What is the official sequence of the episodes in the original Star Trek series? I'm interested in the sequence of the story rather than when they were produced or when they aired.
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4Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3…– Silly but TrueJan 9, 2022 at 19:30
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1Would I be right in thinking that you were after the in-universe chronological order of the TOS episodes? If so, the current wording of the question isn't as clear as it could be in my opinion. Depending on what one considers the 'official order' to be, it may not be consistent with the chronological order. Therefore, I'd suggest removing the word 'official' from your question and replacing it with the word 'chronological.' Also, if that is what you were looking for, then the [chronological-order] tag should be added to this question.– LogicDictatesSep 25 at 7:12
11 Answers
I would think that the episode ordering on the official DVDs would be correct. Wikipedia seems to differ, however.
I can't seem to find a good "Official DVD Order" list other than on Netflix, so I'll paste their list below.
Season 1:
- Pilot: The Cage
- The Man Trap
- Charlie X
- Where No Man Has Gone Before
- The Naked Time
- The Enemy Within
- Mudd's Women
- What Are Little Girls Made Of?
- Miri
- Dagger of the Mind
- The Corbomite Maneuver
- The Menagerie: Part 1
- The Menagerie: Part 2
- The Conscience of the King
- Balance of Terror
- Shore Leave
- The Galileo Seven
- The Squire of Gothos
- Arena
- Tomorrow Is Yesterday
- Court Martial
- The Return of the Archons
- Space Seed
- A Taste of Armageddon
- This Side of Paradise
- The Devil in the Dark
- Errand of Mercy
- The Alternative Factor
- The City on the Edge of Forever
- Operation: Annihilate!
Season 2:
- Amok Time
- Who Mourns for Adonais?
- The Changeling
- Mirror, Mirror
- The Apple
- The Doomsday Machine
- Catspaw
- I, Mudd
- Metamorphosis
- Journey to Babel
- Friday's Child
- The Deadly Years
- Obsession
- Wolf in the Fold
- The Trouble with Tribbles
- The Gamesters of Triskelion
- A Piece of the Action
- The Immunity Syndrome
- A Private Little War
- Return to Tomorrow
- Patterns of Force
- By Any Other Name
- The Omega Glory
- The Ultimate Computer
- Bread and Circuses
- Assignment: Earth
Season 3:
- Spock's Brain
- The Enterprise Incident
- The Paradise Syndrome
- And the Children Shall Lead
- Is There In Truth No Beauty?
- Spectre of the Gun
- Day of the Dove
- For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
- The Tholian Web
- Plato's Stepchildren
- Wink of an Eye
- The Empath
- Elaan of Troyius
- Whom Gods Destroy
- Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
- The Mark of Gideon
- That Which Survives
- The Lights of Zetar
- Requiem for Methuselah
- The Way to Eden
- The Cloud Minders
- The Savage Curtain
- All Our Yesterdays
- Turnabout Intruder
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11That's the airing sequence. They are ordered by stardate in various lists, but there are something like 5 episodes that never included a stardate, so they aren't able to be placed in a timeline.– TangoSep 25, 2011 at 14:31
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9@TangoOversway While looking into the Stardate questions, I found a quote from Roddenberry that Stardates always increased from episode to episode, but they didn't air in production order. That's the only reason they appear to jump around. So production order (which gives those episodes without a Stardate a placement) is probably the closest you'll get in-universe. But that's not the list in this answer.– IzkataApr 24, 2012 at 22:47
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3You can see evidence of production order (and to some extent character evolution) in the first few episodes. The uniforms change significantly from the "The Cage" original pilot through "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Charlie X", "Mudd's Women" (in which Spock is referred to as "Vulcanian" rather than "Vulcan"), and Spock takes at least a couple of episodes to settle into his trademark unemotional style. Aug 4, 2014 at 16:07
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3The placement of "Where no man has gone before" is highly questionable, given that it has a largely different crew than the rest of the episodes. I always placed that one between "The Cage" and the rest of the series. Aug 17, 2016 at 20:39
There is no "order of the story" for TOS episodes. TOS was not intended to have an 'arc' like DS9 or Enterprise. Hardly any TV series did so at the time. You can pretty much count on one hand the number of times an episode makes reference to a previous episode, and none of them are important to the plot.
Reading the description of the early years of filming it is clear that the order of episodes was changed for all sorts of reasons other than plot. For example the first episode filmed (after the pilots) was The Corbomite Maneuver, chosen because it was almost all shipboard and meant the production staff would be climbing into the shallow end. It aired well into the first season.
Your only options are the airing date order or the stardate order, which generally corresponds to production order.
There is a comment in The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield quoting Gene Roddenberry as saying that the stardate can be different in different parts of the galaxy, and that explains why a stardate of a later episode can be lower than a previous episode. While this was never followed through, I think it indicates that stardate is not a reliable ordering in the minds of the producers.
If you go by star date, here is a link to a good list. The series was not run in order by star date, which is very confusing.
Star Trek (TOS) by Stardate
Eps | Air Date | PCode | Stardate | Title |
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0. | - PILOT - | 1 | Unknown | "The Cage" |
3. | Sep 22 1966 | 2 | 1312.4 | "Where No Man Has Gone Before"[TOS1] |
6. | Oct 13 1966 | 4 | 1329.1 | "Mudd's Women"[TOS1] |
10. | Nov 10 1966 | 3 | 1512.2 | "The Corbomite Maneuver"[TOS1] |
1. | Sep 8 1966 | 6 | 1513.1 | "The Man Trap"[TOS1] |
2. | Sep 15 1966 | 8 | 1533.6 | "Charlie X"[TOS1] |
5. | Oct 6 1966 | 5 | 1672.1 | "The Enemy Within"[TOS1] |
4. | Sep 29 1966 | 7 | 1704.2 | "The Naked Time"[TOS1] |
14. | Dec 15 1966 | 9 | 1709.1 | "Balance of Terror"[TOS1] |
17. | Jan 12 1967 | 18 | 2124.5 | "The Squire of Gothos"[TOS1] |
7. | Oct 20 1966 | 10 | 2712.4 | "What are Little Girls Made Of?"[TOS1] |
8. | Oct 27 1966 | 12 | 2713.5 | "Miri"[TOS1] |
9. | Nov 3 1966 | 11 | 2715.1 | "Dagger of the Mind"[TOS1] |
13. | Dec 8 1966 | 13 | 2817.6 | "The Conscience of the King"[TOS1] |
16. | Jan 5 1967 | 14 | 2821.5 | "The Galileo Seven"[TOS1] |
20. | Feb 2 1967 | 15 | 2947.3 | "Court Martial"[TOS1] |
11. | Nov 17 1966 | 16 | 3012.4 | "The Menagerie, Pt. I"[TOS1] |
12. | Nov 24 1966 | 16 | 3013.1 | "The Menagerie, Pt. II"[TOS1] |
36. | Oct 27 1967 | 30 | 3018.2 | "Catspaw"[TOS2] |
15. | Dec 29 1966 | 17 | 3025.3 | "Shore Leave"[TOS1] |
18. | Jan 19 1967 | 19 | 3045.6 | "Arena"[TOS1] |
27. | Mar 23 1967 | 20 | 3087.6 | "The Alternative Factor"[TOS1] |
19. | Jan 26 1967 | 21 | 3113.2 | "Tomorrow is Yesterday"[TOS1] |
22. | Feb 16 1967 | 24 | 3141.9 | "Space Seed"[TOS1] |
21. | Feb 9 1967 | 22 | 3156.2 | "The Return of the Archons"[TOS1] |
23. | Feb 23 1967 | 23 | 3192.1 | "A Taste of Armageddon"[TOS1] |
25. | Mar 9 1967 | 26 | 3196.1 | "The Devil in the Dark"[TOS1] |
26. | Mar 16 1967 | 27 | 3198.4 | "Errand of Mercy"[TOS1] |
45. | Jan 5 1968 | 46 | 3211.7 | "The Gamesters of Triskelion"[TOS2] |
38. | Nov 10 1967 | 31 | 3219.4 | "Metamorphosis"[TOS2] |
28. | Apr 6 1967 | 28 | 3134.0 | "The City on the Edge of Forever"[TOS1] |
29. | Apr 13 1967 | 29 | 3287.2 | "Operation - Annihilate!"[TOS1] |
33. | Oct 6 1967 | 39 | Unknown | "Mirror, Mirror"[TOS2] |
30. | Sep 15 1967 | 34 | 3372.7 | "Amok Time"[TOS2] |
24. | Mar 2 1967 | 25 | 3417.3 | "This Side of Paradise"[TOS1] |
32. | Sep 29 1967 | 37 | 3451.9 | "The Changeling"[TOS2] |
31. | Sep 22 1967 | 33 | 3468.1 | "Who Mourns for Adonais?"[TOS2] |
41. | Dec 8 1967 | 40 | 3478.2 | "The Deadly Years"[TOS2] |
40. | Dec 1 1967 | 32 | 3497.2 | "Friday's Child"[TOS2] |
43. | Dec 22 1967 | 36 | 3614.9 | "Wolf in the Fold"[TOS2] |
42. | Dec 15 1967 | 47 | 3619.2 | "Obsession"[TOS2] |
34. | Oct 13 1967 | 38 | 3715.0 | "The Apple"[TOS2] |
39. | Nov 17 1967 | 44 | 3842.3 | "Journey to Babel"[TOS2] |
54. | Mar 15 1968 | 43 | 4040.7 | "Bread and Circuses"[TOS2] |
35. | Oct 20 1967 | 35 | 4202.9 | "The Doomsday Machine"[TOS2] |
48. | Feb 2 1968 | 45 | 4211.4 | "A Private Little War"[TOS2] |
46. | Jan 12 1968 | 49 | 4598.0 | "A Piece of the Action"[TOS2] |
47. | Jan 19 1968 | 48 | 4307.1 | "The Immunity Syndrome"[TOS2] |
68. | Dec 20 1968 | 57 | 4372.5 | "Elaan of Troyius"[TOS3] |
50. | Feb 16 1968 | 52 | Unknown | "Patterns of Force"[TOS2] |
61. | Oct 25 1968 | 56 | 4385.3 | "Spectre of the Gun"[TOS3] |
52. | Mar 1 1968 | 54 | Unknown | "The Omega Glory"[TOS2] |
37. | Nov 3 1967 | 41 | 4513.3 | "I, Mudd"[TOS2] |
44. | Dec 29 1967 | 42 | 4523.3 | "The Trouble with Tribbles"[TOS2] |
55. | Mar 29 1968 | 55 | Unknown | "Assignment: Earth"[TOS2] |
51. | Feb 23 1968 | 50 | 4657.5 | "By Any Other Name"[TOS2] |
53. | Mar 6 1968 | 53 | 4729.4 | "The Ultimate Computer"[TOS2] |
49. | Feb 9 1968 | 51 | 4768.3 | "Return to Tomorrow"[TOS2] |
58. | Oct 4 1968 | 58 | 4842.6 | "The Paradise Syndrome"[TOS3] |
62. | Nov 1 1968 | 66 | Unknown | "Day of the Dove"[TOS3] |
59. | Oct 11 1968 | 60 | 5027.3 | "And The Children Shall Lead"[TOS3] |
57. | Sep 27 1968 | 59 | 5031.3 | "The Enterprise Incident"[TOS3] |
67. | Dec 6 1968 | 63 | 5121.0 | "The Empath"[TOS3] |
71. | Jan 17 1969 | 72 | 5423.4 | "The Mark Of Gideon"[TOS3] |
56. | Sep 20 1968 | 61 | 5431.4 | "Spock's Brain"[TOS3] |
63. | Nov 8 1968 | 65 | 5476.3 | "For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky"[TOS3] |
60. | Oct 18 1968 | 62 | 5630.7 | "Is There In Truth No Beauty?"[TOS3] |
64. | Nov 15 1968 | 64 | 5693.4 | "The Tholian Web"[TOS3] |
72. | Jan 24 1969 | 69 | Unknown | "That Which Survives"[TOS3] |
66. | Nov 29 1968 | 68 | 5710.5 | "Wink of an Eye"[TOS3] |
69. | Jan 3 1969 | 71 | 5718.3 | "Whom Gods Destroy"[TOS3] |
73. | Jan 31 1969 | 73 | 5725.3 | "The Lights of Zetar"[TOS3] |
70. | Jan 10 1969 | 70 | 5730.2 | "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"[TOS3] |
65. | Nov 22 1968 | 67 | 5784.0 | "Plato's Stepchildren"[TOS3] |
76. | Feb 28 1969 | 74 | 5818.4 | "The Cloudminders"[TOS3] |
75. | Feb 21 1969 | 75 | 5832.3 | "The Way to Eden"[TOS3] |
74. | Feb 14 1969 | 76 | 5843.7 | "Requiem for Methuselah"[TOS3] |
77. | Mar 7 1969 | 77 | 5906.4 | "The Savage Curtain"[TOS3] |
79. | Jun 3 1969 | 79 | 5928.5 | "Turnabout Intruder"[TOS3] |
78. | Mar 14 1969 | 78 | 5943.7 | "All Our Yesterdays"[TOS3] |
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The Enterprise's 5-year mission covers 4,631.3 Stardates (5943.7 - 1312.4)? Based on an Earth Day = Star Date (which is, I'm sure, very wrong), that's more than 12-1/2 Earth years. Guess they got a bit carried away.– FreeManJan 13, 2022 at 18:07
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...interesting - even in these episodic series, there are some nods to continuity (e.g. referring to something that happened in a previous episode). I wonder does this follow episode order or stardate order? e.g. are there any references to previous episodes that would have been future stardates?– komodospNov 15, 2022 at 12:56
So the assumption that the stardates coincide with the production order is not entirely correct.
Here is the first season in order of stardate. (However, I do prefer to watch in order of production.)
Episode | Stardate |
---|---|
Where No Man Has Gone Before | 1312.4 - 1313.8 |
Mudd's Women | 1329.8 - 1330.1 |
The Corbomite Maneuver | 1512.2 - 1514.1 |
The Man Trap | 1513.1 - 1513.8 |
Charlie X | 1533.6 - 1535.8 |
The Enemy Within | 1672.1 - 1673.1 |
The Naked Time | 1704.2 - 1704.4 |
Balance of Terror | 1709.2 - 1709.6 |
The Squire of Gothos | 2124.5 - 2126.3 |
What Are Little Girls Made Of? | 2712.4 |
Miri | 2713.5 - 2713.3 |
Dagger of the Mind | 2715.1 - 2715.2 |
The Conscience of the King | 2817.6 - 2819.8 |
The Galileo Seven | 2821.5 - 2823.8 |
Court Martial | 2947.3 - 2950.1 |
The Menagerie, Part I | 3012.4 - 3012.6 |
The Menagerie, Part II | 3013.1 - 3013.2 |
Shore Leave | 3025.3 - 3025.8 |
Arena | 3045.6 - 3046.2 |
The Alternative Factor | 3087.6 - 3088.7 |
Tomorrow is Yesterday | 3113.2 - 3114.1 |
Space Seed | 3141.9 - 3143.3 |
The Return of the Archons | 3156.2 - 3158.7 |
A Taste of Armageddon | 3192.1 - 3193.0 |
The Devil in the Dark | 3196.1 |
Errand of Mercy | 3198.4 - 3201.7 |
Operation -- Annihilate! | 3287.2 - 3289.8 |
This Side of Paradise | 3417.3 - 3417.7 |
The City on the Edge of Forever | Unknown |
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2For comparison, the production order can be found in the "production order" section of the List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes. Jan 26, 2015 at 22:45
Production order
For me, it makes more sense to watch them in production order and ignore any stardate discrepancies. Watching the second pilot after two normal episodes just seems wrong.
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1That is precisely what the question was not asking for. It can make sense to watch them in production order, I agree, but the OP was interested in the official chronological order, which is a different thing.– bitmaskDec 8, 2012 at 17:18
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5I disagree - the user said they weren't asking for production OR airing order, but "story" order. While there aren't any real story arcs in TOS, watching the episodes in production order basically allows you to see the characters (and nerve pinch, mind meld, etc.) develop in the order they did, and there is the occasional mention of something before it happened if you go by air date, though that's mostly minor. For me, production order is MUCH closer to "story order" than airdate order... Jan 17, 2015 at 5:53
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1This is really a comment on the question, rather than an attempt to answer it. Sep 25 at 6:10
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1@galacticninja - Advising the OP the watch the episodes in production order doesn't answer the question unless one also A) includes the production order within the answer and B) makes a case for why the production order should be considered the 'official' order, rather than the airing order, or the in-universe chronological order (if that's different). Sep 25 at 17:19
Gene wanted the show to appear in the order it was filmed, not the order is was aired. This is why he "invented" the star date story about to explain the shows being out of sequence. I remember I was there. Here it the order Gene Roddenberry wanted them to be seen in, Netflix lists them in the order they appeared on TV which is NOT the correct order.
- The Cage (unaired pilot)
- Where No Man Has Gone Before
- The Corbomite Maneuver
- Mudd's Women
- The Enemy Within
- The Man Trap
- The Naked Time
- Charlie X
- Balance of Terror
- What Are Little Girls Made Of?
- Dagger of the Mind
- Miri
- The Conscience of the King
- The Galileo Seven
- Court Martial
- The Menagerie (Parts I and II)
- Shore Leave
- The Squire of Gothos
- Arena
- The Alternative Factor
- Tomorrow is Yesterday
- The Return of the Archons
- A Taste of Armageddon
- Space Seed
- This Side of Paradise
- The Devil in the Dark
- Errand of Mercy
- City on the Edge of Forever
- Operation: Annihilate!
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3Do you have a reference for Roddenberry thinking it was important to show episodes in the order they were filed? He was pretty much in charge at the time. Why didn't he do it? Jan 15, 2014 at 19:24
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3You were there when Gene Roddenbery explained the stardate story? I think that's not what you meant to write. Dec 29, 2014 at 0:51
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1The reason the shows were shown out of sequence was largely due to how long it took to do the special effects. Sometimes it was just because the producers hated an episode so much (Alternative Factor) that they put off airing it as long as they can. Reference Cushman's These Are The Voyages books. All things being equal I'm pretty sure they would have wanted the episodes shown in production order, since there was an evolution of characters and background as the series was being made. I feel production order is much closer to what Roddenberry would have wanted vs. airdate. Jan 25, 2015 at 20:56
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1I recall a TV special hosted by Leonard Nimoy in which he stated that the network chose to air "The Man Trap" first because it featured a "real monster" which probably better aligned with the image that network executives of the time had about science fiction. Jan 1, 2020 at 16:05
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1'This is why he "invented" the star date story about to explain the shows being out of sequence.' - I do not understand this statement. If you want shows to have an obvious ordering, wouldn't using actual dates that viewers and network executives are used to hear and parse be a much more obvious sign than an obscure numbering sequence that is not even explicitly stated (just assumed by common sense) to be strictly chronologically increasing? For what it's worth, I also read somewhere that stardates were introduced at first to avoid placing ST in a specific year, which sounds more fitting. Jan 9, 2022 at 12:19
The original series was produced as episodic stories with no story or character arcs, so they can be viewed in any order.
However, canon evolved somewhat over the series - Starfleet and the Federation were not part of canon for the earliest episodes, nor were many details of Spock's background/ancestry, skills/abilities, or Vulcan characteristics/attributes/society, Federation allies or foes. All these things were incorporated into canon as the series progressed. You'll also notice an evolution in costume and some sets and props as well, again in production order.
Note that for the original series, Stardate is a fairly good proxy for production order and the evolution of canon. As scripts flowed to the studio for production, they were assigned sequential numbers; stardates were derived from these numbers. Script numbers don't completely align with episode production numbers due to various production concerns, but the orderings are very close. Canon revealed through dialog can be observed to evolve almost perfectly with script numbers, but anything visible on-screen would have been introduced or matured in sequence with production number.
As noted in other answers, broadcast order is out-of-sequence with production order for various reasons, none having anything to do with narrative sequence (because there isn't one).
Watch the show in production order to get the feel of how the show evolved, watch in broadcast order to relive the experience of its original audience.
As to narrative arcs, there is really only one episode which contains anything like a callback to earlier episodes - in "Turnabout Intruder", as Kirk (within Lester's body) tries to authenticate himself to Spock.
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1Personally, I would see the evolution/phases of different uniform styles as some sort of a narrative arc of its own, but your mileage may vary. Nov 14, 2022 at 19:39
Production order
Production order is the order I have always found most satisfying, particularly as there were changes to the sets and the costumes in the early episodes, and production order is the only way these are consistent rather than being rolled back and then reinstated.
The first full UK video release was in production order, and it is of great frustration to me that the DVD and Blu-ray releases have been in broadcast order.
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Quoting from @bitmask's comment on another answer "That is precisely what the question was not asking for. It can make sense to watch them in production order, I agree, but the OP was interested in the official chronological order, which is a different thing."– MattJan 15, 2014 at 19:13
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4OP said "I'm interested in the sequence of the story rather than when they were produced or when they aired." Production date comes much closer to any intended "sequence of the story" than airdate does. Jan 25, 2015 at 21:00
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1This is really a comment on the question, rather than an attempt to answer it. Sep 25 at 6:13
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1@galacticninja - Advising the OP the watch the episodes in production order doesn't answer the question unless one also A) includes the production order within the answer and B) makes a case for why the production order should be considered the 'official' order, rather than the airing order, or the in-universe chronological order (if that's different). Sep 25 at 17:22
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@LogicDictates I believe it's a partial answer if that's the case, so the answer shouldn't be deleted. I also second Fred Hamilton's comment above. Sep 26 at 3:26
In the 2009 CBS remastered DVD edition - 3 season box set, the episodes appear in the release date sequence with the original un-aired Pilot "The Cage" feathered at the end on the 3rd disk, with commentary by Gene. However, on each DVD main menu episodes are identified with a single number. This is separate from the star date and runs out of sequence with the release dates. These numbers correspond to the production sequence listed above and seem to make the most sense in the evolution of characters and the ST universe.
Michael and Denise Okuda, in the official (but not necessarily canonical or accurate) Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future 1993 give the TOS episodes in production order. so one could say that if you go by the DVD release the airdate order is official for TOS, and if you go by Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future the production order is official for TOS.
If someone has a list of episodes ranked in order of quality they can watch or show them in quality order starting with the best to get someone to like the series, or start with the worst and work up in quality knowing that the episodes will get better and better.
I guess someone could also plan to watch the episodes in alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order.
As a general rule most Star Trek TV shows can be viewed and/or fictionally happen in at least four different logical orders:
Airdate order
Production order
Stardate order (some episodes don't have stardates, including all Enterprise episodes, and thus need to be placed rather arbitrarily)
By order of season, and within each season all episodes with stardates ordered in stardate order, and stardateless episodes placed rather arbitrarily. Since there is some overlapping of stardates between seasons, this allows for the first, second, and third seasons of TOS to correspond with the first, second, and third years of the five year mission, for TAS to be the fourth year, and for TOS novels to be the firth year of the five year mission, a popular fanon.
I hope to write a book about Star trek chronology someday, giving three alternate chronologies for readers to choose from.
About stardate order
In one chronology I will put every episode of TOs, TAS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager in stardate order when they have stardates and in the most logical order when they don't. I have a highly original theory about Next Generation era stardates.
As most of us know, during the second or third season and later seasons of TNG the creators managed to produce and air the episodes so that production order, original syndication airdate order, and stardate order are exactly the same for almost all episodes. thus there will be very few problems with putting the majority of all Star Trek episodes and movies in order according to my theory about Next Generation era stardates.
And I intend to extend the Next Generation era stardate system back to the second and first season of TNG, the TOS movies, and TAS and TOS.
But won't there be problems with that, like for example, Tasha Yar being alive in an episode with a later stardate than the one she was killed in?
No, because I believe that highly episodic TV shows should be thought of as being about the adventures that could happen to the characters and thus that do happen to them in various alternate universes. Thus Tasha Yar can be alive in one universe after being killed in a totally different alternate universe. And thus TOS episodes with stardates too close together or even overlapping can and must happen in alternate universes to each other.
TAS episodes can have stardates overlapping with first, second, and third season episodes because they happen in alternate universes where the Enterprise has different equipment and some different officers than in the live action episodes. Animated episodes that seem like sequels to live action episodes are actually sequels to somewhat similar but not identical series of events happening in alternate universes to those live action episodes.
About production order
My second chronology would almost always put the episodes in production order - except in cases like "Unification Part II" being produced before "Unification Part I".
So from the second or third season of TNG on the episodes would be in the same order as in the first chronology. But in the first and possibly second season of TNG and in the TOS movies, TOS, and TAs, the productions will be in production order and a different stardate system will be used to explain how stardates can go up and down and up and down again and to predict and calculate when in Earth time a particular statedate can be found.
About airdate order
My third chronology would be like the second in having the episodes mostly in airdate order which will be mostly identical with production and stardate order for everything after the second or third season of TBG, and will have a different stardate system for everything before, explaining and calculating how they go up and down and up and down again.
What about the way the sets and costumes and characters gradually changed, especially in the first few episodes produced? Since the episodes mostly all happen in alternate universes, they can happen in alternate universes where old style uniforms are replaced by new style uniforms, for example, at different times.
So basically there is no real official order for TOS episodes but production order is probably closest, and I hope to produce three separate chronological systems to make production order, stardate order, and airdate order make equal sense.
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"But won't there be problems with that, like for example, tasha Yar being alive in an episode ith a later stardate than the one she was killed in?" - if you assume different episodes to take place in different universes, anyway, I do not see a reason to assume the stardates are computed the same way, or count along the same scale. Jan 9, 2022 at 12:14
There are obvious signs of production differing in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and the others. Even the viewport is more of a cathode ray tube style, as seen in "The Cage. Also, no McCoy, and Sulu is nothing more than a subordinate engineer with math expertise. It makes sense to watch them on the date they were made, not the date they "aired" on TV.
I have no idea why they put the full production ones above the second pilot, nor why anyone would want to watch them in that order. Uhura is also wearing yellow in "later" ones, even if they were made before. Despite stardates, the order to watch them is the order they were made and shot, not the date they were released in syndicate. McCoy was introduced in Corbomite Maneuver, and it shows (in subtle ways) that Rand is also gone over in some of the descriptions. This leaves us to believe it meant Kirk describes his new Yeoman, even if she was long since in the show (if you watch in the official release order).
I would recommend watching "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and "The Corbomite Maneuver" BEFORE watching any of the others, if nothing else! This is purely logical from the perspective of how it was laid out, with the "primitive" enterprise in "Where No Man Has Gone Before (akin to Second Pilot) appearing as if early in Kirk's career. The others are purely personal preferences.
I would probably go with the date of filming for all of them. I wish DVDs did not have the fancy overtures and preludes to the "menu screen," which makes it a hassle to transfer DVDs when you want to watch one on a different DVD.
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1Hi, welcome to SF&F. Two things: this has been mentioned in previous answers and other than the look of the show, is there a story reason to use this order?– DavidWJan 9, 2022 at 12:54
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DavidW main story arc they are all self contained anyway, However subtile things and not just "look" subplot elements yes it is!. More enjoyable in order I mentioned.. not the air date order! you don't act "surprised" to see your new Yomen in a later episode when she was in airdate episodes long before! There are other things you may not pick up. Jan 22, 2022 at 3:38