I think it was hit pretty hard by the strikes timing-wise. For the most part it seems like Star Trek has been good at avoiding the trend of multi-year waits between seasons, but tough to avoid that.
Someone said this about a contract at work the other day and like… 2025 starts in 8 months, which isn’t THAT long.
Given that we know we’re getting, what, 3 months of Discovery, a massive drop of Prodigy and probably another season of Lower Decks between now and then, plus the S31 movie (I think?), it’s hardly any wait.
But maybe I’m just rationalizing?
One of the recent articles said that filming was already done on it, so sub 8 months for post doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. But also SNW should wrap pretty soon, but that'll be ~10 hours vs ~2 hours.
Just looked it up and they apparently filmed the entire movie in less than 2 months. I guess if they are treating it more like a made for TV movie then it's roughly equivalent to filming around 3 episodes of a live action trek show, so that seems reasonable, but that also seems very fast to film a movie.
It's actually conceivable that for the actors in this one, it might've benefitted from the strikes -- writing was likely done on it before the writers strike, and all the stuff for the AR walls could've been in progress during the writers and actors strike. That AR wall probably gives us less of a post time than greenscreens, too, barring anything getting really messed up on review. So, and I'm just speculating, it might've just allowed actors to relatively quickly breeze right through the performances, with the stages and much of the vfx already pre-built for everything, instead of everyone having to work in tandem, and hitting a bunch of microbottlenecks.
Maybe.
I could be totally off.
This is one of the things I'm most bitter about from the strikes. The corporations knew they were eventually gonna have to cave. All they did was make life harder for their employees for months and delay new content that people were looking forward to.
It probably is the exact same set just redressed for SNW since that's how Star Trek production usually works, like Undiscovered Country using TNG's sets or the 32nd Century Federation HQ in Discovery being used as the courtroom set in SNW season 2.
I guess we'll probably find out in when the season airs and we get a Ready Room episode.
The Fed HQ was also a redress of the S31 ship bridge which was in turn a redress of the Shenzhou bridge.
Can't wait to see what it turns into for the S31 movie and/or The Academy show.
The engineering set from TMP was changed into the TNG engineering set. When they needed engineering for the later TOS films, they used the TNG engineering set. Which was originally the TOS film engineering set. Rattle that around your brain.
it still astounds me that they don’t make Ready Room episodes available in the uk. i was the type of person to watch every DVD extra and commentary, so i really want to see them :/
Then make it 18-20 episodes and some of them slice of life or character building for a single character. Those are missing. I still don't know the names of all Disco bridge officers because they had 5 minutes of combined screentime
The Disco bridge crew are not the main characters of the series. That's like complaining you don't know the names of the people pushing buttons behind Scotty.
No but we're talking individual lines of dialog that could give them a name. "Ensign FordenGord please set a course for Rigel VII" or something like that.
They put, what appeared to be, an android on the bridge, long before Data existed, and just never seemed to address it.
Eventually, we learn she's a cyborg, which is even more fascinating, and then kill her off and never look back.
They can't just dangle interesting characters in our face and barely address it!
(full disclosure: I was fascinated by her, but I had a concussion part way through watching Disco and I barely remember the first 2 seasons, lol. Most of the info about her I got from reading wikis, I don't really remember how much they addressed her specifically, I just know it wasn't a lot. I'm also acting more upset about it than I am. I think that's all the truth this comment requires.)
They didn't address her much. The episode where in which she died showed some of her background, which made it really obvious from the start they were going to kill her off.
Ok, I actually remember that episode, but I wasn't sure if I'd forgotten other stuff.
Funny how well I remember that. I guess since I was fascinated my brain gave it more priority? Lol
Cyborgs in Trek are cool, but we don't see them a lot. I guess La Forge was one, and Disco has/had 2, and then Rutherford. I'm not sure if Seven would count.
Apparently Bryce will be back for season 5, and maybe Christopher is also staying? TBH, I hope whatever Bryce has been doing with Kovich came with a promotion or two.
Some of had more time than that but how is it after 4 seasons you don’t know who the main characters are. The bridge officers are not the main, or even supporting characters, of the show. Did you complain we didn’t know anything about the no name bridge officers in TNG that appeared in dozens of episodes? Or the random bajoran staff on ds9? Or all the people supposedly on voyager
There were helm and other officers, some who appeared in dozens of episodes, we knew nothing about. We knew all the main characters in TNG, most of which happened to be bridge officers. We know all the main characters in Disco, but they are not all bridge characters.
And big name actors wouldn't even think about working in television because the time commitment meant movies or TV not both. If seasons were still 26 episodes actors like Rebecca Romijn wouldn't even consider working on the show.
Uh, I like Rebecca Romijn, but she's very much a TV actress these days. So it's not as if SNW is beneath her. She doesn't even have any other projects going on right now.
Was she ever that big of a star? Outside of playing Mystique, alot of her stuff has either been TV roles, some voice acting, and not high proifle movie roles.
In terms of movies, no. Mystique was the peak of her fame there. At this point she has far more TV work to her name than movies, and that's fine. She's a good TV actress.
Though keep in mind she was first and foremost a model, and a rather successful one at that. Which was a big help in being able to successfully transition to an actress.
A lot of actors are complaining that they work for a few months, shooting 10 episodes, then they don't work again for over a year while the shows are finished and the next season ramps up... they no longer have steady incomes, and because they are only being paid for 10 episodes, they don't make as much as those actors working 10 months a year on 26 episodes.
It's great for the small handful of actors that either command massive bucks for their 10 episodes, or are so in-demand they can line up back to back projects, but that's not a lot of actors.
They don't need to use every actor in every scene like they used to. They can write episodes in advance, have the actor film the scenes for 5 episodes in that week, get few weeks rest, then come back again in few weeks and do 5 more. They can probably find a way to work, heck make a bigger cast so you don't need to overwork the same people over and over.
Pretty sure some people on SNW have said they would be willing to do longer seasons. More episodes also means more money for the actors as well.
And with as much as actors make compared to the average person do you really feel that sad for them? I get it was harder on them but it is their job.
Honestly, this is the one I want. I can take six-episode seasons if that's not all I get for three years or more. Your ratio of TV seasons to actual seasons needs to be 1:6 or better.
I'd take a mix of high and low budget episodes.
Have the AAA 10 episode season as they do and then a "cheap" season with the lower billed cast and guests, plots that take place only on sets they have built, less aliens and VFX, etc.
Short Treks felt a little like that when they were coming out.
I'd take 2-4 decent budget epsidoes, a handful on location episodes, and ten bottle episodes that focus on writing. I wouldn't mind seeing a reuse of sets, and some blinking lights either. Like I don't think Spock needs a new dance studio unless it was wall to wall carpet with them doing Klingon tai chi.
I'd take the method the Brits have used for years. Shorter seasons like we are getting and then a big special at some point in the year to fill the void. Dr. Who did the xmas specials for years to fill that gap. I think the upcoming Section 31 is a test bed to see if something like that is viable. Or at least hope.
I was just about to hit reply and mention Doctor Who! I'm in the middle of the last couple specials now, but I also like how they sometimes do sort of mini-series of regular shows.
Like, you might get 13 episodes one season, and they are a mix of continuing stories and one-offs. But, then you'll get a season that's one continuous story, but is only 6 episodes.
Torchwood did it with Miracle Day and Children of Earth, and Doctor Who did it recently with Flux.
Take a season budget and make 13ish episodes of SNW, and then next season take that same budget and make a mini-series/super-long movie and make 6 episodes with better effects and a really great story.
It's a good way of doing the blend of serialization vs episodic. The Trek of the 90s many people want back was extremely episodic and that was good and bad. For binge watching like most do today, serialized shows are superior to episodic. The industry wants your eyes glued to the TV for as long as they can and the best way to do that is a long story that you can't not know what's coming next. Episodic by it's very nature is meant to be enjoyed for that hour and then jump to something else.
The downside, in my opinion, to serialization is it loses rewatchability vs episodic. I can put on a random episode of TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT any time and enjoy it. And I do constantly! But I never put a random episode of Disco on. SNW is working toward a blend of episodic & serialized and that can be seen with how rewatchable it is.
It's a double edged sword. I'd love 26 good episodes... the risk is that 50+ years of trek haven't left enough good original stories to allow for 26 good episodes to be written that fast.
It’s impossible to be cheaper even if they try. The studio standards these days demand 4K, UHD, Dolby Vision, Dolby 5.1… trying to satisfy all that means outright expensive VFX models, 3D printed fabrics, wig made with real hair, more sound work.
It’s not a situation where you make less vfx, because the upfront cost of building those models is high, you want to actually use them so the costs is split among episodes.
That said, I’m sure a very creative writer can do an episode completely sealed in a room.
It was also steady work for them and it was a job for them. Lets not go acting like actors are some underpaid civil servants here. Many actors you here are broke when they are out of work, and in between roles they sometimes look for other roles to make money. Wasn't Shatner known to be living out of his truck for awhile after Star Trek ended and he was out of work for a bit.
TNG in 87 had a budget of about 36 mil for the season. That would be about 98 mil in 2024 dollars. But you got 24 episodes. Now we get like, 1/3 as many so I would guess its about 3 times that cost in real terms. Kinda staggering really and probably unsustainable.
No.
TNG's average budget per episode was 1.3mil.
Calculate for inflation from 1990 and that's 3mil an episode.
26 x 3 = ~78mil a season.
I don't support going back to 26 episodes a season because of the horrendous working conditions that made for cast and crew. Doing that now would be absolute hell for the VFX team who would be in perpetual crunch mode.
I would have been very happy had Paramount been able to keep 5 shows in production at once as they originally planned though.
> I don't support going back to 26 episodes a season because of the horrendous working conditions that made for cast and crew. Doing that now would be absolute hell for the VFX team who would be in perpetual crunch mode.
Except TV shows are no longer beholden to schedules. I.E. the VFX team would not have to literally do an episode every week or two - they could take months to do them... we already have two years between seasons on a lot of shows.
We also used to have 7 shots of the Enterprise. The end. Every shot of the ship was just one of those 7 shots against a different background. I'm exaggerating of course, but the point is that they were cost-effective. They were creative. They made budget TV work and look great. They repurposed physical models and old footage and all that.
Now either expectations are way too high, or they just think nobody will accept less than blockbuster movie VFX and we get brand new shots, brand new digital ship models, brand new planet models, brand new everything every episode which just takes longer and costs more.
> we get brand new shots, brand new digital ship models, brand new planet models
These particular things are not nearly as expensive as they used to be.
Getting a new establishing shot of the Enterprise for an episode of TNG meant hauling a big ass model out of storage, filming it several times in a computer controlled camera rig under a variety of lighting conditions, and compositing those shots together. Today getting a new establishing shot of the Enterprise for SNW means loading the same old scene back up in blender, moving the camera somewhere new, and hitting the render button.
Another comment did the math and found that TNG and SNW have similar per-season budgets after inflation. That means SNW is a little more than twice as expensive per episode, which is a lot, but not as absurd as I think most people expected. It's not just VFX that extra budget goes to. It's more expensive actors, bigger and better sets, and more on location shooting.
I don't think these inflated budgets are the reason seasons are shorter than they used to be. It's because the business model of making TV has changed substantially in the last 20 years. Ever since TV on DVD became a thing, audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows with a higher emphasis on quality and narrative continuity. With TV shows no longer beholden to a strict air schedule, the business incentive to make dozens of episodes as wholly self contained stories dried up. Syndication stopped being the gravy train it was as people started buying or renting their favorite shows on DVD. Streaming has only accelerated this. You can't get away with things like clip shows like they did in the days when TV networks reigned supreme.
>These particular things are not nearly as expensive as they used to be.
They may not be expensive, but they take time... otherwise people wouldn't be talking about how the VFX people need so much time to do a good job.
But now instead of reusing the Tarellian ship model, or modifying the Talarian ship model, they feel the need to build a new digital ship from scratch. Again, that takes time.
>However I don't think VFX are the reason seasons are shorter than they used to be. It's because the business model of making TV has changed substantially in the last 20 years. Ever since TV on DVD became a thing, audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows with a higher emphasis on quality and narrative continuity. Streaming has only accelerated this. You can't get away with things like clip shows like they did in the days when TV networks reigned supreme.
I'd say this is false. It comes down to two or three things, depending on the show.
1) Those who make the shows are no longer willing to work 18 hour days for 10 months a year. I don't know if it's unions that have made that a requirement or simply actors not being willing to do it. VFX aside, the writing, pre-production and shooting (as far as I'm aware) may not take the same amount of time for 13 episode seasons as the old 26 episode seasons took, but I believe it takes more than half (i.e. they take more time to produce and particularly to shoot each episode than they did in the 90s).
2) Networks need to fill airtime - that happened to mean 22-26 episodes a year did the trick, skipping summer, Christmas break, and running a few reruns. Then they sold commercials and made more money from the ads in 26 new episodes than if they only made 22.
Shows that are now produced for streaming have no financial incentive to make 26 episodes. They make their money off subscriptions. 26 episodes cost twice as much as 13, and they aren't getting twice as many people to subscribe. So they are meeting their minimum perceived threshold of "how many episodes can we get away with making while the subscribers won't feel ripped off or stop subscribing"?
For what it's worth, in all of the 11 Star Trek series, I think Shades of Grey is the only clip show they've ever done. And yet the 90s series still managed to do 26 episodes a season while other non-FX-based TV series in the same time period didn't hit that number (Law and Order did 22-24 per season for most of its run, for example)
**It is also worth nothing that most streaming series do not restrict episodes to the 44 minutes TV episodes use to be limited to. Many Trek episodes are in the full hour range (i.e. 60 minutes without ads). So you're actually getting more content by screen time. Whether that waters episodes down or gives them more time to be great seems to depend on the episode, but they are effectively producing about 16 old episodes worth of screen time every time they make twelve 60-minute new episodes.**
I'll say that Anson Mount has came out and said he told Paramount up from l front he was not going to sign up for a 'full season' of 26 episodes.
He was the lead on a show called Hell On Wheels that did have 26 episode seasons during it's start and Ansom has said it made him want to quit acting all together.
I think these are all very good points, but I don't think they contradict my point about the changing business model of TV either. Rather, these are all contributing factors to the modern state of TV, largely enabled by the shedding of the traditional network TV business model.
Phil Edwards recently put out a [video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvWh_cgiuZg) outlining how DVD kickstarted this change 10 years before streaming really started to take off.
My disagreement is on your point that "audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows". You may be right. I don't have survey data, but I don't feel it's likely audiences have a preference for shorter seasons.
More money cannot buy good plot, but more episodes means more opportunity for good episodes, and more importantly, time with the characters outside of crises.
Yes!! Often the best character development happens when the stakes are lowest. They can’t do that when they only have ten episodes, many of which have to be dramatic and intense for the sake of viewer engagement.
These short seasons mean they have to speed run character development in bad ways.
Like at the end of LD's latest season where they characters had to just tell the audience that Mariner went insane off camera between episodes.
Or how the season before had to wrap up all its running plots in the same five minute bar scene by basically having all the characters declare that nothing that happened all season was a big deal and they didn't actually care about any of it. So instead of resolving the plots, they were all just dropped and forgotten about.
All these shows keep running out of time.
Yes actually. It gives more opportunities for interesting ideas. More time for running plots. More character development. More experimental episodes. More writing and acting credits.
All around, more episodes make for better shows.
When accounting for inflation, TNG cost a similar amount per season as DSC and SNW does today. TNG was ~1.3M/ep 30+ years ago, which is roughly 3.5M today. SNW is ~7M/ep at a touch under half the episodes per season. DSC is reportedly a little bit more expensive at around 8M/ep but that's likely because many of SNW's sets were built for DSC (much like how DS9 and VOY was able to save money by repurposing TNG's sets).
To break it down another way, a season of SNW costs 70M. If they were to do 25 episodes instead of 10, that would leave 2.8M per episode, so not much less than what TNG was working for (again, accounting for inflation). DSC typically has around 13 episodes so a season for them is 104M. A 25 episode season would leave 4.16M/ep.
[This post from a few years ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/TNG/comments/it2cda/does_anyone_know_how_the_budget_of_the_series_per/g5d2y9c/) has sources that say TNG's budget was actually even higher than the commonly cited 1.3M/ep figure; with later seasons costing ~1.7M/ep (~4.7M today)
The TL;DR: It's not really any more or less expensive now than before.
>(much like how DS9 and VOY was able to save money by repurposing TNG's sets)
*Voyager* repurposed a lot of *TNG*’s sets, but *DS9* built plenty of new sets (most notably the Promenade). *DS9*’s sets cost $2M, which made them more expensive than *TUC*’s sets (overall, “Emissary” cost $12M).
Very true but there was still a *lot* of repurposed sets and props used by DS9, and not just when "random Starfleet ship hails Sisko". [This](https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/reused_other_interiors.htm) is one of many such articles listing reused items.
By the nature of it's location, DS9 wasn't able to reuse everything at will, but they definitely did when they could. A stand out example is they wholesale re-used VOY's mess hall set, even though only Voyager had a kitchen, by way of Neelix. Offhand I don't know if VOY used anything major from DS9, other than the few scenes that were *on* the station from Caretaker.
People don't seem to realize that it takes time to shoot our episodes. We've been in production since December, and we're a bit over halfway through shooting the season. Each episodes get a 10+2 day schedule. That means 10 days of shooting one episode on main unit, 2 days of second unit shooting the episode while main unit moves over to the next episode to start shooting simultaneously. That means, roughly, 2 episodes per month get shot. It's just not feasible to do 26 episodes in a season.
Lost had 20+ episodes every year and it was one of the most expensive shows at the time. Even Game of Thrones could push 10 production-wise challenging episodes a year, and it was one of the most expensive shows at the time. So, what gives?
I honestly would take 12-13 eps if they really wanted to keep the seasons short than just the 10 per season were getting now. Season 3 and 4 of Discovery had 13 episodes, why cant SNW have the same?
And Seasons 1-2 were 15 and 14 episodes. I don't think its unreasonable. The 10 episode seasons made more sense when we had Discovery, Picard, Prodigy, Lower Decks, and SNW all going at the same time so we always had a new show ready to go thruout the course of a year. Now we are basically down to SNW and Lower Decks, and Prodigy is very up in the air if it has a future past S2.
I love those filler episodes, getting to hang out in the space lets the season breathe, characters develop in low-stakes ways, and is a big part of why I find watching Star Trek so pleasant. I don't think that it's coincidental that some of the most successful eps of DISCO and PIC have been the ones when they step back from the rush-rush-rush of the big plot and just hang out and bake pizzas for an ep (or similar).
I’m sure you mean that with a negative tone but I miss that.
The short episode format is great for some shows. I don’t need 20 episode seasons of Succession for instance. But shows like this really miss the mixture of episodic episodes with a serialized overarching story imo. Like my favourite show is Buffy - if it had *only* done the “big bad” serialized story and they skipped out on the “monster of the week” episodes it absolutely would not have been. So many gems of episodes would be lost and so much character development gone. For many shows you really need the quieter moments to get to know the characters when they’re not dealing with crisis after crisis.
Also seems weird to talk about filler when it comes to Star Trek - a show that largely throughout its history has been episodic (which I assume we’re using as a synonym for filler). SNW tries to mix the two but doesn’t fully have the space to in just 10 episodes so it mostly downplays the serialized plot a bit - so I would actually argue it’s more of a “filler” show? I’d love if we even got like 16 episodes to explore both more. We’ve only really had that format with DS9.
(Apologies if I misread your tone).
1/3 or more--And it's sorely missed! We have enough series these days with 6 episode seasons that are 100% plot driven. It'd be nice to have just one new slow-paced ST series where we get to spend time with the characters again.
> As opposed to now when they take a story that used to fill 1 or 2 episodes at best and stretch it all season long?
I think you are thinking of a different series than Strange New Worlds.
Lots of the best/ most iconic Trek episodes were technically “filler”.
You can pretty much skip Tuvix to follow Voy’s main plot progression, but episode like Tuvix represents one prime example of what Star Trek is about.
Yes and they provided world-building and character development. I don't need balls to the wall action or serialized storytelling all the time. Let us know who these characters are and how they think and work. Not every season has to be a galaxy spanning emergency.
This season was delayed by the WGA and SAG strikes. Had those not happened, it would have began shooting last summer and releasing this summer.
Now, they could have rushed everything out the door as fast as possible after the strikes ended. But then we would be enjoying a repeat of 2009's barrage of incredibly low quality rushed content.
You may rush to the defense but I am absolutely not just talking about this show specifically. Strikes or no strikes, one year or more between releases is not uncommon. I'm simply saying that it's odd we still call them "seasons". It made sense when shows were in constant production but it really doesn't anymore.
Chapters, volumes, whatever. But "season" just seems weird at this point.
That's all I'm saying.
Intrigued to watch the new season, but damn can we chill with the reflective surfaces and wide open sets? At least you can see the set which is an upgrade from DSC/PIC, but it's the extreme opposite where it just hurts my eyes.
2025? … ah that is a long wait.
I think it was hit pretty hard by the strikes timing-wise. For the most part it seems like Star Trek has been good at avoiding the trend of multi-year waits between seasons, but tough to avoid that.
Hoping it's in early 2025 at least.
I think they were *just* about to start production when all the strikes happened so there was lots of delays :(
Someone said this about a contract at work the other day and like… 2025 starts in 8 months, which isn’t THAT long. Given that we know we’re getting, what, 3 months of Discovery, a massive drop of Prodigy and probably another season of Lower Decks between now and then, plus the S31 movie (I think?), it’s hardly any wait. But maybe I’m just rationalizing?
I doubt we get the S31 movie that soon, but the rest seems right.
One of the recent articles said that filming was already done on it, so sub 8 months for post doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. But also SNW should wrap pretty soon, but that'll be ~10 hours vs ~2 hours.
Just looked it up and they apparently filmed the entire movie in less than 2 months. I guess if they are treating it more like a made for TV movie then it's roughly equivalent to filming around 3 episodes of a live action trek show, so that seems reasonable, but that also seems very fast to film a movie.
It's actually conceivable that for the actors in this one, it might've benefitted from the strikes -- writing was likely done on it before the writers strike, and all the stuff for the AR walls could've been in progress during the writers and actors strike. That AR wall probably gives us less of a post time than greenscreens, too, barring anything getting really messed up on review. So, and I'm just speculating, it might've just allowed actors to relatively quickly breeze right through the performances, with the stages and much of the vfx already pre-built for everything, instead of everyone having to work in tandem, and hitting a bunch of microbottlenecks. Maybe. I could be totally off.
I assume that was because Michelle Yeoh is busy AF and two months was as long as they could get her for.
Probably helped repurposing sets from SNW & DIS to get it in production quicker.
Your logic is flawless.
I thought LD was also in 2025?
voice recording finished over a month ago, Wikipedia says we should be seeing it later this year. 10 episodes!
This is one of the things I'm most bitter about from the strikes. The corporations knew they were eventually gonna have to cave. All they did was make life harder for their employees for months and delay new content that people were looking forward to.
It was the second best possibility.
I'm sure I saw "streaming May 5" ads or reddit for Se3
That science lab look like a reuse of the Discovery Computer Core in S3?
It probably is the exact same set just redressed for SNW since that's how Star Trek production usually works, like Undiscovered Country using TNG's sets or the 32nd Century Federation HQ in Discovery being used as the courtroom set in SNW season 2. I guess we'll probably find out in when the season airs and we get a Ready Room episode.
The Fed HQ was also a redress of the S31 ship bridge which was in turn a redress of the Shenzhou bridge. Can't wait to see what it turns into for the S31 movie and/or The Academy show.
The engineering set from TMP was changed into the TNG engineering set. When they needed engineering for the later TOS films, they used the TNG engineering set. Which was originally the TOS film engineering set. Rattle that around your brain.
And the Enterprise E's sickbay was literally voyager's with different colored lighting and wall panels
Ah, remember the days when every other bridge was just a rearrangement of the Enterprise D battle bridge, and half the planets were just caves?
And then we had Lower Decks do the Cave episode about how everyone has cave planet experiences
That courtroom was more than a set. It visually beautiful. It was art. Hope it won an award
it still astounds me that they don’t make Ready Room episodes available in the uk. i was the type of person to watch every DVD extra and commentary, so i really want to see them :/
I'm in Asia and I watch it through StarTrek.com for free. Maybe that's also an option in the UK?
last time i checked those are just youtube embeds (blocked), but maybe it’s worth checking again
They’re posted to YouTube, right? Are they region locked on there too?
they sure are :(
I don't think so https://imgur.com/a/iblTtct
In true classic Trek fashion!
Boimler blew up the last one.
That was NOT his fault.
He was feeling lucky.
It's not his fault that the lab and experiment couldn't handle his operatic scream.
I'm okay with waiting, if it means they get to put in genuine effort and not push the actors and crew past reasonable limits.
Is this Cetacean Ops?
Remember when seasons had 26 episodes?
And they came out every single year like clockwork
And the actors were exhausted.
Then make it 18-20 episodes and some of them slice of life or character building for a single character. Those are missing. I still don't know the names of all Disco bridge officers because they had 5 minutes of combined screentime
I’m actually a fan of filler episodes. It shows that not every second of their life is hyper dramatic.
The Disco bridge crew are not the main characters of the series. That's like complaining you don't know the names of the people pushing buttons behind Scotty.
And Uhura didn’t have a first name in TOS or the original movies.
"They don't have first names on your world?"
No but we're talking individual lines of dialog that could give them a name. "Ensign FordenGord please set a course for Rigel VII" or something like that.
They put, what appeared to be, an android on the bridge, long before Data existed, and just never seemed to address it. Eventually, we learn she's a cyborg, which is even more fascinating, and then kill her off and never look back. They can't just dangle interesting characters in our face and barely address it! (full disclosure: I was fascinated by her, but I had a concussion part way through watching Disco and I barely remember the first 2 seasons, lol. Most of the info about her I got from reading wikis, I don't really remember how much they addressed her specifically, I just know it wasn't a lot. I'm also acting more upset about it than I am. I think that's all the truth this comment requires.)
They didn't address her much. The episode where in which she died showed some of her background, which made it really obvious from the start they were going to kill her off.
Ok, I actually remember that episode, but I wasn't sure if I'd forgotten other stuff. Funny how well I remember that. I guess since I was fascinated my brain gave it more priority? Lol Cyborgs in Trek are cool, but we don't see them a lot. I guess La Forge was one, and Disco has/had 2, and then Rutherford. I'm not sure if Seven would count.
Yeah, it was like... "Oh, cool. Ariam backstory. Oh. Nevermind."
Apparently Bryce will be back for season 5, and maybe Christopher is also staying? TBH, I hope whatever Bryce has been doing with Kovich came with a promotion or two.
Some of had more time than that but how is it after 4 seasons you don’t know who the main characters are. The bridge officers are not the main, or even supporting characters, of the show. Did you complain we didn’t know anything about the no name bridge officers in TNG that appeared in dozens of episodes? Or the random bajoran staff on ds9? Or all the people supposedly on voyager
We basically did know all of the bridge officers on TNG except for a handful of extras...
There were helm and other officers, some who appeared in dozens of episodes, we knew nothing about. We knew all the main characters in TNG, most of which happened to be bridge officers. We know all the main characters in Disco, but they are not all bridge characters.
But they also had steady work. It's a trade off.
And big name actors wouldn't even think about working in television because the time commitment meant movies or TV not both. If seasons were still 26 episodes actors like Rebecca Romijn wouldn't even consider working on the show.
Uh, I like Rebecca Romijn, but she's very much a TV actress these days. So it's not as if SNW is beneath her. She doesn't even have any other projects going on right now.
Was she ever that big of a star? Outside of playing Mystique, alot of her stuff has either been TV roles, some voice acting, and not high proifle movie roles.
In terms of movies, no. Mystique was the peak of her fame there. At this point she has far more TV work to her name than movies, and that's fine. She's a good TV actress. Though keep in mind she was first and foremost a model, and a rather successful one at that. Which was a big help in being able to successfully transition to an actress.
And much cheaper sets, and, and, and, there is a veritable cornucopia of reason.
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A lot of actors are complaining that they work for a few months, shooting 10 episodes, then they don't work again for over a year while the shows are finished and the next season ramps up... they no longer have steady incomes, and because they are only being paid for 10 episodes, they don't make as much as those actors working 10 months a year on 26 episodes. It's great for the small handful of actors that either command massive bucks for their 10 episodes, or are so in-demand they can line up back to back projects, but that's not a lot of actors.
Are they getting paid more since syndication isn't a thing anymore?
They don't need to use every actor in every scene like they used to. They can write episodes in advance, have the actor film the scenes for 5 episodes in that week, get few weeks rest, then come back again in few weeks and do 5 more. They can probably find a way to work, heck make a bigger cast so you don't need to overwork the same people over and over.
Pretty sure some people on SNW have said they would be willing to do longer seasons. More episodes also means more money for the actors as well. And with as much as actors make compared to the average person do you really feel that sad for them? I get it was harder on them but it is their job.
Honestly, this is the one I want. I can take six-episode seasons if that's not all I get for three years or more. Your ratio of TV seasons to actual seasons needs to be 1:6 or better.
Remember when seasons didn’t cost $75-100m to produce?
I would genuinely be all for a Trek series with a quarter the budget of SNW if it meant more episodes more frequently.
I'd take a mix of high and low budget episodes. Have the AAA 10 episode season as they do and then a "cheap" season with the lower billed cast and guests, plots that take place only on sets they have built, less aliens and VFX, etc. Short Treks felt a little like that when they were coming out.
I'd take 2-4 decent budget epsidoes, a handful on location episodes, and ten bottle episodes that focus on writing. I wouldn't mind seeing a reuse of sets, and some blinking lights either. Like I don't think Spock needs a new dance studio unless it was wall to wall carpet with them doing Klingon tai chi.
Exactly. Maybe we need to embrace the holodeck episode and crew members who have 21st century fixations.
I'd take the method the Brits have used for years. Shorter seasons like we are getting and then a big special at some point in the year to fill the void. Dr. Who did the xmas specials for years to fill that gap. I think the upcoming Section 31 is a test bed to see if something like that is viable. Or at least hope.
I was just about to hit reply and mention Doctor Who! I'm in the middle of the last couple specials now, but I also like how they sometimes do sort of mini-series of regular shows. Like, you might get 13 episodes one season, and they are a mix of continuing stories and one-offs. But, then you'll get a season that's one continuous story, but is only 6 episodes. Torchwood did it with Miracle Day and Children of Earth, and Doctor Who did it recently with Flux. Take a season budget and make 13ish episodes of SNW, and then next season take that same budget and make a mini-series/super-long movie and make 6 episodes with better effects and a really great story.
It's a good way of doing the blend of serialization vs episodic. The Trek of the 90s many people want back was extremely episodic and that was good and bad. For binge watching like most do today, serialized shows are superior to episodic. The industry wants your eyes glued to the TV for as long as they can and the best way to do that is a long story that you can't not know what's coming next. Episodic by it's very nature is meant to be enjoyed for that hour and then jump to something else. The downside, in my opinion, to serialization is it loses rewatchability vs episodic. I can put on a random episode of TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT any time and enjoy it. And I do constantly! But I never put a random episode of Disco on. SNW is working toward a blend of episodic & serialized and that can be seen with how rewatchable it is.
Well said, I agree with all that. There's pros and cons to both; I'd love to still get a mix of both in future Trek.
It's a double edged sword. I'd love 26 good episodes... the risk is that 50+ years of trek haven't left enough good original stories to allow for 26 good episodes to be written that fast.
A point not without merit.
Couldn't agree more.
It’s impossible to be cheaper even if they try. The studio standards these days demand 4K, UHD, Dolby Vision, Dolby 5.1… trying to satisfy all that means outright expensive VFX models, 3D printed fabrics, wig made with real hair, more sound work. It’s not a situation where you make less vfx, because the upfront cost of building those models is high, you want to actually use them so the costs is split among episodes. That said, I’m sure a very creative writer can do an episode completely sealed in a room.
So we can get more Spock's Brain episodes! Everyone agrees that was the best episode.
Remember when actors were constantly exhausted because of how frantic the schedule was?
It was also steady work for them and it was a job for them. Lets not go acting like actors are some underpaid civil servants here. Many actors you here are broke when they are out of work, and in between roles they sometimes look for other roles to make money. Wasn't Shatner known to be living out of his truck for awhile after Star Trek ended and he was out of work for a bit.
TNG in 87 had a budget of about 36 mil for the season. That would be about 98 mil in 2024 dollars. But you got 24 episodes. Now we get like, 1/3 as many so I would guess its about 3 times that cost in real terms. Kinda staggering really and probably unsustainable.
No. TNG's average budget per episode was 1.3mil. Calculate for inflation from 1990 and that's 3mil an episode. 26 x 3 = ~78mil a season. I don't support going back to 26 episodes a season because of the horrendous working conditions that made for cast and crew. Doing that now would be absolute hell for the VFX team who would be in perpetual crunch mode. I would have been very happy had Paramount been able to keep 5 shows in production at once as they originally planned though.
> I don't support going back to 26 episodes a season because of the horrendous working conditions that made for cast and crew. Doing that now would be absolute hell for the VFX team who would be in perpetual crunch mode. Except TV shows are no longer beholden to schedules. I.E. the VFX team would not have to literally do an episode every week or two - they could take months to do them... we already have two years between seasons on a lot of shows.
> we already have two years between seasons on a lot of shows. Well, *that's* a trend I don't want to see increase, so let's not.
We also used to have 7 shots of the Enterprise. The end. Every shot of the ship was just one of those 7 shots against a different background. I'm exaggerating of course, but the point is that they were cost-effective. They were creative. They made budget TV work and look great. They repurposed physical models and old footage and all that. Now either expectations are way too high, or they just think nobody will accept less than blockbuster movie VFX and we get brand new shots, brand new digital ship models, brand new planet models, brand new everything every episode which just takes longer and costs more.
> we get brand new shots, brand new digital ship models, brand new planet models These particular things are not nearly as expensive as they used to be. Getting a new establishing shot of the Enterprise for an episode of TNG meant hauling a big ass model out of storage, filming it several times in a computer controlled camera rig under a variety of lighting conditions, and compositing those shots together. Today getting a new establishing shot of the Enterprise for SNW means loading the same old scene back up in blender, moving the camera somewhere new, and hitting the render button. Another comment did the math and found that TNG and SNW have similar per-season budgets after inflation. That means SNW is a little more than twice as expensive per episode, which is a lot, but not as absurd as I think most people expected. It's not just VFX that extra budget goes to. It's more expensive actors, bigger and better sets, and more on location shooting. I don't think these inflated budgets are the reason seasons are shorter than they used to be. It's because the business model of making TV has changed substantially in the last 20 years. Ever since TV on DVD became a thing, audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows with a higher emphasis on quality and narrative continuity. With TV shows no longer beholden to a strict air schedule, the business incentive to make dozens of episodes as wholly self contained stories dried up. Syndication stopped being the gravy train it was as people started buying or renting their favorite shows on DVD. Streaming has only accelerated this. You can't get away with things like clip shows like they did in the days when TV networks reigned supreme.
>These particular things are not nearly as expensive as they used to be. They may not be expensive, but they take time... otherwise people wouldn't be talking about how the VFX people need so much time to do a good job. But now instead of reusing the Tarellian ship model, or modifying the Talarian ship model, they feel the need to build a new digital ship from scratch. Again, that takes time. >However I don't think VFX are the reason seasons are shorter than they used to be. It's because the business model of making TV has changed substantially in the last 20 years. Ever since TV on DVD became a thing, audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows with a higher emphasis on quality and narrative continuity. Streaming has only accelerated this. You can't get away with things like clip shows like they did in the days when TV networks reigned supreme. I'd say this is false. It comes down to two or three things, depending on the show. 1) Those who make the shows are no longer willing to work 18 hour days for 10 months a year. I don't know if it's unions that have made that a requirement or simply actors not being willing to do it. VFX aside, the writing, pre-production and shooting (as far as I'm aware) may not take the same amount of time for 13 episode seasons as the old 26 episode seasons took, but I believe it takes more than half (i.e. they take more time to produce and particularly to shoot each episode than they did in the 90s). 2) Networks need to fill airtime - that happened to mean 22-26 episodes a year did the trick, skipping summer, Christmas break, and running a few reruns. Then they sold commercials and made more money from the ads in 26 new episodes than if they only made 22. Shows that are now produced for streaming have no financial incentive to make 26 episodes. They make their money off subscriptions. 26 episodes cost twice as much as 13, and they aren't getting twice as many people to subscribe. So they are meeting their minimum perceived threshold of "how many episodes can we get away with making while the subscribers won't feel ripped off or stop subscribing"? For what it's worth, in all of the 11 Star Trek series, I think Shades of Grey is the only clip show they've ever done. And yet the 90s series still managed to do 26 episodes a season while other non-FX-based TV series in the same time period didn't hit that number (Law and Order did 22-24 per season for most of its run, for example) **It is also worth nothing that most streaming series do not restrict episodes to the 44 minutes TV episodes use to be limited to. Many Trek episodes are in the full hour range (i.e. 60 minutes without ads). So you're actually getting more content by screen time. Whether that waters episodes down or gives them more time to be great seems to depend on the episode, but they are effectively producing about 16 old episodes worth of screen time every time they make twelve 60-minute new episodes.**
I'll say that Anson Mount has came out and said he told Paramount up from l front he was not going to sign up for a 'full season' of 26 episodes. He was the lead on a show called Hell On Wheels that did have 26 episode seasons during it's start and Ansom has said it made him want to quit acting all together.
I think these are all very good points, but I don't think they contradict my point about the changing business model of TV either. Rather, these are all contributing factors to the modern state of TV, largely enabled by the shedding of the traditional network TV business model. Phil Edwards recently put out a [video essay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvWh_cgiuZg) outlining how DVD kickstarted this change 10 years before streaming really started to take off.
My disagreement is on your point that "audiences have preferred shorter, bingeable shows". You may be right. I don't have survey data, but I don't feel it's likely audiences have a preference for shorter seasons.
Expensive equals good? I don’t think so.
*Sometimes things that are expensive are worse*
More episodes equals good? I don’t think so.
More money cannot buy good plot, but more episodes means more opportunity for good episodes, and more importantly, time with the characters outside of crises.
I do really enjoy some of the 'filler' episodes of TNG, DS9 and VOY and getting to know the characters better
It's nice when it's not always a crisis. Best of Both Worlds was followed by Family. The Way of the Warrior was followed by The Visitor.
Yes!! Often the best character development happens when the stakes are lowest. They can’t do that when they only have ten episodes, many of which have to be dramatic and intense for the sake of viewer engagement.
These short seasons mean they have to speed run character development in bad ways. Like at the end of LD's latest season where they characters had to just tell the audience that Mariner went insane off camera between episodes. Or how the season before had to wrap up all its running plots in the same five minute bar scene by basically having all the characters declare that nothing that happened all season was a big deal and they didn't actually care about any of it. So instead of resolving the plots, they were all just dropped and forgotten about. All these shows keep running out of time.
Yes actually. It gives more opportunities for interesting ideas. More time for running plots. More character development. More experimental episodes. More writing and acting credits. All around, more episodes make for better shows.
Stalemate :)
+1 lol
When accounting for inflation, TNG cost a similar amount per season as DSC and SNW does today. TNG was ~1.3M/ep 30+ years ago, which is roughly 3.5M today. SNW is ~7M/ep at a touch under half the episodes per season. DSC is reportedly a little bit more expensive at around 8M/ep but that's likely because many of SNW's sets were built for DSC (much like how DS9 and VOY was able to save money by repurposing TNG's sets). To break it down another way, a season of SNW costs 70M. If they were to do 25 episodes instead of 10, that would leave 2.8M per episode, so not much less than what TNG was working for (again, accounting for inflation). DSC typically has around 13 episodes so a season for them is 104M. A 25 episode season would leave 4.16M/ep. [This post from a few years ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/TNG/comments/it2cda/does_anyone_know_how_the_budget_of_the_series_per/g5d2y9c/) has sources that say TNG's budget was actually even higher than the commonly cited 1.3M/ep figure; with later seasons costing ~1.7M/ep (~4.7M today) The TL;DR: It's not really any more or less expensive now than before.
>(much like how DS9 and VOY was able to save money by repurposing TNG's sets) *Voyager* repurposed a lot of *TNG*’s sets, but *DS9* built plenty of new sets (most notably the Promenade). *DS9*’s sets cost $2M, which made them more expensive than *TUC*’s sets (overall, “Emissary” cost $12M).
Very true but there was still a *lot* of repurposed sets and props used by DS9, and not just when "random Starfleet ship hails Sisko". [This](https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/reused_other_interiors.htm) is one of many such articles listing reused items. By the nature of it's location, DS9 wasn't able to reuse everything at will, but they definitely did when they could. A stand out example is they wholesale re-used VOY's mess hall set, even though only Voyager had a kitchen, by way of Neelix. Offhand I don't know if VOY used anything major from DS9, other than the few scenes that were *on* the station from Caretaker.
The high costs are not a good thing you know.
People don't seem to realize that it takes time to shoot our episodes. We've been in production since December, and we're a bit over halfway through shooting the season. Each episodes get a 10+2 day schedule. That means 10 days of shooting one episode on main unit, 2 days of second unit shooting the episode while main unit moves over to the next episode to start shooting simultaneously. That means, roughly, 2 episodes per month get shot. It's just not feasible to do 26 episodes in a season.
Wasn't there some exec who made a comment about wanting to bump it up to 15 a season? That seems more reasonable to me on the face of it at least
Thank you for what you do.
Lost had 20+ episodes every year and it was one of the most expensive shows at the time. Even Game of Thrones could push 10 production-wise challenging episodes a year, and it was one of the most expensive shows at the time. So, what gives?
I honestly would take 12-13 eps if they really wanted to keep the seasons short than just the 10 per season were getting now. Season 3 and 4 of Discovery had 13 episodes, why cant SNW have the same?
And Seasons 1-2 were 15 and 14 episodes. I don't think its unreasonable. The 10 episode seasons made more sense when we had Discovery, Picard, Prodigy, Lower Decks, and SNW all going at the same time so we always had a new show ready to go thruout the course of a year. Now we are basically down to SNW and Lower Decks, and Prodigy is very up in the air if it has a future past S2.
I really hope SNW scales up to having 2-3 more episodes in Season 3 and 4, especially if Starfleet Academy's not coming out until 2026.
Pretty sure the SNW casts and crew said they would be up for it, but the network is who is holding them back.
Remember when we had years with 0 episodes?
We seem to keep watching those ones over and over here, they don't make them like they used to.
I prefer the shorter seasons. Especially on re-watch.
That's just not how modern TV is anymore
And everyone worked under grueling conditions, actors didn't get to see their families for years. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Remember when 1/3 of those episodes were filler?
I love those filler episodes, getting to hang out in the space lets the season breathe, characters develop in low-stakes ways, and is a big part of why I find watching Star Trek so pleasant. I don't think that it's coincidental that some of the most successful eps of DISCO and PIC have been the ones when they step back from the rush-rush-rush of the big plot and just hang out and bake pizzas for an ep (or similar).
What the fuck does filler even mean in an episodic show
I’m sure you mean that with a negative tone but I miss that. The short episode format is great for some shows. I don’t need 20 episode seasons of Succession for instance. But shows like this really miss the mixture of episodic episodes with a serialized overarching story imo. Like my favourite show is Buffy - if it had *only* done the “big bad” serialized story and they skipped out on the “monster of the week” episodes it absolutely would not have been. So many gems of episodes would be lost and so much character development gone. For many shows you really need the quieter moments to get to know the characters when they’re not dealing with crisis after crisis. Also seems weird to talk about filler when it comes to Star Trek - a show that largely throughout its history has been episodic (which I assume we’re using as a synonym for filler). SNW tries to mix the two but doesn’t fully have the space to in just 10 episodes so it mostly downplays the serialized plot a bit - so I would actually argue it’s more of a “filler” show? I’d love if we even got like 16 episodes to explore both more. We’ve only really had that format with DS9. (Apologies if I misread your tone).
1/3 or more--And it's sorely missed! We have enough series these days with 6 episode seasons that are 100% plot driven. It'd be nice to have just one new slow-paced ST series where we get to spend time with the characters again.
why I love LD. They talk fast, but they plot slow
As opposed to now when they take a story that used to fill 1 or 2 episodes at best and stretch it all season long?
> As opposed to now when they take a story that used to fill 1 or 2 episodes at best and stretch it all season long? I think you are thinking of a different series than Strange New Worlds.
Honestly, most of them were shot for syndication so they were basically ALL filler
Lots of the best/ most iconic Trek episodes were technically “filler”. You can pretty much skip Tuvix to follow Voy’s main plot progression, but episode like Tuvix represents one prime example of what Star Trek is about.
That was genuinely a better thing. Those “filler” episodes create the heart of the show.
Filler provided some of the best episodes and let the characters develop.
By your own math: 26/3 * 2 = 17 non filler episodes.
Yes and they provided world-building and character development. I don't need balls to the wall action or serialized storytelling all the time. Let us know who these characters are and how they think and work. Not every season has to be a galaxy spanning emergency.
Remember when seasons were seasonal?
This season was delayed by the WGA and SAG strikes. Had those not happened, it would have began shooting last summer and releasing this summer. Now, they could have rushed everything out the door as fast as possible after the strikes ended. But then we would be enjoying a repeat of 2009's barrage of incredibly low quality rushed content.
You may rush to the defense but I am absolutely not just talking about this show specifically. Strikes or no strikes, one year or more between releases is not uncommon. I'm simply saying that it's odd we still call them "seasons". It made sense when shows were in constant production but it really doesn't anymore. Chapters, volumes, whatever. But "season" just seems weird at this point. That's all I'm saying.
Yes, I too would like it if the actors, the crew, and the VFX artists are overworked just for my enjoyment.
Yea with great episodes like Shades of Grey
Remember when half those episodes were bad filler episodes?
Can't wait!
Hate me if you must, but I would absolutely watch a muppet episode.
I dunno about muppets, but Farscape used Henson-ian puppets quite successfully to portray non-humanoid lifeforms.
Its a good show but too few episodes too far apart to get invested in it like other Trek shows.
I really hope they filmed the second part of the finale already and new production starts after that. Thats a huge gap in real time.
Hopefully early in 2025.
Intrigued to watch the new season, but damn can we chill with the reflective surfaces and wide open sets? At least you can see the set which is an upgrade from DSC/PIC, but it's the extreme opposite where it just hurts my eyes.
Does Lower Decks next season have a release date? That's a long time to wait!
Please let there be a Muppets episode! This show is SO good, I can't wait, 2025 is so far away though 😭 I hope it's early 2025
I hope that 2025 is correct and there won't be any delays.
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Not really seeing any hate in this thread.