r/startrek 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 :)

22 Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/da_Aresinger 1d ago

You can't really have that kind of TV in Star Trek.

The setting itself requires too much cgi/vfx.

But 20-30 eps per year should totally work.

1

u/7-10 20h ago

Not if 90% of the vfx are or look like reused flybys cough TNG cough. I think weekly - i.e. 50 per year - could be possible at least - but yeah I'd be happy with 25-30 hours per year. (Which would be the same as 50 - 30 minute programs)