this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Star Trek executive producer wants more Strange New Worlds episodes, and I’m nervous (screenrant.com)
submitted 2 years ago by lucidinferno to c/[email protected]
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (9 children)

Longer seasons would allow them to throw in a few SciFi oriented episodes that don't necessarily advance character arcs. Where would SNW be if TOS didn't have the "Arena" (Gorn) episode that was based on a completely unrelated SciFi short story?

Mirror, Mirror was a SciFi episode that not only gave us the foundation for Discovery, but cemented the evil-twin-goatee trope into pupular culture.

Space Seed (Botany Bay/Khan) was also a one-off SciFi episode. Where would the entire franchise be without it?

I really hope SNW makes room for exploring the sort of SciFi ideas that Star Trek was originally based on.

[–] lucidinferno 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

Part of the reason why TNG was good beyond the first couple seasons was because of the open script submission policy that's no longer in existence. According to ex-Trek producer Ronald D. Moore, they were reading something like 3000 scripts a year. It allowed them to be choosy (though there were still some stinkers). Now that the characters are established, if the seasons were longer, it might be cool to see the open script submissions come back (though, as I'm typing this, maybe implementing this during or shortly after a writers strike would be a poor choice, even though there were limits to how many scripts one could submit before going through "official" channels). Anyway, one could argue that a huge amount of ideas need to be generated for a show as great as TNG to exist, more than a small group of writers could produce. If outside script admissions were allowed, I'm sure we'd see some great sci-fi episodes from writers who weren't even thinking "Star Trek" as they wrote them.

I'm not against filler, and my post may have come off as being that way. Not every story has to advance character or advance some storyline. I'm just against bad filler.

[–] IonAddis 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Man, if they opened up script submissions, they'd probably be able to reap a LOT of fanfic-grown talent out there. Yeah, the slush pile would SUCK because it's much easier to submit online than in the days of snail mail and paper, but we've had about 20 years of really explosive writing growth with the advent of fanfic online and as far as I know nobody's really "mentoring" those people in this day and age.

I know people laugh and snort at fanfic, but writing is writing is writing . You'd do as well to laugh at painters who sketch bowls of fruit or sketch nudes from live subjects (as if people haven't drawn those things for literal centuries!). It doesn't really matter WHERE you practice and learn so long as you do it, and if fanfic/fanart/whatever gets you going, that's how you're going to grow your talent, by practicing over and over.

And some people get really damn good at it. If Trek opened up script submissions again, it'd open the doors to a new generation of writers kicking their careers off.

[–] lucidinferno 1 points 2 years ago

I couldn't agree more. With Star Trek, or any established properties where the originator isn't in control (Marvel, Star Wars, etc.), it's all pretty much fanfic, professional or not. The writers are playing in a world they haven't created.

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