Strange New Worlds has been my favorite Trek since Next Generation, and if the quality continues, could easily be my favorite Trek ever. But with the e.p. wishing for more episodes per season, there’s a danger of diluting the show by adding weak episodes that would have never made it in a 10 episode season.
One of the things I’ve long admired with BBC shows is their normally low-episode seasons, which kept out a lot of filler that normally made it in to the broadcast shows from the states. But streaming (and before that, cable) changed things. Finally US based shows were able to create much lower episode seasons, allowing the creators to tell more of the story they wanted to tell, without stretching things out (too much), or being forced to add stories they weren’t thrilled with in order to fill the season. (Though, even with shorter runs, shows are still doing this. Picard season 2, for example, could have used some trimming. So, yeah, show runners are still being forced to fill seasons where X number of episodes were ordered before the story was fleshed out. Maybe it just seems more evident in serialized shows.)
I can’t help but think a longer season of SNW would be a “more is less” scenario. I’d much rather see Paramount create another Trek show that’s mainly episodic, that’s been shown the same attention to quality that SNW has received.
I’m not worried.
The reason SNW is better than DISCO and ENT is that the characters are real and complete. We know exactly what type of person Ortegas is, and seeing her do stuff is exciting because I’m invested in seeing her grow and change.
Compare that to Detmer from DISCO, I’m not sure what her job is, didn’t know her name for serval seasons and couldn’t tell you a thing about her personality. I don’t care if Detmer lives, dies or grows. She’s a person who exists in the background.
The hard work of establishing the characters is done. I will be happy to see them go stuff.
One of the reasons you don’t know Detmer was they made a conscious decision to make a “one main character” show instead of an ensemble show. They were consciously not trying to develop anyone but Burnham, and to a lesser extent Saru, then Stamets.