Does the Animated Series Complete the 5 year mission?
- Thread starter Antonovus
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During TOS, ~5000 Stardates pass (1312 through 5943). If you are in the camp that 1000 Stardates = one year, then the three seasons of TOS covered five years. All but four of TAS Stardates fit into Stardates 1000 to 6000, so, those occurred concurrent with TOS. Of the odd four TAS episodes, three of them are in the 6000's and only one in the 7000's; Kirk may be a little late with his official reports.
Retroactively you can say that. But, like TOS itself had the show been a huge success at the time those 5 years could have had 11 seasons worth of missions squished in.
11 seasons of squishing into 5 years is getting a little crowded. For 3 seasons (79 episodes) to fit into 5 years gives approximately 23 days between episodes (including time of episode). 11 seasons (est. 286 episodes) gives only 6 days between episodes. Then again, MASH ran for 256 episodes in 11 seasons for a three year war, or 4 days between episodes.
If the cartoon had run for years, my guess is that DC Fontana would’ve ended the mission eventually and come up with the next story development. The way it stands now, startrek.com has Season 1 in 2269 and Season 2 in 2270, the year the mission ends according to “Q2” (VGR), which need not mean that TAS reaches the very end or leaves little unexplored.
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Nobody back then really cared about series duration. Run for Your Life was about a guy who had 18 months to live and it ran 3 seasons. M*A*S*H has already been covered. TV shows were timeless; TOS/TAS could've run for 10 years and it still would've been called a 5-year mission in the narration. (And note that the mission duration was never mentioned in actual dialogue until ST:TMP and Voyager, and now in the Kelvin fims and Discovery.)
The reason TAS had a short run was because most animated shows had short runs back then. It was unusual for any 1970s Filmation show to get more than one season, and only Fat Albert, Shazam!, and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle got more than two seasons (unless you lump all the various incarnations of Archie together as a single series). And kids are more tolerant of reruns than adults, so later seasons tended to be short and just add a few new episodes to the endlessly cycling reruns; TAS season 2 was typical of that pattern as well.
We may never know for sure, of course, but it seems unnecessary that the monologue would’ve kept repeating “five-year mission” whatever its duration in the real world. DC Fontana was simply running TAS as more Star Trek, and the live-action version needed some passage of time since the actors would’ve shown their age eventually. Say it wasn’t cancelled and ran as long as Bonanza?
“Day of the Dove” puts “Errand of Mercy” three years before, suggesting that at least some writers were thinking about the passage of time. Also, in both of your examples, the substance of the shows would’ve expired after their time limits, but the Enterprise could’ve always gone on another mission. Just edit the opening and do something fresh.
“Day of the Dove” puts “Errand of Mercy” three years before, suggesting that at least some writers were thinking about the passage of time. Also, in both of your examples, the substance of the shows would’ve expired after their time limits, but the Enterprise could’ve always gone on another mission. Just edit the opening and do something fresh.
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We're talking about an age before home video, when even syndication was less routine, or at least more random in its broadcast order. So series TV tended to exist in a perpetual now. Viewers came and went, new audiences wouldn't know past continuity, and even veteran audiences might not remember how long ago an episode happened or what order the syndicated reruns had originally aired in. So how many years had passed since the series started was a non-issue. All that mattered was what was relevant to the current installment. M*A*S*H didn't try to rationalize its characters aging a decade in a 3-year war; it just kept rewriting its history and chronology to fit what it was doing in the present, a sliding timescale not unlike Marvel Comics.
So would they have dropped the "five-year mission" line if the show had run longer? Maybe, but maybe not. It wouldn't have been unusual for TV of the day if they hadn't. Heck, even some of the '80s tie-in novels ignored it; they'd tell stories that explicitly took place anywhere from 2-8 years after third-season episodes but were still treated as part of the same mission as TOS, with no attempt made to explain it. (Some fans presume a second pre-TMP 5-year mission, which might have been the intent, but it was never explicitly stated because an explanation wasn't deemed necessary.) And a couple of novels claimed to be set immediately after first-season episodes but still included Chekov or referenced the events of third-season episodes. The concern for exact chronology was not as great back then as it is these days.
For that matter, even modern TV is still pretty lax about chronology. When I was watching season 2 of Discovery, trying to estimate dates for my chronology as I went, the story cues implied that the episodes were following on each other with a gap of only a day or two, so I figured only a few weeks had passed, and then there was an episode saying it had been months. Which actually isn't uncommon for serial TV today.
So would they have dropped the "five-year mission" line if the show had run longer? Maybe, but maybe not. It wouldn't have been unusual for TV of the day if they hadn't. Heck, even some of the '80s tie-in novels ignored it; they'd tell stories that explicitly took place anywhere from 2-8 years after third-season episodes but were still treated as part of the same mission as TOS, with no attempt made to explain it. (Some fans presume a second pre-TMP 5-year mission, which might have been the intent, but it was never explicitly stated because an explanation wasn't deemed necessary.) And a couple of novels claimed to be set immediately after first-season episodes but still included Chekov or referenced the events of third-season episodes. The concern for exact chronology was not as great back then as it is these days.
For that matter, even modern TV is still pretty lax about chronology. When I was watching season 2 of Discovery, trying to estimate dates for my chronology as I went, the story cues implied that the episodes were following on each other with a gap of only a day or two, so I figured only a few weeks had passed, and then there was an episode saying it had been months. Which actually isn't uncommon for serial TV today.
And there was one episode that started in one year and ended in another. So that actually comes out to just under two days between episodes.
Also, they jumped the timeline back at one point -- they'd gotten up to 1953 in their occasional date references, but by then they were a perennial hit and weren't going anywhere, so they pushed it back to 1950-1 in that "year in the life" episode, so that they'd have room to keep the show going for years more.
Even though it's tied into historical events, the actors on DOWNTON ABBEY are not really aging as fast as their characters should be, given that the first episode began in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic. Heck, the show ran through the entire First World War in one season.
At least they finally remembered that the dog couldn't live forever . . . . although Maggie Smith's character is apparently immortal.
At least they finally remembered that the dog couldn't live forever . . . . although Maggie Smith's character is apparently immortal.
M*A*S*H kept messing with the "continuity" by retconning events into taking place in 1950 or 1951 even though the series already had stuff happen in 1952.
And, seeing as how TAS didn't depict the very end of the five-year mission, I would say the show doesn't quite complete it.
Kor
I think there was a gap between Where No Man and say perhaps The Corbomite Maneuver! Not too long but enough for them to change uniform design that or the Enterprise was out in space for a long time during and before WNMHGB that they were long overdue for a new look when they arrived at a Starbase for repairs to their engines and so!
JB
JB
Yes, the five-year mission ideally wouldn’t have begun before Kirk’s standard monologue was added.
Coincidence. But I personally consider that TOS seasons 1-3 and TAS season 1-2 (in that order) are the five-year mission.
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