Production Order Group Viewing 2018

The episodes do flow better in production order in those early days. "Charlie X" absolutely is a "better" episode when it's run 8 shows in rather than the second week. The series had a chance to settle in a bit, you got a number of high concept episodes in and then, finally, you have this "child God gets his first space woody" episode. I am doing an informal rewatch in production order and I actually like the episode more this way.

And Spock is soooo much more interesting before he got chummy and his portrayal is more consistent in this order as Nimoy and the writers explored the character. Also, Balance of Terror works better for that reason as an early episode.

 

It's evident that "The Corbomite Maneuver" was intended to be the first episode aired. It was only shown as episode 10 because of the time it took to do the special effects.

 

Yup that's it. So she was doing something else the week before.

 

While I agree with you, I suppose it's possible "The Man Trap" was preempted in library lady's local market and she thought it was more broad. That used to happen to me all the time when I was a kid (usually for sporting events that happened to run long, but sometimes for news) .

 

Oh it's certainly possible, especially outside of the Metro area. But for it to be pre-empted in the NYC area, it would have to be a major event and we'd probably all know about it. A local affiliate, though, could have run anything in its place, especially if the new season didn't officially start.

 

I just feel that Charlie X works better a few more episodes down the list. Not so much whether or not it's a better episode.

 

WNMHGB should have been the first screened episode!!!
I understand that Corbomite should have been next with Mudd's women perhaps third but this idea of having fixed broadcast dates before the episodes have been clearly finished was madness!
It would have settled numerous problems throughout the series!
JB

 

Just the first batch of episodes. The rest of the series chugged along just fine in broadcast order and some episodes were specifically made to air at certain times out of order ("Catspaw" for example). Besides, according to Justman and Solo, they didn't want WNMHGB aired at all. It was too expositional and too different.

They had hoped that "The Corbomite Maneuver" would be finished in time, but that didn't happen and they certainly didn't expect it to air 10th. NBC apparently wanted to lead off with a "Strange new world" anyway. Very few shows were run in production order. Stronger episodes were held for "sweeps" and lesser shows were dumped where they wouldn't do as much damage, such as Christmastime or the end of the season (this was before season finales were a thing). And a new show would be front loaded with the best episodes. If the effects and episodes had been complete in time, sure, the original schedule would have been different for the first half of the season and they may not have even done the two part episode to fill in a week (but still may have to save the budget). But, Star Trek wasn't a serial. If you weren't there in 1966, none of it matters. Now you can watch the episodes in whatever order you like.

If I Spy actually premiered with the original pilot, it may not have landed as well. Instead they took one of their strongest episodes "So Long Patrick Henry" (written by Bob Culp) and lead off with it. After the pilot, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea shuffled the order and the first few weeks had some of the best episodes of the year. Networks weren't worried about the continuity of an episodic TV series. They just wanted to grab an audience as soon as possible.

 

Thing also is that Alternative Factor was held back ten places in screening order as well and that could be another reason why so many people dislike it due to it seeming out of place with episodes like Devil in The Dark, Errand of Mercy and City On The Edge of Forever!
JB

 

Well also because it sucks.

But yeah, sometimes placing an episode in a certain spot will impact the response. If the third season kicked off with Spectre of the Gun or The Enterprise Incident instead of Spock's Brain, the infamous "worst episode" might not have been looked at so harshly. It wouldn't be presented to fans as they reward for their hard work in getting the series ("all those letters for THIS?!").

Lost in Space's "Anti-Matter Man" is considered one of the series' best episodes but is it really? Or did the half dozen episodes leading up to it just suck so badly?

 

I think production order does matter after Season 1. Is it Season 2 when James Doohan changed his hair style? Broadcast order has his hair style going back and forth.

 

Season 3. And hair? De Kelley's hair and eyebrows changed regularly.

It hardly makes much difference if Scotty combed back one week and parted it to the side the next. The characters themselves stayed consistent after the initial shakedown

 

I never noticed McCoy’s hair nor eyebrows. I have learned loads from being here.

 

Track him through season 1. Or just watch Corbomite and then Devil in the Dark. His hair is incredibly full and his brows are especially pointy.

 

Word on the street is that Kelley's hair was deliberately styled to suggest John F. Kennedy.

 

It’s kinda brushy in early S1, I see it now. They weren’t alike in persona: that’s an interesting choice.

 

I for one never knew that DeForest Kelley wore a rug in the series! William Shatner, of course he did as it looks like it's combed into his own greying remnants of hair! Leonard Nimoy was lucky to have such good hair but then he had it cut into a basin style and then combed down to hide his forehead!
JB

 

And Nimoy also had a fairly large bald spot. On HD you can often see that they often painted over it with black Hairspray.

 

ANOTHer reason i just do not want HD blurays. So many things ppl point out that are flaws.