24th Century Episodes Out of Chronological Order

[ryan123450]

A discussion we're having in Trek Literature- http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=270997
and something I talked about in the Voyager forum a few days ago has got me thinking.

Are there any episodes of TNG, DS9, VOY (or for that matter ENT) which you prefer to think of that production order doesn't match chronological order. Obviously there are the examples of Symbiosis and Skin of Evil being produced out of order, and Unification 2 before Unification 1. But I'm thinking of episodes you would just prefer be moved to a different place in the timeline than they were originally meant to be.

The example that got me thinking about this was the Voyager episode Juggernaut. It's the third appearance of the Malon, despite their previous two appearances being before Voyager traveled 30,000 light years across the galaxy. It would make alot more sense if that episode took place earlier in the season, nearer to the previous Malon episodes, and before Voyager traveled that huge distant away from what should be Malon space.

There's really nothing in the episode (unless you look closely at Paris's ensign's pips) which would cause a continuity error by moving it. No stardate is mentioned, and the characters' appearances are similar enough across the season that a first time viewer really wouldn't notice the change in episode placement. Seems to make things make alot more sense to me.

I'm wondering if there are other examples of episodes people would consider to be the "wrong" place in the timeline?

 

[Stevil2001]

There are a couple ENT episodes where working from dating cues results in something different from broadcast order. For example:
- 1x11: Cold Front -- 4 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days since the NX-01 left Earth (around April 15) points toward a date around September 9, 2151
- 1x12: Silent Enemy -- explicitly set on September 1, 2151

- 3x16: Doctor's Orders -- "several weeks" since "Harbinger" (December 27) points toward late January or early February 2154
- 3x17: Hatchery -- explicitly set on January 8, 2154

 

[ryan123450]

Yes I think I've heard of those two situations before. I guess no one else has any problems with the production order placement of any other episodes. That in itself is interesting as well.

 

[Stevil2001]

I would swap "Imperfection" and "Drive" from Voyager, since that puts the episode where the Delta Flyer II is tested before one where it's used incidentally!

 

[ryan123450]

Good one! That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I would swap "Imperfection" and "Drive" from Voyager, since that puts the episode where the Delta Flyer II is tested before one where it's used incidentally!

...believe it or not, I came in here to say exactly this. I caught that when I rewatched VOY last year and I had to do a double-take.

 

[Ethros]

If I could pick or change a scene out of chronological order...

I hate that scene near the start of ENT 3.01 The Xindi, with Hoshi in the Mess Hall meeting the Maco crew for the first time.

And yet at the end of Season 2 Archer says they've been travelling at Warp 5 for Seven weeks to get to the Expanse. Then in the very scene preceding the Hoshi scene Archer says they've been in the Expanse for six weeks.

So that's 13 weeks! 91 days aboard a ship with around 80-90 people with basically nothing going on, and Hoshi hasn't ran in to any of those Maco guys before?? Eurgh hate that moment.

 

[T'Girl]

I'd group the episodes featuring the Kazon as close together as possible, at some point I think they would have given up chasing Voyager, after what seem to be thousand of light years.

")

 

[ryan123450]

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I'm wondering about another episode out of order. The DS9 episode "Second Sight" takes place the day after the 4th anniversary of Wolf 359. It's stardate and placement in the season don't line up with that idea. I'm wondering about moving it to almost the end of the season, close enough to being 4 years after Wolf 359, and just ignoring the stardate. But it's been awhile since I've watched DS9 so I wonder if there are chachter arcs that would make it noticably stick out if placed there.

 

[Idran]

But it's been awhile since I've watched DS9 so I wonder if there are chachter arcs that would make it noticably stick out if placed there.

I haven't seen that one in a while either, but skimming Memory Alpha, Past Prologue was explicitly when Garak first introduced himself to Bashir. I can't recall if there were any other big scenes between them in S1, though; I have to think there were considering it's Garak and Bashir, but nothing in particular comes to mind.

 

[ryan123450]

Oops the episode was actally "Second Sight". Not sure what I was thinking.

 

[Idran]

Oh, no, I think that episode's pretty much unconnected from anything continuity-wise. Should be easy to bump.

 

[Tracy Trek]

...believe it or not, I came in here to say exactly this. I caught that when I rewatched VOY last year and I had to do a double-take.

Another thing I noticed about Imperfection and Drive. Imperfection airs first, but they show Tom already wearing a wedding ring when he is helping the Doctor with Seven's surgery. I guessing this indicated they were produced out of order.

 

[Idran]

Oh, a new example that came to mind just now: the Voyager episode "11:59" is explicitly dated to April 22nd, so I move it up much earlier in the season than it actually is due to the usual "##000 = January 1st" rule that normally holds; I've got it just before Infinite Regress.

I'd do the same for "Homestead" since it's supposed to be on First Contact Day, which is April 5th, but it's impossible to do that since it's Neelix's last episode and all.

 

[Timo]

The DS9 episode "Second Sight" takes place the day after the 4th anniversary of Wolf 359. It's stardate and placement in the season don't line up with that idea.

Other "anniversaries" in DS9 are all over the place, too - the Gratitude Festival takes place at different stages of the season whenever it's mentioned. We could just as well decide that the Bajoran year (interval between anniversaries) differs from the Earth one (length of season), and Sisko has quickly gone native...

O'Brien, too, as regards Molly's birthdays!

But shuffling all the Gratitude Festivals to "more proper" places would be a fun exercise.

the usual "##000 = January 1st" rule that normally holds

Hmh? I've never seen anything that would support that idea - and everything to support the idea that the stardate year zeroes roll at the beginning of the season, that is, as the summer ends and the kids return to their TV sets.

There are multiple datapoints in support of synching with the Paramount season (explicit April in "Homestead", Festival of Lights in "Data's Day", late summer in "Family"), and none to support that New Year would be celebrated when the season changes. Heck, even the TOS Thanksgiving was appropriately around SD X533!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Idran]

Hmh? I've never seen anything that would support that idea - and everything to support the idea that the stardate year zeroes roll at the beginning of the season, that is, as the summer ends and the kids return to their TV sets.

You know, I was about to cite the books, but I only just noticed that we aren't in the Litverse forum, haha; I must've set this thread to "watched" before the software change. In the current Litverse that's just taken as a given for the 24th century SD system, and personally it just makes more sense to me (the idea of TNG starting in September 2363 just feels strange), but going strictly by onscreen stuff fair enough yeah.

 

[ryan123450]

Yeah I regularly forget that there are alot more open questions in Trek for those who don't take the Litverse as a given.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There's also a Hirogen appearance in season 7 which has the same problem as the malon.

 

[Idran]

...Wait a minute.

There are multiple datapoints in support of synching with the Paramount season (explicit April in "Homestead", Festival of Lights in "Data's Day", late summer in "Family")

"Data's Day" was aired in January, "Family" in October, and "Homestead" in May. None of those sync up with airdates. It could be production dates, though that's a strange spread; while I can't find specific production dates for those episodes, it would strike me as odd for "Data's Day" to be filmed 3 months in advance, "Family" 2 months, and "Homestead" only one month, though I can't rule that out. And "Charlie X" aired in September, which means it can't be referencing either airdate or production date.

In fact, those references don't jive with assuming that stardates start in September in general as with the television season. For the "Data's Day" stardate (44390.1) to work out, stardates would have to start 0.3901 years, or just over 142 days, before October 24, which would place the 0 point as June 3.. For the "Family" stardate to work out, assuming late Summer to be some time in August, stardates would have to start .0123 years, or about 4.5 days, before August, putting the 0 point sometime between late July and late August. For the "Homestead" reference to work out, stardates would have to start .8686 years, or about 314 days, before April 5th, putting the 0 point as May 22. Even the "Charlie X" datapoint doesn't work based on this concept; .533 years is over 6 months, which would put the start date as far back as May as well.

Ignoring the "Family" datapoint, the only way to square both "Data's Day" and "Homestead" (in order to have the 10478.5 units between their respective stardates to span the time between October 24, 2367 and April 5, 2378) is to assume a 1000 units = 364.2 days conversion (side note: wow, that's much closer than I would've expected to the length of a year and makes me wonder if I could directly recover year length by fiddling with time-of-day for the two episodes), and doing that would place the 0 point in the late-24th century era as early June (I specify the era because it would shift over time), which is still completely distinct from both calendar years and television seasons. I mean, yeah, you can do this and I suppose it would be relatively consistent with what we see (I can't immediately think of contradictions beyond the random stardates writers picked for past events between TOS and TNG), but it still has nothing to do with TV schedules as you suggested.

Edit: Bah, for a 10478.5 stardate unit span, the difference between October 24, 2367 and April 5, 2378 in the absolute best case is still 182 hours short of making a perfect 1000 units = 1 year conversion. Ah well.

 

[Timo]

None of those sync up with airdates.

Definitely not. It's purely a matter of how stardates work - and those increase monotonically as the shooting season proceeds, even though they don't always increase at a steady pace, let alone at a pace that would take into account the subtleties of how long a particular adventure takes.

As for the Festival of Lights, it can be any number of things between mid-October and late December, so the July ballpark (for when the writing of the episodes starts) is certainly available. But it really is just a ballpark, as we can conclusively see from the spinoffs that there is no consistent ratio between stardate progression and the passing of the days - there's always a bit of accordion movement there, with true annual synching points at the beginning and the end only.

The point of the exercise is simply that no onscreen evidence puts those beginnings and ends near January, while a trio of datapoints suggests a summer rollover.

April 5, 2378

...It really ought to be April 5, 2377. There's no proviso for the extra year to be added to the seven seasons of VOY. Neelix just appears to have gotten the human concept of "anniversary" a bit confused, just like a continentally oriented hotel guest will get his floors wrong when failing to appreciate that the Anglic practice includes a Zero Floor...

it still has nothing to do with TV schedules as you suggested.

Except it very specifically does. That's where stardates come from de facto: the first episode of the season gets a low one, the last one gets a high one. It's just that Star Trek episodes virtually never relate to the annual events of Earth (and when they do in TOS, it's a different game because those stardates didn't get assigned in the orderly fashion of the spinoffs). But the writers or rewriters do seem to look at their own calendars when inserting events.

Timo Saloniemi