But the issue of out-of-order episodes still bothered the network. The directive after Season One was no more continued narratives… Lewald found a way around it.

Having Xavier lost to the mysterious Savage Land at the end of the first two-part story, then saved at the end of the season during the last one, while touching base with him for a minute every episode, gave us a “continuing story” even if the episodes in between were all stand-alone stories that resolved themselves. It allowed us to produce the Savage Land bits first, so they would be certainly completed in time for airing.

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Which is actually ingenious. Could any viewer at home tell those scenes were animated first? Nope. They slotted in nicely with the other scenes, while keeping the ongoing narrative going. Season Two maintains the feel of Season One, culminating in another satisfying season finale.

Season Three follows the traditional pattern… until it doesn’t. “Out of the Past” is a two-parter introducing not only the Reavers, but the intergalactic elements of the Claremont canon. This leads into the heavily-demanded adaptation of “The Phoenix Saga”…a five-parter that selects the most memorable scenes of the comics and weaves them into a streamlined narrative. The finale, featuring an apparent death for Jean Grey, was going to be followed-up within a few weeks.

This was not to be.

Lewald explains in his book the mandate going into Season Three.  No more continued stories… not even if you animated the subplot scenes first.  The ongoing Phoenix storyline wasn’t the only element botched by overseas animators. With FOX airing seemingly random episodes in any order, viewers were confused, and the show’s narrative was never the same. It’s a shame, too. The X-mythos is all about the tapestry, the stories that build, the connections formed over years of an ongoing saga. While later episodes of X-Men do have their moments, the epic feeling is just lost. “Done-in-one” and the X-Men simply don’t fit.

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Future animated adaptations realized this. Episodes of X-Men Evolution or Wolverine and the X-Men rarely appeared out of order. (Likely thanks to the help of more reliable overseas studios.) It’s too bad their forerunner wasn’t able to continue down the path it set, but maybe that’s the price of being ahead of your time.

That’s all for now. If you have any suggestions for future installments, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter.