Star Trek executive producer wants more Strange New Worlds episodes, and I’m nervous

Strange New Worlds has been my favorite Trek since Next Generation, and if the quality continues, could easily be my favorite Trek ever. But with the e.p. wishing for more episodes per season, there’s a danger of diluting the show by adding weak episodes that would have never made it in a 10 episode season.

One of the things I’ve long admired with BBC shows is their normally low-episode seasons, which kept out a lot of filler that normally made it in to the broadcast shows from the states. But streaming (and before that, cable) changed things. Finally US based shows were able to create much lower episode seasons, allowing the creators to tell more of the story they wanted to tell, without stretching things out (too much), or being forced to add stories they weren’t thrilled with in order to fill the season. (Though, even with shorter runs, shows are still doing this. Picard season 2, for example, could have used some trimming. So, yeah, show runners are still being forced to fill seasons where X number of episodes were ordered before the story was fleshed out. Maybe it just seems more evident in serialized shows.)

I can’t help but think a longer season of SNW would be a “more is less” scenario. I’d much rather see Paramount create another Trek show that’s mainly episodic, that’s been shown the same attention to quality that SNW has received.

MSugarhill,
@MSugarhill@feddit.de avatar

Hey, with more episodes we might have gotten a proper Ortegas episode…

xusontha,

:(

StillPaisleyCat,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

It’s likely the impact of the sudden and unexpected death of Melissa Navia’s husband led to a lightning of her role in the second season.

She’s written about how hard it was for her to go into production just a couple of months after that. She was a musical theatre performer as a child, so it’s likely that a larger singing role was planned for her in 2 x 09. We can be thankful that she has apparently decided to stick with her career after some profound doubts in 2022.

MajorHavoc,

I hope Melissa continues to find the fandom to be a source of surrogate family. It was nice to see the fandom’s outpouring of empathy and support after her tragic loss. It’s not the same, but since it seems to have given her some comfort, I hope that dynamic can be something special for her for a long time.

MSugarhill,
@MSugarhill@feddit.de avatar

Oh damn. I had no idea.

Stormygeddon,

But we had her episode. We know her name is Erica Ortegas and that she flies the ship. What else do we need?

xusontha,

I would enjoy having more episodes, and I (hopefully) don’t think that enough people would approve anything that would compromise the quality, given how they clearly know what they’re doing

skellener,
@skellener@kbin.social avatar

Pay the writers, pay the actors, sign the contract order more episodes! ✊It’s a great show!

Madison_rogue,
@Madison_rogue@kbin.social avatar

While I understand your hesitation, I definitely believe there could have been at least five more relevant episodes in Season 2. This season was overall character driven instead of a "planet of the week" format we've seen before. So, there could have been some extra episodes that extrapolated on the seasonal Gorn arc, or an Ortegas episode, or a Pelia episode. There's a lot of potential to provide spanning character and seasonal arcs while delivering episodes from different planets over a 15 episode season.

I definitely believe 20 episodes is pushing it, but a 12-15 episode season could work if the stories are laid out well.

Tired8281,

I don’t see the problem. They obviously would hire more people to do double the episode load.

startrekexplained,

The second wasnt so good, I just liked two episodes out of 10. So if they cant even chunk out 10 good episodes, i dont know if i want more.

HobbitFoot,

That might be good, but I don’t think the actors would be able to take it. There are already bottle episodes like “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

williams_482,
@williams_482@startrek.website avatar

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is definitely not a “bottle episode”. Bottle episodes are episodes which require minimal or no additional budget for SFX, sets, etc beyond what is already available from previous/upcoming episodes. They exist as a money saving device which was necessary for shows to run 26 episode seasons and shell out for expensive productions while remaining within their budget. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow wouldn’t have been the most expensive episode to film, but there’s still a lot of exterior scenes, VFX, etc which make it quite a bit pricier than an episode almost entirely confined to a handful of existing sets.

It is a happy accident (whether by chance, or because the format forces an emphasis on the stories Trek has been best at telling) that Trek bottle episodes tend to include some of the best writing and character moments of the various series. This naturally leads to some confusion about what a “bottle episode” actually means.

Strange New Worlds has not had any true “bottle episodes” to date, although they certainly have been able to work in a lot of high quality character moments.

HobbitFoot,

If you look at the issue being actor fatigue instead of cash, the episode looks a lot more like a bottle episode.

The main character for the episode is someone who would be considered to be supporting cast. The only other characters from the show with significant screen time are also supporting cast.

It is an expensive bottle episode, but the scenes take place in a modern day city with a deep film industry. That is one step above TOS having an episode in a Western setting because the soundstage for it was already built.

riley0,
@riley0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I liked seeing La’an’s character develop in this one.

changingfmh,

Michelle Hurd has been championing longer seasons of television for the sake of job security. We really just need to accept that 10 episode series are not there to “cut out the bad stuff” but to put the cast and crew in a worse position. Produce less content, if it “flops” then you’ve only spent so much and can cut everyone loose and recoup the loss elsewhere instead of investing jn the future.

I think more episodes of SNW would do the show a lot of good. Right now, the status quo (in my eyes, at least) is gimmick episodes. We’re not getting nearly enough “normal” Trek. Season 2 specifically has mostly been gimmicks, crossovers, and bottle episodes. You really need to construct before you deconstruct, make a status quo before you break it. It would make these big episodes stand out more.

Schooner,

What are bottle episodes?

r_thndr,

Episodes that occur entirely on the ship (Enterprise) with no interactions or consequences outside of the ship.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode

PuppyOSAndCoffee,
@PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml avatar

Not just this that, but how s2 ended…

BRUH

Don’t do us like that!

spoilerI don’t mind a little bit of tune in next year but to chop it off like that is totes BS

So…

More episodes would allow SNW to be more things for more people, and try to color outside the lines of traditional sci fi drama. Some people love the quirky episodes, and that’s cool. I am not into musicals; however, if there is one “that time I went to band camp” episode a year that doesn’t fill a 10 ep slot, ok, whatever. 10eps is REALLY SHORT.

flowerofanarchy,

I don’t agree at all. I always liked how long the seasons were for TNG, DS9,and Voyager. Also the low episode count at the moment isn’t about quality over quantity it just is less work for the cast and crew. Honestly the more Star Trek the better. Even the worst episodes of Trek have their charm aside from TNG Season 1 Episode 3 “Code of Honor”. Some of the TOS episodes haven’t aged the best but its the 60s so whatever.

Reva,

What quality? It has the writing and acting quality of Big Bang Theory.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • [email protected]
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • Ask_kbincafe
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • SuperSentai
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines