Eva's been watching the new Duck Tales

[conuly]

Which, tangent, reminds me that the other Disney Afternoon shows, especially Darkwing Duck as it's in the same universe, are all ripe for reboots as well. But I digress.

We were talking about Duck Tales and about how that sort of show had no continuity in the 90s at all, and how in general arc based shows and real continuity only started going mainstream around that time. Previously, most shows assumed that viewers wouldn't watch every episode, and if they did they couldn't be trusted to remember what had happened before and whether or not it was important.

And this put a thought in my head but I don't have the data to know if I'm right or not. Is it the case that a. when a show starts off with a recap, "previously on whatever", it's shorter than it used to be and b. less likely to talk about events of the exact previous episode instead of stuff from half a season ago or more? Or am I completely wrong? Has anybody been keeping track of this?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I think Supernatural rarely mentions the most recent episode in an episode recap, but also I haven't seen a single episode since S9 was airing and I understand they just wrapped filming on the S15 aka series finale and I wasn't exactly tracking anyway. I don't know about any other shows, bc all the other shows I can think of where I remember there being recaps, the order I watched in had way more to do with when I happened to be in the room when Mom was watching than with any sort of plot.

Miraculous Ladybug has no recaps, fortunately for the fandom's sanity. S3 chronological order is production code order. S1 and S2 are theoretically watchable in any order, reportedly because the networks wanted something like Spongebob (which has not really got continuity), but this theory—well, it's more of a disproved hypothesis; we just aren't entirely certain of what the chronological order is.

[conuly]

How weird is the order of season one, then?

[alexseanchai]

let me illustrate with selected S1 episodes in official airing orders:

US Netflix:
01 The Bubbler
02 Mr. Pigeon
03 Stormy Weather
04 Timebreaker
14 Princess Fragrance
15-16 Origins

France TFOU:
01 Stormy Weather
02 The Bubbler
05 Timebreaker
06 Mr. Pigeon
22 Princess Fragrance
25-26 Origins

China:
01 Stormy Weather
04 Princess Fragrance
06 Mr. Pigeon
09 The Bubbler
16 Timebreaker
22-23 Origins

(chronologically, the Origins two-part is unambiguously the earliest episodes, and in terms of best first-watch order, in my opinion the place for Origins is after all the other S1 episodes and before all the S2 episodes except the Christmas special.)

[conuly]

That's, um... wow.

[alexseanchai]

p much!

and the Australia order has "Pixelator" almost last in S1 and "Guitar Villain" midseason, when Marinette designs for Jagged in "Pixelator" a pair of over-the-top sunglasses that Jagged is wearing in "Guitar Villain" to illustrate why he is commissioning Marinette to design something else

[alexseanchai]

[meta] time flies like an arrow (or, causality is not an oxymoron) (2532 words) by AlexSeanchai
Chapters: 2/3
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Meta, Nonfiction
Summary:

…fruit flies like a banana.

A suggested chronological viewing order for Miraculous Ladybug canon, with reasoning and with an attempt to sort out which references to calendar dates and/or to how much time passes between canonical events make sense and which one must choose between.

This is currently limited to the episodes proper; deuterocanon such as the Miraculous Secrets webisodes may later be added.

[conuly]

Okay, so two questions.

1. What about the birthday episode which also appears to be listed as its own series and

2. How do they afford that house with an enormous bedroom and private balcony for Marinette with what appears to be a lovely view of Notre Dame?

[alexseanchai]

the birthday episode is not an episode, it is like three minutes of clips and music

Marinette doesn't live in a house, she lives in an apartment above the bakery her parents own—not that that necessarily answers the finances question

but I am not sure the Notre Dame is always in that place, either (and I'm only talking about episodes aired before it burned, at that); I admit I haven't been paying that much attention to the Notre Dame, but the Eiffel Tower is definitely hopping all over the map: some shots it's behind the school and some shots it's not, some shots it's behind the Agreste Mansion and some shots it's not… (the mansion might actually canonically have been financed with self-centered use of magic via making Adrien's father's fashion enterprise make bank, though also Adrien's mother seems to have come from money, so)

[conuly]

Marinette doesn't live in a house, she lives in an apartment above the bakery her parents own—not that that necessarily answers the finances question

Not really. I admit I don't know much about the Paris real estate market, but with or without the view that place ought to be worth a big rent.

[elayna]

For the shows I watch, for b., definitely yes. The recaps most often cover events from several seasons and involve plot arcs that have been slowly building.

Haven’t given much thought to a., though could be. I have recently watched a few things from my childhood (the 70s) and the ability to edit and tell a story quickly has really improved. Presenting information in a condensed fashion is definitely a skill.

[conuly]

Yes, older shows sometimes take forever to get to the point - and they only have one or two plots at a time!

Not just shows, movies. A historical YA book I read has a film buff main character, so out of curiosity I watched one of the films he raves about, one of the most popular English films of that year (it takes place in England, 1949) and it's... nothing. It's a series of scenes that don't really lead well into each other, and then it ends.

[hudebnik]

We don't watch a lot of potentially-story-arc TV series, and when we do it's usually a year or two after everybody else has watched them.

As I recall, Downtown Abbey (which we started watching from the beginning after a season or two had ended) always started with a minute or two of clips from the previous episode (and if you were watching it in real-time on PBS, each week's episode was preceded by replaying the entire previous week's episode).

I don't remember whether Mad Men (which we started watching from the beginning after several seasons had ended) had a "previously..." prologue.

As I recall, Sherlock (which we started watching from the beginning after several seasons had ended) didn't have a "previously..." prologue at all, which was fine because there were relatively few connections between one episode and the next, and reminding you about the relevant ones would give away the secret of which were the relevant ones.

A few days ago we started on The Mandalorian, and I was struck that each episode seems to start with clips from not just the previous episode, but all the previous episodes, which means either the "previously..." section gets longer and longer, or it gets reduced to a bunch of shorter and shorter clips that mostly show things blowing up.

[moxie_man]

Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears had some continuity to it. There were episodes prior to Princess Kellah (or whatever her name was) knowing about the bears, then a period between that and Gusto being added to the cast. Then a period prior to finding Ursalia. Then a period after that and so on. They actually semi-ended the series to with a lot of destruction to Gummi Glenn, their human allied kingdom, Duke Igthorn rocketing into space and the descendants of the ancient Gummies aborting their return to the area.

Providing I'm going on foggy memories of this, but unlike most of the other series of its time period, it did have some continuity.

Alas, unlike the other series of that time period, it was never all released state-side on DVD. Just the first three of seven seasons.

[conuly]

Gummi Bears is on my reboot list.

But Gargoyles only if they commit to doing it right.

[readerjane]

I haven't noticed "previously on"s being shorter, but I have noticed them being quicker. I believe the editors are packing more prior events into the same amount of seconds by editing them into brief slices of image and dialogue. Which corresponds to the general trend in quicker editing, something I rather like.

Tangentially related; it took me a long time to figure out that the beginning-of-ep "recaps" on Battlestar Galatica (and Caprica, IIRC) included tiny slices of *future* events, shown so quickly we couldn't really grasp what was happening (going to happen). I was so confused until I worked it out. I kept thinking I had missed an episode.

[glaurung]

The original Battlestar Galactica in the 70's liked to open with brief clips of the things that were going to happen in the episode you were about to see. The producers of the modern BSG adopted that, because they adopted everything from the original they could except the horrid writing and acting.

[readerjane]

Ah, I never caught it on the cheesy 70's series! I'd thought it was an original innovation with the newer series. Interesting.

[alexseanchai]

Sailor Moon (the '90s anime version) apparently does that too, by which I mean I rewatched the first few episodes recently and only the very first one didn't have that preview

[low_delta]

For ST:Discovery, it seemed like the recaps were longer than I expected. They included clips from anywhere in the series that they decided was useful to show, but were mostly from the previous episode. I think that years ago, shows weren't continuous stories, spanning entire seasons.

[silveradept]

You're correct - arc-based shows these days tend to "previously on" relevant parts of the arc that are going to be expounded on in this episode, rather than "what happened on the exact last episode," with the exceptions generally being two-parters, whether as season openers, season-closers, or two-parters split across an opening and a closing.

The relevant comparison might be My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which has no real continuity outside of the two-part openers and closers, hutch are the only ones that get a "previously on," and they are directly related to the previous episode (although I think even then, they might slip in a little bit of the relevant parts during the season that produced the situation about to happen).

[conuly]

Is that your feeling as well, or your data? I'm worried that we might all feel the same way but all be equally wrong.

[silveradept]

It is memory more than feeling, so you can trust that exactly as far as you want to. I'm thinking of Star Trek and other shows made specifically for syndication when I'm thinking about the "only for two-parters" as well as My Little Pony, while what little I've seen of Supernatural almost always started with a "previously on" that was arc-based rather than episode-based, for much the same reason, I think, for getting someone who might be watching it on syndication up to speed. I think Grimm did it that way as well.

Reality shows, on the other hand, almost always do their recap with what happened in the last episode only, but that's usually because they then do an As You Know, Bob, to explain the concept of the show to anyone who might be joining mid-season. Even for Netflix exclusive shows.

[conuly]

Worried is a much stronger word than is appropriate.

[topaz_eyes]

Until Hill Street Blues (1981-1987), story arcs and continuity were basically limited to daytime soap operas. Nighttime soaps were a thing too, given Dallas (1978-1991), Knots Landing (1979-1993) and Dynasty (1981-1989). Yet the story arc format in HSB was considered the "game changer" because it was a "primetime drama", not a soap.

I find that the "Previously on..." recaps can be very long, up to a minute or so depending on the show and arc.

[chazzbanner]

Yeah! I thought of Hill Street Blues immediately. :-)

[greghousesgf]

I remember watching the original Duck Tales in the late 80's, haven't seen the new ones. I do remember the original one being set in a vague time because they had references to a lot of things that were considered "modern" (by late 80's standards anyway) but everybody had those weird 1920's style phones where you held the thing you talk into in one hand and the thing you listen to in the other hand.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/old-fashioned-candlestick-phone-art-phaneuf.html
click here for a pic of what I'm talking about

[conuly]

I didn't realize this growing up in the 80s and 90s, and I doubt you had the perspective to realize it either, but all the characters and (loosely) the setting had existed for decades by the time I was born.

They had a lot of historical baggage - like Scrooge wearing a tophat and spats long after those had gone well out of fashion, or the candlestick phone. I think the creators of the show might have felt they couldn't avoid all anachronisms if they set it in the more-or-less present, and so they decided to just mix-and-match.

[greghousesgf]

I didn't grow up in the 80's and 90's. I grew up in the 60's and 70's. so I did have the perspective. A lot of cartoons do this. They used 50's style phone numbers starting with 2 letters and had Lisa getting the mumps on 90's Simpsons episodes.

[alexseanchai]

antivaxxers being themselves, esp "vaccines cause autism!" antivaxxers being themselves and particularly suspecting the MMR vaccine, Lisa could get the mumps on a Simpsons episode today and it probably wouldn't be an anachronism…

[greghousesgf]

anti vaxxers weren't really a thing in the early 90's

[archersangel]

in my experience "previously on...." means from weeks to months or more ago. but "last time on...." will be from the episode just before the current one.