Should current Trek drop the serialized format?

[Locutus of Bored]

It's not the format that's the issue, it's the execution. There have been good and bad seasons of Trek and other franchises that were serialized or semi-serialized, and good and bad ones that were episodic. People have their preferences, but there's nothing inherently better about one format over the other, though I will say episodic does allow for a greater amount of flexibility for the production staff, while serialized generally works better when you're running a tight ship and the number of cooks in the kitchen is kept to a relative minimum.

One thing I have noticed about some of the more poorly executed serialized seasons, is that they try and stretch four or five episodes worth of material into ten episodes or however long the season lasts, which results in a lot of filler episodes where nothing much happens, false or misleading out-of-character behavior / plot developments or cliffhanger endings that go nowhere and have no consequences thrown in to keep the middle episodes more exciting, and an ending that is anticlimactic after so much waiting and buildup.

I think Enterprise S4 handled that right by being a hybrid of short serialized storylines that lasted two or three episodes, and occasional standalone episodes in between. If you lost interest in any particular storyline you only had to wait an episode or two to be in a new one, and there wasn't any of the excessive padding of storylines to fill the whole season.

Likewise, Deep Space Nine had loose sometimes overlapping seasonal arcs like the Bajoran Circle, The Maquis, encountering the Dominion, the Klingon War, and then the Dominion War, but it was always interspersed with standalone episodes to give people a break.

So, I'd say the best solution for a show that's having trouble making a serialized season of consistent quality (PIC and DSC) would be to hybridize it into a combination of 2, 3, 4 episode mini-arcs interspersed with some standalone episodes. There's no rule that says your serialized story has to last the entire season.

Or just go full episodic like SNW, which has been fantastic.

 

[Christopher]

I think Enterprise S4 handled that right by being a hybrid of short serialized storylines that lasted two or three episodes, and occasional standalone episodes in between. If you lost interest in any particular storyline you only had to wait an episode or two to be in a new one, and there wasn't any of the excessive padding of storylines to fill the whole season.

I loved ENT season 4's flexible story lengths, and I wondered why no other shows adopted a similar format. I mean, it made so much sense -- you could let each story be as long or as short as it needed to be, rather than forcing them all to fit a standardized length.

Although I recently did see something that had a similar structure -- season 2 of the 1957 Zorro TV series starring Guy Williams, now available on Disney+. The first season was divided into three loosely serialized 13-episode arcs, basically episodic but with continuing situations and unifying big bads; but season 2 was a mix of shorter arcs of 3 or 4 episodes with the occasional 1-parter.

 

[Ometiklan]

Prior to Prodigy I would have said, "yes, drop serialization", but now I would agree with the following:

It's not the format that's the issue, it's the execution...

I agree with what many posters have said: most of the modern Discovery and Picard teams have been largely incapable of writing serialized stories. I (having no experience here) think it must be much harder to write serialized and can generally only be successful with lots of planning and/or effort. Shows like Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul are the exceptions. Even shows like "Game of Thrones" show they probably succeeded early on due to having the underlying book material.

I think that unless they have sufficient time and effort to put into planning and executing the whole season (I'm still hopeful for PIC S3), that they should skip it. Go episodic with serialized elements, like the most successful modern seasons - which I think include LDS, SNW, and PRO. This gets the best of both worlds: single episodes with complete storylines with begining, middle, and end; opportunities to explore a variety of situations and concepts (while not having to live and die on a clunker of an idea); while also getting to carry on continuing character growth and key big ideas and events.

 

[Sehlat Vie]

I prefer standalone stories with serializing elements; the most successful examples of that right now (IMO) are Deep Space Nine, Strange New Worlds and Prodigy. Discovery and Picard (particularly season 2) simply don't work; part of that is their 'Annual Armageddon' approach to serialization. Not every serialized season of Star Trek has to involve a galaxy-ending calamity.

I wrote much more extensively about this very topic not long ago on my own site (not trying to pimp it, but I articulate all of my reasons within):
https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.bl...d-repairs-a-nagging-issue-with-the-franchise/

 

[Christopher]

most of the modern Discovery and Picard teams have been largely incapable of writing serialized stories.

I still think this is an invalid critique of DSC, because both seasons 1 & 2 had their writing staffs change mid-season, so that the serial arcs they started with got changed midstream. So it's not meaningful to talk as though it were a consistent team when it wasn't. And I think seasons 3 & 4 mostly found a good balance of episodic and serial elements, just riding a little too hard on the serial in their latter halves.

As for PIC season 1, I don't know for sure, but I get the sense that maybe Michael Chabon's plans got some pushback from other producers and the balance shifted during the season, so that could explain the inconsistency there. I'll agree that season 2's serial arc was quite poorly handled, but that shouldn't be generalized to other seasons or shows.

People always want to pin success or failure on what a show does -- serialization doesn't work, remakes don't work, whatever. But that makes no sense, because if it were a simple matter of category, it would be easy for filmmakers to determine what works, and then everyone would do it. But the fact is that for any category, there are some examples that work well and a ton of other examples that don't work. Because quality is not about what you do, it's about how you do it. It's hard to succeed at telling a unified story if the people telling it change midstream. And even when it's a consistent team throughout, sometimes they can make it work and sometimes they can't. It's a poor artist who blames their tools, or their subject. It comes down to execution.

 

[Lord Garth]

DSC Season 1 --> The supposed start of "Annual Armageddon", but it wasn't even the same scale. Earth and Qo'noS were threatened with annihilation by opposing sides, not the whole galaxy or universe, and those would-be decisive attacks on each other were called off. The Federation and Klingons seem to recover from the war quickly. Too quickly, but that's a whole other issue.

DSC Season 2 --> If the creators of DSC wanted to get Discovery out of the 23rd Century and make sure they'd never be able to go back, it had to be something extreme so that going back would never be an option. But, in the end, Control didn't have a chance to destroy much. Once again: no Armageddon, just the threat of it. The threat of something and the actuality of it are two different things.

DSC Season 3 --> No doubt there was Armageddon, but it happened before the season even started. It didn't actually happen within the season itself. If you're going to jump the show into the 32nd Century and not have it be exactly the same as the 23rd-25th Centuries, something had to shake everything up. The Burn fit the bill. Not what caused The Burn (that was fucking dumb, there's no way to say it other than to say it) but the idea that everything fell apart afterwards and watching them try to cope or rebuild. If the Burn didn't happen, the Discovery would've been irrelevant as soon as it arrived in the 32nd Century. So, to shake things up to create a new status quo and to keep Discovery and its crew in Discovery, The Burn was necessary.

DSC Season 4 --> While I wouldn't have minded them having Earth and Ni'Var not be part of the Federation again for a little bit longer (I liked the novelty of that idea), I always figured they'd rejoin the Federation before the series was over. But once you accept that the writers wanted them to rejoin the Federation this season, then there has to be something out there that forces them to want to rejoin. They have to have a compelling reason, because they seemed pretty satisfied with operating solo. Species 10-C gives all these powers a reason to unite and thus a reason for Earth and Ni'Var to rejoin. The destruction of Kwejian shows actual Armageddon on a planetary scale, shows that Species 10-C isn't messing around, and they better find a way to communicate with it before it's too late.

So I think, for the types of stories DSC wanted to tell, the stakes were necessary for the types of goals they were trying to meet. BUT...

DSC Season 5 --> I think the dust has settled now, and the status quo has gelled, so they should have a different type of story this time. "Star Trek does Indiana Jones", if that's what the season's actually going to be, looks like it'll be that different type of story everyone seems to be after.

With Discovery out of the way, onto Picard...

PIC Season 1 --> It wasn't about Armageddon. That was just tacked onto the two-part finale, but even there, it wasn't really about that. The season was really about Picard gathering a crew to rescue Soji from the Romulan Free State, Soji coming to terms with what she really is, struggling with it, and giving Picard a chance to say goodbye to Data and have some closure to that part of his life. Those are small-scale stories. If you think PIC Season 1 is really about some stupid tentacles at the end, then you don't really know what PIC Season 1 is about.

PIC Season 2 --> This wasn't about Armageddon either. Actually, to be frank, I don't think this season really knows what it's about. But let's look at the stakes: Picard has to restore the timeline. He has to make sure that when they get back to the 25th Century, it's the Federation that's there and not the Confederation. The Confederation is evil, but the Galaxy hasn't been destroyed by them. All that's really at stake is: does Earth lead to the founding of the Federation or Confederation? They fumbled the ball with the execution (pun intended), but it's really Q hijinks at the end of the day. With Q around, you know almost everything he does will be undone. Picard even tells the others he knows that Q is just putting him through another sort of test.

PIC Season 3 --> This is supposed to be "TNG's Star Trek VI", so I'm guessing there are movie-level stakes. If you want something that's NOT epic, then you've come to the wrong place.

 

[Christopher]

DSC Season 1 --> The supposed start of "Annual Armageddon", but it wasn't even the same scale. Earth and Qo'noS were threatened with annihilation by opposing sides, not the whole galaxy or universe, and the attacks on each other were called off. The Federation and Klingons seem to recover from the war quickly. Too quickly, but that's a whole other issue.

I think this is understating it. Something doesn't have to threaten the whole galaxy/universe to be cataclysmic, even apocalyptic, on the scale of the narrative world the characters inhabit (which is why I think stories about threats to the galaxy/universe are a gratuitous indulgence). The Klingon War was portrayed as being on the same scale as the Dominion War, an existential threat to the Federation's survival that entailed the conquest of large portions of Federation space, a gigantic loss of life, and the near-conquest of Earth itself. This was quite revisionist given that "The Infinite Vulcan" and TWOK both claimed that the Federation had been at peace for a hundred years. (Although it can be seen as a retroactive explanation for the TOS cast's intense animosity toward the Klingons. Chekov's dead brother in "Day of the Dove" was illusory, but nobody suggests that the raid in which he was allegedly killed was unreal, so perhaps that was a raid that happened during the war.)

DSC Season 2 --> If the creators of DSC wanted to get Discovery out of the 23rd Century and make sure they'd never be able to go back, it had to be something extreme so that going back would never be an option. But, in the end, Control didn't have a chance to destroy much. Once again, no Armageddon.

Why is that relevant? Very few plots about averting an apocalypse actually show the apocalypse succeeding. What's at issue is the magnitude of the stakes, not the outcome. And DSC S2's stakes -- the very existence of any life whatsoever in the galaxy -- were about as ridiculously exaggerated as you can get short of annihilating the entire universe.

DSC Season 3 --> No doubt there was Armageddon, but it happened before the season even started. It didn't actually happen within the season itself. If you're going to jump the show into the 32nd Century and not having it look the same as the 23rd-25th Centuries, something had to shake everything up. The Burn fit the bill. Not what caused The Burn (that was fucking dumb, there's no way to say it other than to say it) but the idea how everything fell apart afterwards and watching them try to rebuild. If the Burn didn't happen, the Discovery would've been irrelevant as soon as it arrived in the 32nd Century. So, to shake things up to create a new status quo and to keep Discovery and its crew in Discovery, The Burn was necessary.

Here I agree. It wasn't a season about averting apocalypse (except briefly in the finale, though they redeemed it by grounding it in a heartfelt character story), but about rebuilding a century afterward.

DSC Season 4 --> While I wouldn't have minded them having Earth and Ni'Var not be part of the Federation again for a little bit longer (I liked the novelty of that idea), I always figured they'd rejoin the Federation before the series was over. But once you accept that the writers wanted them to rejoin the Federation this season, then there has to be something out there that forces them to want to rejoin. They have to have a compelling reason, because they seemed pretty satisfied with operating solo. Species 10-C gives all these powers a reason to unite and thus a reason for Earth and Ni'Var to rejoin.

Here, I'd question whether it really counts as an apocalyptic threat. Yes, it's a threat that could endanger any number of planets individually at any time, but not all of them at once. So it's a more limited threat. Although the climactic threat -- an anomaly that just randomly strikes at exactly the right place to endanger both Earth and Ni'Var at once, and somehow accelerate the resultant debris faster than light -- was absolutely ridiculous.

PIC Season 1 --> It wasn't about Armageddon. That was just tacked onto the two-part finale, but even there, it wasn't really about that. The season was really about Picard gathering a crew to rescue Soji from the Romulan Free State, Soji coming to terms with what she really is, struggling with it, and giving Picard a chance to say goodbye to Data and have some closure to that aspect of his life. If you think PIC Season 1 is really about some stupid tentacles at the end, then you don't really know what PIC Season 1 is about.

I'd like to think so, but I think the season lost its way at the end. It was promoted as a different kind of Trek show, one more dramatic and character-driven, and I think that's how it began. But I think it succumbed to the pressure to revert to a more dumbed-down action blockbuster mode with cataclysmic stakes.

PIC Season 2 --> This wasn't about Armageddon either. Actually, to be frank, I don't think this season really knows what it's about. But let's look at the stakes: Picard has to restore the timeline. He has to make sure that when they get back to the 25th Century, it's the Federation that's there and not the Confederation. The Confederation is evil, but the Galaxy hasn't been destroyed by them.

But... that is Armageddon. If the timeline isn't restored, then the entire Federation ceases to exist. That's the whole point of "restore the timeline" stories, that literally the entire universe as you know it is eradicated or in danger of eradication. It doesn't matter whether the Galaxy is physically destroyed -- stories aren't about inanimate objects, they're about people and the things people care about. It doesn't matter if the planets and stars are still there if the reality you know, the people you care about, and the civilization you stand for have all ceased to exist.

Indeed, you're contradicting yourself here, because you said earlier that the Burn was Armageddon. And the Burn didn't physically destroy the galaxy; it just killed a lot of people and made FTL travel harder for the survivors. That's a much lesser threat than the erasure of an entire timeline. So you really need to define your terms consistently if you want to make a valid case.

PIC Season 3 --> This is supposed to be "TNG's Star Trek VI", so I'm guessing there are movie-level stakes. If you want something that's NOT epic, then you've come to the wrong place.

I don't think anyone's saying a story shouldn't be epic. They're saying that you can tell an epic story without needing the overkill of a threat of mass destruction.

 

[Lord Garth]

But... that is Armageddon. If the timeline isn't restored, then the entire Federation ceases to exist. That's the whole point of "restore the timeline" stories, that literally the entire universe as you know it is eradicated or in danger of eradication. It doesn't matter whether the Galaxy is physically destroyed -- stories aren't about inanimate objects, they're about people and the things people care about. It doesn't matter if the planets and stars are still there if the reality you know, the people you care about, and the civilization you stand for have all ceased to exist.

Indeed, you're contradicting yourself here, because you said earlier that the Burn was Armageddon. And the Burn didn't physically destroy the galaxy; it just killed a lot of people and made FTL travel harder for the survivors. That's a much lesser threat than the erasure of an entire timeline. So you really need to define your terms consistently if you want to make a valid case.

Alternate Timelines aren't the same as Armageddon in my mind. They're just Alternate Timelines. Q says it's the same timeline, but it's not. Not based on any way that I've ever seen altered history depicted in TV or Film. When I was watching Picard Season 2, I wasn't thinking Armageddon, I was thinking Back to the Future. Earth survives, it just survives differently.

And, as far as the threat, I'll restate what I said: It's really Q hijinks at the end of the day. With Q around, you know almost everything he does will be undone. Picard even tells the others he knows that Q is just putting him through another sort of test.

Even without the existence of the upcoming PIC Season 3 or future-set DSC, I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking the Federation was gone for good.

I don't think anyone's saying a story shouldn't be epic. They're saying that you can tell an epic story without needing the overkill of a threat of mass destruction.

That's not the impression I'm getting. The impression I'm getting here is that most people here want disposable one-and-done adventures and they're happy if Star Trek puts out nothing but that for the rest of its existence. "You can't do more, so don't even try." Fuck. That. I have a very negative reaction to that type of mentality. Comes from real life experience.

Only a few have made the leap that it might have more to do with the execution, which is at least meeting things half-way, and I agree that the execution can be better in some areas.

EDITED TO ADD: Try to bear in mind that PIC Season 2 is my least favorite season of the six seasons of DSC and PIC that have been released, so I'm only going to defend it so far and for so long. I think this season in particular had one missed opportunity after another.

 

[Christopher]

Alternate Timelines aren't the same as Armageddon in my mind.

What defines the stakes of a story is the impact on the characters, not the audience. The audience will be just fine whether the characters save their world or not. It's the characters who stand to lose everything, and that's what matters. If the reality the characters know is wiped out by a timeline change, that means they and everything they care about is destroyed, just as much as if it's wiped out by a physical cataclysm.

And even in your paradigm, where the Federation is "just" replaced by the Confederation, that still has apocalyptic stakes to the galaxy, because the Confederation has exterminated or is attempting to exterminate many entire species.

Even without the existence of the upcoming PIC Season 3 or future-set DSC, I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking the Federation was gone for good.

Again, how does that matter? The audience almost always knows the heroes won't lose; indeed, we know that none of this exists in the first place, so none of it has any real stakes. We care because the characters care, and we choose to suspend disbelief about the unreality of the story and imagine ourselves in the characters' place, reacting to threats that are very real to them. No work of fiction is trying to "fool" you; it's inviting you to pretend along with it. It's just a matter of whether it tells the story well enough to make you willing to buy into the illusion.

That's not the impression I'm getting. The impression I'm getting here is that most people here want disposable one-and-done adventures and they're happy if Star Trek puts out nothing but that for the rest of its existence.

I don't get that impression at all. Many of us in the thread have agreed that there's nothing wrong with a balance between episodic and serial storytelling, or a variety of shows that take different approaches.

EDITED TO ADD: Try to bear in mind that PIC Season 2 is my least favorite season of the six seasons of DSC and PIC that have been released, so I'm only going to defend it so far and for so long. I think this season in particular had one missed opportunity after another.

We are in agreement on that, at least.

 

[Lord Garth]

One thing I want to point out, then I want to be done with talking about PIC Season 2 in this thread. I just want to throw this out there.

To call PIC Season 2 "Armageddon" is to call "All Good Things" Armageddon. In AGT, Q threatens Humanity with being denied existence. The "goo" that formed what would become Humanity didn't form at one point.

But no one has EVER called "All Good Things" Armageddon. I've never seen anyone call it that in my life. If someone called it that, it would sound ridiculous because it is. I don't consider AGT to be an Armageddon plot and I don't consider PIC Season 2 to be one either.

And at least in PIC Season 2, some version of Humanity would survive if the changes weren't undone. In AGT, no version of Humanity would survive if the changes weren't undone.

 

[Christopher]

To call PIC Season 2 "Armageddon" is to call "All Good Things" Armageddon. In AGT, Q threatens Humanity with being denied existence. The "goo" that formed what would become Humanity didn't form at one point.

I don't see the point in nitpicking the precise definition of "Armageddon." The only person in this thread to use that word other than yourself, and me in response to you, was Sehlat Vie in post #24, and they put it in quotation marks, indicating that they didn't intend it literally. So fixating on that label is missing the point. We're talking more generally about the magnitude of the stakes in fiction, whether a season's arc is built around a threat to the existence of everything the characters know and care about, or at least its effective devastation, the end of the world as they know it. What's being discussed is whether such monumental stakes are being used too frequently, not whether they conform exactly to the same extremely narrow definition. It doesn't have to be exactly the same kind of threat in every single case to constitute an overuse of exaggerated stakes.

The point, essentially, is not even about whether the stakes are apocalyptic. One can certainly tell a worthwhile story about such stakes. The point is that if any storytelling device is used too often or predictably, it loses its impact.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why not both? Variety is the spice of life, I want my Trekspam to vary more than the faces and uniforms.

 

[XCV330]

Jellies have changed a lot during the past 100 years, with the rise of PBJ sandwiches. One of the most important changes is that most sandwiches that want to be eaten seriously, feature a spreadable fruit compote that goes well with either crunchy or smooth peanut butter, or even almond butter, these days.

At first, I was intrigued by the prospect of marmelaide and strawberry preserves: With a format of sandwiches like the fluffernutter, it would be possible to add so much more depth to a plain old sandwich.

But after four seasons trying to add something new to smashed legume paste, I feel the by far best new sandwich is JIF and Smuckers grape original, which goes back to the PBJ format of days gone by. Imo, all sandwiches that were not partly purple were crap -- or became so after a trip through my alimentary canal. they became badly intended mixtures of apples, strawberries, chocolate and hazelnuts, absurd detours moments of incredibly sorrow.

When you cannot make jelly, don't try making jelly. Imo, it's obvious imo the people that eat banana and almondbutter on marble-rye monstrosities can't make sandwiches.

So should future new pbj's shows return to the classic format?

 

[Unionized Elf]

DSC Season 5 --> I think the dust has settled now, and the status quo has gelled, so they should have a different type of story this time. "Star Trek does Indiana Jones", if that's what the season's actually going to be, looks like it'll be that different type of story everyone seems to be after.

I'll be very surprised if they avoid having an Annual Armageddon this season.

Hey, that is a catchy term.

 

[Ometiklan]

I still think this is an invalid critique of DSC, because both seasons 1 & 2 had their writing staffs change mid-season, so that the serial arcs they started with got changed midstream...

I think it is a valid criticism, because there are head writers and producers whose jobs are to maintain coherency across a season (and even across multiple seasons). You can blame individual writers (or a writing team) for a single failed episode, but it is also on those who broke the season storyline and doled out the writing assignments. This also applies if a half season (as Discovery often has two main plots during a season) fails or a whole season fails. And even if a whole set of staff is fired and replaced, the new hires are still responsible for turning out a good product that is consistent with what came before. Does anyone let the writers (if you can call them that) of "Rise of Skywalker" off the hook for the junk storyline because it's not the same group that worked on "The Last Jedi"?

As for DIS s3 and s4: while the seasons were a little more coherent and Star Treky (in my opinion) than 1 and 2, they still had massive issues with emotional logic (is this battle really the time for these other characters to be having a quiet heart to heart?), pacing, and putting in the time or dedication to really earn the big character or story moments. And don't get me started on the continued embracing of "cool" elements - like Mirror Giorgou and Section 31 - that are really antithetical to Trek. I think these are the catsuits and decon gel scenes that everyone (who doesn't already recognize this) will in 10 years or so realize should have been tossed out the airlock as concepts and should never have hit the screen.

Yeah Georgiou and S31 aren't serialization issues directly, but without serialization they could be more easily ignored and forgotten about as the bad ideas they are in an episodic format. Or better serialized writing could have given us a stronger critique of Mirror Giorgou's actions and an actual redemption arc. And better serialization should have made DIS's depiction of S31 align better with DS9's and ENT's depiction of the organization and given it a more true-to-trek ideals critique than it got.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'll be very surprised if they avoid having an Annual Armageddon this season.

Hey, that is a catchy term.

If they have Annual Armageddon in it, and they're taking any influence from Raiders of the Lost Ark, then I think there will probably be some Lost Civilization that's a stand-in for Ancient Egypt and the Armageddon Threat would be along the lines of "be careful, what happened to them could happen to us." I could be totally wrong, but that would be my guess.

 

[Christopher]

I think it is a valid criticism, because there are head writers and producers whose jobs are to maintain coherency across a season (and even across multiple seasons).

Uhh, yes, that's what a showrunner is, and it was the showrunners who were fired. That's my whole point, that the people responsible for maintaining a coherent vision were the ones being fired and replaced, which is why DSC couldn't maintain a coherent vision and direction until Michelle Paradise settled in permanently as showrunner from season 3 onward.

And even if a whole set of staff is fired and replaced, the new hires are still responsible for turning out a good product that is consistent with what came before.

I'm not denying that. I'm pointing out that the seasons and series that had the biggest problem with consistency were the ones that changed showrunners between or within seasons, while those series that have maintained a consistent showrunner throughout have fewer of those problems. So it's inaccurate to say "They can't handle serialization" as if there's a single set of people with an ongoing deficiency in that regard. The evidence is that those shows with consistent showrunners are better able to maintain consistency than those without.

 

[fireproof78]

And don't get me started on the continued embracing of "cool" elements - like Mirror Giorgou and Section 31 -

Section 31 wasn't in season 3 or treated as cool. None of it is considered positive in the Trek world. No criticism is needed.

 

[Unionized Elf]

nd even if a whole set of staff is fired and replaced, the new hires are still responsible for turning out a good product that is consistent with what came before.

Not when legalities come into play. Though not confirmed, it is believed the reason Disco season 2 took such an abrupt turn midway through, just after the change in showrunners. That is, they changed the storyline so that they'd no longer have to pay the previous showrunners for using their idea. And indeed, considering how different the second half of the season is from the way the showrunners were describing it in their interviews before they were fired, it is a very real probability.

 

[Christopher]

Not when legalities come into play. Though not confirmed, it is believed the reason Disco season 2 took such an abrupt turn midway through, just after the change in showrunners. That is, they changed the storyline so that they'd no longer have to pay the previous showrunners for using their idea. And indeed, considering how different the second half of the season is from the way the showrunners were describing it in their interviews before they were fired, it is a very real probability.

That doesn't make sense, for two reasons. One, everyone on the writing staff contributes ideas to every episode, but they only get paid for episodes they get onscreen credit for, plus whatever regular staff salary they get. And there are many cases in TV where new showrunners continue the storylines started by their predecessors, even if they do it in a different way. For instance, Maurice Hurley was TNG's season 2 showrunner and the creator of the Borg -- and the showrunners who succeeded him certainly did not avoid continuing the Borg storyline.

The bigger reason it's nonsense is that the new showrunners did continue the basic story elements and original characters that Gretchen Berg & Aaron Harberts created -- the seven signals, the Red Angel, Pike, Spock, Jett Reno, Nhan, Leland, Section 31, the alien sphere, Saru's loss of his threat ganglia, etc. All that was set up in the first four episodes that Berg & Harberts oversaw or wrote themselves. Their successors shifted the focus and put the pieces together differently, but they still used the same elements and characters, which is what the creators would get paid for if they were going to be paid.

The reason new creators often take stories in a different direction is because they want to. No two creators approach things in exactly the same way. They have different interests and priorities, different storytelling styles and goals. Give two writers the same subject and they may disagree about the best way to approach it. And it's normal for new people in any job to want to leave their mark by pursuing their own projects instead of just continuing their predecessors' plans.

In the specific case of DSC season 2, I recall reading that Berg & Harberts had a story arc in mind that delved into religious ideas in a manner atypical of ST's usual secular humanism. So when Alex Kurtzman filled in as showrunner after they were fired, it's understandable that he wouldn't have wanted to continue the story arc they had in mind. Or maybe he was willing to let them do it, but others objected and he agreed to drop it.