Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa Xmas Special & s1

Staffan

Legend
Folks always trot out the occasional hits, but rarely talk about the piles of forgettable misses. Also, they dont talk about the thousands of forgettable series in the episodic dust bin, just a few beloved series in the format.
The thing is that even with a lesser series like Star Trek, the "filler" might not be particularly memorable, but it still serves to familiarize ourselves with the characters. That way, when an important episode comes around, we already know and care about them.

For example, Star Trek Discovery season 3 started with the Discovery crashing after coming out of the wormhole to the far future. In one of the early episodes of the season, the ship's helmsman had some confidence issues because she felt she should have been able to handle that better. I did not care one bit about that, because the show had not taken the time to let us get to know the character.

In Deep Space 9, on the other hand, the third season also starts with something of a shift in the status quo. The crew is taking the new Defiant into the Delta Quadrant to make contact with the mysterious leaders of the Dominion, the Founders – and when they do, they learn that they are the same species as the orphaned station security chief Odo, which is of course overwhelming for him. And we care about his reaction, because we've gotten to know Odo over the last two seasons. We would not have gotten that if each of those seasons had only been 10 episodes.
 

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payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario
The thing is that even with a lesser series like Star Trek, the "filler" might not be particularly memorable, but it still serves to familiarize ourselves with the characters. That way, when an important episode comes around, we already know and care about them.

For example, Star Trek Discovery season 3 started with the Discovery crashing after coming out of the wormhole to the far future. In one of the early episodes of the season, the ship's helmsman had some confidence issues because she felt she should have been able to handle that better. I did not care one bit about that, because the show had not taken the time to let us get to know the character.

In Deep Space 9, on the other hand, the third season also starts with something of a shift in the status quo. The crew is taking the new Defiant into the Delta Quadrant to make contact with the mysterious leaders of the Dominion, the Founders – and when they do, they learn that they are the same species as the orphaned station security chief Odo, which is of course overwhelming for him. And we care about his reaction, because we've gotten to know Odo over the last two seasons. We would not have gotten that if each of those seasons had only been 10 episodes.
Im not saying the format is incapable of delivering depth in character development, but its not the norm. It was far from it actually.
 

Folks always trot out the occasional hits, but rarely talk about the piles of forgettable misses. Also, they dont talk about the thousands of forgettable series in the episodic dust bin, just a few beloved series in the format.
You can make these same arguments about serialized shows. And that’s why it just comes down to personal enjoyment.
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
Yeah, I'm just not as enthralled with episodic series anymore. Largely its the feeling that writers are not up to the task of making something interesting for that long, but also a fatigue of filler. I like the current serial style of story telling with a healthy side of anthology based programming.
I've been watching Fargo on Hulu, starting with the early seasons and it's clear the format has life in it, but that it takes what is today a more exceptional talent to pull it off. I don't know that many showrunners could make me climb the walls the way Noah Hawley has been doing with Fargo, season one.
 

payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario
I've been watching Fargo on Hulu, starting with the early seasons and it's clear the format has life in it, but that it takes what is today a more exceptional talent to pull it off. I don't know that many showrunners could make me climb the walls the way Noah Hawley has been doing with Fargo, season one.
Yeap, though its been pretty hard for them to maintain. Season 4 was not great, but had its moments. Season 5 was similar.

I think that is also overlooked. Look at the stars that Fargo has been able to attract. They do this by having limited episodes and anthology presentation. You can attract that by limiting the commitment of all involved. Add the ability to shoot on locations instead of a the same two sets repeatedly and the advantage is just simply clear.
 

Ryujin

Legend
The thing is that even with a lesser series like Star Trek, the "filler" might not be particularly memorable, but it still serves to familiarize ourselves with the characters. That way, when an important episode comes around, we already know and care about them.

For example, Star Trek Discovery season 3 started with the Discovery crashing after coming out of the wormhole to the far future. In one of the early episodes of the season, the ship's helmsman had some confidence issues because she felt she should have been able to handle that better. I did not care one bit about that, because the show had not taken the time to let us get to know the character.

In Deep Space 9, on the other hand, the third season also starts with something of a shift in the status quo. The crew is taking the new Defiant into the Delta Quadrant to make contact with the mysterious leaders of the Dominion, the Founders – and when they do, they learn that they are the same species as the orphaned station security chief Odo, which is of course overwhelming for him. And we care about his reaction, because we've gotten to know Odo over the last two seasons. We would not have gotten that if each of those seasons had only been 10 episodes.
I don't know that we wouldn't get that in a 10 episode season. We got it pretty well with Lt. Ortegas, in "Strange New Worlds."
 

Staffan

Legend
I don't know that we wouldn't get that in a 10 episode season. We got it pretty well with Lt. Ortegas, in "Strange New Worlds."
I haven't taken the time to see Strange New Worlds yet, so I wouldn't know that. But my point is that a large number of episodes lets you explore a large number of characters. In Discovery, we get to see a lot of Burnham, Tilly, Saru, and Stamets, and not so much of other characters except through the lens of those characters (e.g. we see some Culbert stuff, but mostly as "Stamets's husband", not in his own right). In DS9, Sisko was unquestionably the lead character, but we got a lot of time with Kira, Dax, Odo, Bashir, O'Brien, Quark, Garak, and Worf. Each of those could and did carry their own episodes, which in turn made the show as a whole more vibrant.
 

MarkB

Legend
I don't know that we wouldn't get that in a 10 episode season. We got it pretty well with Lt. Ortegas, in "Strange New Worlds."
Hardly. Ortegas was seriously underdeveloped in the first season, and when we finally got to see some attempt at dedicating some time to her in season 2, the sum total of her character development was "I fly the ship."
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Hardly. Ortegas was seriously underdeveloped in the first season, and when we finally got to see some attempt at dedicating some time to her in season 2, the sum total of her character development was "I fly the ship."
That isn't the fault of the show however- Ortegas was meant to have more of a spotlight, but there was a personal tragedy that affected the actress. Season 2 supposedly will correct this.
 


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