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News Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville

The Wormhole said:
Hell, the only reason Star Trek was doing 26 for as long as it did was because Berman was so obsessed with selling the shows into syndication, but even that doesn't mean the same thing it did twenty years ago.
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Paramount determined the number of episodes that were ordered each season, not Berman.

tharpdevenport said:
26 would be possible if the show had a season completed already before it aired and a second season already being written and possibly in post production, that way the series can have a year of playing room to write and produce more episodes and not worrying about getting them completed and aired in time.
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There's no reason a 26 episode season isn't possible these days. You wouldn't need to produce an entire season before initial airing. It's a financial decision on the part of now vertically integrated network/studios to save money. In the old days, an episode was debuted and repeated once, but in recent years, ratings for repeats have tanked so badly, it's cheaper to preempt for sports or a special rather than take a hit on airing a repeat and dragging the show's (and the network's) ratings adverage down.
 
Well, that's the way it works.

I suppose Berman might have had input in meetings into the length of seasons.

Altman and Gross have been doing these "unauthorized" after-the-fact Trek tomes for decades. Altman, at least, is an honest reporter and does his research, but neither of them are ever in the room.
 
Still, there is the fact that Star Trek kept doing 26 episode seasons long after every everyone else stopped. X-Files for example was in production at the same time as much Berman's era, and never did 26 episodes a season. Indeed, only one of their seasons (the second) went further than 24 episodes, and that was only 25. Likewise, Law and Order began with 22 episode seasons in 1990 and eventually worked their way up to 24, but didn't go any further. When shows like Buffy or Stargate started in the latter days of Berman's run, they were doing 22 episodes a season. 24 began the same year as Enterprise and was only doing 24 episodes a season, though in that case that's intentional because of the concept. Looking at half hour programming of the time, The Simpsons did do 25 episodes when they were at their height in the 90s, though Seinfeld never went beyond 24, though Friends hovered around 24-25.

Star Trek really is the odd man out doing 26 hour-long episodes every year from 1987-2003.
 
The Wormhole said:
No one does 26 episodes these days. Hell, by the mid 90s I think it was only the Star Trek shows that still did 26, by then 22-24 were becoming the norm on American network TV. Even today, a full season on one of the networks is around 20 or so. No one is definitely doing 26 anymore.

Hell, the only reason Star Trek was doing 26 for as long as it did was because Berman was so obsessed with selling the shows into syndication, but even that doesn't mean the same thing it did twenty years ago.
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Yeah 26 would be a little much but 20-22 would be perfect and plenty of shows do that just fine.
 
The second season of "Batman" did 60 episodes. Of course, one might argue that those were just 30 hour-long episode split in two.
 
I don't think I coulda kept up with that.

I love lucy had a few 30+ episode seasons but of course I just watch that on dvd or streaming. It ain't like I was alive to catch it. Week in and week out? That's over half a year. That's nuts.
 
Perry Mason produced 39 episodes during it's first season. Dropping to 30 the next. Then 26 & 28 in the 3rd and 4th, 30 & 28 for s5 and 6..and back to 30 for 7 thru 9.
It's first 4 seasons would run thru mid June, after mid to late September starts...

The networks were allowed to own shows back then, which accounts for high episode orders. In the early 70s, the FCC barred networks from owning scripted programs on their schedules, excluding news shows. That's when they dropped to 26, and by the late 70s 24.
 
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The Wormhole said:
Still, there is the fact that Star Trek kept doing 26 episode seasons long after every everyone else stopped. X-Files for example was in production at the same time as much Berman's era, and never did 26 episodes a season.
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I doubt Berman had anything to do with the number of episodes, though he does appreciate the royalty checks he is still getting.

with TNG / DS9 being in syndication it was entirely up to Paramount to decide on number of episodes and they liked to do 26 to bump up the total number of episodes (for big money that would come later in strip syndication). If a show is on a network (like X-files was) then the network can also dictate the number of episodes they are willing to pay for. So in case of ENT the last 2 seasons were cut to 24 and 22 episodes.

tharpdevenport said:
The second season is filming and now and the last word is it might not air until 2019.
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So I have to wait for GoT, Discovey and Orville until 2019? great. Thank god WestWorld made it to 2018. And we may get another season of Curb.
 
Cyrus said:
So I have to wait for GoT, Discovey and Orville until 2019? great. Thank god WestWorld made it to 2018. And we may get another season of Curb.
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I'm sure there is a real good reason for this, though, I have a heckuva hard time thinking of one, or buying one I've heard.
 
Interesting, I would have expected a show like Orville to sink into a 20 episode or so cycle. I wouldn't expect filler episodes to be an issue since for this show premises are a dime a dozen. I tend to like having a few shows with long seasons just because it gives me something to consistently look forward to throughout the year.
 
GeekUSACarl said:
I'm sure there is a real good reason for this, though, I have a heckuva hard time thinking of one, or buying one I've heard.
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With Game of Thrones they are proably trying to keep people interested for even longer. Maybe they fear what will happen one their showcase show is finally over for good. Orville might have something to do with McFalande's busy scedule or Disney buying Fox. Not sure what is up with "Discovery." Might have something to do with figuring out who is going to be paying for everthing and seeing how popular the show is before making a budget. Is Netflix going to be paying most of the costs, again in season 2?

Jason
 
Jayson1 said:
Actually "Stargate" was maybe the first show ever to actually do some good clip shows. Not sure if it was ever done before or since but then again I don't even think most shows even do clip shows anymore.

Jason
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I particularly liked the one where they had the "fake" clip show showing the "Furlings" for the first time.
[Carter]"Wait...That never happened!"[/Carter] :lol:

I really miss that show.
 
Jayson1 said:
Not sure what is up with "Discovery." Might have something to do with figuring out who is going to be paying for everthing and seeing how popular the show is before making a budget. Is Netflix going to be paying most of the costs, again in season 2?

Jason
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The network and studio, in this case, CBS All Access and CBS Studios, pays up front for the production of Discovery. It is the sale of the show to Netflix International divisions that generates the profit that allows CBS to recoup their investment.
When a show is renewed by it's network of origin, those outlets that picked up rights in the various countries, will continue to have it unless they choose to dump it (due to poor ratings or whatever). Netflix International will still have rights to the show for as long as it's in production.
 
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