Revisiting TOS by Stardate order.....

It's been awhile since I've rewatched TOS and I'm getting the itch. After my last rewatch I had the idea that the next time around I'd try the series in Stardate order.

This does create a few wrinkles. Unfortunately back in the day it became impossible for the episodes to be produced and aired in Stardate order. Episodes were aired in order of being completed. And since the productions were not completed in exactly a planned and hoped for order they were not broadcast in exactly a precise order.

If one were putting the episodes in Stardate order strictly within a given season then it wouldn't be a big deal. But if you order the whole series by Stardate it just so happens that some of the episodes get mixed: a couple of Season 2 episodes get mixed in with Season 1 episodes and a few Season 3 episodes are mixed in with Season 2.

If you add TAS into the mix then you get animated episodes sprinkled throughout the live-action episodes with the bulk of them mixed in with the Season 3 episoes. That isn't that big a deal except in a couple of respects. For some reason "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" was given a rather low Stardate that would place it before "Where No Man Has Gone Before." That's a wrinkle because...

- McCoy is present in "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" (as well as Lt. Arex) yet he's absent in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
- The order of the episodes would suggest the Enterprise went from the centre of the galaxy to the edge.
- The look of the ship and the uniforms of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" suggest a time prior to the 5-year mission while the ship and uniforms in "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" are clearly from the main TOS period.

One solution to that dilemma would be to cheat a bit a put "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" later in the viewing order. Hmm, so maybe Stardate 1254.4 could be interpreted a supposed to be read as Stardate 7254.4? Another solution would be to assume already was part of the ship's complement, but he was temporarily absent during the events in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and just ignore the appearance of the uniforms and the ship.

Thoughts anyone?


Star Trek episodes in Stardate order:

Stardate 1254.4 “The Magicks Of Megas-Tu” (A)
Stardate 1312.4 “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (1)
Stardate 1329.8 “Mudd’s Women” (1)
Stardate 1512.2 “The Corbomite Maneuver” (1)
Stardate 1513.1 “The Man Trap” (1)
Stardate 1533.6 “Charlie X” (1)
Stardate 1672.1 “The Enemy Within” (1)
Stardate 1704.2 “The Naked Time” (1)
Stardate 1709.1 “Balance Of Terror” (1)
Stardate 2124.5 “The Squire Of Gothos” (1)
Stardate 2534.0 “Patterns Of Force” (2)
Stardate 2712.4 “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (1)
Stardate 2713.5 “Miri” (1)
Stardate 2715.1 “Dagger Of The Mind” (1)
Stardate 2817.6 “The Conscience Of The King” (1)
Stardate 2821.5 “The Galileo Seven” (1)
Stardate 2947.3 “Courtmartial” (1)
Stardate 3012.4 “The Menagerie” (1)
Stardate 3018.2 “Catspaw” (2)
Stardate 3025.3 “Shore Leave” (1)
Stardate 3045.6 “Arena” (1)
Stardate 3087.6 “The Alternative Factor” (1)
Stardate 3113.2 “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” (1)
Stardate 3134.0 “The City On The Edge Of Forever” (1)
Stardate 3141.9 “Space Seed” (1)
Stardate 3156.2 “The Return Of The Archons” (1)
Stardate 3183.3 “The Practical Joker” (A)
Stardate 3192.1 “A Taste Of Armageddon” (1)
Stardate 3196.1 “The Devil In The Dark” (1)
Stardate 3198.4 “Errand Of Mercy” (1)
Stardate 3211.7 “The Gamesters Of Triskelion” (2)
Stardate 3219.8 “Metamorphosis” (2)
Stardate 3287.2 “Operation—Annihilate” (1)
Stardate 3372.7 “Amok Time” (2)
Stardate 3417.3 “This Side Of Paradise” (1)
Stardate 3468.1 “Who Mourns For Adonis?” (2)
Stardate 3478.2 “The Deadly Years” (2)
Stardate 3497.2 “Friday’s Child” (2)
Stardate 3541.9 “The Changeling” (2)
Stardate 3614.9 “Wolf In The Fold” (2)
Stardate 3619.2 “Obsession” (2)
Stardate 3715.9 “The Apple” (2)
Stardate 3842.3 “Journey To Babel” (2)
Stardate 4040.7 “Bread And Circuses” (2)
Stardate 4187.3 “The Slaver Weapon” (A)
Stardate 4202.9 “The Doomsday Machine” (2)
Not Specified “Mirror, Mirror” (2)
Stardate 4211.4 “A Private Little War” (2)
Stardate 4307.1 “The Immunity Syndrome” (2)
Stardate 4372.5 “Elaan Of Troyius” (3)
Stardate 4385.3 “Spectre Of The Gun” (3)
Stardate 4513.3 “I, Mudd” (2)
Stardate 4523.3 “The Trouble With Tribbles” (2)
Stardate 4598.0 “A Piece Of The Action” (2)
Stardate 4657.5 “By Any Other Name” (2)
Stardate 4729.4 “The Ultimate Computer” (2)
Stardate 4768.3 “Return To Tomorrow” (2)
Not Specified “The Omega Glory” (2)
Not Specified “Assignment: Earth” (2)
Stardate 4842.6 “The Paradise Syndrome” (3)
Stardate 4978.5 “Mudd’s Passion” (A)
Stardate 5027.3 “And The Children Shall Lead” (3)
Stardate 5031.3 “The Enterprise Incident” (3)
Stardate 5121.5 “The Empath” (3)
Stardate 5143.3 “The Survivor” (A)
Stardate 5267.2 “Time Trap” (A)
Stardate 5275.6 “Albatross” (A)
Stardate 5371.3 “One Of Our Planets Is Missing” (A)
Stardate 5373.4 “Yesteryear” (A)
Stardate 5392.4 “More Tribbles, More Troubles” (A)
Stardate 5423.4 “The Mark Of Gideon” (3)
Stardate 5431.4 “Spock’s Brain” (3)
Stardate 5476.3 “For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky” (3)
Stardate 5483.7 “The Lorelei Signal” (A)
Stardate 5499.9 “The Ambergris Element” (A)
Stardate 5501.2 “Eye Of The Beholder” (A)
Stardate 5521.3 “Beyond The Farthest Star” (A)
Stardate 5554.4 “The Infinite Vulcan” (A)
Stardate 5577.3 “The Terratin Incident” (A)
Stardate 5591.2 “Once Upon A Planet” (A)
Stardate 5630.7 “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” (3)
Stardate 5683.1 “Jihad” (A)
Stardate 5693.2 “The Tholian Web” (3)
Not Specified “Day Of The Dove” (3)
Stardate 5710.5 “Wink Of An Eye” (3)
Stardate 5718.3 “Whom Gods Destroy” (3)
Stardate 5725.3 “The Lights Of Zetar” (3)
Stardate 5730.2 “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (3)
Stardate 5784.2 “Plato’s Stepchildren” (3)
Not Specified “That Which Survives” (3)
Stardate 5818.4 “The Cloud Minders” (3)
Stardate 5832.3 “The Way To Eden” (3)
Stardate 5843.7 “Requiem For Methuselah” (3)
Stardate 5906.4 “The Savage Curtain” (3)
Stardate 5298.5 “Turnabout Intruder” (3)
Stardate 5943.7 “All Our Yesterdays” (3)
Stardate 6063.4 “How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth” (A)
Stardate 6334.1 “The Pirates Of Orion” (A)
Stardate 6770.3 “The Counter-Clock Incident” (A)
Stardate 7403.6 “BEM” (A)

 

I always saw the animated series as a parallel timeline, and wouldn't include it in a stardate order viewing of TOS.

 

Not me. I plug it right in there. Now, regarding "Magicks..." the episode is so bad that I am comfortable just dismissing it from the canon. In fact, though there are other episodes I don't care for, this is the only one I could just straight up do without.

(And I'm just referring to TOS, here...the spin-offs have some pretty puke-worthy shows too, "Threshold" [VGR] comes to mind)

I'm gonna print your list there and use it as a checklist. I've always wanted to do this viewing order, as I do consider it the "real" order....

--Alex

 

In Stardate order...
- Five Season 2 and two TAS episodes get mixed in with Season 1.
- Two Season 3 and one TAS episode get mixed in with Season 2.
- Nineteen TAS episodes get mixed in with Season 3.


My beef with "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" isn't the story itself but the setup with the idea of going to the centre of the galaxy. Otherwise the story is right in line with TOS' ideas of things not always appearing to be what they seem.

I have a bigger beef with "The Counter-Clock Incident" and its notion of time flowing in reverse with people born old and dying as infants. Seriously, how in hell is that supposed to work?

If I were to drop some TAS episodes it would be these:
"The Practical Joker"
"More Tribbles, More Troubles"
"The Terratin Incident"
"The Counter-Clock Incident"
"BEM"

I might even throw in "Mudd's Passion" for good measure.

 

Yeah, I lived this journey (sans TAS) when Columbia House put the series out on two-episode sets in Stardate Order. With the exception of the final two tapes, which contained the episodes with no stardate and the last one had three episodes.

For the sake of accuracy... That stardate was never given in the aired episode. The only stardate we heard was in Decker's log replayed by Scotty, which was 4202.1. But since Kirk never gave a captain's log, one could argue this episode did not specify one, even if the VHS tapes of the day, even Columbia House, still put it on the packaging.

 

I think that "Assignment: Earth" belongs at the very beginning of the list.

 

Why?

 

Takes place entirely in 1968.

 

Yeah, doesn't make any sense whether you're going by Stardate, production order or broadcast order. Sure, there's no Stardate specified in AE, but you'd have the same issue as TMOMT in that the uniforms and ship look so different from those of WNMHGB.

 

What about "City on the Edge of Forever"? That timeline is earlier, no?

I thought about "All of Our Yesterdays" as well but that wasn't Earth history if that is important.

 

Both of those have 23rd century framing sequences.

 

I still wouldn't go that route because the thrust of the show is to follow the adventures of the Enterprise crew in a given order as they experience those adventures.

 

I wouldn't either. But I understand the statement.

 

It's a mighty big assumption that stardate order will invariably give you "the adventures of the Enterprise crew in a given order as they experience those adventures." It's never stated anywhere canonically that that will be the case.

You could argue that the reason "Magicks" is so far out of "stardate order" is that it takes place at the center of the galaxy. If stardate is a function of space as well as time, then perhaps that sort of "anomaly" is what you get when you compare stardates at the center of the galaxy with stardates out within a thousand light years near Earth.

In other words, perhaps the stardate of "Magicks" isn't "wrong," but your expectation that it should be a larger number is.

 

If you're following the series as it actually evolved then production order is the way to go. My interest in watching the series in Stardate order is born out of curiousity.

I'm reminded of what GR said in the forward to his novelization of TMP. He said something along the lines of TOS being something of a representation of the actual adventures of the Enterprise and her crew. He's suggesting what we saw wasn't the literal truth and alluding that TMP was what the Trek universe was really like. So in that vein the Stardate order could be just as valid as the production order. In like manner TAS can be viewed as a stylized representation of what really happened in the live-action Star Trek universe.

 

"Catspaw" occurs before "Space Seed", so Chekov was on the ship prior to their encounter with Khan.

Neil

 

Did Roddenberry himself (or someone) say the stardate could change depending on where in the galaxy the Enterprise might be? Even if it is just a bit of backpedaling, I'll buy it as a good reason why they go out of order, especially when dealing with episodes like "Patterns of Force" being in the first season stardate range.

 

Apparently it was GR as printed in The Making Of Star Trek as an explanation as to why the Stardates were not in chronological order when episodes were aired.

 

I've mentioned elsewhere on this forum that I've viewed stardates as operating somewhat like time operates here on earth with different time zones and such. In a similar way as a passenger on a flight from the east coast to the west could experience the hour of three o'clock twice in the same day, the Enterprise could experience the same stardate in "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Man Trap". This also would explain the stardate in "Megas-Tu", being in a location as remote as the center of the galaxy would be in a time zone so far removed from the center of the Federation that the computer would calculate a date that would suggest that the episode occurred before all the other Enterprise adventures, when it quite obviously did not.

This should be noted about the stardate list compiled by the OP: The episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever", "A Piece of the Action", and "Patterns of Force" all are given stardates which may have appeared in the scripts for those episodes, but which are never stated on screen. The "Patterns of Force" stardate is particularly curious, as it would place that episode chronologically among the early first season shows. All of the other late second-season episodes, when POF was produced, have stardates in the high 4000's.

 

Yes. This is exactly what I'm getting at.