Production Order vs. Airing Order

[Lance]

Production order is the best way to go. While I can understand the nostalgia behind presenting them in broadcast order, it really creates bigger problems. Production order flows smoother. I recently collected on DVD all the 'Star Trek Files' DVDs and unlike the original clamshells they're presented in production order, and it makes for a much more satisfying experience. It was also the accepted presentation order for decades on home video, so is the order most of us have gotten used to, even those who did see it as it was originally broadcast.

 

[johnnybear]

Has anyone ever watched the series in James Blish order? Now that one would be a monumental effort surely? WNMHGB is in the 8th book and The Enterprise Incident comes before The Deadly Years and Corbomite maneuver is after The Deadly years so the Corbomite plot is old hat and also both Mudd stories appear at the very end of the books! It would be interesting to see if anyone has though wouldn't it?
JB

 

[johnnybear]

On the DVD menus for the clamshell releases the episodes were accompanied by their production numbers on my sets! Not that it helps when you want the first episode of the second series and find it's on the third disc as such!
JB

 

[Ssosmcin]

The Columbia House tapes were presented in stardate order. Now that was maddening! Especially when a small number of episodes were out of their own order a bit. The five episodes without star dates were bundled at the end.

 

[1001001]

Oops, didn't realize this was done before. I did a search but I guess I entered the wrong search terms.

The show ended 50 years ago.

Everything's been done before.

 

[johnnybear]

The Columbia House tapes were presented in stardate order. Now that was maddening! Especially when a small number of episodes were out of their own order a bit. The five episodes without star dates were bundled at the end.

There are some pages on the net that give some of the episodes a Stardate of sorts like Patterns of Force and Day of The Dove! I wonder where they got them from to be honest but I do accept them as genuine!
JB

 

[mb22]

Paramount Home Video tried to have it both ways in the 1985-88 VHS/Beta videocassettes which were released in batches according to airdate (except "The Cage") but had production date numbers on the spine. Once the set was complete they could be shelved by the production order.

 

[tomswift2002]

I still remember watching TOS, TNG and DS9 over aerial in the 1990’s. My family lived in a small village at the time so to get cable there was an extra charge to be on cable, and the smaller Ku satellites were very expensive as they were just being introduced, so we had a big outdoor antennae and received CBC Ottawa and CHRO. CBC (which was the farthest) aired TOS Saturday mornings, and during the summer we would get a pretty good signal, but during the rest of the year it was hit or miss—-we’d still get the signal but it would range from good to having slight ghosts to being very ghostly (by very ghostly I mean you might see like 8 outlines for a character). CHRO, unless it was one really bad storm, was the closest and we very rarely saw even the slightest hint of ghosting. But as I recall, CBC aired TOS in airdate order. CHRO, which aired TNG Mon-Friday and Saturday, during the week aired the series in airdate order with Saturday’s being reserved for the new TNG episode (so during the week, CHRO might’ve been airing Season 1 episodes with Tasha Yar, but Saturday would be “Timescape” from Season 6 and even after TNG finished, Saturday’s were still on their own airdate run, so it could be reversed with a Tasha episode on Saturday and Season 7 during the week). CHRO aired DS9 for the first 2 seasons and then dropped it, and didn’t pick it back up till around 1999, at which point the aired in airdate order at like 2 a.m.

But on my own I’ve watched the series in stardate order, airdate order and production order.

 

[Christopher]

In Cincinnati, the channel that had carried DS9 dropped the syndication package in later seasons, and we didn't have a UPN affiliate for a while, so I had to watch both DS9 and Voyager over the air from Dayton 50 miles away. It wasn't until years later in syndication that I got to see the episodes clearly.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I still remember watching TOS, TNG and DS9 over aerial in the 1990’s. My family lived in a small village at the time so to get cable there was an extra charge to be on cable, and the smaller Ku satellites were very expensive as they were just being introduced, so we had a big outdoor antennae and received CBC Ottawa and CHRO. CBC (which was the farthest) aired TOS Saturday mornings, and during the summer we would get a pretty good signal, but during the rest of the year it was hit or miss—-we’d still get the signal but it would range from good to having slight ghosts to being very ghostly (by very ghostly I mean you might see like 8 outlines for a character). CHRO, unless it was one really bad storm, was the closest and we very rarely saw even the slightest hint of ghosting. But as I recall, CBC aired TOS in airdate order. CHRO, which aired TNG Mon-Friday and Saturday, during the week aired the series in airdate order with Saturday’s being reserved for the new TNG episode (so during the week, CHRO might’ve been airing Season 1 episodes with Tasha Yar, but Saturday would be “Timescape” from Season 6 and even after TNG finished, Saturday’s were still on their own airdate run, so it could be reversed with a Tasha episode on Saturday and Season 7 during the week). CHRO aired DS9 for the first 2 seasons and then dropped it, and didn’t pick it back up till around 1999, at which point the aired in airdate order at like 2 a.m.

But on my own I’ve watched the series in stardate order, airdate order and production order.

This brings back whole chapters of my life. I began Star Trek a boy in the early 1970s, with rabbit ears and a snowy b&w picture. Sometimes it was literally a radio show, the sound smothered in white noise, and I'd stay tuned anyway.

Then we got a 19-inch color TV (seemed like a huge picture then) and a genuinely huge, directional roof antenna with electric rotor to point it the right way for any given station. Every Canadian channel we could get showed Star Trek at one time or another, typically on Saturday or Sunday morning:
CTV - CFTO, channel 9, Toronto.
CBC - CBLT, channel 5, Toronto.
CHCH channel 11, Hamilton.

Color, sharp picture, clear sound. Such good times. I even enjoyed the unique charm of Canadian commercials, most of them being for toys, breakfast cereals, or Wonderbra. And I can still sing all the jingles. Canadian TV would show the bra on an actual woman. It was a different culture, that's for sure.

 

[johnnybear]

Even though we had less channels here in the UK in the 70s it was a happier time and TV tended to be excellent not like now with it's poor comedies and over selling of new drama and the like! The start of the rot began in the 90s when ITV was changed from many channels into the one!
JB

 

[Nerys Myk]

In the 70's,I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area which straddled two markets. So Star Trek was on two different stations. (Technically one was the Monterey Market, but the station was in San Jose). Similar deal with Doctor Who.

 

[Damian]

Production order is the best way to go. While I can understand the nostalgia behind presenting them in broadcast order, it really creates bigger problems. Production order flows smoother. I recently collected on DVD all the 'Star Trek Files' DVDs and unlike the original clamshells they're presented in production order, and it makes for a much more satisfying experience. It was also the accepted presentation order for decades on home video, so is the order most of us have gotten used to, even those who did see it as it was originally broadcast.

Yeah, it's kind of a bummer the Blu-Ray is in airdate order, without at least a notation on the discs what the production number was so if you want to watch it in production order you need to look at a separate list. It sounds like here people would have preferred the order to be production order (though they certainly could have, and maybe even should, note the airdate on the discs). But if they had at least put the production number next to the episode name I could have lived with that.

I think it probably goes back to that most series that are released on DVD/Blu-Ray are in airdate order so it's probably some generally accepted business model. But it's also true there are always exceptions. As some have noted Star Trek's airing order was pretty arbitrary. Sometimes due to effects shots needing to be completed. Sometimes just because NBC thought it would be cooler to have some episode aired this week.

CBS should have realized that there are probably a large number of Star Trek fans that prefer production order. It doesn't make very good business sense IMO not to at least put the production number on the discs, forcing it's customers to rely on a separate list for that.

Granted, it's not life or death. It's just an inconvenience, and inconveniencing your customers doesn't probably make much sense.

 

[Doctor Sevrin]

I prefer production order over airdate order. The original TOS dvd release back in 1999 was released in production order with "The Cage" (B&W and Color) on the last disc.

 

[johnnybear]

I don't think the production numbers are listed on the page inserts in my DVD sets but they certainly are on screen! Although it helps to know before hand!
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I don't think the production numbers are listed on the page inserts in my DVD sets but they certainly are on screen! Although it helps to know before hand!
JB

You can go by this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_episodes#Production_order

 

[Ssosmcin]

Really tho, unless you want to binge watch the series, does it really matter if the home video release is in Airdate or production order? And really, after the mid-first season, it hardly matters at all.

The second season wasn’t aired in order of what episodes were done. They intended for Catspaw to air around Halloween and felt the Soock centric Amok Time would be a strong opener.

 

[mb22]

Really tho, unless you want to binge watch the series, does it really matter if the home video release is in Airdate or production order? And really, after the mid-first season, it hardly matters at all.

The second season wasn’t aired in order of what episodes were done. They intended for Catspaw to air around Halloween and felt the Soock centric Amok Time would be a strong opener.

Some viewers may wish to see the Chekov wig to hair transition...

 

[Methuselah Flint]

Some viewers may wish to see the Chekov wig to hair transition...

I have that cut scene somewhere.

 

[johnnybear]

Chekov's ever expanding hair in the second season is nearly as annoying with Scotty's black gelled hair and grey flat top in the third season exchanging episode by episode!
JB