Why Are There So Many Different Episode Orders Across Gerry Anderson Shows?

[@GerryAndersonTV]

Have all your Anderson episode order questions been answered? Let us know!

[@srtgrayfrance]

Is there an "official" order for each show that takes into account production and continuity? I couldn't find one on the website.

[@DaveMan1K]

A similar thing happened to ITV's Thunderbirds Are Go. The series 2 episode 'Inferno' was pulled from all British broadcasting due to the Grenfell Tower fire occurring not long before it was slated to air. It was still available on streaming services, but was excluded from the series 2 home media release It was finally included as a bonus episode on the final series 3 home media release.

[@billstorie5161]

In the Grampian TV area (ITV) the episodes "The Psychobombs" and "Timelash" were also missed from the original runs, turning up at 11pm. Strangely the somewhat downbeat atmosphere in many UFO episodes worked even better in the dark scottish winter evenings lol.

[@horusfalcon]

As a child I would miss episodes only to pick them up eventually in re-runs. It was really weird coming back to the States from Uchinaa and realizing that the Thunderbirds theme didn't have any lyrics (like the Japanese dub did...) I think my favorite Andersonverse shows are Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Supercar, and UFO. These seem to me to have held up best over the years.

[@MarkSW]

There’s a KZbinr called Alexa Chipman who has been reacting to Anderson episodes. If she ever watches Stingray or Captain Scarlet, I must remember to give her the correct order, otherwise she’ll just end up confused.

[@mikesilva3868]

@Otis B. Driftwood agreed 😊

[@crazyjedi5994]

Really loved this! Great job, Chris!

[@alankelly1001]

Ah... I remember the Usenet newsgroup arguments back in the pre-web days over the running orders, with people submitting lengthy arguments about why one episode "clearly" preceded another (some of the arguments would focus on minutia that were usually completely missed by a regular viewer unless they were going down an obsessive rabbit hole, or were production changed unrelated to anything in the story). It would devolve into different "correct" orders being backed by different contingents of the fans. I still have little lists in my DVD/BD library, tacked to the front of the covers, with two alternate running orders for Space 1999 (actually, had to do that with several shows from various non-Anderson production companies that were just thrown at the syndication market, then released in random orders on home media).

[@LesPaulDavis]

An episode of TAG involving a London skyscraper fire has never been broadcast in the UK for fairly obvious reasons. It is available on Prime though.

[@ryanstephenkristoferkearns1319]

They didn't broadcast it after the events of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster.

[@nickrich56]

When I was watching Supercar as a kid every show was great! The order of episodes only got confusing when characters appeared without any backstory. But a few weeks later the same one shows up and fills it in. The same with Thunderbirds and the rest. I was hoping by the time I was Professor Beakers age there'd be a Supercar available for everyone. Thanks for explaining things.😊🍿👍

[@BOABModels]

Talking about real life events, the Simpsons episode 'The City of New York Vs Homer Simpson' was pulled from repeats for many years following 9.11 as it prominently features the World Trade center towers.

[@Renegade2786]

5:48 - 5:54 Lets ignore the fact that Gordon put two live fuses together to get the Fireflash to fly in *Operation Crash Dive* and the Scarlet thrown a live electrical plug at the Mysteron agent, which caused him to get violently electrocuted in the episode *Noose of Ice*

[@DavidGreen_au]

On the basis of this episode, I thought I would go to the Anderson website, and look up the official episode sequence, irrespective of production or broadcast orders; well, there was nothing there on the Space:1999 page, or for U.F.O page either.

[@iancotterill2286]

I actually came up with my own episode order for 'Thunderbirds', largely sticking to the production order, but sticking some episodes like 'Move And You're Dead' to an earlier point for continuity reasons. 🙂

[@jm1141]

Did exactly the same. Otherwise Grandma suddenly shows up out of nowhere and further on down the line it’s her introduction episode. I do the same with Star Trek TOS season one so that the uniforms and characters are introduced in the right order, it’s a lot more than moving just one episode for TOS season one though to be moved around .

[@iancotterill2286]

@@jm1141 Where 'Star Trek' is concerned, I regard the production order as being closest to the correct chronological order, with the two pilots coming first. Regarding my 'Thunderbirds' list, I also placed 'Perils Of Penelope' immediately before 'Sun Probe', since the two episodes have to take place within the same week!

[@Wessex90]

I’ve always been surprised that “The Perils of Penelope” and “Sun Probe” were never put back to back.

[@iancotterill2286]

@@Wessex90 Same here. The only time I recall them being put back-to-back was on BBC Four's Thunderbirds Night.

[@jm1141]

@@iancotterill2286 I agree for production order for TOS mostly. I don’t like Catspaw as the season 2 opener though, so I move that one.

[@phillipculley9156]

The order of the 1991-92 Thunderbirds repeats has always fascinated me - they seem to start in the original broadcast order (up to Operation Crash-Dive), and then switch to production order, skipping the episodes which were already broadcast and obviously bringing Give or Take a Million up for Christmas. The fact it matches perfectly makes me think someone decided midway they were showing them in the wrong order and switched back?

[@gmlpc7132]

Certainly with UFO mixing up episodes from the first and second production blocks makes little sense not just because of personnel changes but chiefly because there's a big evolution in ideas about the aliens and the more sophisticated techniques they use. Within production blocks varying the order doesn't matter so much but on the whole watching in production order is the best option.

[@SaturnCanuck]

That was interesting. And yes, Earthbound SHOULD be seen second.

[@melaniefrontage9217]

Thanks, Chris.

[@AceOThorns]

The 40th anniversary Thunderbirds DVD set has a bizarre order to it - and I'm not 100% sure it even has an episode listing in the box (except for a hastily produced list on post-its).

[@jezt42]

Great video! Just as a personal preference, I always thought it made better sense in the UFO series to have Mindbender as the penultimate episode and Timelash to finish the series as both stories feature Ed Straker being pushed to near-breaking point. With the latter finishing (SPOILER ALERT!) with the viewer uncertain if Ed would survive mentally, that would have been a tremendous end to the series. As you say, the beauty of the DVD and Blu-ray releases is that we can view them in any order we like! 👍

[@jamesthecat]

That's a great idea, and those 2 episodes are particularly imaginative & memorable imo.

[@crabby7668]

They always do this with the prisoner series (slight digression) as well , and order does matter there. I tried watching the last time it was on recently and they did it again.

[@ivane5110]

Sliders was a show that was clearly aired in different order than they were meant to be (they'd do things like start one episode on an ice world then one or two episodes later ended an episode arriving on an ice world, yet next episode no sign or mention of it; or mention a world they had been on, only to first arrive there the following week or month). It didn't ruin the show, but boy did it take a little of the fun out of it. Time Tunnel may also have done that?

[@jyvben1520]

nicely done, a lot of research to get the clips i expect ... or is there a source with all the scripts to do a word/sentence search on ?

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

My main thought was this. Why, in the mid-2000s reruns, were there episodes in-between Crater 101 and Dangerous Rendezvous?

[@tomsenior7405]

Cheers Chris. Fascinating stuff.

[@yvonnerogers6429]

Awesome 😎! Thanks!

[@iandeeley9033]

I wish we can have a Blu Ray release of THUNDERBIRDS with the episodes in ITC Recommended Broadcast Order!

[@jezt42]

In 4:3 ratio too! 👍

[@richard-riku]

@@jezt42 buy the USA blu-ray. it's in 4:3 and has original mono audio also.

[@silverdaleks1]

On ITVX while the Thunderbirds and Captian Scarlet episodes are in order the Stingray episode order is completely muddled up save for the first and last episode...

[@AuraKnight-kn1ux]

Intriguing 🧐

[@johnnhoj6749]

Production order is historically and technically fascinating but often makes no sense as a screening order for the general public. You wouldn't show a feature film in the order in which the individual scenes were shot. Showing the typical filmed ITC series in production order would make almost as little sense. They were not intended to be seen in that order. Episodes were shot well in advance of transmission and so production order was a matter of efficiency and practicality. Most ITC filmed series had mostly stand-alone episodes which had no particular order obvious to the casual viewer and had a much less deterministic script commissioning structure than, say, a soap opera. In soap opera-like serials with a strict overarching story, the storylines have to be centrally generated and arranged by the production company and then the outlines farmed out to writers to be filled in, almost like painting-by-numbers. They are then usually shot in transmission order, not least because there is less time available before transmission as well as continuity being more vital. ITC-filmed series were very different. Typically, apart from any introductory episode, ideas for episodes would be sought from a range of appropriate writers and the most promising ones commissioned. If, say, three scripts were delivered by different writers in the same week which all focused on Thunderbird 3 they might all be shot back-to-back because... well why not? The episodes wouldn't be screened for months and other intervening stories would be filmed in the meantime. Once in production you never want to halt production, ever, and they certainly wouldn't halt production and wait for a Thunderbird 4 script to arrive if there was any other script to hand. Sometimes there was deliberate shooting out of order. In one obvious example, two episodes of The Champions featured the same submarine set but portrayed as different craft. Of course for the sake of cost and efficiency they shot the two episodes back-to-back and screened them months apart. Showing those episodes to an unwary public in production order would be baffling/ludicrous. Because of the script commissioning process, excessive nit-picking over "correct" screening orders also reaches a point of futility. Different writers wouldn't know what other writers were doing. They would have contact with the series Script Editor and an outline of the premise of the series - often called the "bible". The Script Editor's main job was to keep the ever-ravenous Production Monster fed and minor details of continuity could be missed, or ignored if it would make a better story. Don't forget that this was all before home-taping and most viewers might be expected to see an episode once, ever. The idea of individual continuity errors being pored over by people across the world using freeze frame over half a century later would never have entered anyone's head. What complicates the screening order of a series like UFO, even ignoring the MGM/Pinewood problem, was that the situation over the series was generally evolving. At the beginning SHADO knew nothing about the aliens but over time they learned more. Logically, the easy attempts to thwart the aliens would be ticked off in order in the early episodes. It's rather like being in a room you want to get out of. You first try the door handle. If that doesn't work you might try knocking and shouting. Eventually you might be forced to try climbing out of the window above a 40 foot drop. But only a madman would try the reverse order. That sort of evolving situation causes problems with a "choosing from the best ideas submitted" system with individual semi-isolated writers and we can see the same arguments over The Prisoner. UFO I think is a unique case where any originally intended order was thrown out of the window by the studio closure. Anderson and Co probably hadn't even definitively decided on a preferred screening order for the already-shot episodes before MGM closed. Had production continued smoothly they might have transposed some later shot episodes to earlier in the run anyway. They probably wouldn't have decided definitively until all episodes were shot or the series started transmitting, whichever came earlier. All the screening order arguments have to be seen in the context of the writing and production methods. Personally, I would generally go with the order that the producers of each series originally intended, if known. If not known, and as a second best, the transmission order for the TV company most closely associated with the production. In the case of ITC that would be ATV. The latter could have been affected by events, which is why I strongly favour the originally-intended order where known.

[@johnclay7644]

interesting.

[@thegamethemovie9605]

Missed opportunity: Random play feature excluded from DVD menus.

[@midpuma513]

Everyone in this comment section seems to remember watching this stuff live… I barely know what a television even is.

[@laxnrc]

Ondemand services is another thing as BritBox is missing Joe 90 and Captain Scarlet episodes despite having episode one

[@AlphanPeter]

I always watch Space1999 in production order

[@fus149hammer5]

A true 1960's attitude on Thunderbirds where three gigantic machines called Crab Loggers rip up a rain forest. Try making that now. Oh in a way they have its called Avatar. Of course the message is different now

[@MephProduction]

im watching stingray on brit box.. am i watching them in the wrong order?

[@andymcduffie5120]

On a totally irrelevant note, I'm 90% sure that at around the 10.25 mark that's my brother Brian's hand standing in for Paul "Captain Scarlett" Metcalf's as he opens the champers.

[@davidsworld5837]

it is just as well you can mess with the order since it really does not matter as long as 1 is always 1 and the last is always the last of the series. I guess there are other tv series that would easy fit into this any order viewing. where a story starts and finishes in the whole of the episode. I did not know it happened and really when watching the episode I really as a kid did not care

[@ivanrodrigues9528]

good

[@mikesilva3868]

💛

[@nordicson2835]

Back when TV was good and not used for indoctrination.

[@johnblack9492]

Nothing personal, but I can’t watch this , the belligerent sounding narration is so off putting. Maybe try a calmer approach?