What would you change?

[AndyThomas]

Come on Mike - can you seriously not cringe at episode 13?! I mean, flashback episodes are seldom the highlight of any series, but that one really does mess things around a lot. There's also still the Prof Hagen/Lamia/Shiro Hagen triad which remains confused when you actually think about it hard.I think someone else has mentioned this recently, but - why does the Imperial Master decide to attack Earth? According to the early episodes, he doesn't care about Earth's destruction - only Lamia's. As Lamia isn't on Earth, why bother going there in person, no less? Why not send another battlecruiser to do the job, or use his fortress to assault the Callinian planet? I suppose you could argue "destiny" or "whim" but it does seem very random.As for the Jupiter "glitch" - well, science fiction it may be, but at the time the series was written enough was known about Jupiter being a great big ball of hydrogen and storms that it's a fairly big glitch! It's not one an adult watcher with any knowledge of astronomy can really ignore.Which is a shame, because a lot of the other astronomy is spot on - not sure about snow storms on Pluto mind you, I don't think it has the atmosphere or the wind for that, but at least it was portrayed as being cold and without a breathable atmosphere. Mars was well done, as was the positioning of the asteroid belt. The black hole though, that didn't really work,and even Disney made theirs nastier! There are also some inconsistencies over how much power they have left in that episode - one minute they barely have enough for a laser blast, the next they can fire X-Impulse.These are not, of course, issues I had with the show when I was a kid. I couldn't have cared less about the Imperial Master's motivation, I just wanted to see things get blown up! There is no doubt that it was, and in many ways remains, a unique series for its day with a great soundtrack and pretty mature themes and acting. Otherwise, after all, you wouldn't be sat at your computer reading this post, now would you?!

[Shane]

The Flashback episodes were pretty bad looking back at it now. But it's not something you worry about as a child. Again the slight technical glitches didn't bother me then and they don't really bother me now. If your looking for more of Michael Sloan's work, he was the creator of the 80's Vigilante show: The Equalizer starring Edward Woodward which also featured a stonking theme tune provided by Stuart Copeland of the Police. From what I can gather Sloan was trying to pitch the idea of the Equalizer way back in 1980 but it wasn't untill 1985 that he got a green light for a pilot episode where he was also credited as Executive Producer.Shane.

[Rachel]

The only real advantage of a clip-show, if you think about it, is to viewers who may not have been watching the programme right from the beginning, and have therefore missed out on crucial plot info.On the other hand, it could have been very annoying to some fans: it was in the days before everyone had videos, and just imagine if you had to make a decision between watching the weekly installment of Starfleet, and going out somewhere (like the cinema, for instance). If you chose to watch Starfleet, and then found out the episode only consisted of flashbacks, you would have sacrificed the chance of an outing with your mates, for nothing.

[FZeroOne]

Clip shows can be annoying, but they do have their uses; the long running anime Urusei Yatsura has a - literal - cast of thousands but the early season had a clip show which is a very good 30 minute rundown for the unintiated.Also, some Japanese anime have interesting approaches to clip shows, and indeed, one of my favourite episodes of Patlabor is the compliation one; its punch-line is one of the funniest moments in the show.Of course, when I was younger, they annoyed me quite a bit...

[CondorJoe]

Your dead right thier Rachel. Alot of anime past and present have a flashback episode. This serves new viewers greatly as it brings hem upto speed. I've only got a true explanation of this on video, Martian Succesor Nadesico did an alternative timeline episode where Geki Gengar 3 where watching Nadesico on tv and not the other way around. Even Jinpe the kid say's that durring the halfway stage of an anime series they always do a flashback or hacked together episode featuring a colarge of old footage.

[AndyThomas]

Interesting. Flashback shows tend to be more of a costs-saving thing for US shows, but perhaps because anime tends to be more story driven over an entire series they consider flashback shows to be an integral part of the storytelling...