No. Unfortunately, it's just my increasingly failing memory...There was a better than even chance that you were going to come back with a quote from a post a page back that meant we were absolutely talking about TOS now.
Star Trek: The Animated Series airing order vs production order
- Thread starter Cap'n Calhoun
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So what is the basis for the production order numbering "More Tribbles More Troubles", "Infinite Vulcan", etc.?
The scripts were probably numbered in the order they were commissioned or received. Or perhaps they were numbered in the order they began production, but as Cap'n Calhoun suggested, some took longer to complete than others.
In TOS, part of the reason the airdate order differed from the filming order is that the post-production, and particularly the visual effects, took longer to complete on some episodes than others. Animation is basically 100% visual effects, so the same principle would apply to entire episodes.
Right, production order is really production number order (in any TV series). It isn't necessarily always the order in which each episode was filmed. Some episodes get switched around for various reasons: actor availability, script needs, or even neglecting to change the number when an episode got pushed back.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's final episode filmed has a production number indicating of it being the 11th produced in the 4th season and was aired 25th.
TAS and TOS had similar switches for various reasons.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's final episode filmed has a production number indicating of it being the 11th produced in the 4th season and was aired 25th.
TAS and TOS had similar switches for various reasons.
Bingo. At least according to TATV, for TAS the "production numbers" were indicative of the order of story assignment, not the order in which recording, storyboarding, animation, or other things we might consider "production" took place.
I guess be glad they didn't go with the earlier version that brought back Nilz Baris and where the glommers were reproducing rapidly. Apparently they were laying eggs all over the ship in an early version of the script.
Though that version did introduce a stronger danger element with the glommers possibly eating people as well. (Also hints that the large tribbles might be eating Klingons.)
(Source: TATV pp. 348–354)
I enjoy the episode, but I do agree that it's forcing too many "sequel" elements at the same time to the point that it feels like a re-hash, even if it does introduce a fair number new elements considering the limited runtime. The Men in Black II effect, I suppose.
Well, the Klingons want the Glomer BACK because they not only engineered it, they need it (to make more like it as it's their prototype) to save a Kligon colony world Trbble infestation.
^^^
That's why the Klingons are more openly aggressive and direct in the episode.
I didn't know "More Tribbles More Troubles" was the first in production order. Various interviews, especially with DC Fontana, state that Samuel Peeples' Beyond the Farthest Star was specifically meant to be the opening episode.
I have a vague and unverifiable memory of Tribbles being the first episode that Nickelodeon aired when they started showing TAS in the mid 80's. (1986?) I also recall being surprised by this for some reason. The only reasons I can think of is that this would disagree with either the Concordance or the Compendium. Those are both on the shelf right over there but I'm still drinking my coffee, so I'll check later.
Could be that this is an entirely fabricated memory as well.
Could be that this is an entirely fabricated memory as well.
I've seen a number of lists that arrange the TAS episodes by production number, starting with "More Tribbles," e.g. the Star Trek Compendium (the revised editions, since the original ignored TAS).
Turns out that even though it has the earliest production number, in practice "Beyond the Farthest Star" was the first produced; the numbers just reflect the order the story assignments were made. See my comments earlier in the thread. (I'm being lazy, but it's not a long thread.)
Wouldn't surprise me. That was the order the VHS tapes used.
I think the reason that I push back so hard on Tribbles being a rehash (other than the fact that it's not) is because when I finally saw TAS as an "educated Star Trek fan" in my teens I looked at episodes like More Tribbles, Once Upon a Planet, and probably even Yesteryear and Mudd's Passion and said "Well heck, these are all just sequels!" Emphasis on "just". (Is it only those four? I suppose one could include Pirates of Orion?)
Mudd's Passion is possibly the most bat-crap crazy Mudd story but it certainly is not "just" a sequel. Maybe I should revisit Once Upon a Planet.
Mudd's Passion is possibly the most bat-crap crazy Mudd story but it certainly is not "just" a sequel. Maybe I should revisit Once Upon a Planet.
As I've said, what I have an issue with is the level of coincidence, the number of returning elements from "The Trouble with Tribbles" that had to converge simultaneously a second time -- the Enterprise, a triticale variant, Sherman's Planet, Cyrano Jones, Koloth & Korax, and the rehashed gags of tribbles filling up the ship and Kirk getting buried in them. Especially since not all of those elements had to be there, especially the grain and its destination, so it felt gratuitous and lazy. Yes, it has new elements -- the glommer, the stasis ray, a space-battle format -- but they're outnumbered and overshadowed by the familiar elements.
None of the other sequel episodes of TAS had anywhere near so many distinct elements coincidentally reprised from the original. Let's see...
"Yesteryear": Both a sequel to "City on the Edge" and a prequel of sorts to "Journey to Babel," it combines elements from different episodes in a novel way. The Guardian itself is the only reprised element from "City."
"Once Upon a Planet": It advances the story beyond "Shore Leave," making a real change in the planet's status quo and pulling back the curtain to show how it works. It does reprise Alice and the White Rabbit, and expands on them to further Lewis Carroll references, but that makes sense because of how the planet reads thoughts and memories, so it isn't just an arbitrary coincidence. The story also has actual stakes and peril, and the main characters actually affect the outcome, rather than just flailing around cluelessly until a deus ex machina showed up and lectured them about why they'd never been in any danger to begin with. All in all, the best kind of sequel, the kind that expands and improves on the original rather than just copying its familiar beats.
"Mudd's Passion": Resonates thematically with the previous Mudd episodes, but in a new way, combining Harry's proclivity for matchmaking scams with Chapel's crush on Spock. Harry himself is the only character or element reprised from his previous episodes.
"The Time Trap": Brings back Kor, but in a very different story. Although it just now occurred to me for the first time that both Kor episodes involve him and Kirk clashing in the home territory of powerful pacifistic aliens, and their cooperation to escape the Delta Triangle could be seen as an echo of the Organians' prediction of cooperation between the two nations. Still, it's a thematic sequel at best.
I don't think I'd count "The Pirates of Orion" as a sequel, any more than "The Enterprise Incident" is a sequel to "Balance of Terror" or any given Klingon episode a sequel to any previous one. It develops what "Journey to Babel" established about the Orions (and I'm convinced its makers assumed Orion males were blue because Thelev the fake Andorian was the only Orion male depicted in TOS) but doesn't follow up on any other elements of that story.
Kor literally tried to kill everyone on board the Enterprise as part of that "cooperation".
I didn't say it was a strong echo. But despite Kor's treachery, it was still necessary for the two sides to cooperate for mutual survival, which resonates with the Organians' prediction. Kor just couldn't see that resonance.
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