Episode 666- Streaming VS Broadcast TV- What's Best for Star Trek?

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0:48 Now we talk about the series coming going on. So now we talk about the series coming join. Us week Truk is Around the Globe a special truck talking episode. It is currently Saturday afternoon street the Eastern Standard Time, and I'm here with my. Good friend David. He's on Miracle. What are you doing today, David? I'm tired. I spent a lot of time with family and I'm kind of glad to be home. But you know, it's been fun.

1:32 It's it's been a long It's we had Christmas, we had Thanksgiving, we had New Year's Jay wedding. We had a lot of stuff primmed in the last couple of weeks here, But Thursday we'll be back to normal. We'll be back to our Truk talking Thursday, and we're going to be talking about Lower Decks comic Corner issue eight and nine. I believe it is. I think sure, yes, yeah. Issue eight nine of Star Trek Lower Decks id W comic book series. But I also have with us. I have my good friend Jay Dog and Ellen, and they're out in Schenectady, New York. How are you guys doing today? We're alive.

2:14 So today I thought what we would be talking about a little bit was a Jay Dog and I were having this little conversation I think it was yesterday or the day before about Star Trek and the difference is between streaming and broadcast television. And you know, you can't produce things the same way for streaming as you do for broadcasts. There are different monsters, you know, they they require different things, and they're produced with different things, you know, different gameals basically, So that's what I wanted to talk about. So back in the in the early days when cos was was created, all they had was network television so we had CBS, NBC eight and public broadcasting. So Star Trek was created with four separate scenes, four separate acts, and in between each act they pile in the commercials and the shows were roughly forty five to you know, maybe fifty minutes and the rest was commercials. And that's how they made all their money. And that worked fine, you know, back in the sixties, that was great. And then TG comes along in the eighties and they're no longer on broadcast, but now they're doing what they call syndication.

3:36 And that's where networks would bid on the right to be able to show them the next generation and they would pay paramoon x amount of dollars to show the series, and then the network, the stations themselves would go out and sell the commercials to the promoters in order to pay back what they paid to get the show. And that is how Star Trek was done through TNG and ds N and Voyager and Enterprise Hope and I forgot start for the animated series. Let's not forget that Saturday Morning cartoon. And that's how Star Trek thrive on advertisers paying money to put their commercials on, doing sketchlets to start trek fans like ust would see them. Well, when streaming came along, that whole idea went right out the window.

4:25 And that's no longer the way things work now. The way they work is when they stream a show, they get what they call minutes they get They get paid per minute, and so the longer that you watch the show, the more money that they make. It's no longer based on advertising in the Nielsen ratings, it's how many minutes that particular show was tuned in. So that's how they do things now versus how they did things before. And a lot of people are still confused about that because I'll hear idiots on the Facebook board saying all the time about all the ratings and Nielsen ratings. It's not the way things work anymore. It's different. So, you know, Paramount Plus or whatever the streaming network is, they want you to subscribe, They want your subscription money. Once they have your subscription money, they want your eyes on the screen and they monitor how many minutes each show is watched, and that's how they determine the popularity of the show.

5:25 So that's where we are now. And I wanted to dive write in and talk about what you guys think about the way it starts right, was produced like in the eighties versus how it's done today. So what do you think, David, Oh, yeah, it's definitely changed. I think a lot of the things you have to do with technology and where they have been pumping out all the types of stuff. I mean, I remember the days when we never even had show phones, and now everybody seems to have one, and it's just the idea that technology coming into play. We have to figure out new ways to entertain ourselves in a way. But at the same time, it's like, I'm not really sure if this is the right way to go. I would like it to go back from the eighties how they did it.

6:16 I would like for it to you know, view off of what the Master is doing. It would be kind of interesting to see how they make a new Star Trek show based off of like like we've always talked before on the show. You know, it's not focused on the Federation, but more like focus on a different alien race or something and just kind of like go through and expand Star Trek to the point where it's like it's exploring new avenues and all this stuff. And so if they could come up with like some form of way to film differently like they used to do back in the day. Then I don't know how possible that is to achieve, but I think technology is probably to culporate with this whole thing in the way that they are presenting the new way of doing things and streaming. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to not being able to like go out into the snow and go to the video store, although I missed those two. But the idea is, you know, being at home being able to have it stream to you.

7:30 Is it's technology? So to me, I think I think that's just what it boils down to. I can't really think of any other words for it, but yeah, I think that's how I would put it. Anyway else. Yeah, so yeah, that's that's. How about you and Jay Dog? What do you and how I think about the whole stream versus podcast suit? Ellen is fighting to get ryfus. Who does paramount know, like how many people that are subscribing are of a certain age group, population? Gender? You know, how do they know what audience they're appealing to doing it this way?

8:19 If this is. Under a name that you're not sure what age group would gender you know, I don't get how they know where their audience or their. Audiences well, I don't. I don't think that they specifically Like if I'm watching Star Trek at home here and Karen and Jamie are watching it with me, I don't think they specifically know. Oh, well, see Karen's fifty nine and she's watching it, Jim's fifty nine and he's watching it, and their daughter James thirty two and she's watching it too. I think all they care about is they got my subscription, so they got my Life of the ninety nine, so they got their money, and that it's streaming in my in my house for forty eight minutes, and that's that's the number they're looking at. How many minutes was my account watching Star Trek versus watching you know, other shows that they have, and that's how they determine, you know, the popularity of a show is how many minutes it's watched, which which brings me to my next question, which Jerry and I talked about briefly, is that you know, back in the day when Star Trek came out, they would have the premiere movie, the pilot movie like Encounter a Far Point or the Emissary or Broken Bow, and generally this would be like a two hour premiere movie. And with streaming, they're not doing that anymore. You're gonna see

9:50 strange new work on that strange New world stuffleet Academy on Thursday night, and rather than giving us a two hour premiere, they're going to drop episode one and then follow that up with episode two. And so you know, you can watch episode one and turn it off and come back and watch it later whatever, But it's not going to be one continuous two hour movie like most other pilots are. And that's that I think is a big mistake when it comes to streaming, because they want your eyes glued to the TV for the for those full minutes, and they're just not writing Star Trek to be like that, you know, would you guys are great. Yes, they're not looking to appeal to a certain audience this way. They're hoping that you just jump on board and watch the minutes, as you're saying, but that doesn't give them a clue about what kind of writing will appeal to people.

10:53 And well, ever since the very beginning of Star Trek Star Trek, the original series, two pilots right Ron Berry didn't have what he wanted from the very beginning, right, things changed with the cage the Menagerie, right, whether it was the characters having to tweak it, etc. And paramount saying about with Jeffrey Hunter, we think we needed more, et cetera. So all of them have had on Well, it was not network television because it was after the original series and the animated episodes. It was all the S word syndicated, right, next Gen, DS nine, Voyager, Enterprise, it was all syndicated or upn you know. But they all had a pilot, right, which I mean I loved the pilot from all of them, you know at Enterprise too.

12:11 I mean you finally got to see stuff, so that was great. The thing is that by you know, when they started out in the sixties, they it was fifty minutes or whatever, right, I think it was by the eighties, not just Starter but television itself, that shows got to be like forty five minutes late mid to late eighties, forty three to forty five minutes. And Ellen and I were talking, she loves the General Hospital TV soap, right, believe it or not, we counted actual program time of the soap opera it's not even forty five minutes. The things like what the thirty minutes thirty eight minutes range they fit. They pump it in and pump it and stoop it and put as many commercials as they can into the thing. So the thing is that, yeah, there is an opportunity for streaming to do something. So is it then why don't we take some of the benefits from when it was on, send it in syndication broadcast

13:46 and throw that in when it applies with streaming. I mean, can't we learn the lessons from that and throw it into streaming so that you give a good introduction to the thing. And as a matter of fact, I was reading with Enterprise for the pilot people Doug Drexler. It was say, wow, when we worked in it, it was like almost like a movie because we had over two hundred things of special effects. Over two hundred. It's like, holy crap. I mean it's like, right, you don't expect that, like with your Run of the Militia and it's like science fiction Star Trek. You have to do stuff from scratch.

14:41 So it's like they need to know this, right, they need to know let's make the best of all these worlds then, but how much. Of a story can you tell over ten episodes for a season? How much care to development can you do with just ten episodes for each season? It really cuts down. I'm reaching an audi and so I'm grabbing people to be attracted to the concepts of what they're doing. Well, I think that you know, back in the eighties and the nineties, we got twenty six episodes, so we got we got a lot of wasted episodes like Spock's Brain and Subrosa with Beverly falling in love with a candle and you know, all this crazy stuff. So I think there was a lot of excess there with the twenty six episodes. But I think that fans also don't get the opportunity to identify with these characters as much with only ten episodes. That being said, I think shows like True Blood, for instance, and Game of Throne have proven that a streaming series can be extra extremely successful and popular if it's done the right way. And one of the things that True Blood always did, if you guys ever watched True Blood, every episode ended on a cliphanger,

16:14 so like, you know, the main character would like fall off a bridge that to be the end of the episode and then you got to watch next week and to find out what happened, and every episode would end that way is to make you come back and watch the next one. And with Game of Thrones, those episodes. I don't think there's any episodes of Game and Throws that are less than an hour long. I think, you know, I think, you know, they they tell the story they need to tell in the time they need to tell it. No one says that his story has to be cut short at forty eight minutes or fifty minutes. You know, take the time you need to take, tell the story you want to tell, and tell it right. So I don't think ten episodes is necessarily a curse, but I think that the people at Paramount have to stop writings start it's a broadcast show that's just being streamed, because that's not the case at all. It needs to be written like it's a streaming show that's being streamed. And they haven't seemed to pick up on that particular problem yet, you know.

17:19 David, Yeah, I think going back to the whole idea of technology, I just wanted to iterate something really quick here because now we have the Right of AI coming up and AI has definitely there had been a lot of I don't know if it's in Star Trek yet, and it may be, but AI has definitely looked like they have started to write some TV shows and to me makes me wonder because you guys, Jerry and Ellen were talking about, like, you know, some of the episodes for the streaming Shovic were like super super small. Like I remember one episode in the card that was like less than almost thirty minutes long, and it was just like so short, and it was like it's just a sitcom or something. I don't know, because it's just it just seems like they couldn't really know what they were going to write, and that to me, that episode seems like an AI written episode almost, and so it was just kind of like the AI just didn't know what to put in their next and it was just like it came to an end abruptly apparently. And to me, you guys also mentioned this whole screaming of minutes, and I'm wondering, when we watched the stuff and they get paid per minute, who's paying them? Where's the money coming from?

18:49 I mean, they're already getting the money from a prescription subscriptions But to me, it was just like, how where is the economy funding come from that They're getting paid for a minute. That's what I'm confised about. So maybe you guys might know, but. Well, they're not actually getting paid by the minutes. So like let's say that Star Trek streams one thousand minutes this week, and say Strange New Worlds streams eight hundred, for instance, then Star Trek is the number one streaming show that week because they streamed a thousand minutes versus you know, Strange New Worlds one hundred minutes or whatever the minutes happen to be. They're not rated any more like they used to do with the Nielsen ratings versus how many you know people tuned in to watch it.

19:38 It's it's done by minutes. So making these shows shorter, I think it's hurting themselves versus making them longer. You know, just in my opinion, What do you think, Jay Doug. Well, there's the concerned forgetting the minutes in, but there is and things cost money. An episode of the original series was on average and one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty one hundred and seventy thousand dollars an episode in today, of course that's nothing, but in terms of nineteen sixties dollars, what would it be in today's dollars? All right, I don't know. Would it be close to a half a million? I'm not sure. No.

20:43 But the thing is TNG then from nineteen eighty eighty seven, right is when it came out, and then it started to ballooning to the million dollar range or whatever. Right, I mean, look at the you know, you can't obviously compare TNG and the original series. But the thing is also it wasn't just money. It was a number of factors well, in terms of what they were able to accomplish in terms of sets to make it like it's a starship or whatever, the heulet is in the future, and the behind the scenes things to consider too, write how the technology that's involved, they're evolving, they're getting better and better, but it's also cost and maybe also they feel they can invest more money. I was reading that because of the success, especially with Star Trek four, the one with the whales, right that it was saying that that helped to give more push to get the next generation on air because they I mean, look at the the amount of time between them too. It's only about two years or so, so a million dollars for an episode. Yeah,

22:14 there were some, so you can have episodes whatever it is that like you mentioned Spock's Brain, but that was season three. And Fred Freiberger, who was in charge at the time, he's like the last man, the last like he's like you call him if like you're in your deathbed with your production, you know, unless you just want to go off the air. It was like either him or no one else. He was also on Space nineteen ninety nine by the way, as producer. But it's like crappy, crappy stuff. I mean, they did have a few good shows, right in the third season of Track. There were a few that were good, but there was something that it's like, holy cow, this is terrible.

23:04 You know. But the thing is that you can fill with what they call at that point bottle shows, right, which is even today. Right. The thing is you gotta maybe do it for less or whatever. Enterprise what was very interesting when many Cooto was in the fourth season. People, you know, Enterprise was like canceled after four years in the fourth year when Manicoto took over and set it right. But it was too little, too late, so they still were down in money to like eight hundred thousand dollars. So what they did was they used X amount of episodes to tell a whole story so that the set like let's say if it took place on Vulcan with Vulcan's Forge and whatever the hell it one, right, they spread out a story.

24:09 They made it like a mini movie over three episodes, so they weren't per se like more episodes, bottle episodes or what if they call it episodic television, right, episodic. It went from episodic to being multi episodes because they were telling a story over several so having a story orc right, thank you the story arc. That was great for Trek because you could go more into depth with something. So and they did it on DS nine, right, they did.

24:53 Objection to story ORCS is when you show syndicated episodes, you may not put those episodes together. It's kind of a random showing. So then the story gets broken up. But like in some cases, like they'll show like the best of both worlds from TG or some of some cases they'll mush it together or Unification from TG parts one and two. You won't get stuck in there until the part two letter Niemoy came into a film before because you know, they didn't have a lot of time, you know. But so the thing is, then we saw with Discovery right when it started out it was fifteen episodes, right, it was fifteen episodes, was that would you say, a their start, you know, to allow it to do what it needs to do, you know, so we can gauge the amount of time it needs.

26:13 Well, Discovery is an interesting because they were fifteen episodes and then they got cut back to thirteen. But again, Discovery didn't have a pilot episode either. They had the Vulcan Hello and the Ballot the Binary Stars, which are basically the same episode, but they put them in two parts. So we're back to the same thing of why didn't they make that first episode of pilot episode and make it one full episode versus you know, two individual ones, and they I think the reason why they do that, which doesn't make sense because it's streaming. They're not making them for syndication, like Ellen was saying, where people might watch episode two before they watch episode one. You're not going to do that when you're streaming. If you're streaming, you weren't going to sit down. You're going to watch them in order, so it doesn't I don't understand why they wouldn't want to make the stories like you're saying, Jada, where they did you know, the Forge and whatnot? And do you know these arcs because people are going to watch them in that order. They're not going to just sell out. I think I'll watch part three and then I'll watch part one and then I'll watch part two.

27:25 You know people are going to do that. They're gonna watch one, two, three, because we're in the streaming era now, so that's how people watch. So why don't they make Star Trek like that? Why are they still making it like it's syndication when it really isn't. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jerry, if you wanted to say something, I mean, well, the. Thing is, do you agree then that there are some things they can learn from syndication broadcast? And I mean, regardless of whatever it is that, whatever kind of story it is, you know, whether it was that they were doing it because they couldn't have guest stars so and so because it would cost too much, Right, we want to make it.

28:23 A bottle show. If you're going to do a bottle show. Do it good? Right? We've seen so many Star Trek bottle shows that have been really great. So the thing is, can we learn to apply from the previous and like the Vulcan Hello, well it was not exactly a very Vulcan Hello, and it was like, oh, we're picking it up in the middle of They didn't make it like a pilot, right. They should have combined it somehow to keep so that you know, tune in or you know it just and they need to do They need to fine tune things right.

29:06 They need to because that's what I think. You don't just throw away previous experience. You know, some things are particular to streaming. It's a new animal, so to speak, but you need to keep it in a way that you'll keep people coming back and allow for more time. You have to say something too. It was very irritated about Prodigy because they dumped it overseas before the US and then they gave a tut much later, and like you said, they just gave us all at once so you can preview episodes and talk about it. That was very irriting.

29:59 Yeah, I agree, Prodigy was they messed that whole thing. Up big time. But I think I think you're onto something, Allen. I think that if they're going to do streaming, they have to take a lesson from Game of Thrones and they have to sit down and say, we want to start with Starfleet Academy, for instance, with with our crew at point A, and at the end of season one, we want our crew to be at point B, and this is the journey that we're going to take. And so as each episode progresses, they're going to move from point A to point A, point one, point two until they end up at B, how however long that takes to get there, so that the entire season tells this entire story of Paul Giamonte's kling On character being a pain in the ass for the new Starfleet. But as that's the main story arc, you're going to have a lot of individual character arcs with these new characters that we're going to meet going through the journey at the same exact time that this giant story arc is going on, and they need to map that out and plan that out so that it fits together and it doesn't feel disjointed or like, oh, well, we're just going to throw something in here just to throw it in, and we're going to throw this in and throw that in. It needs to flow. It needs to feel like it's all one, you know, connected story, with these individual branches about, you know, like this new Klingon character, or the holographic doctor or

31:31 taking the Taro's jet Reno, you know, or Tilly, whatever it might be, so that these little branches are part of the bigger story, so that all the branches support the tree. And I think that that's something that Paramount hasn't learned when it comes to streaming. I mean, if you look at Game of Thrones again, this was one big arc, and I don't know anyone that tuned in and watched episode one and they said, ah, I'm not going to watch episode two or three or four. If you watched it and you got pulled into that world, you watched all of them. And that's something that I think Star Trek needs to start to do because so many fans out there is already fans hating Starfleet Academy.

32:13 We haven't even seen it yet, they hate it, you know. And I you know that the new kling On character, Jay Jaden carg I think his name is. I think that's it I'm really psyched to see him. Wharf is the reason I got into Star Trek in the first place, and now there's a brand new Klingon character nine hundred years in the future. I'm really interested to know what happened to the kling On Empire, how they ended up wherever they are now, how did they deal with the burn, what are they up to in the future. The Romulans and Vulcans are now united, how did this affect the Klingon Empire? And yes, I want to know those things. And I'm also psyched that he's a doctor and he's not a warrior. He's not running around beheading people on Wednesdays, you know. So I'm really excited to see what they're going to do with this new show. There's a gem Hadar female who runs the academy. I'm really psyched about that too. Fans are hating on that as well because gem Hadar don't have females. They're all, you know, genetically enhanced and whatnot. But again, this is nine hundred years in the future. Give the show a chance, you know.

33:20 I want to see something different. I think Star Trek needs to be different in order to survive. If it's they're all exactly the same. What's the point. Give us something different, give us something new. But there's a lot of closed minded fans out there that don't want to, you know, step out of their box of what they think Star Trek is and if it goes outside of that box, well they're gonna hate it. But with streaming, I think they have an opportunity to give us something different, give us something special, give us something new and something good. Don't give us your standard, you know, forty eight minute episode, move on to the next one. Forty eight minutes, move on to the next one. I think Strange New Worlds kind of fell into that trap in season three, and I hope they get out of that trap in season four because it felt like Strange New world Season three felt like a network show. They were all individual bottle episodes, and I think they got lost, and I think they need to come back, watch some True Blood, watch some Game of Thrones, and get back to what streaming is supposed to give us. In my opinion, you know.

34:33 Well, well, thinking about the whole what happened with the Kleanine in the future, I think somehow the trouble had got involved. They it became Passionfish. But other than that, the I have a thing also here, you guys were talking a lot about how streaming went away from advertisement, but doesn't advertisements still just in the online world. I mean, I thought there was like different levels of subscription too, like if you pay this much, you have ad free and all this stuff, and it's like, but if it's streaming, why do we still have ads. I don't know, it's another way for them to make money, and you know, all that stuff. But to me, you Jim, you were going talking about the whole Paramount need to get away from the whole episodic episode. And I agree with you guys.

35:30 You know we need to stick rod of story arc several episodes or maybe even a whole season long. I wouldn't mind a whole season long story arc. However, I think Paramount had this thing called greed and they just want money. And I believe that the more people watch the show, the more money they get. And so I think I'm not saying Paramount is the bad party to have Star Trek. And remember they promised that they were just gonna have Star Trek on Paramount and then they started taking off episode or series. It was just like I signed up this to watch Star Trek, right, So it was just kind of like the idea of once money comes into power, then they can do whatever they want.

36:18 And some people there might be Star Trek fans, they might want to try and make Star Trek a good thing, but for some reason, the higher up I'm assuming or probably like you know, trying to tell them to do it this way, and it's just like, ah, so to me, I think Paramount definitely has a lot to learn and they probably will maybe. And season four and five of Strange Worlds and the reason why I got canceled before it even aired, it was really strange to me. It's really rare that your show get canceled before even the season comes to the public eye, right. So it's just like, I'm sure there's probably other TV shows out there that probably had done the same thing to the online world, but it's just like, I don't know, there's just ratings that they're probably getting from somewhere, the money that they're I don't know. It's just to me, I think that Star Trek itself and I'm really hoping that Starfleet Academy is gonna be like Game of throne to be honest, because if it's like you don't know who's gonna be bumped off the show, then it's gonna be like, Wow, this show is probably gonna be pretty good. And then maybe that's what they're doing. They're trying to do each series something as a different product experiment. I guess you

37:48 could say, to find out whether or not if the series works for people, and show the more ratings they get from this particular series, Like I think this is when they started with The Car, because The Car, I honestly did not think Patrick Stewart was going to do another show and get back into his character and everything, but then when he announced it, it just seemed a little strange that it was like they were just trying to do an experiment to see how many people they could get into that series to try and watch and then see how the money flowed. I guess you could say, because it really is followed the Yellow Bick Road basically, and the more experiments they do with these shows, yeah, it might start to get revenue for them to do more of it, or maybe even to do a little bit different with another series. Because I'm still waiting to see if they can make like an enterprise she series.

38:53 You know what happened to Garrett there before she went through that wormhole? You know, I want to see her story. So it's just kind of like an interesting, weird experiment. I guess what they're doing, but I don't know if they are not, So maybe someone else can have that opinion. But what do you think. Jadad Well, I think, you know, so we a bottle show has its place. They mentioned on Star Trek Strange New Worlds initially, we're going to have a good balance, right, I remember them saying we're gonna have a good balance between episodic and a continuous story arc, you know, like so and so happened. We'll reference the Gorn or whatever, or she's she or he who were attacked by the Gorn, they're still recovered whatever, right, stuff like that. So it's not as if or it's like a month has passed spot.

40:01 So it's not as if we're like a year and a half afterwards in the store in the universe, in universe itself. So let's have a good mix of that, I think, and as far as having a good like fifteen episodes to tweak it right, Like for example, I liked that they did allow initially that you know, we saw that the Star Trek Discovery was allowed to have that time right to have the fifteen episodes. So let's try and do that and make a true pilot. I think they need to do that. The thing that like so advertisers. When you're not watching a show on streaming, like you go to YouTube, you still see Like let's say you're watching an episode of I Dream of Genie on YouTube, right, and you watch a good amount of the episode, but there's still so and so company that

41:35 sells you stuff. So the advertisers are still there, you know. So they're still out there, right, They're still buying wanting you to invest in them. So I don't know if they do have any hand in streaming at all. I mean, is therein the. Scenes do that. I don't know, but I'm looking. Forward to. With Starfleet Academy, I'd like to get see that they do a good balance. I like that they had from the Star Trek authors. It's your name that was on several of the shows. Forget her name, But it shows they care because a lot of you see, okay, we have we have had some of the Star Trek non cannon book authors that were and then we had some that were very good. Okay, for example, on d S nine, the author Dave Matt he wrote an episode along with a few others for DS nine. So they've dabbled in

43:10 both cannon and non canon stuff. So they know the characters, they know how they are. Let's get a big balance. That's what I think, a big balance of episodic, continuous story arc and allow for it to grow. What do you think, Well, I think that with let's see, they canceled Star Trek Discovery. They were working on season six when they pulled the plug on, so they just made a decision to cancel it, and they did. And so that who made that decision and why who knows?

44:01 Lower Decks was in the height of its popularity and they pulled the plug on that after season five, right after they canceled Discovery. Picard was always meant to be just three seasons. So Picard wasn't actually canceled, it was only you know, picked up for three seasons. But you know, I think the way they did Picard, they could have gone longer. But again, three seasons and that was done. Prodigy is baffling. I just you know, season one was so successful and they canceled season one and season two was already finished. All they had to do was airit. And they not only did they cancel it, they pulled it off of Paramount Plus completely and put it over there on Netflix. And god knows who made that decision or why. And now now we get to Strange New Worlds, which was canceled at the end of season three, but they are allowing them to do season four and in a short in season five. So these people that are running this seems to me like they have no idea what the hell they're doing. They're clueless, you know, But let's cancel this, cancel that, cancel this, cancel back. So I don't know what's going on in their heads, but I do know that Star Trek can thrive in this environment if it's done the right way. And just to give you an example, the Section thirty one movie, which has been you know, hated and just hated worse than Star Trek five, which in my opinion, I think is

45:33 the best Star Trek movie ever. But that's a topic for another day. If you've ever listened to the podcast, you know, if you all about that, David so but Section thirty one has just been just hated on a big time by everybody. However, with that being said, it's also one of Paramount Plus's most successful streaming endeavors. Yeah, and how can the fans hate it and how can it be reviled as being awful and terrible but be one of their biggest successes. Because another one of the of the ratings markers that we've yet to talk about, which we're about to mention, is something called parrot Analytical, and para Analytical turns around and analyzes how much online chatter a particular series is getting, and that's what generates how popular it is. You know, if ninety nine percent of the Internet is talking about Section thirty one, even though they're saying it's terrible, that's right up there at the top with most popular shows because people are talking about it. So, even though they hated the show, par Analyticals has it right up there at the top because people don't stop talking about it. So that's another thing that streaming has going on that network TV really didn't, And that's the analytical side of it. On the Internet, how many people are talking about it, how many Facebook

47:03 pages there are, how many groups. You know, you also have rotten tomatoes where people bomb things because they do it. But at any rate, there's a lot of other factors besides just you know, how many people watch it, how many minutes it was watched, and you know what is being said on the internet. So that's something else that I wanted to touch on. So what do you think about that, David? People talking about shows and doing podcasts for instance about shows. Yeah, I mean it's fun. I enjoy it. And as far as the decision of who put that show on Netflix, I think people at Paramount are just using the magic apall making a decision based off of that or AI check off. But I don't know. But this whole thing about people liking versus not liking versus how many people watch, how many people don't watch, I think they aren't exactly one hundred percent. The shame to me because people could watch a really bad movie because maybe they're in the mood for something horrible to watch, you know, I mean I get that way. Sometimes watch a campy movie. So it's just like when people don't like it. I think there's a separate analytical like what you were saying, Oh my god, what's that word ratings, like how many people

48:37 watch it, how many people hated it, And maybe they just put the two together to make it sound like, you know, it might be the most successful movie, but it wasn't the best. I mean, personally, I didn't really like to show that much. The beginning was great. I thought it was gonna be awesome, but then all of a sudden, it just kind of felt flat for me. To me though, the whole idea of streaming virtue what they used to do. I'm I don't know, I'm not really sure how to put this, but I like the streaming way just for the convenience of it. But at the same time, I do miss going out into videos, you know. I mean I would rather almost do that than just watch anything on finding almost, but I'm just so used to the technology now. It's just like it's kind of a second what do they call it, second reflex, I guess, to the point where it's just like, yeah, it's convenient, but it can be pretty expensive. I can say that they can all these different streaming services, and there's so many now and they're competing through one another.

49:56 It's just like it's constantly everybody's trying to get a bigger yellow road. I guess I don't know, But to me, I really think it all boils down to greed, and I think this is what happened when corporate corporation tried to compete to one another, which has been going on even back in the eighties and beyond. So to me, I think we're gonna get bad shows and we're gonna get good shows. And you guys were talking about arcs, right, Jerry was mentioning something about how the arcs and the story plots, you know, have to be important. And another thing I would have to add to that would be a twist. There has to be a twist at the end of that story to make it, you know, just perfect.

50:45 So to me, when it has a really good twist, like who done it? Show, right, you're trying to figure out who did it, and all of a sudden there's that perfect twist at the end of the show where it's just like, oh, okay, that makes sense, so you know it. It kind of like clicks everything together once that particular type of show starts to take form. And to me, I think that's what makes TV shows, whether it's streaming or you know, Blockbuster movies or whatever. Yeah, so a good story plot twist at the end is always the cherry on top to me, and I think it would be really fun if eventually they will start including fans into the mix of how they want shows to go. And maybe they will eventually. I don't know if Star Trek has started doing it, but there is an actual YouTube page that I would following that actually listens to the fans and they actually bring fans into film, so it's kind of fun. And I don't know if you guys are into the whole DNA things at all, but there is a pretty fun YouTube channel. I have to go back and look at the name, but yeah, they include the fans. And so if dar Trek starts including the fans should start saying what can be made, that might be the next step.

52:15 I don't know. We on the bog blow your ships and your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service resistance. Well, j Dog, what do you think can Star Treks survive in the streaming era? Yeah, just that they have to find the right bands, right, There's still things to be worked out. You mentioned about section thirty one, and I know we've discussed about certain parts about it. I mean, definitely Michelle Yeo was a big attraction, so I don't know if that was part of that, it was responsible for making it such a big to do. I wasn't too thrilled with the story.

53:28 And you know, the thing of it is this, they could have come up with something really good based on DS nine with the episodes from Section thirty one. They had enough. There were certain episodes and Enterprise also had and maybe it would have been interesting to see a show that goes on with Section thirty one. I mean they were were they going to do that? They were going to make a Section thirty one show. They but they came up with this crappy movie, you know. I mean I wanted to see, like, Okay, how did these I mean in a place like star Trek in the future, where why are we having this? We're all one big, happy federation. I mean, you have Starfleet intelligence, which I can understand, but you haven't. I mean, just like today, the CIA, the NIS, the etcetera, etcetera, so many different levels, one more undercover.

54:47 Than the other. I mean, is this how because we're doing it? Because you're afraid you can't handle the truth type of crap that we're gonna get from Arkleyvieple. You guys want to have your freedoms and whatever, so we're here to preserve. Don't give bullshit. Give us something that is going. You know, you have enough content to come up with whether it would have been they it didn't. Wouldn't have taken much to do a good section thirty one movie, and you could have had Michelle Yo and you could have They are not trying enough. The thing is that when DS nine was on and whatever it is that you're gauging how you're going to rate it. Rick Berman wasn't as involved with DS nine because it was whatever was the time, the child that was just coming on, the new thing to play around with. So they focused on Voyager when Voyager was about to go off the year they they they started with an enterprise. So it's like, okay, you know, learn from things, learn, and I think that you will see Star Trek do the hell of a lot better.

56:20 I think that when we learn from our past right, and we come up with a good start to something and learn from the different things, we'll have will be so satisfying, you know, and I think streaming can be something really great. I mean, it can really do it, you know, but they got to learn from the past, right, They got to learn from what's going on from the US.

57:00 So that's where I see. Well. I also think that just in closing here, because believe it or not, we've burned through an hour or to believe. But I also think that another thing that has to be addressed is the amount of time between seasons. You know, when Strange New World's season two raps and we have to wait almost two years to see season three, fans lose interest, They drift away, the excitement dies down, nobody really cares, nobody really remembers. And I think that's a big, big problem with streaming is the amount of time between seasons. I think these networks got to pull their heads out of our asses and they got to speed up the production time between these shows to keep fans engaged and interested. Because I mean, I'm watching a stranger Strange New Work, I mean Stranger Things season five and I'm like, who are these Who's this character? Where'd that one come from? And it was so long ago that I saw season four that I had to go back and watch season four to catch up because I couldn't remember the stuff that happened because it was so much long ago. And these kids look like they're in college.

58:13 They're not in high school anymore. There's so much time as passed, and I think that that's something else they have to work on with streaming is getting the product produced quicker. They need to get you know, maybe a few more episodes in there, you know, maybe two Star Trek shows with thirteen episodes each would give us twenty six episodes and less time between them. Give us whatever time we need to tell the story, be it fifty minutes, be it fifty two, be it an hour and eighteen minutes, whatever time they need to tell that story, tell it and give us a few more episodes and give us less time between seasons. And I think that that is what we need to see happen, you know, in the streaming world. In my humble, what do you think, David, what you.

59:06 Were saying between the two seasons of A Stranger World? I think the reason why I took two years for the third season or the second Shooson to come out was because of the writers strike that took place, if I'm correct, And so it took a while for them to get the product on the shelf per se, So I don't really remember any time else was there an extra year added for a weight period for a new season to come along, because I think it was do that writer strike, So I don't think that they are doing it on purpose for us to wait. But then again, why do we have to wait a whole year in the beginning? I mean, don't they already have like season three and four already or season four and five made first?

1:00:00 In your world? Why don't they just you know, it within the same year. I mean, I guess they're trying to spread it out so that they can work on other projects projects, I guess, But at the same time, it's like we want it now. I'm not saying I'm impatient. I'm just saying, you know, it's just the idea that it's online. So maybe I don't know. Well, Alan, what do you think? You share your opinions? What it's allen? What I think is they don't pay writers enough. Really, we're all about the celebrity starts, and if they would pay writers of decent America, we could get some good stories.

1:00:48 This is an old tale in Hollywood and that's why they're recycling now. They're making remakes of everything because they have no original ideas, because they don't want to pay writers. Some hoping that sometime in the future so not only paid writers, but have scientists consultancy so that we can even put some real science back into Star Trek based on what's going on with NASA in the real world and exploration. So that's what I'm hoping for.

1:01:32 And what about you, Jay Dodd, do you think Star Trek can survive in the world of streaming? Yes? Of course. Again, the thing is that, well, okay you were yeah, So going back to what you were saying that and what we so and so is on done for four years? Three years? Okay, the card we knew it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Part of it was Patrick Stewart's involvement with her, right. He was saying, if if I find that it's the right story, I'll do it.

1:02:19 I don't know if we'll see him again, he's eighty five years old. I don't know, but we knew what to expect. My question is, did they from the beginning just oh, we're gonna have to cancel Discovery, We're gonna have to cancel or did they know they wanted to do it for a certain amount of time. If you're gonna be up tell us, okay, guys, you have five years. I mean again going back to I have to go back to broadcast television because you have soap operas that have been on for or since nineteen sixty something. I don't know how much. I don't know if we could do that with science fiction or with Star Trek, I mean something going for seven years, like which what TNG and DS ninety Enterprise was the first show that got clipped at forty years?

1:03:24 Right, So. What is it that they're concerned about is its syndication doesn't play a part anymore? Right? With streaming, you're not going to find at least as far as we know, these episodes on broadcast television. They have shown the pilot of Discovery on CBS. Okay, but still, though, whatever cost it is, be upfront, tell us that you have five years to do or six years. Okay.

1:04:05 If the show is gonna be crappy, then we're gonna reconsider. But let's I think we need to have an upfront situation. Do you Does that make sense to be told it's gonna you have five years or two years or three years, so we can work within those parameters. Okay, So that's that. The other thing is I was also going back to broadcast, So h h is streaming a the future? That's what I am wondering about, because like, are the TVs that we have are not like the console TVs our parents and grandparents have. It's the habits of people watching television is not like it used to be way back when.

1:05:07 So the thing is that we're things are a bit different. So why isn't all the other shows on streaming? Why do we still have broadcasts? Why don't they throw everything on streaming? Because of my parents what. Your parents are. Can't do streaming whatsoever. But a lot of people there are still generations out there that can't do this. But isn't it the future? Though? Is streaming? Or is it? Like, well, I like to get my media on, Like Jim, you still have records, right.

1:05:56 You? Or you bought records, And it's it's like I'm thinking, and I've even a few years back when they started, I was thinking, what the hell? Okay, we had a progression, we went we had cassettes, we had a tract tapes, and then we went to CDs, and then we went to DVDs and Blu rays, and then we went to super Blu rays and and then we have VCR tapes and high end VCR and then that, and then we had DVD recordable machines, right, and that went by the wayside. I love the idea of DVD recordable machines. But the thing is that but then we're seeing that it's streams streaming a niche then is it is? I don't know.

1:06:49 I would like to find that out. How many people are watching streaming thing? I have no clue? And is it the future? I thought, so, so why can't we find Yeah. I think it's I think it's millions upon probably billions of people who are streaming. So, I mean, to Ellen point there, it is a generational thing. I think that it is that they still have the broadcasting because there's just a lot of people who don't know or own even a phone for instance. I mean I actually have from some friends who don't own telephone or cell phones.

1:07:35 I mean, so to them, they're just like, it's not that they don't know how to handle it or anything, it's just that they just choose not to so to me, it's like, yeah, okay, you know the future is I believe is streaming to what Jerry was saying, and I believe that the it's gonna be, it's gonna evolve beyond that. I think we're gonna probably end up getting hold one day something I don't know, but yeah, I hope that answered your question. But Jim, what do you think? I think? I think broadcast is dead. It's never going to come back because people don't want to be glued to their TV Wednesday night at eight o'clock. They want to watch Star Trek when they want to watch it on their phone, on their iPad, on their computer, you know, on their watch in their car. I think the days of running home to watch Star Trek Wednesday night at eight o'clock on Fox twenty three are along gone and will never do that. And people are cutting the cord with cable because cable is just expensive as hell. Not that having fifteen streaming services isn't expensive either, but I think that that streaming streaming is still growing. But I think network is going to be dead. I think the days of of the Big three are now just like telephones.

1:09:06 You know, who has a landline in there use anymore. My grandparents maybe, but you know, people have cell phones, they don't have landlines anymore. So yeah, I think streaming is the thing of the future. I think it's it's an it's infancy, right. I think it's going to change. But I don't think we're ever going to go back to network broadcast TV again. I think that's I think that boat has sailed, you know. I mean, yeah, I do have records. I had records back in the day, but buying a piece of media versus having to sit home at eight o'clock on Wednesday night can watch Stars records a different beach altogether. So we pretty much wrapped up our time here. So hard to believe. So I want to take a minute here and say thank you so much to David for hanging out on this Saturday afternoon and chatting with us about streaming and Star Trek and even though you don't have to work any of your miracles with any of the videos because today's show is going to be strictly audio only, but thank you so much, David.

1:10:12 Yeah, you're welcome. I probably missed a show this on Saturday, but I don't worry. I can a stream it. Later excellent, and I also want to take them here. I just say thank you to my good friends Jay Dog and Schenectady, New York, and they're joining us for the first time ever. So I want to say thank you so much to Jay Dog and Ellen for joining us. Thank you guys, thanks for having us. It's it's good and it's good to have more people to get involved. That's really good. Yep, we got a got a good mix there, you know, So thank you.

1:11:00 Jim Oh, You're very welcome. Jay DOGG. We'll have to do this again, and I want to mind all you guys and tune in on Thursday night The Truck Talking and Beyond will be Bigger and Bennett and ever. It'll be our first show of twenty twenty six. And David, what episode is it going to be? Uh uh uh six and sixty five and a half. I want to say, yeah, the six hundred and it's hard to believe that six hundred and sixty six and we're gonna be bringing a comic corner. New Year, so we'll be talking about Start Comics and uh, David'll be back with all of his tricks and all of his videos and now we're going to be doing that gonvia with Uncle Jim.

1:11:51 I'll give you guys a little thame. It's going to be our favorite side by the songs. So David has a little leg up on the rest of my Trek sports on that one. We'll tell you this, David, I specifically picked some that I know you're gonna know, and it has nothing to do with Queen or Flashcat. It's probably gonna be punched. So it will be stuff that you know for sure, So I mean most the host Uncle Jim saying everybody, please stay safe. I hope you had a happy, happy New Year. Welcome to twenty twenty six, and please head over to Truck Talking dot com. Check out all of our previous shows. Go over to Truck Talking and Beyond on Facebook, give us a like, give us a follow.

1:12:33 We'd love to have. It was part of our Star Trek family. And thank you to Jerry and Ellen for hanging out down there and Schenectady my old stomping ground. And we will be back again on Thursday night. And so a lot of guys have a good night and we will see you on Thursday. Good night, All. Stations ready for departure. Sir, some problem right is hoping this isn't the usual way ourmissions will. Go, Sir, Oh no Number one. I'm sure most will be much more interesting. Let's see what's out there. Engage