“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
That is how “Star Trek: The Next Generation” started every episode. Running from 1987 to 1994, the show aired 178 episodes over seven seasons. What a time for television. But Trek was not unique. In fact, most television shows of the era produced large bodies of work that eclipse the highest-rated shows we have today.
There was “Baywatch,” a show that started out as a serious look at duty, institutional trust and the weight of responsibility bared by lifeguards, until it turned into a campy mess. There was “Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman,” a show that followed a female physician in the 1800s and looked at issues such as America’s treatment of Native Americans, as well as gender and racial issues of the time.
Now you get 10-episode seasons, if you are lucky. Do not be greedy, because sometimes it is eight, and sometimes they are spaced 2-3 years apart. What happened?
Well, the culling of TV occurred in earnest in 2008. That was when a strike instituted by the Writers Guild of America caused networks to look for ways to cut costs, since the writers wanted residuals from DVD sales and the streaming of the shows they worked on.
The impact was immediately noticed. Juggernauts of the era, like ABC’s “Lost” and NBC’s “Heroes,” were cut in half. The latter never recovered. But the actors and networks were happy. If you suddenly gained half of the time you spent working back to go work another job and make more money, you would likely be happy, too.
The actors also see it as a way to increase their fame. Why stay tied to a show when you can crank out numerous projects while demand is up? Hollywood is happy to accommodate them. They already slap Zendaya on projects like she is a filter on an Instagram Reel.
That is much easier than finding new talent or scheduling around eight-month long seasons.
If you do not feel cheated, you should. It is the TV version of shrinkflation — you paying more for less just like when you get a smaller container of ice cream that cost more than it did a couple of years ago.
And just like ice cream, the disease is the same. It is just another form of greed.
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