Star Trek

also having the short seasons be serialized really kills any chance at philosophical scifi.

This is what I dislike about big budget scifi.

When you're spending a lot on a show, you simply can't afford to take risks, do seemingly unimportant filler episodes, and the risk of cancellation is always high.

It's a bit like LEXX, the cult SF show from the 90s. Cheaply made, poor SFX, frankly insane plot, often outright bad, small audience Still managed to go for a full four seasons, wasn't ever cancelled but ended on its own terms and got to do some weird and wonderful stuff while it was on air. Meanwhile something like The Expanse, which was invariably high quality and had a large audience, was still cancelled before Amazon stepped in.

It's the same thing with B-movies. A lot of cheap crappy movies can be really interesting, exactly because they're cheap/crappy movies and no one cares. Gives the writers a lot of freedom.

I disagree with the idea that you can't get attached to characters or have a fleshed out world in shorter seasons. I've become more attached to the SNW and Lower Decks characters in 20 and 30 episodes, respectively, and to the characters in the Expanse (for a non Trek example) than I ever did with Voyager's or Enterprise's characters over hundreds of episodes. The key is good writing and acting that fleshes out the characters, not having 26 episodes, half of which are inconsequential or worse, outright garbage. I do agree that 10 episodes is on the short side and think 13 would be ideal.

As for the stakes being higher and higher iterations of the end of the world, again that's a separate issue with writing, not always tied to a short season length.

I really want Star Trek: Seven of Nine, picking up from the end of S03 of PIC