Structure of the episodes

[justTripn]

I'm been reading episodes over at Chrissie's Transcripts lately, and I've noticed that the show usually has a real punchy ending, often ending at the Resolution/Climax. Bang, we're done. Ending credits and theme song. Think of Cogenitor or Terra Prime.

No catch-your-breath, decompress with a goofy joke ending. At least not in the best episodes I'm going over. OK, Shuttlepod One had a joke at the ending but it was also the punchy resolution. Reed wakes up in Sickbay. They MADE IT HOME! T'Pol regards him cooly, walks out. Trip is sleeping the next bed, and Malcolm calls him "Trip." END.

Also I noticed this at the end of Season One: They are about to enter the Expanse:


ARCHER: Fire. (two torpedoes blow the bird of prey apart and Enterprise sails through the middle) Nice going Travis.
TRAVIS: I hope you don't ask me to do that too often, sir.
HOSHI: The Expanse is ahead, Captain.
ARCHER: Did you lose any more of those injectors?
TUCKER: No, sir. We're good to go.
ARCHER: Sure you still want to tag along?
T'POL: It's only logical.
ARCHER: Straight and steady. Mister Mayweather. Let's see what's in there.

An echo of Picard's "Let's see what's out there" at the end of TNG pilot.

[Enerdhil]

I believe this differs a lot from the TOS, where some humorous comment/dialog was severaltimes introduced at the end of the episode (after the main action ended), before credits... I've not checked scripts, but as a rule I feel that several episodes had been based on TOS & TNG (sorry, didn't see all DS9 & VOY), so maybe your quotes can increase.

Enerdhil

[Alelou]

I deeply appreciated that Enterprise didn't follow the old TNG and TOS template of ending every episode with a little scene to put an extra little point on the moral. Especially on TNG, that got soooo old.

[honeybee]

I remember someone complaining about Voyager - must every episode end with them standing in the hall chuckling?


Enterprise did try and shake up some on the standard Trek story telling - and they didn't use treacle cutters (a little joke at the end) or the moral punctuation of TNG - each episode seemed to have an ending that fit its tone, for the most part.

[Lady Rainbow]

The moral preaching in TNG really got to me after a very short while. Kirk usually got the moral speeches in TOS and I wonder how many civilizations were changed because of them.

I dunno, but ENT seemed less preachy and more "practical" in their episode endings. Maybe it's just me.

[Elessar]

My favorite send-off line was, "Second star from the right... and straight on till morning."

Oh and the DS9 finale was probably one of the saddest.... Everybody was leaving... splitting up... and I teared up during the Bashir/O'Brien montage. Those two were such a fun duo to watch, probably more fun than any other duo IMO... even more then old school Spock and McCoy, to me. McCoy was great by himself but so much of the TOS humor was dry that it just doesn't resonate with me.

Bashir and O'Brien were the perfect odd couple, though... and the image I take away from that, remember from their friendship, was the two of them walking out of the holodeck into Quark's, wearing these huge, thick, game-skinned furs from like 9th century Britain, having just recreated some Celtic battle or something . IIRC, they walk up to the bar and demand a flagon

[Kotik]

I think ENT got it just about right on the episodes. TOS was... well the sixties, really. TNG with it's holier-than-thou attitude was just plain annoying in restrospect and DS9 was slightly off - I hated the myriad of pointless Ferengi episodes and the obligatory O'Brian-must-suffer episode each season. Had they booted off Berman and Braga earlier, ENT would have easily been the bestest of the lot. The 4th season is spectacularily good. Unfortunately B&B had killed it by then

[justTripn]

What stands out to me when I try to watch TNG these days is the LEISURELY pace. There are long pointless chats in hallways. Long conferences in the conference room where Jordi lays out the whole technobabble engineering problem. OK usually at the end of these boring sequences, BOOM some shocking bad happens. The ship is hit or some bad guy materializes out of nowhere, but still . . . I popped into the middle of an episode recently and Deana was helping some little girl look for the ghost was following her around: "So where is this ghost? Is it under the bed?" (they both get down on their knees and look under the bed) "Is it behindn the chair?" (they walk over to the chair) "Is it behind the bookshelf?" ARGHHH!!! They hunted for the ghost for several minutes in this way. I have a very short attention span these days.

I agree that Enterprise "got it right" with regard to endings. OF INDIVIDUAL EPISODES!!! Whew . . . Almost lost ALL my credibility there.

[honeybee]

One of the more underrated episodes is Impulse - not only is it a great homage to the Zombie Horror movie genre, it's really well-directed and acted. Apparently, it ran very short because the director had it edited so quickly and tightly. It also has the shortest teaser in Trek history - and really, after T'Pol's blood curdling scream, do we need any dialogue explaining that there's something wrong with her?

It's not the deepest episode, but it is scary and very well-structured.

[Elessar]

I agree with JT - I think it's safe to say that television writing/directing philosophies almost across the board have taken a much more object-oriented path... Every second of screen time is generally geared towards communicating something plot-crucial whereas in the past there seemed to be a lot of leisure time. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not... wouldn't be surprised if it's a product of elongating commercial breaks...

Incidentally, I was watching a Stargate SG1 episode on Hulu the other night because I didn't have it downloaded (there's something universally hinky about 5x16 - "Last Stand" the sequel to "The Summit" in SG1 because it's actually hard to find, and often mislabeled as such when it's really 5x15 - The Summit), and I noticed something funny about Hulu. Normally, assuming you're watching something new like family guy or bones or scrubs, you get commercial breaks between the scenes in order to pay for the rights to put it online, right? Well with something as old as Stargate SG1, it looks like they must not need that money, it must be in the public sector or in some kind of public syndication or something, because there were still commercial breaks, but they were just long periods of black. And it didn't bring up the screen that said it had lost connection, so that was interesting.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a product of elongating commercial breaks...

A TOS episode ran for about 50 minutes, whereas an ENT episode ran for 40 minutes.

[Aquarius]

Most shows run about 40 minutes now. Whenever I watch something I DVR'd, it takes me about 42 minutes to do so...I imagine the extra 2 minutes is from when I'm skipping the commercials.

[EntAllat]

[quote="Elessar"]I agree with JT - I think it's safe to say that television writing/directing philosophies almost across the board have taken a much more object-oriented path... Every second of screen time is generally geared towards communicating something plot-crucial whereas in the past there seemed to be a lot of leisure time. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not... wouldn't be surprised if it's a product of elongating commercial breaks...

Yup. I'd think the extra time for commercials is a reason for the feeling of a faster paced show (40 minutes versus 50).

But I wonder if the increasing cultural tendency for speech patterns to be slightly faster may have also played a part? (Social psychology studies have shown that people tend to think that those with speech patterns close to or slightly faster than their own are more competent and more attractive. Some of our popular culture reflects this.) Think of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or for that matter, West Wing, where the characters could go from zero to dissertation in seconds flat! That crams a heck of a lot of information and expose in a short amount of time. I get the same feeling when I watch other recent sci-fi shows like Stargate (think of Daniel or Rodney) or BSG, etc. - that some or most of the characters are talking fairly rapidly compared to what might have been common in a 60s, 70s or even 80's show.

I don't know if ENT dialog actually sped along quite so fast as these examples - I haven't thought about it before - but I know Trip didn't strike me as drawling quite as leisurely Bones sometimes did. (Contrary to popular belief, there are southerners who can talk really fast. Case in point, a Cajun coworker of mine could leave me winded just listening to him. Holy cow man, take a breath!)

And at least: Nobody. Talked. Like. Kirk.