Sunday, 26 September 2010

TV Series: Star Trek


I just want to make a few remarks about the order in which the episodes in the original series are presented in the currently available DVD box sets, which isn't optimal. There are several ways to order the episodes:

1. The broadcast order (the order in which they were originally shown on American television, and is also used for the DVD box set releases).
2. The production order (the order in which they were made, which is also the order in which they were first shown on British television).
3. The stardate order (the order in which the episodes "really happened", which is based on the captain's log entries in the episodes).

The most useful order to watch the series in is the production order, because this best shows the development of the characters. This is most obvious in the case of Spock, who often raised his voice in the first few episodes filmed, but spoke more calmly as Leonard Nimoy developed a style for his character. The costumes were inconsistent in the first episodes until the producers decided what ranks should wear what colour.

Stardates are useful to know the order in which things happened, but it's impossible to correlate stardates and real dates as we know them. The series creator Gene Roddenberry used "stardates" because he didn't want people to fix dates. All he wanted the viewer to know was that the adventures happened in the future. It's been suggested that 1000 stardate units express one year in the original series. In "Star Trek: TNG" one stardate unit is one day. In the films there are further inconsistencies that make an exact correlation impossible.

The following table (which can be copied and pasted into a spreadsheet) lists the name, production number and stardate of each episode. Five episodes have no stardate, so a sensible guess has been made where they fit in. The pilot episode, "The Cage", is said to have taken place 11 years before stardate 3012, which would put it in a pre-stardate era.

Episode Name Prod-Nr Star-Nr Stardate

1.01 The Man Trap 6 5 1513.1
1.02 Charlie X 8 6 1533.6
1.03 Where No Man Has Gone Before 2 2 1312.4
1.04 The Naked Time 7 8 1704.2
1.05 The Enemy Within 5 7 1672.1
1.06 Mudd's Women 4 3 1329.8
1.07 What Are Little Girls Made Of? 10 12 2712.4
1.08 Miri 12 13 2713.5
1.09 Dagger of the Mind 11 14 2715.1
1.10 The Corbomite Maneuver 3 4 1512.2
1.11 The Menagerie Part I 16 18 3012.4
1.12 The Menagerie Part II 16 19 3013.1
1.13 The Conscience of the King 13 15 2817.6
1.14 Balance of Terror 9 9 1709.2
1.15 Shore Leave 17 21 3025.3
1.16 The Galileo Seven 14 16 2821.5
1.17 The Squire of Gothos 18 10 2124.5
1.18 Arena 19 22 3045.6
1.19 Tomorrow Is Yesterday 21 24 3113.2
1.20 Court Martial 15 17 2947.3
1.21 The Return of the Archons 22 27 3156.2
1.22 Space Seed 24 26 3141.9
1.23 A Taste of Armageddon 23 28 3192.1
1.24 This Side of Paradise 25 35 3417.3
1.25 The Devil in the Dark 26 29 3196.1
1.26 Errand of Mercy 27 30 3198.4
1.27 The Alternative Factor 20 23 3087.6
1.28 The City on the Edge of Forever 28 25 3134.0
1.29 Operation: Annihilate! 29 33 3287.2

2.01 Amok Time 34 34 3372.7
2.02 Who Mourns for Adonais? 33 36 3468.1
2.03 The Changeling 37 39 3541.9
2.04 Mirror Mirror 39 40 3580.0  (approx) 
2.05 The Apple 38 43 3715.3
2.06 The Doomsday Machine 35 46 4202.9
2.07 Catspaw 30 20 3018.2
2.08 I Mudd 41 51 4513.3
2.09 Metamorphosis 31 32 3219.4
2.10 Journey to Babel 44 44 3842.3
2.11 Friday's Child 32 38 3497.2
2.12 The Deadly Years 40 37 3478.2
2.13 Obsession 47 42 3619.2
2.14 Wolf in the Fold 36 41 3614.9
2.15 The Trouble With Tribbles 42 52 4523.3
2.16 The Gamesters of Triskelion 46 31 3211.8
2.17 A Piece of the Action 49 53 4598.0
2.18 The Immunity Syndrome 48 48 4307.1
2.19 A Private Little War 45 47 4211.4
2.20 Return to Tomorrow 51 57 4768.3
2.21 Patterns of Force 52 11 2534.0
2.22 By Any Other Name 50 54 4657.5
2.23 The Omega Glory 54 55 4690.0  (approx) 
2.24 The Ultimate Computer 53 56 4729.4
2.25 Bread and Circuses 43 45 4040.7
2.26 Assignment: Earth 55 59 4990.0  (approx) 

3.01 Spock's Brain 61 64 5431.4
3.02 The Enterprise Incident 59 60 5027.3
3.03 The Paradise Syndrome 58 58 4842.6
3.04 And the Children Shall Lead 60 61 5029.5
3.05 Is There in Truth No Beauty? 62 67 5630.7
3.06 Spectre of the Gun 56 50 4385.3
3.07 Day of the Dove 66 68 5660.0  (approx) 
3.08 For the World Is Hollow 65 65 5476.3
3.09 The Tholian Web 64 69 5693.2
3.10 Plato's Stepchildren 67 74 5784.2
3.11 Wink of an Eye 68 70 5710.5
3.12 The Empath 63 62 5121.5
3.13 Elaan of Troyius 57 49 4372.5
3.14 Whom Gods Destroy 71 71 5718.3
3.15 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield 70 73 5730.2
3.16 The Mark of Gideon 72 63 5423.4
3.17 That Which Survives 69 66 5579.0  (approx) 
3.18 The Lights of Zetar 73 72 5725.3
3.19 Requiem for Methuselah 76 77 5843.7
3.20 The Way to Eden 75 76 5832.3
3.21 The Cloud Minders 74 75 5818.4
3.22 The Savage Curtain 77 78 5906.4
3.23 All Our Yesterdays 78 80 5943.7
3.24 Turnabout Intruder 79 79 5928.5

0.01 The Cage 1 1 0.0


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