the show being the same for all three seasons.

And then there's Better Call Saul, which has four main characters, with one of those four (Mike Ehrmentraut) who doesn't really interact at all with the other three. That show also has supporting characters who come and go during the series.

Similar to Fargo, those supporting characters are important for a little while, and then go away. Or they join the story late, at which point they are important for a while, then sometimes go away.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The original series was about two characters.

When you get right down to it, so where the other shows.