I pitched this angle to Mike and he agreed this was the best way to turn this big old lemon into some lemonade.īack on Avatar, we had something that functioned as a sort of clips episode, though it was all new animation and really hard to make, Episode 317, “The Ember Island Players.” Our heroes went to a play where they saw themselves and their tales performed by actors on stage. They mixed about 5 minutes of new footage in with the old, and set up a context where the characters would be reflecting on past events while narrating over them, offering new insights or at least providing some humor. In fact, as Mike hung his head in disappointment at our fate, I remembered how one of my favorite anime series, Samurai Champloo, made what I thought was a really awesome and clever clips episode. Anyone who suffered through TNG’s “Shades of Gray” knows what I’m talking about.Īnime fans know this is a common occurrence in Japanese series as well. But having grown up on TV in the ‘80s and '90s, we all dread clips episodes, where characters sit around saying, “Remember that time when…” and leftover footage is reheated for no one’s enjoyment. We weren’t going to do that to our crew, and even if we were callous enough to do so, we never would have been able to finish the season without them. We had two options: 1) let go a significant number of crew members several weeks early, or 2) make a clips episode. We got the news from the higher-ups that our Book 4 budget was getting slashed, almost to the tune of an entire episode’s budget. Sometime around a year and a half ago we were similarly duped on a large scale. I’m here to explain why we ended up having to do one. In a couple hours the eighth chapter of Korra Book 4 will be released online, and I suppose, if you are none the wiser, a few minutes into it you will feel duped and yell at your screen, “Hey! This is a crummy clips episode!” And that is (almost) exactly what it is––except we all worked really hard to make sure at the very least it isn’t crummy. A few preemptive words about Episode 408, “Remembrances”…

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