Maybe they could get back to writing more stories about an object oriented universe instead of only writing about the ego oriented universe. Every single star trek franchise since enterprise is a space soap opera.
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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Every single star trek franchise since enterprise is a space soap opera.
That's always been Star Trek. Don't make me go through the TNG back catalogue.
The interpersonal dramas are what separate the Trekkies from the SW nerds. You don't need a planet killing superweapon to tell a story. It's enough to have two people trapped on a deserted planet who don't speak the same language, but need one another to survive.
I never said trek didn't have any drama, only that modern star trek is nothing but egocentric soap opera, and pays lip service to the science and engineering part of the science fiction.
Previous trek iterations included both object science stories and subjective egoism in a very different ratio. How TNG, tos, voyager or Enterprise dealt with technology and exploration challenges is worlds apart from discovery, or even strange new worlds. The amount of screen time each show devotes to character development and the amount it focuses on the objective challenges of the world is very different. There is a clear direction to make politics, personal drama and interpersonal conflict both more dramatic and the center of the storylines in the modern star trek catalogue. These shows no longer being mostly episodic stories but season long, prolonged character development vehicles, is also part of the subjective egoism that now dominates the franchise. It's almost all about character journeys, relationship conflicts and political posturing. The object oriented stories of science, engineering, exploration, discovery, philosophy or even technologies as a setting for character stories is largely absent now. It's more reality tv show drama and less exploration and adventure, and even when they do have those object focused stories, they have little meaningful impact on the story or the audience.
pays lip service to the science and engineering part of the science fiction.
Star Trek has never been a properly science heavy franchise. You don't get The Expanse style of gritty space survivalism (pilots dealing with g-force strain, Spacers having to mine their water reserves, politicians negotiating across an 8 minute transmission delay between Earth and Mars). Every common engineering problem is solved with tech so futuristic it might as well be magic, while the serious problems are more ethical or philosophical (can we morally turn off a sentient computer? should we give these primitive people access to our warp drive technology? how do we negotiate with Space Wizards?)
The object oriented stories of science, engineering, exploration, discovery, philosophy or even technologies as a setting for character stories is largely absent now.
They never really existed in the Rodenberry universe. He was far more interested in the politics and the social consequences of interstellar travel than the nuts and bolts of getting around space.
When it came to practical applications, even Heinlein and Asimov (themselves chronic abusers of the SciFi tech hand wave) did a better job in books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Foundation.
they have little meaningful impact on the story or the audience.
Early Trek was really bad about continuity, generally speaking. It wasn't until late TNG and DS9 that you got real multi-episode arcs.
Later Trek was - if anything - too worried about continuity. They had to try and explain everything within the context of prior series, rather than just telling some interesting stories of a deep space exploration vessel chartered out of Earth.
You're just bouncing to extremes to argue against things I didn't argue for. The current star trek is less space exploration adventure with science and tech and more melodrama with interpersonal conflict than it has been, overall. That's my observations and I'm not interested in trying to convince you if you'd prefer to be wrong.
The current star trek is less space exploration adventure with science and tech and more melodrama with interpersonal conflict than it has been, overall.
Go back to the original first episode of Star Trek, "The Cage" and tell me that's not a melodrama with interpersonal conflict.
Sell the cast and crew on 8-9 months of 16 hours shooting days when most of them have families. I dare you.
I don't know. I think there are good shows and bad shows and it doesn't matter how many episodes per season they have. It doesn't matter how much they split it up, if they just keep on making up stuff just for the sake of going on instead of working towards a planned goal. With the shorter shows I get the feeling that they knew where they were going when filming started more than with the older 24 episode shows. But as I said, you get good and bad examples for both long and short seasons.
I have been watching more older shows over the years and noticed they had more filler episodes. I do not miss that.
Remember when shows filmed basically year round? Seasons had like 30+ episodes?
If you look at TNG, DS9 and VOY, they had 26 episodes for most of their seasons, even TOS only had at most 29 episodes in one season. Cut out the filler and you end up with 15-20 episodes and that would be way better then the current 10 episodes that SNW gets.
Thatd be horrible. 4k DV Atmos episodes are 4-10GB. I can’t afford the hard drives to store all that if we switch to 30+ episodes per season. Plus I have to imagine the writing and pace would be just god awful.
Didn’t see this was Star Trek specific. I thought it was about the state of tv in general
Idk, that might cost money.
Are we sure Network TV still remembers how to rub more than two nickels together to make a season?
The problem is that those longer seasons required 12 hour days for actors and crew.
Why does it mean that? Why can't they just record over a longer period of time at 8 hours a day?
Filmmaking has a "setup and breakdown" rhythm, several hours spent readying gear, lighting, and sets before actual filming can begin. In an 8-hour day, a greater proportion of the time would be spent on setup and wrap, leaving fewer usable hours for shooting.
Ok so allow for setup and wrap and do less filming per day. Or have a different team for each so they aren't there for as long. This isn't difficult
Not difficult but about three times as expensive
NRE
I’m trying to get my tinder date, Murderbot, into an LTR.
Eight episodes every two years, I don't think so. That's not going to be something you necessarily pass on to your kids. And I think that's a loss.
That's pretty profound.
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I think what gave earlier Trek so much soul was the non-human characters that allowed you to explore humanity through them. Spock, Data, Odo all lived in and around humans, and explored what that meant.
And Seven and T'Pol.
and B'Elanna.
and Harry Kim.
the non-human characters
and Harry Kim.
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I miss the more 'monster of the week' type storytelling weaved through with season long (or longer) arcs that spanned 20-ish episode seasons. I liked the kind of storytelling where episodes stood on their own but had hints in them that formed a big picture. And every now and then there was an episode that was wholly dedicated to the overarching plot.
This kind of storytelling leaves a lot of room for characterisation episodes or exploration of an intriguing concept. And don't you dare calling this filler. Filler is meaningless. Exploring concepts and characters is not meaningless.
I want more filler episodes the same way Magic The Gathering wants bad cards:
The solution to the aforementioned problem leads to the second reason “bad” cards exist. Different cards have different functions and appeal to different players.
We make some cards for the multi-player crowd. We make cards for the flavor crowd. We make cards for the silly crowd. We make the big creatures and spells for "Timmy." We make the combo cards for "Johnny." We take each different group of Magic players and throw some cards their way.
The problem is players tend to define “bad cards” as cards that they personally see no reason to play. But certain cards aren’t meant for them in the first place.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28
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Everyone’s in here arguing and dissecting filler episodes and serialized seasons and I see a lot of good arguments on both sides. But, no one is mentioning a modern Trek series that did a mix of filler episodes and episodic ones, developed characters, and had full season arcs: Lower Decks
Granted, it’s a cartoon so it’s much easier for a deus ex machina or goofy cop-out ending but for 10ish 30 minutes episodes a season, they did a great job of telling modern stories while feeling like Trek Classic^TM^
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I agree. We only had 2 episodes to see Spock and La'an get together, it felt like whiplash when we just saw him pining over Chapel. Looking back at shows like DS9 a season of romantic build up meant 23-24 45-minute long episodes with random encounters, drama, things left unsaid - which made the finales that much more enjoyable.
Not to compare too much, but look at Jim and Pam's romance in the Office. Seasons 2 and 3 were long. It was meant to have us wanting the romance, to see every twist and turn. We had an entire episode for booze cruise, where we finally heard Jim admit it while seeing that they were obviously with the wrong people. We had entire episodes where there was reflection on just one moment of their relationship. You just can't get that in a half-"season" 4 episode arc.
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For real though. 8 or 10 episodes is nothing, especially when they're spread out intentionally to just keep people subscribed to a monthly streaming service.
TV shows of yesterday still matter largely because there is so. much. content. This shit was available for free with a basic ass television and some strips of metal wired into it. And you got 24 episodes a season. And sometimes there was more than one season in a year.
Artificial scarcity is obvious when things get that different.
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Lots of talk of filler in this thread, and it certainly can be a problem, but there are reasons to watch things other than a serialized plot, and if it's good, it's not filler. Exploring themes and context and setting and characters are perfectly valid, and longer seasons let a show do that. I very much like having at least a few serialized threads running through a show, and characters that never, ever change can be a bit boring, but IMHO the term "filler" gets tossed around much too loosely in a lot of online discourse around genre TV.
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