Mixed up episodes

[Guest StormBringer]

Finnaly my first post at this forum.

Good to see their is millinnium info around for ppl that have missed the show (like me), to catch up with.

I was more than happy to see that u can still get all the episodes of all the shows on the net .

We'll I have come at a intersection with 2 episodes.

The Judge and Kingdom Come where on one site they are listed as episodes 4 and 6 and the numbers are mlm-4 and mlm-3 whats up with this?

Well no so mixed up anymore did a little checking and figured it out, just them MLM numbers threw me off a little and I was basing the order of shows by that??

[Libby]

Welcome, Stormbringer  

I got a bit confused by the different numbers until I realised it's the difference between airing order and production order.

You might already have noticed that there are a couple of other episodes that were shown out of sequence in Season 1:

110 (Wild and Innocent) aired before 109 (Weeds), and

116 (Covenant) aired before 115 (Walkabout).

I haven't decided what order I should watch the episodes in. Either in airing order, which is how Millennium fans watched the episodes when they first aired, or in production order which is how the producers and writers intended.

I'd love to know what the reasons were for these episodes being aired out of order.

Perhaps Dix has some "behind the scenes" info, hint, hint.  

Libby

[Guest StormBringer]

When I do watch the episodes I believe I will watch them in the order they where aired, their must have been a good reason for them to have gone out of sequence. From what I seen the shows do not  continue from the previous one. Another reason I will follow the airing sequence.

[Guest StormBringer]

You might already have noticed that there are a couple of other episodes that were shown out of sequence in Season 1:

110 (Wild and Innocent) aired before 109 (Weeds), and

116 (Covenant) aired before 115 (Walkabout).

Thanks for the advanced warning I will make note of it

[Guest Dixon]

Why, it's funny you should mention it.  I do, in fact, have some behind-the-scenes info on this very subject.  In fact, I've just posted it to the forum!

The Out-of-Order "Kingdom Come"

There are, actually, a wide number of reasons that episodes were sometimes shown out of the order in which they were prepared.  Most of the adjustments are pure logic.  

In some cases (such as with "The Pest House," shot between "Owls" and "Roosters" but aired before the two-parter) it was more convenient or outright necessary to film an episode with the cast, locations, and production crews available before others in sequence.  It then had to be aired out of order, clearly in this case, lest it interfere with the progression of a two-part episode and the show's ongoing storyline.

In other cases (such as with "The Curse of Frank Black" or "Midnight of the Century" ), an episode was aired to coincide with a holiday and, thus, shown before others that were produced before it.

And, in some cases, such as the "Kingdom Come" example I discuss at length in another thread, there were far more complex machinations at work behind the scenes.

In almost all cases, particularly when a series' order is necessary for its mythology to make sense, the order in which the episodes aired is the proper order in which to view them.  There are notable exceptions from other shows, but production schedules are ruled by various concerns relating to shooting the episode in the most practical and affordable manner.  They are sometimes shot out of order and later aired in a reorganized fashion, based on the network's schedule.  After a series has been shown it is traditional to recognize the original episode airdates as the means to organize them.

[Libby]

Thanks for the info, Dix, and for the longer explanation about "Kingdom Come". I've always listed MM eps in airing order but have wondered why this isn't the same as production order. Of course, I have carefully labelled all my SVCDs in production order, so I'll just have to remember to watch "Roosters" immediately after "Owls", though somehow I don't think that'll be too difficult to remember. ;)

I do like the behind-the-scenes info. With the few other shows I watch, I'm quite content just to watch the episodes, but with Ten-Thirteen shows, there is so much involved in the making of them that how they managed to do what they did is a fascinating story in its own right. Yet another reason for wanting the DVDs - for the commentaries.

Libby

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

I heard that Kingdom Come was moved back because a Bishop, I think in Los Angeles, had recently died, and out of respect, that episode was switched with Dead Letters.

With X-Files, I believe "Unusual Suspects" was the first episode in production order for season 5, because the regulars were still with the movie at that time, whereas in "Real-X-Files-Time" Redux 1 comes seconds after Gethsamane.

In the second series of Doctor Who, the season finale was filmed midaw through the season, so they didn't have to re-lubricate all those cybermen costumes!

Going father back into the past, when Doctor Who would introduce a new character and sometimes a new Doctor, they would have the first aired epiode be the second of third one filmed, so that the actor or actress would be better worked in for their introductory episode. This happened with both Peter Davison and Matthew Waterhouse back in the 1980s.

Sometimes it's the producer's preference to just save a few bucks (or quid!) for the show.