Standalone Or Serialized...

[Kor]

It's interesting how serialization flip-flopped from being a sign of cheap melodramatic soap operas, to the standard that all respectable shows must now abide by.

Kor

 

[CorporalClegg]

Well, the relative position at any time of the show dictated what type of aliens they met.

Once they left the Kazon and Vidiian space, those species only ever appeared in flashbacks or timetravel episodes anymore. The Voyager crossed the Borg space between season 3 and 4, after that the Borg continued to show up (because of their superiour travel speed), but only ever as single ships. Once they reached a point where communication with Earth could be established, that was a constant on the show.

However you spin it, the journey of the Voyager has very clear and obvious "steps", and the regions are more clearly defined by travel times than in any other Trek show ever, where a journey between Earth and Kronos could take everything from weeks to hours.

Again: Voyager is really not a serialized show. But that is because every single episode has a singular plot that is resolved one way or another at the end of the episode. But plot threads get revisited regularly, and have a clear progression. The series absolutely has serialized storytelling elements, period.

And that's all superficial pretext.

As I said.

 

[Krandor]

And that's all superficial pretext.

As I said.

I think of the majority of voyager episodes you could remove any mention of what sector of space they are in and little would actually change in the actual story.

They could have done a lot more with locations in space to make it really feel like it mattered and cohesive and so forth but you can't do that and have the "reset switch" .

I can watch an episode is Kazon space and then an episode in borg space back to back and there would be no reason to think those two episodes couldn't happen back to back.

 

[Rahul]

And that's all superficial pretext.

As I said.

I know you don't care for it, but IMO progression and change in characters and environment is important in a larger story arc. Even if it's made up of smaller, self-contained stories.

They could have done a lot more with locations in space to make it really feel like it mattered and cohesive and so forth but you can't do that and have the "reset switch" .

VOY did literally more in that regard, to differentiate and define the different locations it's travelling through, and give each of them a different feel and backstory, than any other Trek show before or after it.

I mean, yes, it's still a child of it's time, and a lot of it looks rather mundane now in the era of serialized television. A modern show would be expected to do dig way deeper in this regard. But then again, DIS is amodern show, and is a big step back again.

 

[Krandor]

VOY did literally more in that regard, to differentiate and define the different locations it's travelling through, and give each of them a different feel and backstory, than any other Trek show before or after it.

I mean, yes, it's still a child of it's time, and a lot of it looks rather mundane now in the era of serialized television. A modern show would be expected to do dig way deeper in this regard. But then again, DIS is amodern show, and is a big step back again.

I will agree with that part. However except for the few stories that were follow-ups to previous stories (and still in many of those cases), every episode of voyager was pretty much self contained and could be watched in any order. Yes you will get a little more feel for the different areas of space if watching in order but it was and isn't required to do so. That is why I consider voyager a non-serial show and a show I think could have benefited from a lot more serial elements but that just wasn't what was wanted.

 

[Rahul]

every episode of voyager was pretty much self contained

Absolutely!

and could be watched in any order.

Only kinda'.

If you watch two episodes from different seasons, you can immediately grasp the main plot of each episode. But you lose most of the subtle character progressions and changes.

Of which there were more than, say, on TNG. On TNG the writers clearly got better an writing the characters over time, but with a few exception the characters stayed pretty much the same throughout the series. (And to be honest, the writing was overall MUCH better on VOY). OTOH on VOY, the characters noticeably changed over time, as did a lot of subtle background things. If you watched the series in order, you notice subtle things in the background that give you definite hints at where things are right now and at which point of the journey you are now. Which makes thwrowback episodes like "Scattered" or "Fury" so fun, because they faithfully recreated all those little background things from earlier seasons during the time-travels to their own past. Which makes the change that has happened even more noticable: The character doesn't seem that different from episode to episode. But if you look back, suddenly everything has changed!

That's IMO probably also were a lot of the undeserved criticism of Voyager comes from: "Inconsistent characterization". (Yeah, Voyager had a lot of deserved criticism as well, but this wasn't one of them). It comes mostly from people that actually didn't watch the show, but only watched certain episodes that were recommended to them - often out of order - and while they perfectly understood the main plot of each episode, the serialization and characterisation aspects got completely lost on them. And they wondered, why does Janeway act one way in this episode, another way in this, and now back like this again? Not realizing the two episodes where she acted one way happened close to each other, and then there was a dramatic change for her character (like her alliance with the Borg), after which she acted different facing similar situations - but out of a convincing reason: experience.

Each of the characters actually had a few of those big, changing moments, from the obvious ones (the Doctor getting his emmiter and becoming a fully independant being), to the more subtle (Neelix facing his war trauma, and dropping a lot of his early "bravado" covering up for his cowardness).

But a lot of that gets lost when you watch the episodes out of order, and those changes can get irritating without an explanation. Wheras the TNG crew stayed pretty much consistent over time, so that they became almost archetypes who's character you can immediately identify, no matter the season.

 

[Ralphis]

If we're taking about something that's intended to be an ongoing series, then I'd like mostly standalone/episodic, but throw in some serialized elements. Every week would be new adventure and story, but the decisions the characters made and the relationships formed in the previous episode(s) would carryover to the next episode and beyond. It's not just a blank canvas every episode. Imagine if in season 4 of TNG, Picard dealt with some sort of PTSD throughout the whole season in reference to the Borg. We got a little bit of that in 'Family', but what if it lasted several episodes? The episodes and stories would still be pretty much the same, but every once in awhile you get a glimpse of Picard's struggle. (Note - Just using this has a hypothetical example and totally not criticizing TNG - it was a product of its time and had a formula it had to adhere to.) I'm not an "The Orville is better than STD!!" guy, but The Orville to an extent does do this, blend standalone with serialized elements.

I don't have anything against serialization (I love Game of Thrones) - but one of the greatest things about Star Trek, and one of the key factors why it's been alive for so long IMHO, is that you can literally take almost any episode of TOS or TNG, regardless what season it's from, and watch it whenever you want. You want to watch The Inner Light? Go for it. Got 55 minutes to kill? Balance of Terror sounds good. With serialization, there's a shelf life. You're not going to just randomly start watching an episode of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad... or Discovery.

Now, if we're talking a limited-run/mini series, obviously you'll want to serialize it. That's a little different. A contained 6-9 episode arc with a certain, definite ending is easier to consume than an ongoing serialized TV show that kind of tapers off in the later seasons.

There, hopefully I didn't ramble too much.

I've had a change of heart a little bit. I'd still love some new standalone/episodic Star Trek, but if CBS All Access is serious about having new Star Trek at all times, I guess I'm not sure why you couldn't have both serialized and standalone, as well as other formats. I'm not talking some sort of a hybrid show (kind of like I described in my rambling original post), but, like, you can have multiple shows at the same time with different formats. Disco can be your serialized show. The Picard show can be your limited-run/miniseries (assuming that's what they're doing). A future show could offer more of a standalone/episodic approach. And so on... If CBS All Access really does want to pump out Star Trek all the time like they've said, you literally could have a little something for everyone.

Ok, sorry I revived this thread. I just didn't think it was worth it to start a whole new one just for my quasi change of heart. I almost didn't even post this post, but, #yolo, I guess. (Yes, I know, hashtags don't work here. I had two hours of sleep.)