Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers

Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers was the first of three serials produced by Universal Studios featuring Buster Crabbe as comic strip hero Flash Gordon. The serial was comprised of thirteen episodes with each coming in at just under twenty minutes long and follows Crabbe as the titular hero along with his companions Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) and Doctor Alexis Zarkov (Frank Shannon) as they journey to the planet Mongo and do battle with the forces of the evil Emperor Ming (Charles B. Middleton).

The serial was originally simply titled Flash Gordon, but it was renamed Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers several years later to differentiate it from the 1954 Flash Gordon television series. The production had a fairly big budget for the time, with various sources reporting that it cost between $350,000 and $1,000,000 to make. For comparison purposes, the 1939 movie Wizard of Oz had a budget $2,000,000. The serial was the first "science fiction" serial to be made, and was intended to bring adult viewers back to watching serials, which seems odd since science fiction became equated with "kid viewing" by the 1950s.

Despite its relatively large budget, the serial cut costs by reusing lots of sets and footage from other movies, resulting in a pastiche effect. Even so, the serial was placed in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress on the basis of being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The serial was later recut into a much shorter feature film that bore the various titles of Rocket Ship, Spaceship to the Unknown, and Atomic Rocketship.

Episode 1: The Planet of Peril
Episode 2: The Tunnel of Terror
Episode 3: Captured by Shark Men
Episode 4: Battling the Sea Beast
Episode 5: The Destroying Ray
Episode 6: Flaming Torture
Episode 7: Shattering Doom
Episode 8: Tournament of Death
Episode 9: Fighting the Fire Dragon
Episode 10: The Unseen Peril
Episode 11: In the Claws of the Tigron
Episode 12: Trapped in the Turret
Episode 13: Rocketing to Earth

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Firefly

Firefly was a short lived, but brilliant science fiction series created by Joss Weedon that originally aired on the Fox network in 2002. After Fox had aired the episodes out of their intended order, preempted the show several times, and assigned it to the Friday night "death slot", the show predictably had low ratings. Instead of identifying their grossly incompetent mishandling of the property as the cause, the network executives at Fox made an decision that can only be described as "incredibly moronic" and decided the product was the problem and cancelled the show after only eleven episodes had aired. The final three episodes, which had been filmed but not aired by Fox, were shown by the SciFi channel in 2003. Weedon was able to bring some closure to the series with the feature movie Serenity, which was released in 2005 and tied up a number of loose threads from the original show, although in a fairly rushed and somewhat unsatisfying manner.

Episode 1: Serenity
Episode 2: The Train Job
Episode 3: Bushwhacked
Episode 4: Shindig
Episode 5: Safe
Episode 6: Our Mrs. Reynolds
Episode 7: Jaynestown
Episode 8: Out of Gas
Episode 9: Ariel
Episode 10: War Stories
Episode 11: Trash
Episode 12: The Message
Episode 13: Heart of Gold
Episode 14: Objects in Space

Serenity

Original FOX network airdate order:
Episode 1: The Train Job
Episode 2: Bushwhacked
Episode 3: Our Mrs. Reynolds
Episode 4: Jaynestown
Episode 5: Out of Gas
Episode 6: Shindig
Episode 7: Safe
Episode 8: Ariel
Episode 9: War Stories
Episode 10: Objects in Space
Episode 11: Serenity

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Babylon 5, Season 1: Signs & Portents

The Babylon 5 series was conceived and structured from the beginning as a novel for television that would take place over five seasons of broadcast episodes. There would be a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a few large ongoing stories woven through from the start to the finish. Season one, designated Signs & Portents, is the opening section of the novel, which means that it is mostly dedicated to establishing characters, filling out the elements of the fictional future it is set in, and laying the foundation for the overarching plot lines to come later. As such, it is the season of the show that has the most "stand alone" episodes, and the season that is most like a standard television show in which the characters, for the most part, return to the status quo ante by the end of each episode. This is also the season for which Straczynski wrote the least number of episodes.

This is not to say that things do not change over the course of the season. Characters develop, interact, establish relationships with one another, governments take action, and the consequences of those decisions made by characters and governments actually have an impact that affects the setting (very much so in the final episode of the season). This is also the only season in which Michael O'Hare, as Jeffrey Sinclair, is a series regular. Although O'Hare has been criticized for being stiff in the role, I always found him to carry the role fairly well - a character who is the commander of a sizable space station and also charged with ambassadorial responsibilities is someone who I would hope would be reserved and thoughtful.

The first episode of the third season aired in January 1994 almost a full year after The Gathering (read review) was originally shown. In the interim, several changes were made. Most notably, Tamlyn Tomita (as Laurel Takashima), Johnny Sekka (as Dr. Bejhamin Kyle), and Patricia Tallman (as Lyta Alexander) left the cast and were replaced by Claudia Christian (as Susan Ivanova), Richard Biggs (as Dr. Stephen Franklin), and Andrea Thompson (as Talia Winters). The design for the Minbari race was radically changed, and the design of both the Narn and the Centauri was changed to a lesser degree. The station sets were altered as well, generally making the station brighter and more open. Save for the replacement of Patricia Tallman, all of the changes generally improved the show.

The first season has several important plot elements that run through it. The most obvious one is the one that was referenced directly in The Gathering: what happened during Commander Sinclair's missing twenty-four hours, and why did the Minbari surrender after the Battle of the Line. But during the season we also see the ongoing conflict between the Narn and the Centauri, increasing unrest on Earth, the deepening mystery of the Vorlons, and the first hints of larger forces at work in the galaxy.

Episode 1: Midnight on the Firing Line
Episode 2: Soul Hunter
Episode 3: Born to the Purple
Episode 4: Infection
Episode 5: The Parliament of Dreams
Episode 6: Mind War
Episode 7: The War Prayer
Episode 8: And the Sky Full of Stars
Episode 9: Deathwalker
Episode 10: Believers
Episode 11: Survivors
Episode 12: By Any Means Necessary
Episode 13: Signs and Portents
Episode 14: Grail
Episode 15: Eyes
Episode 16: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 17: A Voice in the Wilderness (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 18: Babylon Squared
Episode 19: The Quality of Mercy
Episode 20: TKO
Episode 21: Legacies
Episode 22: Chrysalis

Season Two: The Coming of Shadows

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Babylon 5, Season 2: The Coming of Shadows

Episode 1: Points of Departure
Episode 2: Revelations
Episode 3: The Geometry of Shadows
Episode 4: A Distant Star
Episode 5: The Long Dark
Episode 6: A Spider in the Web
Episode 7: A Race Through Dark Places
Episode 8: Soul Mates
Episode 9: The Coming of Shadows
Episode 10: GROPOS
Episode 11: All Alone in the Night
Episode 12: Acts of Sacrifice
Episode 13: Hunter, Prey
Episode 14: There All the Honor Lies
Episode 15: And Now for a Word
Episode 16: Knives
Episode 17: In the Shadow of Zha'ha'dum
Episode 18: Confessions and Lamentations
Episode 19: Divided Loyalties
Episode 20: The Long, Twilight Struggle
Episode 21: Comes the Inquisitor
Episode 22: The Fall of Night

Season One: Signs & Portents
Season Three: Point of No Return

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Babylon 5, Season 3: Point of No Return

Episode 1: Matters of Honor
Episode 2: Convictions
Episode 3: A Day in the Strife
Episode 4: Passing Through Gethsemane
Episode 5: Voices of Authority
Episode 6: Dust to Dust
Episode 7: Exogenesis
Episode 8: Messages from Earth (Part 1 of 3)
Episode 9: Point of No Return (Part 2 of 3)
Episode 10: Severed Dreams (Part 3 of 3)
Episode 11: Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Episode 12: A Late Delivery from Avalon
Episode 13: Sic Transit Vir
Episode 14: Ship of Tears
Episode 15: Interludes and Examinations
Episode 16: Walkabout
Episode 17: War Without End (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 18: War Without End (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 19: Grey 17 Is Missing
Episode 20: And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place
Episode 21: Shadow Dancing
Episode 22: Zha'ha'dum

Season Two: The Coming of Shadows
Season Four: No Surrender, No Retreat

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Babylon 5, Season 4: No Surrender, No Retreat

Episode 1: The Hour of the Wolf
Episode 2: Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?
Episode 3: The Summoning
Episode 4: Falling Towards Apotheosis
Episode 5: The Long Night
Episode 6: Into the Fire
Episode 7: Epiphanies
Episode 8: The Illusion of Truth

Note: The movie Thirdspace fits in the story arc here.

Episode 9: Atonement
Episode 10: Racing Mars
Episode 11: Lines of Communication
Episode 12: Conflicts of Interest
Episode 13: Rumors, Bargains and Lies
Episode 14: Moments of Transition
Episode 15: No Surrender, No Retreat
Episode 16: The Exercise of Vital Powers
Episode 17: The Face of the Enemy
Episode 18: Intersections in Real Time
Episode 19: Between the Darkness and the Light
Episode 20: Endgame
Episode 21: Rising Star
Episode 22: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

Season Three: Point of No Return
Season Five: The Wheel of Fire

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Babylon 5, Season 5: The Wheel of Fire

Episode 1: No Compromises
Episode 2: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
Episode 3: The Paragon of Animals
Episode 4: A View from the Gallery
Episode 5: Learning Curve
Episode 6: Strange Relations
Episode 7: Secrets of the Soul
Episode 8: In the Kingdom of the Blind
Episode 9: A Tragedy of Telepaths
Episode 10: Phoenix Rising
Episode 11: The Ragged Edge
Episode 12: Day of the Dead
Episode 13: The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father
Episode 14: Meditations on the Abyss
Episode 15: Darkness Ascending
Episode 16: And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
Episode 17: Movements of Fire and Shadow (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 18: The Fall of Centauri Prime (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 19: The Wheel of Fire
Episode 20: Objects in Motion
Episode 21: Objects at Rest

Note: The movie River of Souls fits in the story arc here.
Note: The movie Legend of the Rangers fits in the story arc here.

Note: The entire Crusade series fits in the story arc here.

Note: The movie The Lost Tales fits in the story arc here.

Episode 22: Sleeping in the Light

Season Four: No Surrender, No Retreat

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Crusade

One of the side effects of the troubles Crusade went through in production is that it was never aired in its "proper" order, and it still really isn't clear what the proper order for the shows should be. However, the "official" chronological ordering that J. Michael Straczynski has endorsed for the series is:

Pilot: A Call to Arms
Episode 1: War Zone
Episode 2: The Long Road
Episode 3: Ruling From the Tomb
Episode 4: Appearances and Other Deceits
Episode 5: The Memory of War
Episode 6: The Needs of Earth
Episode 7: Racing the Night
Episode 8: Visitors From Down the Street
Episode 9: Each Night I Dream of Home
Episode 10: The Path of Sorrows
Episode 11: Patterns of the Soul
Episode 12: The Well of Forever
Episode 13: The Rules of the Game

When they originally aired, the episodes were shown in an almost random order, mostly at the behest of TNT executives who seem to have been actively trying to kill the show. The original order that the shows were aired is as follows:

Pilot: A Call to Arms
Episode 1: War Zone
Episode 2: The Long Road
Episode 3: The Well of Forever
Episode 4: The Path of Sorrows
Episode 5: Patterns of the Soul
Episode 6: Ruling from the Tomb
Episode 7: The Rules of the Game
Episode 8: Appearances and Other Deceits
Episode 9: Racing the Night
Episode 10: The Memory of War
Episode 11: The Needs of Earth
Episode 12: Visitors from Down the Street
Episode 13: Each Night I Dream of Home

Finally, for a period of time, when the show ran on the SciFi network (before they renamed their network to sound like a venereal disease), J. Michael Straczynski reordered the shows to a more sensible ordering, although this order was later superseded by the "chronological" order first listed on this page. The order the shows aired on SciFi is as follows:

Pilot: A Call to Arms
Episode 1: Racing the Night
Episode 2: The Needs of Earth
Episode 3: The Memory of War
Episode 4: The Long Road
Episode 5: Visitors from Down the Street
Episode 6: The Well of Forever
Episode 7: Each Night I Dream of Home
Episode 8: Patterns of the Soul
Episode 9: The Path of Sorrows
Episode 10: Ruling from the Tomb
Episode 11: The Rules of the Game
Episode 13: War Zone
Episode 14: Appearances and Other Deceits

In addition, there were three episodes that were written but never filmed:

Episode 14: To the Ends of the Earth
Episode 15: Value Judgments
Episode 16: The End of the Line

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Babylon 5

Created, produced, and mostly written by J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 is my favorite television show of all time. The show ran for five seasons, from 1994 to 1999, although the initial pilot titled The Gathering originally ran more than a year before the first season started. This more or less highlights the struggles that Straczynski faced in getting this show on the air and getting through the entire five year story.

These troubles probably stem from the fact that Babylon 5 was a show that was built using a structure that was new then, and hasn't really been repeated since. The show was conceived, not as an open ended sequence of mostly stand alone unrelated stories featuring the same characters and setting, but rather as a coherent overarching story that would run through the entire series and had a beginning, a middle, and an end planned out from the start. To a network executive used to being called upon to green light generic sitcoms, bland police procedural shows, and crappy medical dramas featuring doctors who kill their patients while they fall in love, the idea of a series constructed essentially as a novel on television must have been as alien as the Pak'ma'ra.

And though some series have made half-hearted attempts to emulate this idea and incorporate an overarching story line into their structure, none have actually done the necessary foundational work to make this actually work. As a result, more recent shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes, though they have something resembling an ongoing story, simply fall apart as the writers fumble about improvising without direction, resulting in extended stories that simply make no sense. In short, Babylon 5 demonstrates that in order to craft a coherent extended story, you pretty much have to know where you are going from the start.

Though the show struggled, and was almost cancelled at the end of the fourth season, it did complete its five year story arc. The show also spawned a lamentably brief spin-off show titled Crusade, which was famously undermined and killed by TNT executives with the brain capacity of rodents. In addition, the show resulted in several made for television movies, a never followed-up upon pilot for a series that was to be titled Legend of the Rangers, a stand alone DVD called The Lost Tales, and a pile of printed spin-off material, including the publication of every script written for the series, a compilation of the thousands of fan questions that J. Michael Straczynski personally answered online, and a number of related novels.

The Gathering

Season One: Signs & Portents
Season Two: The Coming of Shadows
Season Three: Point of No Return
Season Four: No Surrender, No Retreat
Season Five: The Wheel of Fire

In the Beginning
Thirdspace
River of Souls
A Call to Arms

Crusade

Legend of the Rangers
The Lost Tales
No Surrender, No Retreat DVD Suite

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Cathouse

Cathouse is a reality television show featuring the employees and customers at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada located just outside Carson City. I'll make clear here that the Moonlite Bunny Ranch is not near Las Vegas, and is actually pretty much at the other end of the state from Las Vegas. If you don't know where Carson City is, get a map, and find Lake Tahoe or Reno. Carson City is near those two places.

The series grew out of a couple of special documentaries ran by HBO titled Cathouse (2002) and Cathouse: Back in the Saddle (2003). The first eleven episodes ran in 2005, the next six (the set in which in which Brooke Taylor makes her first appearance) ran in 2007, with the episode Cathouse: The Musical airing on January 1^st, 2008. Six "specials" were aired in 2008 and 2009 (it was in these episodes that featured the breakup of Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof and star bunny Brooke Taylor). Starting in December 2010, a set of new episodes was aired.

Dennis Hof has some sort of counting formula that he uses that he says adds up to the current season being season ten of the show. HBO calls the current season the third season of the show. I would call it the fourth (counting the six "specials" from 2008-2009 as their own season).

As some background detail: prostitution is legal in some parts of Nevada. For the record, it is not legal in Las Vegas. Nevada has an enabling statute that allows municipalities that have less than a specified total population to choose to make prostitution legal and regulate it. (The population limit essentially excludes legalizing prostitution in Las Vegas, Reno, and Carson City). Most of the other counties in Nevada permit legal prostitution under a local ordinance. In Lyon County, where the Moonlite Bunny Ranch is located, prostitution is only legal when undertaken by a licensed prostitute under the auspices of a licensed brothel. The licenses are issued by the Lyon County Sheriff's department, and basically require a pretty clean legal history, and the working girls must test negative for sexually transmitted diseases. State law requires all legal prostitutes in Nevada be regularly tested - weekly for most sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV and syphilis - and makes condom use mandatory for all acts of sexual intercourse, including oral sex. The women are designated as "independent contractors" (a legal fiction that doesn't seem to really fit given the reported working conditions at most brothels) and negotiate their own prices. The series shows many of the working girls negotiating with customers, but only on rare occasions does it actually reveal how much a customer is charged.

Episode 1: What Men Don't Know
Episode 2: Anything Goes
Episode 3: Girlfriends
Episode 4: Getting It Up
Episode 5: She's Got Game
Episode 6: For Love or Money
Episode 7: No Sex Please
Episode 8: The Heat Is On
Episode 9: Catty Cats
Episode 10: Big Daddy
Episode 11: The Big "O"
Episode 12: Hot to Trot
Episode 13: Eager Beavers
Episode 14: The Pimpmaster General
Episode 15: Why They Come
Episode 16: Never Too Late to Learn
Episode 17: Superstars
Episode 18: The Musical
Episode 19: Come to the Party
Episode 20: Menage a Trois
Episode 21: What's On the Menu?
Episode 22: Three Ring Circus
Episode 23: Sex, Guys, and Videotapes
Episode 24: The Best of Cathouse
Episode 25: Cat Call
Episode 26: Welcome Aboard

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Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 3

Production Order:
After the second season, NBC was set to cancel Star Trek, but a massive letter writing campaign by the show's fans saved it. To reward the show's loyal fans, the network moved the show to the Friday night "death slot" and served up a season that was mostly crappy episodes.

Episode 1: Spectre of the Gun
Episode 2: Elaan of Troyius
Episode 3: The Paradise Syndrome
Episode 4: The Enterprise Incident
Episode 5: And the Children Shall Lead
Episode 6: Spock's Brain
Episode 7: Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Episode 8: The Empath
Episode 9: The Tholian Web
Episode 10: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Episode 11: Day of the Dove
Episode 12: Plato's Stepchildren
Episode 13: Wink of an Eye
Episode 14: That Which Survives
Episode 15: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Episode 16: Whom Gods Destroy
Episode 17: The Mark of Gideon
Episode 18: The Lights of Zetar
Episode 19: The Cloud Minders
Episode 20: The Way to Eden
Episode 21: Requiem for Methuselah
Episode 22: The Savage Curtain
Episode 23: All Our Yesterdays
Episode 24: Turnabout Intruder

Airdate Order:
The third season of Star Trek simply wasn't very good, and the individual episodes are by and large so poorly thought out that it almost doesn't matter what order you watch them in. That said, the episodes were reordered yet again with the inexplicable decision to place Spock's Brain, widely viewed as one of the absolute worst episodes in the series, as the lead for the season. I am left to wonder if someone removed the brains of network executives, would their decisions be improved?

Episode 1: Spock's Brain
Episode 2: The Enterprise Incident
Episode 3: The Paradise Syndrome
Episode 4: And the Children Shall Lead
Episode 5: Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Episode 6: Spectre of the Gun
Episode 7: Day of the Dove
Episode 8: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Episode 9: The Tholian Web
Episode 10: Plato's Stepchildren
Episode 11: Wink of an Eye
Episode 12: The Empath
Episode 13: Elaan of Troyius
Episode 14: Whom Gods Destroy
Episode 15: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Episode 16: The Mark of Gideon
Episode 17: That Which Survives
Episode 18: The Lights of Zetar
Episode 19: Requiem for Methuselah
Episode 20: The Way to Eden
Episode 21: The Cloud Minders
Episode 22: The Savage Curtain
Episode 23: All Our Yesterdays
Episode 24: Turnabout Intruder

Go to: Season Two

Star Trek: The Original Series     Television Reviews     Home

Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2

Production Order:
This is the order that the season two episodes were produced in. Watching them in this order is not so critical, as by this time the characters and the setting had been pretty well established. However, this is the order that they were clearly intended to be presented in, so this is a better choice than the nonsensical airdate order.

Episode 1: Catspaw
Episode 2: Metamorphosis
Episode 3: Friday's Child
Episode 4: Who Mourns for Adonais?
Episode 5: Amok Time
Episode 6: The Doomsday Machine
Episode 7: Wolf in the Fold
Episode 8: The Changeling
Episode 9: The Apple
Episode 10: Mirror, Mirror
Episode 11: The Deadly Years
Episode 12: I, Mudd
Episode 13: The Trouble With Tribbles
Episode 14: Bread and Circuses
Episode 15: Journey to Babel
Episode 16: A Private Little War
Episode 17: The Gamesters of Triskelion
Episode 18: Obsession
Episode 19: The Immunity Syndrome
Episode 20: A Piece of the Action
Episode 21: By Any Other Name
Episode 22: Return to Tomorrow
Episode 23: Patterns of Force
Episode 24: The Ultimate Computer
Episode 25: The Omega Glory
Episode 26: Assignment: Earth

Airdate Order:
As with season one, not content to let well enough alone, the network decided to air most of the episodes of season two out of order. Sometimes I think network executives do stuff like this just to be able to justify their own existence.

Episode 1: Amok Time
Episode 2: Who Mourns for Adonais?
Episode 3: The Changeling
Episode 4: Mirror, Mirror
Episode 5: The Apple
Episode 6: The Doomsday Machine
Episode 7: Catspaw
Episode 8: I, Mudd
Episode 9: Metamorphosis
Episode 10: Journey to Babel
Episode 11: Friday's Child
Episode 12: The Deadly Years
Episode 13: Obsession
Episode 14: Wolf in the Fold
Episode 15: The Trouble With Tribbles
Episode 16: The Gamesters of Triskelion
Episode 17: A Piece of the Action
Episode 18: The Immunity Syndrome
Episode 19: A Private Little War
Episode 20: Return to Tomorrow
Episode 21: Patterns of Force
Episode 22: By Any Other Name
Episode 23: The Omega Glory
Episode 24: The Ultimate Computer
Episode 25: Bread and Circuses
Episode 26: Assignment: Earth

Go to: Season One
Go to: Season Three

Star Trek: The Original Series     Television Reviews     Home

Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1

Production Order:
Viewing the episodes in their original production order is a reasonably sensible arrangement. With the exception of weird inconsistencies that result from the misordered Stardates, the series pretty much makes sense when viewed this way.

Episode 1: Where No Man Has Gone Before
Episode 2: The Corbomite Maneuver
Episode 3: Mudd's Women
Episode 4: The Enemy Within
Episode 5: The Man Trap
Episode 6: The Naked Time
Episode 7: Charlie X
Episode 8: Balance of Terror
Episode 9: What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Episode 10: Dagger of the Mind
Episode 11: Miri
Episode 12: The Conscience of the King
Episode 13: The Galileo Seven
Episode 14: Court Martial
Episode 15: The Menagerie, Part I
Episode 16: The Menagerie, Part II
Episode 17: Shore Leave
Episode 18: The Squire of Gothos
Episode 19: Arena
Episode 20: The Alternative Factor
Episode 21: Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Episode 22: The Return of the Archons
Episode 23: A Taste of Armageddon
Episode 24: Space Seed
Episode 25: This Side of Paradise
Episode 26: The Devil in the Dark
Episode 27: Errand of Mercy
Episode 28: The City on the Edge of Forever
Episode 29: Operation: Annihilate!


Airdate Order:
Though the episodes were produced in an order that made some sense, once network executives got their fingers on them, they were aired in an order that made a mockery of any attempts at series continuity. But this is the order that the episodes are presented on the DVD sets that have been released, so for the sake of completeness, this is how they were shown to the public in 1966.

Episode 1: The Man Trap
Episode 2: Charlie X
Episode 3: Where No Man Has Gone Before
Episode 4: The Naked Time
Episode 5: The Enemy Within
Episode 6: Mudd's Women
Episode 7: What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Episode 8: Miri
Episode 9: Dagger of the Mind
Episode 10: The Corbomite Maneuver
Episode 11: The Menagerie, Part I
Episode 12: The Menagerie, Part II
Episode 13: The Conscience of the King
Episode 14: Balance of Terror
Episode 15: Shore Leave
Episode 16: The Galileo Seven
Episode 17: The Squire of Gothos
Episode 18: Arena
Episode 19: Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Episode 20: Court Martial
Episode 21: The Return of the Archons
Episode 22: Space Seed
Episode 23: A Taste of Armageddon
Episode 24: This Side of Paradise
Episode 25: The Devil in the Dark
Episode 26: Errand of Mercy
Episode 27: The Alternative Factor
Episode 28: The City on the Edge of Forever
Episode 29: Operation: Annihilate!

Go to: Season Two

Star Trek: The Original Series     Television Reviews     Home

Star Trek: The Original Series

First aired in 1966, the original Star Trek series has spawned five spin-off series (The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise) as well as eleven movies. That such a long-running and successful franchise would have struggled to get on the air as much as it did - with its original pilot The Cage rejected by the network, a forced retooling of the second pilot Where No Man Has Gone Before, the episodes aired weirdly out of order, the near cancellation after the second season, the show's move to the Friday night "death slot" - is perplexing. certainly no one would have predicted in 1966, when the first episode The Man Trap aired, that in 2011 it would be one of the most profitable properties in television history and the twelfth feature film of the franchise would be in the works.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

With these words, James T. Kirk opened almost every episode of the original series, a statement of purpose that announced a very John W. Campbell influenced vision of the future - that humanity would strike out into the unknown and through a dint of the good old American can-do attitude, conquer it. In many ways it is this symbolic optimism that I think accounts for the enduring popularity of the series. Despite the fact that many of the early episodes had a fairly dark tone to them - for example, in the intended pilot episode Kirk is forced to kill one of his oldest friends - the vision of the future is essentially one in which human courage and ingenuity can meet and master the challenges of the galaxy. Though it only ran for three seasons from 1966 through 1969, the influence of this franchise is almost immeasurable.

Although it is an unusual way to arrange the episodes, because it has the effect of mixing the various seasons together, I am watching and reviewing the episodes of the series in Stardate order. The only real question was what to do with the five episodes - Mirror Mirror, The Omega Glory, Assignment: Earth, Day of the Dove, and That Which Survives - that have no specified Stardate. In those cases I affixed a Stardate to them that placed the episodes in question in the same overall place that they would have appeared in had the episodes been arranged in production order. For anyone who wants to preserve the integrity of the three seasons, I have included season listings of the episodes, arranged in both airdate and production order.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Stardate 1312.4 Where No Man Has Gone Before
Stardate 1329.8 Mudd's Women
Stardate 1512.2 The Corbomite Maneuver
Stardate 1513.1 The Man Trap
Stardate 1533.6 Charlie X
Stardate 1672.1 The Enemy Within
Stardate 1704.2 The Naked Time
Stardate 1709.2 Balance of Terror
Stardate 2124.5 The Squire of Gothos
Stardate 2417.3 This Side of Paradise
Stardate 2534.0 Patterns of Force
Stardate 2657.5 By Any Other Name
Stardate 2712.4 What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Stardate 2713.5 Miri
Stardate 2715.1 Dagger of the Mind
Stardate 2817.6 The Conscience of the King
Stardate 2821.5 The Galileo Seven
Stardate 2947.3 Court Martial
Stardate 3012.4 The Menagerie, Part I
Stardate 3013.1 The Menagerie, Part II
Stardate 3018.2 Catspaw
Stardate 3025.3 Shore Leave
Stardate 3045.6 Arena
Stardate 3087.6 The Alternative Factor
Stardate 3113.2 Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Stardate 3134.0 The City on the Edge of Forever
Stardate 3141.9 Space Seed
Stardate 3156.2 The Return of the Archons
Stardate 3192.1 A Taste of Armageddon
Stardate 3196.1 The Devil in the Dark
Stardate 3198.4 Errand of Mercy
Stardate 3211.7 The Gamesters of Triskelion
Stardate 3219.4 Metamorphosis
Stardate 3287.2 Operation: Annihilate!
Stardate 3372.7 Amok Time
Stardate 3468.1 Who Mourns for Adonais?
Stardate 3478.2 The Deadly Years
Stardate 3497.2 Friday's Child
Stardate 3500.0 Mirror, Mirror
Stardate 3541.9 The Changeling
Stardate 3614.9 Wolf in the Fold
Stardate 3619.2 Obsession
Stardate 3715.3 The Apple
Stardate 3842.3 Journey to Babel
Stardate 4040.7 Bread and Circuses
Stardate 4202.9 The Doomsday Machine
Stardate 4211.4 A Private Little War
Stardate 4307.1 The Immunity Syndrome
Stardate 4372.5 Elaan of Troyius
Stardate 4385.3 Spectre of the Gun
Stardate 4513.3 I, Mudd
Stardate 4523.3 The Trouble With Tribbles
Stardate 4598.0 A Piece of the Action
Stardate 4600.0 The Omega Glory
Stardate 4610.0 Assignment: Earth
Stardate 4729.4 The Ultimate Computer
Stardate 4768.3 Return to Tomorrow
Stardate 4842.6 The Paradise Syndrome
Stardate 5027.3 The Enterprise Incident
Stardate 5029.5 And the Children Shall Lead
Stardate 5121.5 The Empath
Stardate 5423.4 The Mark of Gideon
Stardate 5431.4 Spock's Brain
Stardate 5476.3 For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Stardate 5630.7 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Stardate 5650.0 Day of the Dove
Stardate 5693.2 The Tholian Web
Stardate 5710.5 Wink of an Eye
Stardate 5715.0 That Which Survives
Stardate 5718.3 Whom Gods Destroy
Stardate 5725.3 The Lights of Zetar
Stardate 5730.2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Stardate 5784.2 Plato's Stepchildren
Stardate 5818.4 The Cloud Minders
Stardate 5832.3 The Way to Eden
Stardate 5843.7 Requiem for Methuselah
Stardate 5906.4 The Savage Curtain
Stardate 5928.5 Turnabout Intruder
Stardate 5943.7 All Our Yesterdays

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Farscape, Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 2: What Was Lost: Sacrifice (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 3: What Was Lost: Resurrection (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendored Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Perfect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealized Reality (Part 1 of 3)
Episode 12: Kansas (Part 2 of 3)
Episode 13: Terra Firma (Part 3 of 3)
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction (Part 1 of 3)
Episode 20: We're So Screwed: Hot to Katratzi (Part 2 of 3)
Episode 21: We're So Screwed: La Bomba (Part 3 of 3)
Episode 22: Bad Timing

Go to: Season Three

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Farscape, Season Three

Episode 1: Season of Death (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds: Could'a, Should'a, Would'a (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds: Wait for the Wheel (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities: Daedalus Demands (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities: Icarus Abides (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 22: Dog with Two Bones (Part 1 of 2)

Go to: Season Two
Go to: Season Four

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Farscape, Season Two

Episode 1: Mind the Baby (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: The Way We Weren't
Episode 6: Picture if You Will
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess: A Kiss is but a Kiss (Part 1 of 3)
Episode 12: Look at the Princess: I Do, I Think (Part 2 of 3)
Episode 13: Look at the Princess: The Maltese Crichton (Part 3 of 3)
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money: A Not So Simple Plan (Part 1 of 3)
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money: With Friends Like These (Part 2 of 3)
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money: Plan B (Part 3 of 3)
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy (Part 1 of 2)

Go to: Season One
Go to: Season Three

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Farscape, Season One

Farscape is one of my favorite television shows of all time. Note that I did not qualify that as "one of my favorite science fiction television shows". No, it was one of my favorite shows ever, only a hair's breadth behind Babylon 5 (which, in my estimation is the best television show ever produced). Farscape was a science fiction series that originally ran from 1999 to 2003. The show was produced in Australia, and most of the cast and crew were Australians, and as a result mostly unfamiliar to the American audience during the show's initial run. The special effects were produced by The Jim Henson Company, leading some people to call it "that show with the Muppets", which is a little like saying that because Disney was involved in the production of the movie Dogma, that should be called "that movie with the animated characters".

The first season establishes the primary characters, focusing pretty heavily on the fish-out-of-water aspect of John Crichton's (Ben Browder) human astronaut stranded in a distant part of the galaxy having to deal with a collection of alien cultures. The season also introduces all of the primary alien characters - primarily Kha D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), Aeryn Soon (Claudia Black), Zhaan (Virginia Hey), Rygel (voiced by Jonathan Hardy), and Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu). The one real weakness of the season is that Chiana (Gigi Edgely) does not appear until episode 15 of the season (after which she becomes a series regular). Once Chiana shows up, the crew of Moya seems to jell and become much more interesting, in large part because it shifts the "character who must be protected" focus away from Crichton at least some of the time.

The other weakness of the season is that the primary long-term antagonist for the season is Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu), who, despite Lani's best efforts, is just not a very scary villain, partially because the motivation for his vendetta against Crichton seems insufficient to persuade a fleet commander to throw away his position and engage in the insane pursuit he undertakes. Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), who is a much more convincing (and much more convincingly motivated) villain doesn't show up until very late in the season. Once both Chiana and Scorpius are in place, the series goes from being merely pretty good to being fantastic. However, even episodes that are mediocre for Farscape are better than most episodes of most other shows.

Episode 1: Premiere
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday, Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory (Part 2 of 2)
Episode 21: Bone to Be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties (Part 1 of 2)

In the first season, several episodes were originally shown out of their intended order. The reasons for doing this are a mystery to me, as they make much of the character interaction through the first several episodes seem schizophrenic at best. In any event, this random reordering ended once That Old Black Magic aired as the eighth episode in the series, and all of the subsequent episodes were aired in the correct order. However, the first seven episodes of the show originally aired in the following order:

Episode 1: Premiere
Episode 2: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 3: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: PK Tech Girl
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday, Again
Episode 7: I, E.T.

Go to: Season Two

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Farscape

Farscape was a science fiction series that ran for four seasons from 1999 to 2003 detailing the adventures of astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) lost in a distant part of the galaxy with a crew of escaped prisoners as his companions on a living ship. It was filmed in Australia, using mostly Australian and Kiwi actors (save for Ben Browder), crew and special effects people, giving it a look and feel different from U.S. based productions. The show was marked by strong character development and relationships between the various inhabitants of the living ship Moya - D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), Chiana (Gigi Edgely), Zhaan (Virginia Hey), and Aeryn Soon (Claudia Black), among others. The show was also fairly unique in that it included two sophisticated and convincingly realistic puppets as regular characters on the show - Rygel (voiced by Jonathan Hardy) and Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu). The show also had some very good long-running story lines, most notably the pursuit of wormhole technology, and some very deliciously evil antagonists - the ruthless Peacekeeper Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), and the aggressive and brutal Scarrans. One further interesting element of the show is that for most of its run, the only human reference point in the series is Crichton, who is stranded amidst an entirely alien culture that knows nothing about Earth or its inhabitants.

The show aired in the United States on the SciFi network, which had a number of negative effects on the show. For some reason the SciFi network executives elected to show the first eight episodes of the show out of order, which resulted in a bunch of weird short-term continuity errors, although once the first season got on track this didn't cause any long-term issues. The SciFi network also aired the show quite erratically, with weeks or months of time between shows in the middle of seasons for no apparent reason.

In a final act of stupidity, after committing to air the show for a fourth and fifth season, the SciFi network made an abrupt about face at the end of the fourth season and decided to cancel the show at the last minute. The SciFi network blamed "falling ratings" to justify the cancellation. However, when one notes that they had abused the series for four seasons by letting it go dark for months at a time, and in the fourth season, had shifted it to a later time slot (switching it with Stargate: SG-1's time slot), and that it got about the same ratings in that time slot as Stargate: SG-1 had gotten in the previous season, the true reality becomes clear: The SciFi network is run by morons who can't understand the basics of cause and effect. It seems quite clear why they changed the network's name to resemble a venereal disease - the executives of the network are as dumb as a sexually transmitted virus. The final episode of the series was the first half of what was intended to be a two-part story that was to be continue in the never filmed fifth season, which meant the final shot of the entire series was a black screen with "to be continued" on it.

Henson Productions scraped up financing and managed to tie up most of the loose ends of the main plot with the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries which aired in 2004. As one might expect, cramming what was intended to be an entire season's worth of plot developments into four hours of television resulted in a fairly rushed and somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. While I am grateful that Henson Productions was able to wrap up the series at all, compressed and truncated resolution just reminds me exactly how asinine and idiotic the people who run the SciFi (excuse me SyFy) network truly are.

Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four

The Peacekeeper Wars

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