Hi there, just wanted to mention that Women Of The Prehistoric Planet was the 13th & last episode produced & aired for Season One.
Kevin Murphy explained in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide book that the episode retained it’s “104” production number despite being made last. The film’s availablility was delayed by rights issues, so they proceeded with 105 and onwards before returning to it at the end.
This is the only major moment in the show’s history where the production number doesn’t actually represent the order of production.
By production numbers, and eventual broadcast, Season One actually runs: 101-103, 105-113, 104.
So, going by the new numbering, Women of the Prehistoric Planet is actually 034, not 025. With the epiosdes from The Corpse Vanishes through The Black Scorpion being 025-033.
Please, please fix this so no one gets confused when watching Season One all the way through.
As a side-note: I’ve been really enjoying the Virtual Theater, great work so far!
I agree, just watched this episode. They mention Robot Holocaust and The Corpse Vanishes (as The Bride Vanishes) during the viewer mail. This episode should atleast be S1 E11 for those references to make sense.
We know that it was produced last for the season, but just about every major online episode guide (MST3K.info, Wikipedia, MST3K Wiki, etc) goes by the production numbers regardless. It might be an uphill battle to get this changed, given it changes the experiment numbers and corresponding graphics, but I support you.
Maybe someday someone will find a stack of 1989-90 TV Guides that not only have listings for The Comedy Channel but detailed program descriptions too, so we can finally have official air dates.
Whether February 26, 1990 is the date of the taping, or the date of the tape master is unknown, but that’s certainly much later than the the rest of the episodes.
Not to mention the shadowrama is black, instead of green or grey, they didn’t settle on black until 107 The Slime People (the sixth episode taped).
There really isn’t any question about this - Women of the Prehistoric Planet was shot and aired after the other Season 1 episodes. The only question is whether those running the Gizmoplex want to change it.
Season 1 wasn’t exactly continuity-heavy. Would someone running the first season (Something I have yet to do) be jarred in some way by seeing 104 out of sequence?
There are references to previous episodes in it, including letters from a contest they held at the end of Robot Holocaust. I think if it weren’t for the letters segment it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s there and it does screw with the show’s chronology.
But this is only really bothersome if you want to watch the show chronologically, which is a herculean task in of itself and even if you do, it’s easy to just save the episode until last that season and most new viewers just skip the first season anyway.
However, with the new numbering system, production numbers are moot, there’s no reason to keep it erroneously in the fourth slot if we’re using a new numbering system that is chronological, and even includes KTMA. It’s not listed as production 104, it’s listed as “Experiment 025” which it simply isn’t; it’s Experiment 034.
Also, just because we know about this ordering issue doesn’t mean newcomers are.
Why put them through the same confusion if they do decide to watch in order someday?
Why not just correct the ordering officially so no one ever has to explain this again?
Why would anyone skip the first season. The Crawling Eye is a great intro to the show. Plus the rest of the season is good too. Lots of solid 40s, 50s, 60s B-Movies.
I could see someone not starting with the KTMA episodes. Those are a bit light on the jokes.
People who tend to start watching the show tend to watch random episodes and eventually work their way back. The first season then becomes a divisive point with its sparse riffing, lack of polish, and lack of Kevin Murphy as Servo. I’ve been a fan for decades and I’ve seen many fans claim “I don’t watch anything before season 2.” I’ve seen them do series rewatches and skip it entirely.
This is not my personal feelings on the season, because I have a lot of appreciation fo it, this is just my observations and honestly they’re not anything new.
There seem to be a lot of people who aren’t interested in anything before season 8 except maybe Manos and Mitchell. I think they’re missing out on a huge amount of fun.
Again, a supposed lack of the majority watching Season 1 isn’t an excuse to the leave an episode way out of order, especially in a brand new numbering system that should be free of the shackles of a single misguided production number slip-up in 1990.
It doesn’t matter if, or if not, people watch the episodes, this is the offical home of MST3K now, not some third-party distributor with their own rules. If we’re going to have a neat new numbering system for the episodes, this is the perfect place to correct a 32-year old mistake and put “104” in it’s intended Season 1 Finale place as Experiment 034.
Call me a “Who is Merritt Stone?” type right now, but to quote a grass-filled live Rifftrax: “The details matter, dammit!”
