YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
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
Somewhere out there, there’s a single lonely soul who really, really gets Threshold.
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 ClassicTM
while feeling like Trek ClassicTM
Because there was so, so much memberberries.
I found it mostly somewhar funny, but I don’t know if I got half the jokes if I hadn’t watched Old Trek so much.I would argue that it was a good show even without all of that but the nostalgia made it more fun for sure. LD had great writers who told interesting stories. And, it could go from strange and campy to highbrow and serious from one scene to the next but they were also telling stories with through lines and arcs and still providing the filler.
To be fair, I haven’t watched Discovery or much Strange New Worlds yet, so I could be off base. But, it seems like Strange New Worlds is trying to thread that needle.
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.
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.
