There was space for both for decades now. There were series that told as one, continous story since Crime Story in the 80s and various mixes of the two kinds like Blake's 7 back in 1978. And that's obviously not mentioning various mini-series reaching way before that. It's just that one format was dominant then and now it's the other.

No, there wasn't. A single show in the late 80s that was cancelled after two seasons, and never got a proper conclusion to its cliffhanger, isn't a good example for this type of show having its space. Why not throw in Twin Peaks as well, there's another show that lasted all of two seasons and didn't get a conclusion until now, when the TV landscape was prime for its return.

Mixing episodic and serialized formats is even worse. It just means that both the episode's plot and the overarching plot will suffer by being squeezed together and having less time to develop.

And mini-series is a whole different thing that has nothing to do with this. They could be made because they'd be 6 episodes long and didn't have to worry about viewers remembering information between seasons. They aren't like episodic shows, and they sure aren't a substitute to serialized shows, which are able to develop characters across multiple seasons, like Breaking Bad, or explore a different socio-political idea, like The Wire.

Yeah, The X-Files really suffered for that... oh wait, no it didn't. It had great mythology episodes and monster of the week episodes and was much better that way than if it had to pick only one those. Or the show I mentioned, Blake's 7, a way better show than anything produced in the last decade and a half. Like I said, every format has it's advantages and disadvantages. And in all formats there are examples of great series and total crap. Today a different format is dominant, and the others are in retreat. It's not superior and it's domination is by itself no improvement.

Look, it's obvious we're not going to agree about this. You think the series now are super great, I think it's mostly shallow crap hiding behind inflated budgets. That's the bottom line, we can keep this oing but will never reach anything else, so let's not derail this thread any further.

Hmm

I finally watched the first episode, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn't great, didn't blow my mind, but it was fun. I don't know why critics hate it so much. It's was indeed a bit bland, but it's just a pilot, setting up the characters and everything. I don't think it's ever going to be much more than just a fun distraction, but there's nothing wrong with that. However, I can't help but wonder what it could have been like if it wasn't a comedy (or maybe a dramedy is more apt?). It feels like McFarlane just wanted to make Star Trek, but of course could only get to do it as a pastiche, and as a guy famous for comedies, he could only get the green light for it by making it a comedy.

I hope it gets better because the pilot was bland. The show took itself too seriously for my taste. The two leads had good chemistry though and seemed like they could carry the show.
It doesnt say much for the writing when you cant hook the audience and be funning on the setup/pilot episode. The pilot is supposed to define the whole series and the only thing I saw was a comedy that would rather be a drama.

They should throw out everything Abrams did and the stuff that followed.

I still have no idea why they let him destroy the entire universe.

Studio: What are your ideas JJ?

JJ: Well, I am going to destroy the entire universe! I will retcon everything! Spock and Kirk will hate each other! I will eradicate the entire planet Vulcan! Kill 95 percent of the entire Vulcan race! Do the whole time-travel BS! Have two Spocks in one timeline! Have the original Star Trek timeline erased! And just for good measure, instead of Scotty solving a problem, I'll just have original Spock give him the equation off the cuff in the middle of a tense-filled sequence that will ruin all tension! Basically, I plan to f*ck the entire history of the franchise!

Studio: Sounds great! Let's f*ck this up the like the Stars Wars prequels and wonder why nobody sees Hollywood movies anymore in a few years from now when this all goes to sh*t! Here's a $150 million in Dumpster Fire money.

Well, if that's your problem with the show then you'll likely dislike the second episode even more, since it's even less of a comedy. As for me, I thought it was a huge improvement. There's still issues, but it made the characters stand out more and gave most of the crew something interesting, and actually felt like a exciting Trek-y sci-fi show. I hope they can keep it up that way, because it is definately showing potential.

That's some nice melt down you had there, but you can calm down now. Nothing was erased. No one ever even implied otherwise. The whole point of the Kelvin timeline is that they get to do thing diefferently without conflict with the original Trek. The original timeline is still there, in fact that's where Discover is set.

I checked the CBS website for the schedule, and it told me that Discovery would be showing at 8:30EST/PST. As I'm on PST, I figured that I'd check in. It started at 8:00PST. Thanks CBS.

I liked what I saw of it, but honestly I don't intend to shell out for CBS All Access so I guess I just have to hope other nerds don't either and maybe it'll show up elsewhere. Also, fuck there were a lot of fucking commercials.

I knew about the new Star Trek Discovery series during its development, but I didn't see an advertisement of its actual premiere until yesterday, so I almost missed it. I thought it sounded like a promising show from what little info I found here and there, but now that I've seen the pilot I feel like saying finally, a show that brings the franchise back on track! It's so refreshing to see an interesting sci-fi that doesn't rely on mature-rated content, excessive arguing and foul language; there's so much of that everywhere these days that for those of us who don't want to watch that sort of thing there's almost nothing left worth watching at all. Discovery so far has impressed me, I was able to watch the pilot without once being 'kicked out' of the experience by the annoyances that everything else in the franchise has had since DS9.

doccarnby: from what I've read, you should be able to watch it through two or three providers, including Netflix, in the near-future. I could be wrong, just mentioning so you can look into it if you want. The show is filmed in my country, yet we're getting a less than ideal deal; only a few episodes will air on the channels I currently have, and it doesn't look like Netflix here will get it, so I need to figure out how to keep watching it after that (assuming the show continues being at least this good).

For clarity's sake I started a new thread to discuss Discovery now that it's finally here.

Things are not looking good for Star Trek 4. It really is a pity. I stand by Beyond being really good, and whatever their flaws in general, the new movies were still a damn sight better than Discovery. This likely means either no more Trek movies for a long time, or another reboot very likely to end up much worse than what we had.

Okay, I guess it's time to talk about this, becasue it's a thing that's atually happening and not just some fever nightmare I had.

Quentin Tarantino is apparently in talks to direct a Star Trek movie. An R-rated Star Trek movie.

So, you know, basically nothing about this sounds like what you'd want to hear about a Star Trek movie. I'm probably terribly biased since I absolutely hate Tarantino's work, but come on. I can't think of a worse choice for Trek than him, other than maybe Uwe Boll. But apparently Patrick Stewart thinks otherwise, so who am I to argue :P

If it wasn't for the R-rating I might actually try some cautious optimism, thinking that maybe as a great fan of Star Trek Tarantino would forgo his usuall shtick and try to be true to "real" thing, but the R-rating is as firm a denial of that as possible.

Set phasers to "rip your guts out".

Great, three hours of crew members sitting around the bridge talking about fucking and MacDonald's.