You know, then again, we do see the ThunderCats in conflict with the mutants – sans Ratar-o – at the destruction of Thundera. So it’s not like the conflict began on Third Earth.
Maybe I’m grasping at straws here, but again, it could be construed that Ratar-o is telling Vultureman that Slithe would’ve been wise to call on him back when Thundera still stood.
I dunno. I think it might work. But feel free to ignore.
So I just finished watching season 1 in the episode order suggested in this thread. Overall, it works. I’ve posted some thoughts earlier in this thread. The only remaining “issue” I have with this new continuity is this:
“Mechanical Plague” and “Fond Memories” have extremely identical plots. Both are basically T-Cats/Lion-O vs. a greatest-hits roster of villains or robots. And they are placed only two episodes apart, making the finale seem very redundant.
Could “Mechanical Plague” be placed somewhere earlier in the line-up?
Tricky. It might be possible to move it forward a little, but not much. The thing about Mechanical Plague is, it has to come after so many other episodes:
Turmagar The Tuska
Return To Thundera
Return Of The Driller
And Return Of The Driller has to come after the Anointment Trials (because Acid Lake is known in Return Of The Driller but not in the Trials, where Lion-O has never encountered it before).
We’ll see what we can do. It’s still a “work in progress”, don’t forget, there’s one or two creases elsewhere that still need ironing out, but we’re getting there slowly!
I was just going through this list again (a fantastic effort by Liam and others, I must say again!) and there’s one thing that has me a bit baffled.
Shouldn’t “Spaceship Beneath the Sands” come before “Terror of Hammerhand”? The reason I say this is because in “TOH”, the ThunderTank has the fully functional Aquatic Mode which allows it to sail in the ocean like a motor boat. But in “SBTS”, the Tank drops like a brick to the ocean bottom.
Firstly, let me say that this project is NOT YET COMPLETE - I’m pretty happy with the first half, but the second half of the season could still do with a few tweaks (might be useful to keep this topic “sticky” on the board to make it easier for people to contribute).
As for this particular question, I’ll have to check this out. It’s a very valid question, but there is also the point that Slithe has gone under the water, not on it. Maybe at this point, Panthro wasn’t comfortable using the tank as a submarine, and preferred to drive it on the sea bed.
Like I say, I’ll have to check.
I think the order is fine, actually. Panthro mentions that the Tank’s amphibious mode is brand new in “Terror of Hammerhand”. And in “Spaceship Beneath the Sands”, Panthro follows Slithe into the water, saying that the Tank “can be driven just as easily on the ocean bottom.” It’s only when it gets lodged on its back that it becomes inoperable. We also see later, in “Turmagar the Tuska”, that the Tank has a balast system for changing its buoancy. Whether that balast system was there all along could be up for debate, but I don’t think we can conclude that Tank-sinking = Tank-incapable-of-floating.
Good point, zax! I stand corrected. 
We still haven’t settled 100% on the middle of the series. I need to look at my notes on this topic again.
Hey guys. Brand new member, first post. This thread is awesome. I came up with a viewing order to solve a lot of these problems, but I missed a ton of stuff that you guys caught in this thread. Now I have to redo everything.
Also, for what it’s worth, there are some definite glitches in the Season 2 production order. The placement of “Exile Isle,” for example, is way off. I’ve worked out some of these, but not all of them.
Welcome OD! We are (or at least I am) eager to know your ideas for both seasons. We should definitely work on the season 2 episode order.
Well, my Season 1 stuff is probably passe, as you guys have really gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. My big deviation is that I was, to some degree, ignoring the big coronation-shot, because it goes by so fast. Well, ignoring and/or rationalizing. I wanted to put “Safari Joe” post-coronotation, so my my head-canon was that Mule was in the coronation audience because he’d been on Third Earth for a couple weeks spying on the Thundercats, and getting all the footage that he shows Joe. (It just felt right to have “Safari Joe” be post-Trials, given all of Mule’s talk about how Lion-O has “strength and speed that rivals the other Thundercats,” or words to that effect. If that’s already common knowledge, the Trials seem a little superfluous.)
I also had “Snarf Takes Up the Challenge” be the first Mumm-Ra episode post-Trials. You guys already discussed the problematic aspect of the end of “Trial of Evil,” with the TCats thinking Mumm-Ra was dead. “Challenge” was my best choice as the episode wherein they learn that Mumm is alive, because it happens off-camera. I.e., we never see the moment when the Tcats learn that Mumm-Ra was behind their capture … there’s a jump in time and the Cats are all wrapped up in mummy-wrappings. So one could imagine an off-camera scene that sees the Tcats reacting in surprise to Mumm-Ra’s involvement. That was the most elegant solution I could see, but it ignored that one of Snarf’s creatures from “Challenge” was at the coronation. (It also ignored Vultureman being voiced by McFadden instead of Hammond, suggesting it’s an early Vultureman appearance. That troubled me, but ultimately I considered it a red herring.)
One other thing, that I don’t think was discussed in this thread, is Mumm-Ra’s ultimatum at the start of “The Mountain.” He threatens to banish the Mutants if they don’t succeed this time in getting the sword. I decided to make this the final appearance of the Mutants in Season One, just before “Fond Memories.” My logic was that after the events of “The Mountain,” Mumm-Ra decided he would banish the mutants once he got around to it … but then in Season 2 when he learns about the Thunderian refugees and concocts his elaborate scheme that requires Berzerkers/Mutants/Shiner/Hachiman/Grune, he decides he can’t spare the manpower, so he rethinks his “Banish the mutants” idea.
Those are some of my thoughts. But I realize that as far as Season 1 goes, I am way late to the party, so all of the above may be utterly moot to this thread.
BTW, thanks very much for the welcome, T_R!
Here are some opening Season 2 thoughts …
The first ten episodes (“Thundercats Ho” 1-5 and “Mumm-Ra Lives” 1-5) are obviously locked in place.
After that, I placed “Together We Stand” as the first episode after the Lunataks’ debut five-parter. In this episode, Mumm-Ra decides to launch an assault on the new Thundercats, i.e. the “Tower of Omens” Thundercats, i.e. Bengali, Lynx-O and Pumyra, as the first part of a plan. He chooses the Berzerkers as his army (not the Mutants or the Lunataks). This strikes me as intuitive on his part, given that the Berzerkers were the only group who have actually succeeded in beating those same three people (back in “Thundercats Ho” Part One).
Since the first episode after the two movies/five-part epics should be somewhat introductory of the new status quo that those movies extablished, I think “Together We Stand” works well. It not only establishes the Tower of Omens and the new TCats, but the new weapons for the three of them get a lot of play: Lynx-O uses his light shield to try to signal Cats’ Lair; Bengali has a whole speech – “Hammer of Thundera, don’t fail me now!”, or some such – when he first uses his weapon; and Pumyra does some schtuff with her thing, which I do not know the name of.
In the second half of the episode, Mumm-Ra brings in Luna. I don’t remember their initial dialogue, but it struck me as appropriately prickly given how “Mumm-Ra Lives” ended. It also seemed like a good episode to, again, establish the new status quo (i.e., moving forward, the Lunataks would end up being the default go-to henchman for Mumm-Ra (with them replacing the Mutants in this regard). Again, I like that this episode kind of plays with the question of whether it might be the Berzerkers, but after they fare less well than the Lunataks in this episode, the pirates kind of lose their shot at being Mumm’s new go-to guys.
Granted, the Lunataks don’t do terribly well in this episode either, but they do manage to take over Cats Lair, BAM! in like two seconds (off-screen!), and that feels right to me, given that they are set up in “Mumm-Ra Lives” as being a way more threatening force than the villains that preceded them. I also like that after they take over Cats Lair, they want to put a giant moon on the chest of the Lair, in place of the TCat logo. (A detail that really makes me smile.) I guess I put that “Moon” moment in the same category as the big intro of the new TCats’ weapons: It’s sort of an introduction/consolidation of the the new villains’ logo/“brand,” for anyone who missed the big five-parter.
(Sidebar: As a big fan of the Luntaks and their introductory five-parter, I really hated how quickly they devolved into another set of clowns, the same way the Mutants did over the course of Season One. So another reason I like “Together We Stand” as the first episode post “Mumm-Ra Lives!” is that it shows the Lunataks as still being somewhat threatening and dangerous. I don’t like that it ends with them being dispatched so easily, but I guess that scene is kind of the “hinge” by which the Lunataks swing from awesome bad-@$$es into wimps …)
Whew! Sorry, I probably could have gotten my point across with less words, but there it is. That’s my argument for placing “Together We Stand” as Episode 11.
Welcome, Ocean Doot!
You raise some interesting points. Certainly Mumm-Ra’s not getting round to actually banishing the Mutants after “The Mountain” is worth looking at. Part of me still feels “Eye Of The Beholder” should be the last thing before “Fond Memories”, but possibly “The Mountain” right before it, as we could then argue that Slithe was trying to get back into Mumm-Ra’s good books.
For my part, I probably need to look at all the notes on here again, and my spreadsheet (which is on another computer, I’ve just bought a new laptop today and haven’t yet copied my documents onto it).
A continuity order for season 2 will be looked into. In this context, though, it will be worth calling it “seasons 2-4” -they do divide neatly for this purpose. Some sources call the later series one single season, others three. And for this purpose, splitting it into three will help facilitate things. Each block of 20 can be taken in isolation, with no overlap. And each one starts with a 5-parter, and two of the three have a well-defined end (season 3 in particular has two episodes at the very end that don’t need looking at for continuity purposes!).
Thanks, Liam!
I just posted a Season 2 thing … Should I have started a new thread instead?
You’re welcome. As the person who started this thread (indeed, hammering out this continuity order was my main purpose in joining this forum!), I have a vested interest in getting things right. I have a logical mind, and worked out the first 21 episodes entirely on my own - and, if I may blow my own trumpet here, you’ll note that everything in those first 21 first together very neatly.
My biggest problem with the last order put down here was the principle of “if episode Y has to come after episode X it must follow it immediately” when there’s no compelling reason to have it right away. This isn’t Galaxy Rangers, after all!
The best example of this is “The Transfer” and “Mumm-Rana”. The latter, I reasoned, should follow the former, but there’s no third-earthly reason for the two to be back-to-back.
As for starting a new thread - possibly. It might even be better to have three separate threads, one each for seasons 2, 3 and 4.
And to anyone who says, “it’s not four seasons, it’s only two” - for the purposes of continuity, it can be taken as four.
Wait, what’s wrong with Galaxy Rangers chronology? (I acquired that show on DVD recently and started to watch it, but found it was not as good as I remembered, and kind of petered out. Even though I love Doug Preis’ Eastwood impression!)
I’m very chronology-minded myself, so when I first discovered this forum, my eyes zeroed in on this thread like a laser (or a veri-cannon, I suppose). My own Season 1 chronology doesn’t quite match yours, but I won’t deny that your logic is much more stainless than some of my own reasoning (which occasionally just came down to a gut feeling).
I’ll start a new thread for Season 2. I think there are issues with both it and Season 3.
(Season 4 seems fine though.)
BTW: If Season 2 is broken down to be thought of as Season 2-4, then Season 2 is, I believe, a block of 25, not just 20, yes?
Season 2: 25 episodes
Season 3: 20 eps
Season 4: 20 eps
That’s how we get our 65 … (This is counting “Thundercats Ho” and “Mumm-Ra Lives” as five episodes each.)
Liam, I have always, in my mind, thought of the episodes that aired after “Mumm-Ra lives!” arc as 3 different seasons, so I’m OK with three different threads… after that maybe the 4 threads could be merged in one single continuity thread.
I wasn’t a fan of seasons 2, 3 and 4 (I never really liked the Lunattcaks neither the new TCs), but I could say “Cat Fight” must come immediately after “Ravage Island”. In “Ravage Island”, neither Tygra or the kittens show up, and they appear just at the end of “Cat Fight”. So maybe the space/recognition mission that kept them away in “Cat Fight” was the same thing that kept them away in “Ravage Island” (so they left in “Ravage Isalnd” and just got back for the final moments of “Cat Fight”). Just an idea.
My comment on Galaxy Rangers was more to do with the fact that several episodes would make incidental references to something that happened in the previous episode. Apart from one jarring detail, I don’t have a problem with its continuity as such. I’ve only ever seen the show once - about this time last year. I never saw it as a kid. I felt it had its moments, but wasn’t as good as it might have been, none of the regular villains were quite regular enough to establish themselves as a proper menace to our heroes.
If you want to call “Thundercats Ho!” the start of season 2, and total it at 25 episodes, that’s fine. It’s not going to make any difference to the continuity.
Season 2: Thundercats Ho, Mumm-Ra Lives and 15 individual episodes.
Season 3: Thundercubs and 15 individual episodes, ending with “The Circus Train” and “The Last Day”
Season 4: Return To Thundera and 15 individual episodes, ending with “The Book Of Omens”
Basically these are three blocks of 15. A lot easier than season 1, that’s for sure!