Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
My only real disappointment recently is learning that Strange New Worlds has an anemic 10-episode first season. Hopefully the studio only committed to the short run due to uncertainty about its reception, and I really hope that the overwhelmingly positive reviews will lead to a longer season 2, at least matching the count of 13 that Disco has gotten for each of the last four seasons.
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13, maybe. 26 like the 1990s, probably not.
It was a different time. Seasons were syndicated, so episodes sometimes weren't even aired in the correct order. Thus, serialized storytelling didn't work well.
Actors and crew also didn't particularly like it. You had seven days to finish the writing, shoot the entire thing, do post-production, etc. That's why a lot of TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT episodes have "well, we would've preferred to do X, but there just wasn't time" commentary. Lots of 14-hour workdays. (Now imagine, on top of that, shooting in the desert, as VOY occasionally did. Oof.)
And, of course, budget. If you spread budget X over 10 episodes than over 26, each gets 2.6 times as much the production values, and it really shows with SNW. Quite a change from early-TNG planets made of cardboard and styrofoam.
But, yes. I miss those days. It was great particularly in DS9 how what was ostensibly a "bottle episode" (no new sets; budget-saver) introduced minor nuggets here and there about characters, or just had little fun moments in it. SNW does not have that luxury, and we can see that — the way they squash character details in there feels unnatural at times. DS9 would've been far more patient to eventually tell us backstory — we wouldn't have found out about the Gorn attacking La'an in literally the pilot, for example.
To me, the jury is still out on whether I'll remember SNW eps as fondly as I do some of the Berman era's classics.