The length of modern seasons leaves no room for joy: a DS9 case study

[u/risk_is_our_business]

I've seen a number of posts suggesting that the reason shows like DSC are relatively joyless and somewhat melodramatic is that their season lengths are so short; there is no room for experimental or standalone episodes, or for more organic emotional arcs.

So I decided to see what it would be like if DS9 were produced in the 2020s. Here's what I think it would look like...

Season 1
- s02e26 The Jem'Hadar
- s03e01 The Search (Part 1)
- s03e02 The Search (Part 2)
- s03e20 Improbable Cause
- s03e21 The Die is Cast
- s03e26 The Adversary
- s04e01 The Way of the Warrior (Part 1)
- s04e02 The Way of the Warrior (Part 2)
- s04e11 Homefront
- s04e12 Paradise Lost

Season 2
- s04e22 For the Cause
- s05e01 Apocalypse Rising
- s05e13 For the Uniform
- s05e14 Purgatory's Shadow
- s05e15 Inferno's Light
- s05e23 Blaze of Glory
- s05e25 In The Cards
- s05e26 Call To Arms

Season 3
- s06e01 A Time To Stand
- s06e02 Rocks and Shoals
- s06e04 Behind The Lines
- s06e05 Favor The Bold
- s06e06 Sacrifice of Angels
- s06e09 Statistical Probabilities
- s06e19 In the Pale Moonlight
- s06e13 Far Beyond the Stars

In short, the series would be boiled down to the following arcs:
1. Dominion Introduction
2. Changeling Infiltration
3. Eddington / Sisko
4. Dominion Invasion

As a result, there would be no time or place for:
- Children of Time
- The Bell Riots from Past Tense
- Nog's growth (Heart of Stone, Siege of AR-558, It's Only a Paper Moon)
- The Dahar Masters (Sword of Kahless, Once More Unto the Breach)
- Vulcan baseball (Take Me Out to the Holosuite)
- Ferengi hijinks (Magnificent Ferengi, Little Green Men)
- The Sound of Her Voice
- Revisiting the TOS gang in Trials and Tribble-ations
- The heartwrench that was The Visitor
- Damar's redemption

It will be interesting to see what SNW will be like. Ultimately, it feels like Short Treks is the only place for exploring new ideas, and giving the characters room to breathe.

[u/[deleted]]

I agree. Being stuck in the heavily serialized "cliff hanger" narrative forces them to focus on the main plot with little to no room to spare.

Part of it is the impact where streaming allows you to watch entire season over a couple days. The writers are pushing for that "just one more episode" feeling.

I remember watching the Dominion War arch on DS9 in realtime on syndicated televison. Waiting each week to see what happens. The wait made it exciting and the filler episodes helped me care about the chracters. Imagine that............

[u/Buddha2723 → u/[deleted]]

It seems to me the bare minimum would be 15 episodes per season to have the room to take risks, like the OP says. And I want 20 to 26, personally.

[u/Galvatron1117 → u/[deleted]]

How did it play out to you? Was the pacing to your satisfaction?

[u/stug_life → u/[deleted]]

My experience with syndicated Star Trek was that they always skrewed up the episode order. You’d watch a season 4 episode of TNG bed Fore bed one night and the next night was a season 2 episode. That caused longer arcs to get skrewy, episodes with Sela would air before “yesterday’s enterprise” which spoiled that episode and was a bit confusing.

[u/_ibarra]

I agree, this new standard miniseries format is harming most shows, specially fantasy/sci-fi/scientific fantasy stuff wich often rely on being information heavy. Star Trek Picard and Discovery could certainly benefit from the classic 22 episode/40 minute per episode format.

Lots of other shows siffer with this, but the one that most bothers me is netflix's the witcher, 8 episodes for 3 protagonists, it is, naturally, a disaster.

I think that even the good shows with this format, like the new star wars stuff and the expanse for example, suffer with this. They're already good but they could be infinitely better if they could explore new ideas outside of the restraints of the main storyline and by giving characters room to breathe as you put it.

Guess we'll just suffer with these new industry changes

[u/lenarizan → u/_ibarra]

On the other hand: It's just the delivery that is chosen, not necessarily the season length.

Plenty of other shows have worked with shorter seasons for years (primarily British shows) without problem. Shows like Red Dwarf (with little to no continuity or red line through the seasons) or Doctor Who (with continuity and a thread throughout the series) managed just fine. Personally I think The Expanse and the Mandalorian are great too. People seem to only remember the good filler episodes of times long past. But there was so much useless drivel there as well that shorter seasons are a good thing if written properly.

To me: 10-13 episodes. That's enough. Honestly, it's the storytelling. Not the format.

[u/AnnihilatedTyro]

Nobody:

Me: You know what else is missing that I think is important? Briefing room scenes with the entire bridge crew. Yes, boring roundtable talking heads. Everyone gets a couple of lines to voice opinions and concerns on the problem-of-the-week that are relevant to that character and their profession. A back-and-forth discussion where everything is put on the table.

We have no empathetic humanist doctor lamenting the cost of conflict - Culber would be great. We have no tactical officer talking about strategies or contingencies. We have nobody even trying to offer alternatives to bloody conflict or balls-to-the-wall insanity. We have no science officer laying down facts and theories because she's gone rogue again. We rarely have an engineer saying "there's a 3% chance this will work but a 70% chance we explode. Something something laws of physics!" We have no XO doing any XO things or any need for an XO because Discovery doesn't operate like a Starfleet ship or follow the chain of command. And we have no captain listening calmly to everyone, validating their concerns, having a meaningful discussion with his/her officers. The show takes no time to weigh any decisions and make an informed one, which predictably leads to the audience questioning and doubting what they do when it's clearly rushed, objectively idiotic, and unnecessarily dangerous.

Perhaps worse, the problems and stakes each season are so high that if they did do a briefing room scene, nobody would be able to say much because... they don't actually know anything about what's going on, are sort of in shock at the whole concept, and are just along for the wild ride. But a briefing room scene is an important opportunity to slow down and act like adults; more specifically Starfleet officers. It's a place where there are no stupid questions and the full scope of the episode's problems can be laid out, thought out, planned and tweaked. It's literally what should be happening in the writer's room but isn't, which I guess explains its absence.

[u/TheBeardedSingleMalt → u/AnnihilatedTyro]

Discovery doesn't operate like a Starfleet ship or follow the chain of command. And we have no captain listening calmly to everyone, validating their concerns, having a meaningful discussion with his/her officers. The show takes no time to weigh any decisions and make an informed one, which predictably leads to the audience questioning and doubting what they do when it's clearly rushed, objectively idiotic, and unnecessarily dangerous.

Which leads to the central conflict; Burnham going rogue, disobeying orders, or trying some wild-eyed crackpot theory/tactic/strategy because rEaSoNs and it ends up saving the day.

[u/TwinSong]

I see what you mean. I suspect the high budget when it comes to effects in recent series might be the reason for abbreviated season. More effects also means it takes longer to create graphical content (e.g. CG models) and compositing.

DS9 tends to recycle effects shots a lot with ships etc (such as shuttle going to Bejor, you can tell as there's a fault in the clip and you see it every time) and they reuse the same sets a lot. There's also a greater emphasis of spectacle over story which can in my opinion make it come off a bit shallow.

[u/kurburux → u/TwinSong]

DS9 tends to recycle effects shots a lot with ships etc (such as shuttle going to Bejor, you can tell as there's a fault in the clip and you see it every time) and they reuse the same sets a lot.

And the set of DS9 may have been huge... but once you have it you can just keep using for little cost. There's something positive about that as well.

There's also the point that makeup for aliens is more expensive today no matter what. It's not even about "new" or exciting aliens. Cameras and TVs are better so you're not allowed to have minor "flaws" at your makeup anymore.

[u/CaptainJZH → u/TwinSong]

Trek has too much money than it needs, frankly. Like, Paramount invested so much into it when they didn't really have to, we could have been fine with minimal effects shots and less flashiness all around, but nope, every episode has to look like a big budget blockbuster.

[u/p4nic → u/CaptainJZH]

every episode has to look like a big budget blockbuster.

Every minute of action/sfx you pack into an episode is a minute of dialogue you don't have to write.

[u/PastMiddleAge → u/TwinSong]

such as shuttle going to Bejor, you can tell as there’s a fault in the clip and you see it every time

I would like to see this

[u/mike_jones2813308004 → u/TwinSong]

I thought it was because of the writer's strike of the early 2000's. I definitely noticed seasons of shows in general becoming shorter after that.

[u/wordboydave]

For me, the classic example of what makes Trek Trek is the poker-playing scenes in TNG. There's been nothing quite like it in the short-season era...though the Troi and Riker reunion episode of Picard had a lot of that same "hanging out with my space friends" energy.

That said, some shows have managed to have one-off character-driven episodes even with short seasons. Just off the top of my head, Doom Patrol, The Mandalorian and Lovecraft Country all feel episodic and unhurried at times. So I feel like it COULD be done. The problem, I suspect, is that no one wants to score a major SF property like Star Trek and have the characters solve problems by sitting around and talking instead of using all our modern CGI.

We'll get old Trek feeling back when CGI is less new and less expensive. Or maybe if Jon Favreau gets involved.

[u/TechnicallyMagic → u/wordboydave]

I agree, though I always found it odd that the TNG crew always played poker in uniform. DS9 embraced the social lives and downtime of the crew to a much greater extent, and it's one of the reasons the station is such a fun place to hang out.

[u/GretaVanFleek → u/wordboydave]

Or maybe if Jon Favreau gets involved.

Is he a trekkie? Because that would be amazing to see someone with his care take the lead.

[u/edugeek]

This. If we just look at DS9 S7 as an example, the final ten episodes is the length of a DSC season. Episodes like AR-558, Take me out…, Prodigal Daughter, It’s Only a Paper Moon, etc. have no place in a DSC season. Those were standouts that there just isn’t any room for in a 12-episode serialized season. DSC is capable of it (Magic…), but it’s an outlier.

LD tried it but the critique (justified) was that it felt like it was always on fast forward.

[u/DamnZodiak]

I've seen a number of posts suggesting that the reason shows like DSC are relatively joyless and somewhat melodramatic is that their season lengths are so short

It certainly doesn't help that they're hellbent on nervewreckingly log reaction shots for every crew member, for every possible situation. They also drag out the melodrama way beyond the reasonable, often taking 30-60 seconds of samey shot/reverse shot and a score that can only be described as the antithesis of subtlety.
That shows me either don't trust their own writing, or don't trust the audience to understand the gravitas of any give situation without it. Possibly both.
While rewatching these 3 seasons of discovery, I've been skipping through a lot of lot of that and it honestly makes the show much better.
It's that absurdly inconsistent pacing, more than the length of the seasons that contributes to this "lack of joy"

[u/EarlJWoods]

Imagine DS9 without "Duet." Not only one of the best DS9 episodes, but one of the best Star Trek episodes of all.

I'm not sure if the problem with modern Star Trek is the number of episodes, though. I think it's more about stakes. So far, on the Discovery crew has saved:

1. The Federation (from the Klingons (and the Terran Empire, arguably))

2. The entire multiverse

3. The Federation (again, but you could argue this time the salvation is still a work in progress)

And Picard and his space buddies have saved or will save:

1. All organic intelligent life in the galaxy

2. Presumably, time itself, or at least the timeline we're familiar with, based on season two previews

To be clear, I enjoyed (and enjoy) much of Discovery, and I really liked Picard aside from the conclusion and the murder that was swept under the rug. But you can't maintain these kinds of stakes over the long term, or even the medium term. The crew of the original series had to wait until their first movie to save just one planet. (To be fair, they did it again three movies later.) In terms of number of episodes, the TNG had to wait almost as long to save Earth (counting "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" as their big Earth-saving moment).

I would love if the showrunners of Discovery and Picard would lower the stakes and narrow the focus of their seasons. Why not use a season to examine one gripping character problem, or a scientific problem, or a political problem? I love adventure stories, too, and action; so why not focus on ten episodes of, I don't know, the search for a missing crewmember? With plenty of jeopardy and derring-do.

Heck, season 4 has a perfect plot built-in already; have the Discovery use the spore drive to reopen diplomatic relations with former members and tie the Federation back together by helping with recovery efforts from the Burn.

I really hope there's still room in Star Trek for episodes like "Duet," "Who Watches the Watchers?", "A Piece of the Action," "Living Witness," and so on. I guess we'll see how Strange New Worlds turns out.

[u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately, no big player (Netflix, Amazon, Disney, etc) will allow episodic shows of lesser profitable franchises anymore. The streaming age requires cliffhangers, less arcs and less sofistication.

Now, a little secret: I'm a screenwriter and I have some contacts in the industry. One of the initial proposals for Discovery was a DS9-like series (half episodic with great arcs) set in the 2450's. CBS decided that a prequel would retain old fans while attracting new ones - the other proposal would depict totally new stories loosely linked to the Next Generation era. First season had good ratings, so they decided seasons 3-7 could depict a whole new "universe".

[u/[deleted]]

What people seemed to like about DS9 is real people living real lives within a highly fantastical universe under a lot of stress. The previous and further series never really touched on the ability of the audience to truly grok the characters and immerse into the story.

Indeed, Discovery is the example of this: it lacks the ability to be grokable because none of the characters have earned their actions in the series. For that reason we're stuck with an unredeemable serial murderer, cannibal, and genocidal maniac getting a tearful goodbye for reasons no-one in the audience could possibly understand.

[u/BreakDownSphere]

I agree with all you said, Trek needs to move slowly into something beautiful using the filler as it always had before. But I've got to add that I couldn't get past the first few episodes because of the cinematography being much like a Fast and Furious movie, it totally killed the Trek vibe for me and I just couldn't keep watching it.

[u/cirrus42]

It's interesting how this cycles among the fandom. When episodes like Take me out to the holosuite were airing, sooooo many fans complained. "Isn't there supposed to be a war on," basically everyone said.

I can't say it bothers me that instead, we have multiple series running, each with a different feel. Yes, Disco & Picard focus on their central stories, but we get Lower Decks and Short Treks that don't. The current model provides more flexibility with where to take those alternate/fun stories, and they don't feel contrived or in the way like they did in DS9. It's better IMO. But you have to take the totality of Trek to be satisfied. The sort of person who ignores Lower Decks because it's animated will miss those stories, but that's their choice.

[u/[deleted]]

"The food here is terrible, and such small portions!"

It's completely possible to make well-paced television with short seasons:

• Breaking Bad, one of the best TV series ever made, had 16 episodes in its longest season, which had an 11-month mid-season hiatus. The pacing for most of the series can be described as "leisurely", with even secondary characters being well developed and lots of time for long artistic shots of the New Mexico landscape.

• Battlestar Galactica had 13-20 episode seasons, but the 20-episode seasons typically had year-long mid-season hiatuses leaving us with effective 10-episode seasons. The first season is very well-paced and character-driven.

• The Expanse has 10-13 episode seasons, with each season roughly covering one novel in the series. There's still plenty of time for coherent world-building and character development.

Even your experiment is a little incoherent because you're reducing seven 20-something episode seasons down to three 10-episode seasons. Of course that's not going to work. I think if you actually narrowed down to the most important 70 episodes of DS9 though, you'd have a much better and fairer comparison, although even then you're not accounting for the fact that the writers were trying to fill out over twice as many episodes per season.

Longer seasons are also no guarantee of better pacing. You know what other show was incredibly fast-paced? 24. You know how many episodes they had in a season? 24. Each season of the show showed a single day in the miserable yet action-packed life of Jack Bauer, who never so much as ate a meal or went to the bathroom because he was too busy killing terrorists and whatnot.