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I think it depends a lot on the content:
Most of the Marvel shows feel already stretched out with 6 episodes, there simply isn't enough content there.
The Mandalorian worked fine with "just" 10 episodes (despite being episodic), simply because of the production value of each episode, but also it has just 2 main characters.
Star Trek is still doing that classic "ensemble cast" from the old network tv days - even on shows where it really shouldn't (PIC). At least every main character should get SOME focused screentime! Even Game of Thrones seasons felt sometimes "short" for their big cast.
Basically:
The more main characters there are, and the more episodic the series is, the more episodes should be there per season. And Trek is maxing both.
I would love to have some 15-20 episodes per season (and yeah, I love the "low stakes" bottle- or side-character episodes in between - without them, the big event episodes hit only half as good). But imo 13 episodes should be the absolute minimum for a Trek season.
But yeah, business doesn't really care for such details. 6-10 is the standard for streaming shows, so every streaming show will have 6-10 episodes, no fucks given if it makes any sense or not.
Most of the Marvel shows feel already stretched out with 6 episodes, there simply isn't enough content there.
The Mandalorian worked fine with "just" 10 episodes (despite being episodic), simply because of the production value of each episode, but also it has just 2 main characters.
Star Trek is still doing that classic "ensemble cast" from the old network tv days - even on shows where it really shouldn't (PIC). At least every main character should get SOME focused screentime! Even Game of Thrones seasons felt sometimes "short" for their big cast.
Basically:
The more main characters there are, and the more episodic the series is, the more episodes should be there per season. And Trek is maxing both.
I would love to have some 15-20 episodes per season (and yeah, I love the "low stakes" bottle- or side-character episodes in between - without them, the big event episodes hit only half as good). But imo 13 episodes should be the absolute minimum for a Trek season.
But yeah, business doesn't really care for such details. 6-10 is the standard for streaming shows, so every streaming show will have 6-10 episodes, no fucks given if it makes any sense or not.
One of things I miss for the longer seasons is ever character got development and I feel like it really help round them out in ways their just isn't time for in modern shows. If "Strange New Worlds" lets say already had 15 episodes for each of the past 3 seasons I bet we would have at least 2 or 3 episodes focused heavily on Ortegas. Who has quietly become my second favorite character on the show after Pike.
I think this is true to an extent, but it's mainly because of fan expectations of that old Trek paradigm which contributed to the backlash to Discovery.
That show started out focusing on a pretty small core cast that wasn't really the bridge crew of the ship: Prisoner Burnham, Cadet Tilly, weirdo mushroom guy Stamets, plus Saru and shady Captain Lorca.
Yet fans complained that we didn't know anything about Owosekun, Rhys, Detmer and Ariam. But they were never the intended focus of the story the show was trying to tell.
So later seasons pay lip service to those characters, and manoeuvre the original core cast into the key bridge officer roles. We still don't really know anything about the supporting characters, because they're supporting characters. There's no room for them in the focused, season-long serialised structure.
SNW has gone big on the ensemble, but is telling more episodic stories that make room for spotlight episodes. Most characters have had their fair share, except perhaps for Ortegas.
Money sense.
That's what it makes.
Whether it works or not is up to the individual.
Much more my preference.
The last 13-episode season of Doctor Who was 2011, Matt Smith's second series! And even that had a three-month gap in the middle.
After that they started doing split seasons and then the regular episode count reduced to 12 with Capaldi, then 10, and now 8.
And the biggest writing sin that happened continuously during those latter seasons were the clunky and expository way of the supporting Bridge crew revealing their happenstance backstories because it was relevant in that exact moment of the episode. None of it was ever organically integrated in a Chekov's gun sort of way.
Exactly. They're not in the ensemble and the show did more with the secondary "day players" than people realize in the complaining.
But, they're not supposed to be the focus by design.
That wasn't necessarily true of all older shows. TOS and TNG did not develop all of their casts well, and TNG had the most episodes of any Trek show. I do agree Star Trek should develop all of its cast, and more episodes would help that, but it's not a sure thing in ST history
Nonetheless, I would prefer 13-15 episodes. Like many said, the old ways of doing shows isn't coming back, and many actors prefer it like that. and for some shows, like a few of the Star Wars or MCU shows, some feel a bit stretched out (though fans also exaggerate that for every show as usual). But i would like a few more than we tend to get nowadays.
That's a failure of the writing though, not of fan expectations.
Esp. in the first season, where Burnham didn't have a bridge position, the writers could have done something interesting with the battle scenes - e.g. show them from inside Burnham's quarter, only hearing the com & feeling the ship, unable to do anything.
Instead they went by the numbers: Show everything from the bridge, have officers rattle down shield percentages, and sparks flying along the wall. And THEN it becomes REALLY noticeable that we essentially know nothing about any of these characters, when the only focus character isn't even there where the camera & all the dialogue is.
Definitely not. Star Trek used day players all the time. There are so many examples. Yes, fan expectations play a huge role in. The other side being some not engaging with Burnham and demanding more of their favorites.
If that's a Trek problem then I've had it since TOS.
Each season of The Mandalorian only has eight episodes.
Doctor Who only did thirteen episodes because RTD believed there was a chance of getting it on an American network, where thirteen was the minimum they'd accept. Even then, in order to meet deadlines, they had to do one "Doctor Lite" episode each season, an episode where the Doctor is only featured in a reduced capacity, maybe even only appearing in one or two scenes.
Uhura in five minutes of SNW had more character development than in every TOS episode and movie combined, in which the writers couldn't even have bothered to give her a first name.
Episode count has nothing to do with character development.
Shows in the 1960's used to do 35 episodes a season.
I am a salivating I Dream of Jeannie fan. I prefer the two TV-movies that were produced after the show (I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later and I Still Dream of Jeannie) to the original series.
Humor from the 1960's doesn't necessarily translate well today. What was acceptable back then is not necessarily acceptable today.
I just can't watch the reruns without wondering which banana peel Jeannie is going to step on next.
#IStillDreamOfJeannie
Harry Kim says hello.
The man didn't get a promotion until 29 years later on Lower Decks (and yes, Garrett Wang is coming back as LIEUTENANT Harry Kim).
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It was a good plan and I felt it was basically the perfect amount. Without the "Doctor Lite" episode we wouldn't have Blink. I cant quite picture the show without that.
And got surprisingly better with each season.
I agree. I suspect that was partly down to the chaos behind the scenes that lead to the show being retooled even as it was being shot.
There was a clear conscious effort to "reset" the show into the standard Star Trek bridge crew dynamic - e.g. by the end of season 1 the supporting characters all get to join in with Burnham for the cheesy victory photo; S2 starts with Pike asking everyone to introduce themselves, Owo goes on the landing party in an early episode.
But structurally the show still wasn't about them and didn't have room for them. They got a bit more to do as the writers made an effort to try to flesh some of them out, but fundamentally they're more like Sulu or Chekov in TOS than Worf on TNG, or anyone on DS9.
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