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Some shows are episodic and work well with many episodes per season, some do better with fewer for a focused storyline. It really depends on the show.
I couldn't imagine The Last of Us having 24 episodes seasons. SG1 having ten episodes per season wouldn't be the same either.
I think the biggest thing is that sci fi shows have tended to trend fewer so they can have movie quality special effects make up a more significant amount of their run time which has caused costs to skyrocket.
Not only that, I am grateful that sci-fi generally has less ”filler” episodes now. I prefer they only make as many episodes as is necessary to get the story arc and side stories filled out.
A lot of sci-fi shows like Star Trek generally just have "filler" episodes since they're supposed to explore themes of humanity, life, diplomacy, the devastation of war, whacky science, and exploration. The episodes should be numerous because the scope and ethos of such a show demands it. That's partially why I'm not fond of most contemporary Trek shows because they tend to gloss over all that for some story sequence that doesn't really pay off in my opinion.
Yup. And also they could take some more risks. There were a lot of strange new worlds that might've been a little too strange and didn't quite work. But that was fine since there would be a bunch of episodes where it did work.
With a shorter run, the risky episodes that don't work represent a larger percentage of the season. So the writers either have to play it safe or risk a large portion of the season no working.
My opinion is the opposite
Absoutely.
Star Trek TNG certainly had a lot of cheap "bottle episodes" but rather than finding them boring I appreciated how these episodes let us spend more time with characters in a different setting, and flesh out the wider universe of the show. The ship doesn't have to be blowing up every single week, there are other things going on too.
And great things can happen when you slow down.
The episode "The Measure of a Man" in which the question of Data's 'humanity' is put on trial was itself a low-budget bottle episode that only happened because of a writer's guild strike, and mostly consists of just a few members of the cast sitting around a table for the whole episode.
And yet, it turned out to be an amazing episode that is widely regarded as one of the most defining and influential in the entire show.
Episodes like that simply can't happen when you only get eight per season.
What side stories?
Lol. Back in the 1950's, a season of television was 39 episodes per year; and an hour-long show minus commercials ran for 54 minutes. If you missed an episode of your favorite show, you had to hope that the network would re-run that episode during the summer, because syndication wasn't a thing.
One of my favorite things is hearing about a TV show I’ve literally never heard before… and seeing how many episodes it had.
For example, The Edge of Night ran from 1956-1984. 28 seasons, 7,420 episodes. I’ve never once heard of it, I got to it by thinking of a kind of obscure show (Car 54 Where Are You?) and then looking for other shows.
Oh my god I had forgotten all about Car 54 Where Are You…Nick At Nite was such a history lesson back in the 90s. Are all those shows just lost media now?
No, they're still out there, there are sites and forums that collect them.
Eh, The Edge of Night is kinda an outlier: it was a soap opera, and there just isn't the cultural memory for soaps, especially more than 10-15 years after they're off the air. Also, when you do 250 episodes a year, it's easy to rack up the episode count.
Another cultural memory hole are all the shows from the 40s and 50s, the majority of which are lost to time.
Oh, I just started there.
It’s easy to rack up episode count
My point is that you can pick any decade and there are shows with 50+ episodes you’ve never even heard of. That’s fascinating.
What about The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd? 1987-1991.
Comedy-drama, 5 seasons, 65 episodes. 65 episodes of a series I had literally never heard of until just now!
How boring to just say “that’s not interesting.”
Here’s another one. Kate & Allie, a sitcom. 1984-1989. I have literally never heard of it until right now. 122 episodes!
I guess they're not interesting to me because they have a lot of episodes? I like looking up lesser-known stuff, like the late 1970's science fiction comedy Quark, the two short-lived spin-offs from MASH (AfterMASH and WALTER; there's also Trapper John MD, but that lasted a while) and the Casablanca series starring David Soul from Starsky & Hutch.
I also like looking up short-lived shows like Mr and Mrs Smith with Scott Bakula, and Space Rangers. Bonus points if they had episodes that never aired in the States, like Moon Over Miami (3 unaired episodes) or something like South of Sunset, starring Glenn Frey of The Eagles, which got pulled after airing just one episode. Or Turn-On, which was officially pulled after one episode, though a number of stations took it off the air during the first episode.
I guess we're both interested in tv shows that have been memory-holed, we're just using different ranges for what's interesting?
I just want both! There’s something inherently very interesting about things that culturally disappear.
It’s flabbergasting to me that all these people got together to make TV shows, sometimes for years, and I’ve literally never even heard the title or what it’s about.
People wrote scripts, they had sound technicians and built sets. Actors were like “this is my big break!” and they did it for six years… and no one has ever heard of it.
Makes sense that Scott Bakula would have a few failed pilots, but 30 people got together for 7 years. Wtf!
Lots of filler.
Gotta let them characters proof a little.
Same thing with lots of shows today.
Yeah, and now a dumb episode is about 15% of the season, while previously it was less than 5% of the season.
I don't think longer or shorter seasons are inherently better. Doctor Who has definitely been negatively affected by trying to do shorter seasons but upping the "quality" of each episode. But they forget we didn't watch the show for the visuals. Hell, I've seen some old episodes where it was very obvious they were using colored bubble wrap for characters. And that wasn't out of the norm.
Stories first, visuals second.
I gave up 3 or 4 episodes into Jodie Witthakers run. The stories just had this holier than thou moral high ground and none of the mischievous fun energy of the other doctors it just got completely unwatchable. Haven't returned to the show after she was done. What a shame.
Same, I really wanted Whittaker to succeed, and was stoked to see them have a woman be the doctor for the first time.
But then they straight up made her story lines all about sharing, caring, and not being confident. Like they flat out stereotyped women with the first woman doctor, while trying to sell it as empowering.
The doctor is kind of a goofy smart-ass who rarely considers that their plans might not work out. And Whittaker's doctor had none of that.
It felt like we never got to know the companions.
I can't even remember the companion(s) for the latest doctor. Were they a woman?
Yeah but waiting all week for your favor show only to have it be a rerun suuuuuuccckkkkeeeddd!!!!!!!
Just wait until it’s in syndication and watch the marathon on USA or TBS
This is why I stopped watching TV. I can only watch a show at a set time period and had no idea if it'd be a good episode or a rerun? I might jump into the middle of a storyline with no context for the characters or the plot? I have to wait a whole week to find out what happens next? No thanks. My ADHD won't allow for that kind of scheduling, plot confusion, and potential disappointment.
I collected movies and TV shows for a while, so I could watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Until online streaming became a thing.
Even then, streaming services couldn't guarantee access to my favorite movies and shows forever, with streaming licenses being a temporary thing that could expire. So I eventually dumped them all and went back to collecting my own movies and TV shows.
I eventually ripped my whole collection to my computer and set up a Plex server, so I could stream my own private movie, tv show, and music collection. I now have access to my media library anywhere in the world! Better than any public streaming service.
Now it's 8 episodes per season
2-3 years between new seasons
In the US the production schedules have been impacted significantly by the unions. This is not a bad thing. Syndicated TV shows used to run absolute hell production schedules. The actors, stage crews and editing teams were basically being worked to death to get a new episode out every week.
Also, audience expectations have gotten a lot higher. The production quality on Strange New Worlds is better than a lot of movies I've seen. It looks good, it sounds good, it's well choreographed, it's well shot. Costumes, makeup, props and special effects are doing consistently high quality work, and that's time consuming.
I’d rather it look like TNG and have 24 episodes per season and a new season every year
beige... beige everywhere... on the people... on the floor... on the walls... surrounded by noncommittal brown forever...
Ugh. Don't waste my time with syndicate slop. Broadcast TV is dead.
If you only need 5 episodes to tell your story, then have 5.
I usually prefer shows that don’t have a lot of episodes per season; usually means less filler and more storytelling. I feel like From did it well with its three seasons; some episodes do sometimes feel filler, but they help to build the world and make it feel more lived-in, and also they usually do have a storyline in there that makes the main story move forward.
If you haven’t seen From, then I highly recommend it.
Depends if it is an episodic show or not.
A lot of serialized shows draw out their main story to the point of it becoming boring. More episodes means it is drawn out longer.
But if every episode is a story on their own, there isn't a chance in that.
It’s more of an episodic show, and even the “filler” episodes are usually very interesting and develop characters in a meaningful way.
Yes and we all complained about it.
Old KOTH. New season(s) are only 10 each (15 is already made but not released yet).
nah, I don't want to sit through 24, hour long episodes twice just to "get to the good part"
Warehouse 13 with its 13 ep seasons, story that moved leaps and bounds in 4 eps in a season was great. A few bottle episodes, lightning fast overarching arc completion, fantastic.
If only it had 22 min eps
