Bottle episodes meant people didn’t need to be invested in years long sagas. People don’t know what they want. They’re force fed fancy wine, thinking they’ve become connoisseurs by their own choice, but actually it’s box wine from Walmart. They get fed up and quit after a season or two, but they don’t know why. They tell themselves it’s because the writers or studios are doing it wrong. Of course that’s true, but not for the reasons they think. Give people something easier to digest in small bites and they’ll continue watching shows.
The same problem happened to Marvel. At this point nobody has kept track of the dozens of movies and all the plot lines. They lose viewers by attrition. They gain none because nobody is watching hundreds of hours of movies to catch up. Bottle episodes and standalones make it easy for people to start and stop at any point.
Standalone content got a derogatory label “filler”. So people hate it because they’re told to.
Discoverability is also in the toilet. You can’t just turn on the television and find Star Trek. You have to be subscribed to the right streaming services in this landscape, and to do that, you have to want to watch it in the first place. It’s not like when Discovery was new, and there was more or less just Netflix that people either had or didn’t have.
Star Trek’s now in the unenviable position of trying to attract a new causal audience, but being set up in places where more dedicated viewers will be the ones that can find and watch it.
they keep coming out with new series, only to cancel it, because the show becomes sloppier and sloppier than STD, AND picard. also the fact that ELLISON owns it now.
Most of the nest star trek episodes were bottles
Its not the brevity, it’s the extended delay between them
Half of them were filler and three of them were compilation recap episodes and they ran for 22 minutes each not counting ads, but yes, that’s what USA TV series were like.
And actors were visibly bored and mailing it in by episode 16.
TBH I don’t mind if a modern season is 12 or so episodes, so long as those episodes are rock solid! One downside to 22-24 episode seasons is they obviously phone in a couple episodes, have some filler including the ever-dreaded clip-show.
scifi shows need at least 20 at minimum, too much to go through that cant be done in 8-10episodes.
Bad writing if you can’t tell a story in 8 episodes
That’s what I miss, some of the filler episodes would give so much more depth to the world and characters.
Every Ferengi episode in Ds9 was a treasure
All hail the bottle episodes!
Just think, due to budget distribution, we got “Family” right after “Best of Both Worlds, pt. 2” and it’s among the best Picard-centric episodes (and provided thematic ground for Generations, First Contact, and Picard–for good and not-so-good)!
Other than “Profit and Lace”, I agree with you.
i would rather have the ‘longer’ seasons with relatively consistent schedules and early announcement of cancellation or renewal. ya know, like the ‘olden days’. yea. i feel as old as i sound. idc. that’s what i want.
For Strange New Worlds we almost got that, short seasons, but it looks like they only skipped 2024 and were on a very consistent schedule so far. The cancellation/ending of the show was announced last year for I assume next year.
Same, I need shit to have on in the background while I’m playing games or whatever. These 8 episode series just don’t cut it. Fortunately the old stuff is replayable and great for that purpose.
Fortunately the old stuff is replayable and great for that purpose
yup. and i do that, frequently. add directory to vlc, hit random and let 'er go. hours later, maybe get sidetracked by a ‘good’ episode… then get sidetracked by the sidetrack and watch three more.
just do cocaine
On the other hand, sometimes episodes written specifically to be take it easy can still be exceptionally good. Duet was a cost-saving exercise and I consider it to be one of the best Trek episodes of all time. A modern show with a movie-tier per-episode budget is not going to have the kind of constraints that caused the writers to focus that intensely on characterization.
They also tend to be episodic, with only a few as part of a full narrative.
NuTrek is more like a movie trilogy, with hour long episodes often being part of a series. You get a single overarching plot with minor subplots. And the production value is far more in line with movie production values.
but the plot is so bad for nutrek. picard had romulans, android which dropped the next season, and the borg was dropped in favor of a nolstagia last season. pretty much copied from STD.
I miss the episodic vibe. I feel like the writers have so little wiggle room to do characterization when the characters are committed to a long narrative arc. No rando stand-alone, self-contained stories that edify and deepen. No contemplative presentation of ideas. The only device allowed for this is flashbacks, and generally only when it feels like the character is missing some context to explain their behavior in the current scene. It is the second most depressing aspect of NuTrek with the first being that Trek stopped being about presenting a utopia vision for the future.
EPISODIC with underlying overarching plot hinting at future episodes too.
I feel like the writers have so little wiggle room to do characterization when the characters are committed to a long narrative arc. No rando stand-alone, self-contained stories that edify and deepen.
Yeah, I get that. TNG had a lot more room to play with Data’s quest for humanity than Picard. Which is ironic, given that Data was about as important as Picard in the second series.
But I also didn’t need to watch Beverly Crusher have sex with a ghost. So, trade-offs.
It is the second most depressing aspect of NuTrek with the first being that Trek stopped being about presenting a utopia vision for the future.
I always found the Utopianism of Old Trek overstated. More often than not, it was the Trek crew stumbling on some alien race or society that was experimenting with another Sci-Fi author’s idea of Utopianism. And then the Trek crew became the vehicle of Rodenberry’s critique of the utopian philosophy.
I do think a lot of the NuTrek writers keyed in on the season long conflicts in DS9 and decided “This is what we need to do going forward”. And, as a result, you got these increasingly narrow, black-and-white, action-focused adventures (the post-OS movies were the worst offenders of this trope). The apex of this (for me) was JJ Abrams blowing up Vulcan in his movie adaptation, so he could do Star Wars in Starfleet Uniforms.
But if you go back to the older episodes, I might argue that it was the captains who were Utopian. But the Trek Society was still very militant and authoritarian.
I would actually argue that Seth MacFarlane’s Orville did a much better job of painting a utopian intergalactic federation than Rodenberry or his successors ever did. The culmination of the third season really painted the triumph of politics and inter-uh-galacticism over Realpolitik and imperialism.
But I also didn’t need to watch Beverly Crusher have sex with a ghost. So, trade-offs.
The occasional sporadic cringe episode is an easy price to pay for all the other episodes being generally good.
But I also didn’t need to watch Beverly Crusher have sex with a ghost.
Take it back, next thing I know you’ll say the episode dealing with Lt. Broccoli’s gooning problem was unnecessary
I always found the Utopianism of Old Trek overstated. More often than not, it was the Trek crew stumbling on some alien race or society that was experimenting with another Sci-Fi author’s idea of Utopianism. And then the Trek crew became the vehicle of Rodenberry’s critique of the utopian philosophy. […] the Trek Society was still very militant and authoritarian
This is what happens when we fail our students. Inattentiveness combines with poor narrative comprehension and people only take away surface-level impressions to (of the few parts to which they paid attention, the still fewer) parts they retain.
Man, putting the entirety of sentient biological life at risk to save the gender identity of one person is not a “triumph over realpolitik” but childish wish fulfillment completely unmoored from any sense of realism.
The alliance was what put sentient biological life at risk. The Moclans were incapable of reconciling with the Kaylons and only pushed the entire Planetary Union towards intergalactic war. The question put before the crew was of political alignment, not annihilation.
And it is reflective of modern global politics, wherein liberals surrender to their fascist neighbors to satisfy a hunger for human sacrifice that transgender people only fulfill on a temporary basis. In the end, it is the upstart working class who can be reasoned and negotiated with, while the religious zealots and fascist chauvinists who rush towards galactic annihilation.
The choice of political alignment, though, had strategic consequences, no?
The binary was:
a) Turn over the girl to the Moclans in violation of PU ethics. This would secure Moclan cooperation in the war against the Kaylon and help the odds of organic life surviving.
or
b) Keep the girl in accordance with PU ethics. This would alienate the Moclans, risk the military alliance, and increase the odds of destroying all organic life.
And as I recall, this wasn’t a choice the crew made, but a choice the PU made as Peter Griffin argued for it.
Maybe it’s from a later season?
But, anyway, as a critique of Democratic Party Politics, I don’t find it very satisfying. The problem with the Democratic Party is that it’s captured by corporate capitalist interest and we are prevented from building an effective political narrative (the rich are out to destroy all of us) because they are funded by wealthy interests that would be threatened by the raising of class consciousness.
As a result, Dems are just sort of stuck being the party of vaguely nice people, which includes being for minority inclusion, but, you are quite correct to say that this does NOT ever really extend to trans-people. But the problem is that everyone assumes Dems do support trans rights because it makes perfect sense to that they would, but because Dems won’t actually DEFEND the position they are ACCUSED of, they lose everyone–unaware people who just assume Dems support trans rights, and people tuned in to the fact that Dems throw trans-people under the bus at every opportunity.
I don’t know you make that fine grained analogy in an epic military space opera, tho.
This would secure Moclan cooperation in the war against the Kaylon
Why do you want to side with the TERF aliens against the anti-slavery robots, again?
What I remember:
KaylonsThe Moclans refused military co-operation (edit: against the Kaylons) unless the PU turned over the girl Moclan. Without this alliance, there was a greater risk of annihilation. Is that correct?Kaylons are the robots that were trying to wipe out all organic life until the season 3, you mean moclans?
Kaylons refused military co-operation unless the PU turned over the girl Moclan
The Moclans refused military co-operation to battle the Kaylons. But then the Orville crew learned more about the Kaylon history and discovered their deep hatred of biological life stemmed from their long history of enslavement and abuse at the hands of biologics. So the crew reconciled with the Kaylons, but ended up in a fight with the Moclans who joined the Krill to wage war on the Union, pretty much entirely unprovoked.
The alliance with the Moclans and Krill was ultimately always doomed, due to the natural ideological conflict between them and the Unions. The Kaylon were the natural allies, but only achieved this allegiance through good faith efforts by each of the factions.
I do mind. Most of the time the modern short season system means, its a long movie or to use buzz words = binge worthy. You must watch every episode and in order. With the old system, you could watch most of the season out of order and skip episodes. The ones that need to be watched, are usually the double or tripple episodes. The old system allows full episodes for side/background characters, developing their story.
Of course there is the budget and with more episodes, it allows for a bigger difference. I don’t mind cheaper episodes but I hate a big “previously on” episode, where there is not even character development.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true, I always thought 24-26 20-minute episodes was the perfect length for an anime. It’s about 8 hours total, same as a movie trilogy, perfect for a longer narrative without filler.
True.
Today, we’re lucky to get half that. Eight is more common.
nO ONe waNtS tO woRK AnYmORE!
I think it’s little more than producers have found the idealized timing to pack in all the melodrama they can and get you to watch all X episodes.
Then have you come back for something else, a “variation on a theme”.
The producers simply know how to sucker us in.
The producers simply know how to sucker us in.
They know how to sucker investors in, certainly. Idk about the long term health of the medium. People still just binge watch Friends, ffs. So much of the most popular material is behind us.
Television producers do not deal with investors. That’s waaay above their grade.
“Why do people keep canceling their subscription?”
Because you only release enough episodes to binge during a weekend.
and then wait 1-2 years in between seasons for only 8 episodes. granted nutrek is 10 at elast, but its very short for scifi.
I’m pretty sure it was less than a year between seasons too.
None of this wait 2-3 years and wonder if its actually been cancelled.
a few shows had that long of a wait.
They would take a break equal to public schools being let out for the summer, at the same time schools let out for summer. They have much longer breaks now due to the writer’s union fighting to get longer seasonal breaks, as well as adding mid-season breaks.
Season breaks have absolutely nothing to do with the WGA. In fact, short seasons are a significant problem for the union as writers were continuing to be held in exclusivity while having much less work.
Yeah but then they’d run new shows during the summer short season and if they were popular they’d get picked up for the fall-spring season.
A discussion yesterday about netflix shows dropping 50% of their audience between season 1 and 2 was talking about this. Shows used to run 9 months and have 22 - 26 shows in that time. Then there’d be a 3 month hiatus before you got another 22+ episodes. A streaming show would take 7 season to get to 50 episodes, and with a year or more between 8 episode chunks it’d take 15 years to get there.
I don’t miss filler episodes or saving the budget for sweeps, but I miss shows I love constantly producing new content.
netflixs problem is usually due them cancelling shows after 1-2 seasons, or forced cancellation of a show that goes on longer than 2. like thats why they lose viewership, plus the immense time in between seasons. like sandman, BOz.
They also just push new things at viewers. It’s inevitable that someone waiting for a Season 2 of a show they like might end up in a warren of other shows, and watch those instead, since they’re available.
remember how long it took sandman to finally rushed to being finished? eventhough neil gaiman was getting cancelled. BOZ shouldnt have that problem, but Netflix did not want to continue the series anymore, there was alot more material to go through like several seasons, if they dint rush the titans to being defeated so easily, plus other primordial beings arcs. i think nocturne castlevania is total limbo right now.
Well yeah, they could crank out a whole episode in like a day back then. These days people expect every episode to have the quality of Hollywood movie.
The nature of tv has changed. The gap between tv and movie has largely closed. People lament that we are moving away from traditional Hollywood movies, but I’d argue that we’re more moving away from traditional television with premium tv now taking the place of movies in many ways.
It’s not that people like stories less, they just seem to prefer a series of 1 hour movies told in 8 parts over a single 90 minute plotline.
Television used to be sooooo much different than Hollywood. There used to be almost no overlap in skills or technique. I used to work in TV, and what I used to do just isn’t done anymore. The closest thing out there now to old tv is Saturday night live. They still kinda do it in that style.
These days people expect every episode to have the quality of Hollywood movie.
Don’t put that shit on me!
I don’t think people prefer this. I think this is what we’ve been forced to prefer because that’s the only thing available right now.
There’s still plenty of movies available right now. People are just watching the shows more and so that’s what you hear about more.
The only modern show to approach that was 20 episode Prodigy seasons, but those were 1/2 hour episodes (less without commercials), so it works out to be the same amount of content as a 10 episode Strange New Worlds season.
A 16 episode season would be a nice compromise for a more detailed story and character development while not being much longer for those who bury their faces in phones or other devices and can’t be bothered to listen to more than 8-10 episodes. 👀 /s
A little extra breathing room compared to what’s common now would be great.
Yeah, but actors and film crews who worked those syndicated TV shows will tell you how tortorous the work schedules were. Labor protections are a big part of the changes in episode production, and it’s a good thing.
The change is because of the shift to streaming, people can watch the shows whenever they want so things like status quo and always being on air are less important than having a narrative and strong episodes. Yes labor protections and the rest are important but even these days plenty of shows like soaps manage 20+ episodes - the difference is that they’re aimed at a tv audience.
More than a few low quality episodes, a couple flashback episodes, and extensive repetition before commercial breaks. It wasn’t good TV.
I think you’re misremembering.
TNG is mostly good episodes. A lot of them aren’t high stakes, but they don’t need to be. I don’t remember there being more than maybe 4 clipshows in all of TNG, and only 3 episodes make the “truly awful” list.
plus some excellent bottles episodes to compensate the budget
Clip show episodes worked then because DVRs and on-demand streaming wasn’t a thing.
I remember getting super excited when my parents got a VCR with a timed record function so that we could record shows and watch them on our own schedule.
Same way with anime. They used to be 24-26 and then they invented a new word “cour” (I know, probably not new) for 12-14 episodes and acted like series were always that short.
But what was even more annoying is that for a lot of series after about 2010-2013 they would do one cour and leave you on a cliffhanger to try to entice you to go buy the light novels. They used to be fully self contained arcs and stories with 24 episodes to work with.
tbf, 50%+ of the runtime used to be filler too
iirc narutos is like 70% shorter if you cut out all the flashblacks and shit
That was very frustrating. I eventually stopped watching Naruto Shippuden when, in some filler episode, they had a flashback about a time when they had a flashback to remember some sort of technique.
That is the main reason I stopped watch nowadays anime.
I will say, after about ‘24 it started getting better and back to self contained arcs with no large cliffhangers.
That’s 24 with Christmas and Halloween specials. Or a clip show, ugh.
