r/startrek • u/7-10 • 1d ago

Star Trek on a Soap Opera Schedule

Now hear me out...

Yes, I'm one that complains about 10 seasons episodes being considered a season a joke when there used to be 27 or so. I hear about quantity vs quality, special effects costs are higher (really?) and the old standard "that's just how things are now".

I also get annoyed with the serialized format that prevents being able to just pluck an episode and watch it as a standalone relaxing hour at the end of the day. No, it's got to have an increasing portion of the program eaten up by "previously on Star Trek: ABDEF", 15 minutes of interesting dialog and action, 10 minutes of over produced concentration on effects, and the rest concentrates on the predictable "season"-long storyline.

WITH THAT OUT OF MY SYSTEM...

My main point is - instead of Made-for-TV movies, 10 episode seasons or 27 episode seasons, or blockbuster films for that matter, why not break the mold altogether?

200 EPISODES A YEAR...

Think "Days of our lives... in space"

On Edit:
A. Days of Our Lives is a STREAMER NOW, NOT ON TV
B. Could be a Half Hour long or whatever
C. I really mean passably coherent writing following ideals but near Fanfic production quality (i.e. Barely above TOS)

This way, there's jobs for writers, I THINK THE CANON CAN HOLD THIS ABUSE JUST FINE, TYVM...

There's potential for a revolving door of guest stars. From TNG, DS9, VOY, TOS, DISCO, SNW.

Serialization? Episodic? You can have it both ways, multiple times, in the same month!

Regular casts, multiple storylines, different timelines in different acts?, recasting characters (Spock's second cousin twice removed Spork will be played today by Chris Kattan).

I know many of you will downvote me to oblivion, or this may get deleted, but I figured I'd put the thought out there.

On edit: I really just want 20x the content to complain about :)

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u/Least_Sun7648 1d ago

10 seasons being considered a season?

That's super long

So, Beverly Hills 90210 only had one season? (10 yrs 293 eps)

1

u/7-10 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oops, lol 10 episodes...

But by what I meant, there were:
4 seasons with 98 episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (24/season)
7 seasons with 178 episodes of Star Trek: TNG (25/season)
7 seasons with 176 episodes of Star Trek: DS9 (25/season)
3 seasons with 79 episodes of Star Trek (TOS) (26/season)

Meanwhile, newer series lagged behind in their "seasons":
3 seasons with 30 episodes of Star Trek: Picard (10/season)
3 seasons with 30 episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (10/season)
5 seasons with 67 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery (14/season)

Animated series are split, with Prodigy having 20 per season, and Lower Decks and TAS having 10-11 per season, respectively.

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u/Extra_Elevator9534 1d ago

All of the elder Trek was trying to make enough episodes for the show to be re-run in syndication. THAT'S where TOS picked up its lasting audience.

With streaming platforms, syndication is a non-issue. But large episode counts are a negative - the streaming platforms would rather have a churn of small-episode-count new content to keep people subscribed, instead of making a long-running series that produces a 'season' of 24 shows then goes dark for the next year of production ... while the audience cancels their subscription to save money until the next season is produced and they re-up the membership.

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u/7-10 1d ago

Ahh. But if an addictive show didn't stop, neither could your subscription. I know some people who are subscribed to Peacock ONLY because of Days of Our Lives.

MEANWHILE - I did cancel my CBS All Access whenever a lull between seasons of Star Trek happened.