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.

buckykat,

I don’t understand this idea that fewer episodes is better. Basically my only complaint about SNW season 2 is how rushed it felt.

Richard,
@Richard@startrek.website avatar

How did it feel rushed? We had a new adventure every week that was largely unrelated to the previous one, and character development was distributed all throughout the season. The only thing I felt was rushed were some of the episodes like the one with the tower (Among the Lotus Eaters) where the resolution to the conflict came very surprisingly and abruptly, but longer seasons wouldn’t have changed that.

buckykat,

The big one is Chapel and Spock. She goes straight from pursuing him to leaving him without much of any actual relationship in between. Pelia doesn’t get to do much as the chief engineer, and Ortegas barely gets any screen time at all.

stargazingpenguin,

I would be very happy to see 15 episodes a year, I think their current cast is great. They’ve expanded the story of some of the characters in season 2, but I feel they could easily add a few more spotlight episodes a year.

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.

Infinity187,

I’m down for more episodes per season, granted they have a good crew. It means more work for screenwriters and a potential for some amazing episodes. Let’s give it a shot!

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

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.

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.

Tired8281,

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

Reva,

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

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.

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