Arriving late to the party (and without rewatching, either)....
"I don't feel like I got all the pay-off I could have hoped for with this sudden appearance of Schanke's childhood best friend, first roommate, five years' partner [...]. Maybe it's just that Patrick died at the end of the episode and was never mentioned again, in the way of '90s syndicated shows, but..."
I tend to see the opposite problem: not that Patrick's never mentioned again (for I can quite see that Schanke might not want to talk about his old friend's betrayal and Nick feel sensitive about bringing it up); but that there's no foreshadowing in previous episodes—perhaps just mentioning the names of two or three previous partners of Schanke's, or that he hardly ever heard from ol' Patrick nowadays, or something like that. You have the same problem in Season 3 where Tracy's parents' divorce and her mother's drinking problem are suddenly introduced out of nowhere.
Same cause, of course. In this respect, the show was already getting a little out of date at the time it was made (and seems even more so nowadays). Even series whose episodes are complete in themselves do usually have continuity in terms of characterization arcs. Perversely, Season 1 did that a bit: Schanke noticing the bottles in Nick's fridge in an earlier episode is brought up in "Feeding the Beast" when he asks Nick, "Are we talking about a drinking problem here?" However Seasons 2 and 3 were simply not filmed that way.
That, of course, is why it is possible for Season 2 to have been shot in one order and shown in another, yet still make overall sense.
While it is tempting to privilege aired order (if only since that's the way it's most familiar, if one saw it when it was originally shown), there are some points that make sense only if one takes into account the actual original order.
I'd like to quote something I wrote for the "Season 2" article in the wiki:
It seems originally to have been the intention to start broadcasting Season Two in late March, 1994. This can be seen from the following dates, which are fixed internally:
In the premiere of Season Two, “Killer Instinct”, the Internal Affairs detectives specifically question Nick about his whereabouts on March 5th and 17th, presumably the dates of the two murders.
The denouement of “Forward Into the Past” takes place on May 3rd. The date appears on the poster advertising the dance at the Ceilidh Arts Centre.
In the backstory to the main plot of “Unreality TV”, Natalie's god daughter, Cynthia, was abducted on May 12th: the date appears on the Missing Persons poster that was printed to aid in the search.
The events of the episode “Father's Day” obviously take place in the week leading up to the holiday, which is the third Sunday in June.
In the event, Season Two did not actually air until the autumn: "Killer Instinct" aired 17 September 1994. By that time, most of the episodes had already been filmed (as is obvious from the green foliage of trees in the background). Because of the delay, episodes were released markedly out of order to a degree not normally possible.
“Father's Day” was actually shown 29 October 1994, no doubt puzzling many viewers, since episodes relating to holidays tend to be shown in the week prior to the celebration. In fact, Season Two did have a seasonal episode, “Be My Valentine”. As a Valentine's Day episode, it was broadcast—as one might expect—in the week of the holiday, specifically on 11 February 1995. This made it the 15th episode of the season in airing order; but it was, in fact, one of the last episodes to be made that year, 23 out of 26. (Filming actually wrapped on 7 December 1994.)
What this means is that, for me at least, it makes more sense to take the production order for Season 2. After all, it is only because there was a delay in airing that such rampant reorganization was even possible. Most series that show episodes out of order do so because of a situation like that of "Francesca" and "Ashes to Ashes" (where aired order is the only one that makes sense).
Still, that's obviously going to be very much a personal choice—the more so since people's headcanon is bound to be influenced by the order in which they saw the episodes, especially if they taped them at the time and hence rewatched them in broadcast order for years. (The DVDs, after all, were so late to appear.)
no subject
"I don't feel like I got all the pay-off I could have hoped for with this sudden appearance of Schanke's childhood best friend, first roommate, five years' partner [...]. Maybe it's just that Patrick died at the end of the episode and was never mentioned again, in the way of '90s syndicated shows, but..."
I tend to see the opposite problem: not that Patrick's never mentioned again (for I can quite see that Schanke might not want to talk about his old friend's betrayal and Nick feel sensitive about bringing it up); but that there's no foreshadowing in previous episodes—perhaps just mentioning the names of two or three previous partners of Schanke's, or that he hardly ever heard from ol' Patrick nowadays, or something like that. You have the same problem in Season 3 where Tracy's parents' divorce and her mother's drinking problem are suddenly introduced out of nowhere.
Same cause, of course. In this respect, the show was already getting a little out of date at the time it was made (and seems even more so nowadays). Even series whose episodes are complete in themselves do usually have continuity in terms of characterization arcs. Perversely, Season 1 did that a bit: Schanke noticing the bottles in Nick's fridge in an earlier episode is brought up in "Feeding the Beast" when he asks Nick, "Are we talking about a drinking problem here?" However Seasons 2 and 3 were simply not filmed that way.
That, of course, is why it is possible for Season 2 to have been shot in one order and shown in another, yet still make overall sense.
While it is tempting to privilege aired order (if only since that's the way it's most familiar, if one saw it when it was originally shown), there are some points that make sense only if one takes into account the actual original order.
I'd like to quote something I wrote for the "Season 2" article in the wiki:What this means is that, for me at least, it makes more sense to take the production order for Season 2. After all, it is only because there was a delay in airing that such rampant reorganization was even possible. Most series that show episodes out of order do so because of a situation like that of "Francesca" and "Ashes to Ashes" (where aired order is the only one that makes sense).
Still, that's obviously going to be very much a personal choice—the more so since people's headcanon is bound to be influenced by the order in which they saw the episodes, especially if they taped them at the time and hence rewatched them in broadcast order for years. (The DVDs, after all, were so late to appear.)