Airdate Order or Production Order?

[Extrocomp]

Star Trek The Original Series is the only TV show I know of where the episodes are ordered in two very different ways, both of which are equally official. Which one do you prefer? Airdate order or production order?
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The 1994 one-episode VHSs go by production order with The Cage at the start.

The 1999-2001 two-episode DVDs go by production order with The Cage at the end.

The 2004 whole-season DVDs and 2007 remastered DVDs go by airdate order with The Cage at the end.

StarTrek.com lists the episodes by airdate order with The Cage at the start.

Wikipedia lists the episodes in two different ways: airdate order with The Cage at the end and production order with the Cage at the start. The airdate order is listed first.

IMDb lists the episodes by airdate order with The Cage at the start. The Cage's original airdate is erroneously given as September 1966.

TV.com lists the episodes by airdate order with The Cage at the start.

CBS.com lists the episodes by airdate order and The Cage is not on the list at all.

Memory Alpha and Memory Beta both list the episodes by production order with The Cage at the start.

Amazon.com's Unbox Video Downloads lists the episodes by airdate order with The Cage at the start.

Star Trek Encyclopedia lists the episodes in production order with The Cage at the start.
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So there are actually 4 different orders. I originally watched them in production order on the old VHSs and I don't understand why the newer DVDs go by airdate order. Where No Man Has Gone Before is clearly meant to be the first episode. I prefer The Cage being at the end, because The Menagerie is meant to introduce that story. The Cage is sort of like a Director's Cut of The Menagerie.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

I typically just watch a random episode I'd like to see. When I first bought the DVDs, I just watched them in Airdate Order, and I enjoyed it. If I were to show them to a friend now, I'd probably play them in Production Order, though.

 

[Phoenicianknight]

I believe even though the Cage was the first produced, it did not air in it's entirely until decades after the series ended.

 

[Kegek]

I don't think I've ever actually sat down and watched the entire series in either order - though I've seen every episode more than a couple of times.

But if I did, it would be Production Order. It makes more sense chronologically - in that we get the two pilots out of the way before moving on to the series proper.

 

[gastrof]

I've been recording to DVD the TOSR broadcasts, and have used both numbering systems on the discs.

For example, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is listed as p02 b03. "The Cage" is listed (or WILL be listed, when it airs) as p01 b80.

"The Man Trap" is listed as p06 b01.

I'd normally go with "how they aired". You have to with TNG, since things like Wesley's "promotion" and Tasha's death are wildly out of sequence if you go with production order. Thing is, with TOS, if you look at production order, it makes far more sense. You can see how things progressed. Not just for the production and the cast and crew, but for the characters as well.

In the case of TOS, if I had to choose, I'd go with production order. The broadcast order should be kept in mind tho, if for no other reasons than "tradition" and "history".

 

[Timo]

Stardate order. It's the only thing that makes sense for TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Leslie]

I watched airdate first time, then cherry picked for best episodes. i dant always want to atch a whole series in order.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I originally watched them in production order on the old VHSs and I don't understand why the newer DVDs go by airdate order.

Because, if you look through old Amazon reviews of the original VHS and two-pack DVDs, there was a lot of anger out there from people who remembered their TOS fondly as kicking off with "The Man Trap", the one for them which "started it all".

Production order was not widely known by fans until the first incarnation of Alan Asherman's "ST Compendium", which came out in the 80s after TMP. Before that, most fans only had access to the old lists in "The Making of ST" (first two seasons in airdate order), "ST Concordance" (airdate order) and "World of ST" (airdate order).

The team who won the contract to produce the DVD boxed sets for now-CBS promised themselves that, when the seasons were collected in DVD, it would be in the order they remembered seeing the episodes way back in the 60s.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Production order for me. I fondly remember collecting the CIC videotape collection and that made the most sense. The DVD boxsets annoy the hell out of me... especially lumping The Cage in with the sub-parr Season Three. A marketing tactic no doubt.

The BBC cycled through TOS both as airdate (70's/80's/early 90's) and production order (late 90's). It would be an absolute nightmare, if in 40 years time fans demanded that Remastered be represented as broadcast order...

 

[Outpost4]

Agreed with random order.

But, as it is the way I remember them, I voted for airdate order ending with The Cage.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Stardate order. It's the only thing that makes sense for TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

LOL! Yeah, nothing like putting Patterns of Force in the first season. :-) But Columbia House sure did agree with you.

If CBS/P would have put them out in the order I first saw them in, they'd be all jumbled. Back in the early 70's WPIX NY didn't run them in any particular order.

I prefer production order because costume, set, hair and weight changes make sense. But how could it matter what order it's in when you can run them any way you like? It's certainly not worth bitching to the DVD guys over. But they caved and gave more power to the complaining basement dwellers. That is the real shame...

 

[Extrocomp]

Does anyone here actually live in a basement?

 

[Christopher]

The first and fourth options in the poll are invalid because they're self-contradictory. Airdate order could only entail placing "The Cage" last, because "The Cage" was not broadcast publicly until the 1980s. And production order could only entail placing "The Cage" first.

As for the poll question, in the case of TOS there is absolutely no advantage to airdate order. It was chosen somewhat randomly and creates small contradictions (and a huge contradiction with "Where No Man" coming third, with the sets, props, costumes, hairstyles, and crew suddenly changing one week and then going back the week after that). Production order makes far more sense in terms of the gradual evolution of characters, sets, concepts, etc., and I am continually frustrated at the DVD releases using airdate order out of some misplaced, ignorant nostalgia.

 

[Tan Ru]

Production Order starting with The Cage, naturally............

 

[Extrocomp]

Because, if you look through old Amazon reviews of the original VHS and two-pack DVDs, there was a lot of anger out there from people who remembered their TOS fondly as kicking off with "The Man Trap", the one for them which "started it all".

If airdate order was so popular on Amazon why is it so damn unpopular here?

 

[highlander]

Does anyone here actually live in a basement?

Um..Yes but it is finished. It's not damp and musty with a dirt floor. To answer the question I just finished the DVDs by air date but watched season one last. (It's a long story).

 

[number6]

I always watch TOS in alphabetical order. The way the producers had intended.

 

[Extrocomp]

Does anyone know if the old two-episode DVDs were ever released outside America?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Well, personally, when I was first able to sit down and watch them on tv, in the early days of syndication, they were broadcast here in Denver in production order, starting with "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (the episodes are all numbered in the order of production, so that's what the station went by). So, yeah, I'm partial to production order.

The original network airdate order is only representative of what episodes were ready to air at the time, and thus pretty arbitrary. It's also why a lot of the effects heavy episodes don't show up until fairly late in the season.

 

[Therin of Andor]

If airdate order was so popular on Amazon why is it so damn unpopular here?

Fans will always complain when they feel they're being hard done by. Those that preferred what they got had no reason to complain.

I was interested that the first VHS tapes went production order, going against what so many fans had known for many years. I was also surprised (at first) by the anger of those complaining on Amazon and in fanzines at the time, but again, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.

I prefer production order for the DVD sets, but I fully understand those who wanted to "re-live the experience", and wanted new fans to experience TOS the same way.