I wonder if it helped the creative angle for the writers/producers knowing they'd have a legitimate amount of time to tell their story.
Not really. Because Star Trek, throughout the franchise, is written mainly by about a dozen or so writers and story editors, some doing just one episode and some corroborating on a few, here and there. And they're all on a deadline. Some episodes are on a tighter deadline than others because of where the producer wants that episode to occur during the season. This was the main reason why TNG was nearly canceled during the first two seasons, due to the Writer's Strike; if you can't come up with scripts necessary to complete your projects, you have no episodes to sell through syndication and no networks looking to buy it, especially if the show doesn't look like it'll be finished on schedule.
Doing 24-26 episodes a season is a lot of hard, stressful work. A lot of good writers get burned out very quickly on the whole thing, especially if they're regular writers for the series.
Having said all of that, deadlines are essential. If you don't give a writer a due-date to finish his work, odds are he won't finish it. I know, because I have to give myself incentives just to finish what I do on time, and most people are not self-starters. Deadlines focus the writer's energy and mind and talent, and they often get very creative as a result. Not all people work well under pressure, of course, but deadlines are pretty much the standard way any writing work gets done in the business.
I'm sure the actors enjoyed that they might have a secure 7 year gig. Though once a ST series is over the actors tend to never find good work again. Is it just typecasting or perhaps the actors never being that talented in range enough to begin with?
I attested to the uneasy, anxious nature of being an actor on the TOS board. It's a nerve-wracking job, because even if you're a trained actor who's got lots of experience on stage and screen, you can never really be sure if what you're doing is any good, bad, or indifferent, in order to gauge how well you are doing and correct your problems, if any. A good performance with rave reviews and lots of box office receipts doesn't mean you're going to have a good career ahead of you. This means that your career isn't based so much on how good you are, so you have no real control over how your career turns out, because producers may not choose you for a part for reasons that have nothing to do with you personally, or how well you perform.
I'm sure a lot of actors who would be given a seven year stint on a show would be glad to have it, and count their blessings. But, they have to think past that last year, and in fact, they always have to be ready to jump ship in case they get better offers. That's what their agents are for.
Range, in my opinion, is overrated, especially if you're talking about film and television. For that kind of market, most producers aren't looking for range. They're looking for an image, a face, a persona, something that might put butts in the theaters, or cause people to tune into the show. Stage productions, on the other hand, is looking for range. Hollywood producers don't care about range, they care about what the audience liked before, and often because of that you'll see actors like Tom Hanks play characters that are roughly the same as the other characters he's played before, with slight variations. Sure, he's shown off his range in Forrest Gump, The Terminal, and Cast Away, but by and large he's also known as the modern Jimmy Stewart, an actor who plays very straight-forward roles that convey a certain sense of seriousness that he developed over the years.
Typecasting may be a part of why they don't see to much work again after a show, but there are a lot of other reasons that have nothing to do with the actors themselves. Mostly it's competition and age. As an actor gets older, if he's not A-List, he's going to find it harder to compete with the newer faces coming up, who are often more dynamic. It's usually younger people from the 18-34 demographic who watch the most TV and movies, so that makes it harder for older actors to land leads as they used to.
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cjh8504
8 years ago
TNG was never in the fear of being cancelled. I never heard that. The ratings were too stellar.
X-Men: Apocalypse 8/10. TMNT: Out of the Shadows 9/10. RIP Doris Roberts. You were wonderful in ELR.
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everymanaking6488
8 years ago
imagine if they had gone on to say 9 or 10 seasons, how might that have effected the jump to the big screen i wonder
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