New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown

[QIfry]

We need to find some flash animators and start a kickstarter.

[Duff]

I agree with everyone who said David should last through an entire season. On that note every season should really have an overarcing storyline.

I'm thinking every season can have an additional/new character storyline and a large yeerk plot storyline. The david problem and the world peace summit is the perfect example of this.

Like samwise said you don't have to follow the order of the books or include them all. Take some inspiration from them for a season long plot and then choose books that can be adapted to support that plot; even if book 44 ends up working in the first season.

So here is my idea for season long arcs:
1. Becoming Animorphs and large kandrona
The whole season can deal with them learning about the yeerks and the main threat can be the building of the kandrona from #7. This will introduce the ellimist late in the season.
2. Hork Bajir Colony
Season premeire can be the escape of dak and jara and Tobias finally gets his morphing power back. Build up all season and the season finale can be #46 where they defend the colony from a huge attack.
3. David and world peace summit
Spread the david trilogy over a whole season.
4. Andalite ship and yeerk plot
I think the book where the rogue andalite team comes to earth could be expanded to a whole season with a major yeerk plot added in. This would give Ax time to really connect with the girl andalite. It would also help when things go from great to suspicious to oh crap these guys aren't who they say they are to we need to stop them over an entire season instead of in the course of 20 minutes.
5. Ellimist vs Crayak
Through the first 4 seasons we've seen the ellimist a few times. The season premeire can introduce the crayak and their war. Somewhere in the season the ellimist chronicles can be adapted.
6. Finale
I don't think this should be the sixth season, you can continue to do as many seasons as possible until the show runs it's course.

Why I think a yeerk plot and another plot are important: The yeerks are the main enemy, so they always need to be a big part of the series. However, the animorphs have few opportunities to interact with them on a personal level. David, the Hork-Bajir, the andalites and stories like that give them a chance to have more of a stake in the conflict. Also, it will keep the series fresh and interesting with new friends and enemies every season instead of always the yeerks and visser three.

Just because you have overarching plot lines doesn't mean every episode has to deal with them. Each season maybe only 10 out of 20 will actually advance the main plots and the rest can be filler episodes, funnier episodes, holiday episodes, etc. Supernatural is a good example of this.

[MoppingBear]

I'd agree that David needs to be stretched out a bit, but not to the full season.  Maybe like 6 episodes, inserting him into the plot of books 23-25, but getting rid of him before 26.  I saw a theory put forth (I think on this forum, possibly somewhere else) that David had a thing for Cassie, and that when he backed off from attacking the Animorphs in response to the humpback whale, it was because he knew it was Cassie, not because he was scared of the whale.  It would be interesting to throw that in the mix (don't have Cassie reciprocate at all, don't need a love triangle here) and have him be conflicted about betraying the Animorphs specifically because of her.
That said, I think the series SHOULD play up the Rachel/Tobias/Marco love triangle that is only occasionally brought up in the books.  It's what the kids are into these days and it would help get them hooked.
I would also like to see the Chee play a slightly bigger role, maybe have them take over some of Ax's exposition.
The Oatmeal incident is funny enough and should be included, BUT it's effect on the Yeerks would need to be toned down to justify not using it with something beyond "great battles aren't won with oatmeal" or however they did it.
Davids Return as a mouse controlling mice was ridiculous and needs to be reworked.
The "open war" should probably be expanded into an entire season, giving a chance to give much more development to the Auxilories so it's more sad/shocking when they die.

[TobiasMasonPark]

2. Hork Bajir Colony
Season premeire can be the escape of dak and jara and Tobias finally gets his morphing power back. Build up all season and the season finale can be #46 where they defend the colony from a huge attack.

     I like this, but I'm thinking maybe that particular battle from Animorphs 47: The Resistance should be kept in its place in the chronology--that is, closer to when the kids get exposed. It would seem more epic to me, at least.

4. Andalite ship and yeerk plot
I think the book where the rogue andalite team comes to earth could be expanded to a whole season with a major yeerk plot added in. This would give Ax time to really connect with the girl andalite. It would also help when things go from great to suspicious to oh crap these guys aren't who they say they are to we need to stop them over an entire season instead of in the course of 20 minutes.

     This I really like. More focus on the Andalites, and maybe more on Ax's romantic life would be interesting.

[Snakie]

Trying to tie the seasons together thematically rather than simply with one basic story arc that the entire season focuses on.  It trims the fat and expands on essential storylines while completely ignoring others.

I view this is a 6 season story with 1 introductory season, a finale season, and 4 seasons each with their own themes and focus of development.

Season 1:  This season is basically the origin story.  The Animorphs will struggle throughout much of this season, the roles of each character will be established.  This is a world-building season and the destruction of the Kandrona should be at its finale.  Most key events from the earliest narrated books should be here.

Season 2:  This season fleshes out the Yeerks with the following events and revelations:

1) Marco's mother revealed as Visser One and learning more about Yeerk heirarchy
2) One Animorph being infested by a Yeerk and learning more about why the Yeerks do what they do.
3) Chee are introduced here as spies.  The Animorphs gain their first reliable ally, and begin to make more progress.
4) The Departure storyline, possibly as a multiple episode arch, definitely needs to be told here as a setup for the Yeerk Peace movement later on.
5) Some sort of morally grey decision they have to make with respect to harming the Yeerks.  I'm thinking something along the lines of the oatmeal, but involving something that is a little easier to take seriously.  They end up striking a blow to the Yeerks in the first battle in which they really get their hands dirty, both literally and morally.  Their use of the weapon kills many Yeerks but causes the suffering of many host species as well.

Season 3: This season focuses on the war at large, connecting it to the larger conflict in the galaxy.  While last season fleshed out the Yeerks as enemies and gave us an exploration there, this season will grow the universe further by having some storylines focused on other races.  Key storylines:

1) The development of the free Hork Bajir Colony, complete with Tobias getting his powers back (though with no Ellimist I'm not sure how this happens).  This should be an arc that lasts a few episodes.
2) The Leeran conflict, complete with twarting the development of shark controllers.
3) The fight on the Leeran homeworld and learning of the treachorous Andalites.
4) Cliffhanger finale with Visser One learning of Marco's identity and Jake and Cassie possibly being dead.


Season 4:  The previous cliffhanger is resolved, and much of the rest of this season focuses on internal conflicts within the Animorphs.  Marco loses the trust of a couple of the Animorphs after nearly getting them killed in the previous arc and this sets up a nice season of Animorphs-identity issues.  Key storylines:

1)The arrival of a group of Andalites as a multi-episode arc.  I liked this idea, just not as a whole season.  Here we learn that the Andalite fleet is not on its way anytime soon, and there can be a lot of intrigue and mistrust about the Andalites' true intentions in this war.  This builds off of the Leeran story arc in the previous season and completely shatters the notion of Andalites as idealistic heroes.
2) Marco's mother returns after a several episode hiatus.  The Visser storyline plays itself out and they succeed in preventing Visser 3 from gaining full control over the Yeerk Invasion of earth, but the divide between the Animorphs widens as some members wanted to allow Visser One to die.
3) The second half of the season will deal with David.  I like the idea of his story arc being much longer.  David comes in at a time when mistrust within the Animorphs is already at a high point.  David has time enough to at least develop proper relationships with the other Animorphs.  He can maintain the antagonistic relationships with Rachel and Marco, but I'd like to see him develop a better relationship with Cassie and a more mixed one with Jake.  There can be a number of episodes where he is a proper member of the team before events go off the deep end.
4) The World Summit makes for an excellent backdrop for the David story arc.  In this case I'd just assume have no cliffhanger.  Just end the season with David screaming on a rock as a rat (and no, this time, he's not coming back).  Animorphs manage to overcome their internal issues and deal with the threats at hand.


Season 5: Time to escalate the war with the following story arcs.  Theme here is the continued need for sacrifice in order to win the war.

1) The emergence of the Yeerk peace movement and "The Sickness" storyline.
2) The Animorphs capture a Yeerk-sub visser who claims to know how they can destroy the Yeerk pool.  The team prepares to do just this but is betrayed and nearly captured by the Yeerks.
3) A heroic defense of the Hork Bajir colony as the major action piece and story arc later in the season.  Think "Resistance" but without the civil war interludes, and with more savagery.
4) Victory has a price: Tobias is captured and tortured by the insane Yeerk, Taylor and the teams' difficulties to get him back.  I envision Tobias's inprisonment lasting a few episodes and creating a great strain between the Animorphs.
5) The return and death of Visser One as a finale.  She plans to kill Visser Three, but her plan will involve destroying the entire town the Animorphs live in.  Marco ends up choosing to let his mother die to save their town, but in so doing ensures that Visser Three will become the sole leader of the invasion.  The Animorphs escape with themselves intact but the war is beginning to weigh on them.

Cliffhanger: Visser Three is seen viewing pictures of the Animorphs and their family members.

Season 6: Final season. Wrap it up.  Key points:

1) The cliffhanger plays itself out.  The Animorphs are discovered as humans.  Several of their family members are taken and the Animorphs themselves are forced into hiding.  Marco deals with the fact that he may h
2) Several episodes establish the new nature the guerilla war has taken now that the secret is out.  The Hork Bajir colony is developed enough to provide brute force reinforcements.  The Chee have become increasingly weary of being used as spies as the Animorphs have become increasingly rutheless, and even sabotage some missions.
3) The Yeerk peace movement established in the previous season takes a more active role as the Chee become less reliable.
4) Midway through the season, Cassie lets the morphing cube fall into Yeerk hands.
5) Ax makes contact with the Andalite fleet, revealing that they intend to destroy the planet as the war escalates and more Yeerks arrive on the Planet.
6) The race is on as the Animorphs must defeat the Yeerks.  Earth has mounted its own resistance, together with the free Hork Bajir and Taxxons.  Ax and a few of the other Animorphs secretely board the Andalite Dome Ship to sabotage their offensive weapons while the others manage to destroy the Pool ship and Yeerk pool, winning the war.

I deliberately left the Ellimist and Crayak out, simply because I think the universe is broad enough for a television series without them.  These sorts of semi-omnipotent beings play better in books than they do on TV.  TV audiences would be wondering where they were in every episode once it was implied that they pull all the strings.  The only major issue with this is that Tobias needs another way to get his morphing powers back.  I figure we know so little about the power itself that this should be swingable.

[MoppingBear]

The only major issue with this is that Tobias needs another way to get his morphing powers back.  I figure we know so little about the power itself that this should be swingable.

Like in the old TV show where he randomly got it back touching an Andalite disk?  I'd argue that the broadness of the verse is a big part of the appeal.  I got a big kick out of finding out that the God of the Animorphs universe was basically a geeky gamer kid.  Including the Elimmist also allows for easy access to random one of stories that would be really hard to explain otherwise like the Iskoort.  The destiny aspect of it being these particular kids is kind of cool as well (though Cassie's subtemporal grounded anomaly thing should be done away with.)  Lauren's disappearance and reappearance would lose some punch (but could be reworked) however, Elfangor being Tobias's father is much harder to explain.

[Liora]

Six seasons and a movie?

I like your setup, in general. But I feel like you've taken out a lot of the most interesting stuff in the first "season" (books 1-13, roughly) and moved them into other seasons - so what's left? I don't know about waiting until the second season to introduce the Chee, Jake's infestation, and especially the subplot with Marco's mom. I've been going back over the early books for my re-read blog, and before Marco found out that his mom was Visser One's host body, he was so. freaking. obnoxious. His mom is his motivation for fighting, and he doesn't find out about her until book five. So we end up with four books of nonstop ****ing about how this is insane and his dad couldn't handle losing him and he'll just do this one mission, just for Jake, but after that he's out... oh God, I could not handle an entire season of that. Either he has to find out about his mother very early on or he needs a new motivation to fight the war, which would substantially change his character, so I'd lean toward him finding out even sooner than in the books.

I'm actually okay with leaving out the Ellimist and Crayak. I wonder if the "cure for nothlitism" that Tobias finds could be related to their travels in Z-Space. All their human matter is floating around there while they're in morph, right? Maybe when they're in Z-Space, Tobias finds his old body, just hanging out there, and... wait, no, he'd have to have the morping power to acquire himself again. Well, wait, is there any good reason why you can't just get the power back from the Escafil device after being nothlited? Maybe once they get the blue box back (although the thing in book 20 where apparently it had just been sitting around the construction site, completely unnoticed by the Yeerks until David happened to pick it up like a year later really annoys me, but that's a whole other story), Tobias regains the power to morph, but he doesn't get to morph back into his old body until he finds it floating in Z-space. Just a thought.

Speaking of nothlits regaining their morphing powers through dubious means, I've been thinking a lot about The Departure. What do you think about having it take place immediately after the David subplot? Cassie's horrified with herself for manipulating David into trapping himself in rat form, and with Rachel for going through with the plan. It's a good time for her moral discomfort - which has been gradually building throughout the series - to come to a head.

Also, wouldn't it be awesome if the kids had no idea that the Hork-Bajir are gentle, peace-loving creatures? Like, Elfangor explains nothing to them about Taxxons and Hork-Bajir at the construction site. They just see these horrific monsters working for the Yeerks, so they fight them. Then they meet the escaped Hork-Bajir and they're like, "Oh my God, we've been slaughtering these innocent, sentient creatures for like two years without even thinking about it." That would be a nice punch in the gut. Come to think of it, that would also be an appropriate place to put The Departure. Cassie's stricken with guilt over what they've been doing, and if they've been killing innocents because they didn't know any better, what else don't they know that's leading them to do horrible things? It also sets that season up with a theme that the enemy is far more complex, and the fight more morally gray, than the kids thought.

[MoppingBear]

Well, wait, is there any good reason why you can't just get the power back from the Escafil device after being nothlited? Maybe once they get the blue box back (although the thing in book 20 where apparently it had just been sitting around the construction site, completely unnoticed by the Yeerks until David happened to pick it up like a year later really annoys me, but that's a whole other story), Tobias regains the power to morph, but he doesn't get to morph back into his old body until he finds it floating in Z-space. Just a thought.

Yes there is, otherwise staying in morph for more than two hours isn't much to worry about.  Tobias having the option to permanently become human again and choosing to stay as a hawk is a pretty important part of his character.

[Duff]

Trying to tie the seasons together thematically rather than simply with one basic story arc that the entire season focuses on.  It trims the fat and expands on essential storylines while completely ignoring others.

I view this is a 6 season story with 1 introductory season, a finale season, and 4 seasons each with their own themes and focus of development.

...

Season 3: This season focuses on the war at large, connecting it to the larger conflict in the galaxy.  While last season fleshed out the Yeerks as enemies and gave us an exploration there, this season will grow the universe further by having some storylines focused on other races.  Key storylines:

1) The development of the free Hork Bajir Colony, complete with Tobias getting his powers back (though with no Ellimist I'm not sure how this happens).  This should be an arc that lasts a few episodes.
2) The Leeran conflict, complete with twarting the development of shark controllers.
3) The fight on the Leeran homeworld and learning of the treachorous Andalites.
4) Cliffhanger finale with Visser One learning of Marco's identity and Jake and Cassie possibly being dead.

...

Season 5: Time to escalate the war with the following story arcs.  Theme here is the continued need for sacrifice in order to win the war.

1) The emergence of the Yeerk peace movement and "The Sickness" storyline.
2) The Animorphs capture a Yeerk-sub visser who claims to know how they can destroy the Yeerk pool.  The team prepares to do just this but is betrayed and nearly captured by the Yeerks.
3) A heroic defense of the Hork Bajir colony as the major action piece and story arc later in the season.  Think "Resistance" but without the civil war interludes, and with more savagery.
4) Victory has a price: Tobias is captured and tortured by the insane Yeerk, Taylor and the teams' difficulties to get him back.  I envision Tobias's inprisonment lasting a few episodes and creating a great strain between the Animorphs.
5) The return and death of Visser One as a finale.  She plans to kill Visser Three, but her plan will involve destroying the entire town the Animorphs live in.  Marco ends up choosing to let his mother die to save their town, but in so doing ensures that Visser Three will become the sole leader of the invasion.  The Animorphs escape with themselves intact but the war is beginning to weigh on them.

Cliffhanger: Visser Three is seen viewing pictures of the Animorphs and their family members.

I really like this approach. Having each season have themes is a good way to tie some of the books together.

I especially liked season 3 where we learn about everyone else fighting the yeerks and get a much better idea of what the war is actually like. This ties many seemingly one-off stories together into a solid arc.

I also really like season 5 where the animorphs deal with what they are willing to do to win the war. These stories are also scattered a bit through the books, weighted slightly toward the end of the series. Putting them into one season gives it a good feeling of a growing desperation and of slowly losing themselves to the war.

[Snakie]

To address some of the points, I don't really view 1-13 as the "first season" at all.

That's 1/4th of the book series, roughly, and its even more-so when you factor in how many books later on shouldn't get TV play at all.

I think Jake's infestation is a natural fit in the second season because its the first look at the inner workings of a Yeerk mind that we get.

I'll agree though that the subplot with Marco's mom belongs in the first season.  It establishes Marco's role in the group and adds some meat to that season.  Marco was ready to bolt until he found out about his mother, so that does need to happen relatively early to solidify him as an Animorph.  Its part of his "origin story".

The main points in the first season that are essential:

1) The general origin story.
2) Tobias trapped in morph and the establishment of his new life.
3) Rescue and establishment of Ax
4) Establishment of the primary controllers (Tom, Visser Three, Chapman)
5) An early visit to the Yeerk pool, seeing how terrible it is, etc.
6) Marco's mom storyline
7) Destroying the Kandrona (their first major victory will frankly be considerably MORE compelling without the help of an omnipotent being, we need to believe the Animorphs actually have a chance by the end of the first season)

I actually think that's plenty to get on with in a first season if Jakes infestation and the Chee are held off until the second season.

And yeah, if this is going to be a serialized show it felt natural to tie the episodes in a season together thematically.  That made it necessary to really change the order around as far as the sequence of events is concerned, and I frankly didn't see where the Ellimist/Crayak fit at all.

Irony is I actually really like the Ellimist/Crayak storylines, just couldn't envision them playing well on television at all, and thought the war was a grand enough scale for a TV show without making their war just a small terminal part of a larger game between the gods.  Sort of like how Galacticus and other god-like beings probably wouldn't play as well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they do on the pages of the comics.  I figured cutting them out would be the most controversial point, but I still think its necessary.  The moment you suggest there is someone up above pulling the strings TV audiences are going to expect their hands to be in everything.  I don't think books play quite that way.

Alas, this is all fantasy at this stage.  Its been well over a decade since the very last Animorphs book, and the books don't even really have all that much of a cult following.  Just a few nostalgic nerds.

[Snakie]

Another thing worth thinking about is when a lot of the back story should be told.

The Hork Bajir Chronicles storyline fits pretty naturally in season 3 with the creation of the colony.  The Andalite Chronicles on the other hand are a little bit more difficult to place.  Maybe season 2, and tie in a little bit more Yeerk history to flesh them out?  Either the Departure storyline or the Capture storyline would be a great place to learn more Yeerk backstory.  Maybe give one of those Yeerks a history with Elfangor.

Doing it thematically like this also leaves no room for the Megamorphs books at all, but others seem to be leaving them out too.  They just don't fit anywhere.

[Liora]

Well, wait, is there any good reason why you can't just get the power back from the Escafil device after being nothlited? Maybe once they get the blue box back (although the thing in book 20 where apparently it had just been sitting around the construction site, completely unnoticed by the Yeerks until David happened to pick it up like a year later really annoys me, but that's a whole other story), Tobias regains the power to morph, but he doesn't get to morph back into his old body until he finds it floating in Z-space. Just a thought.

Yes there is, otherwise staying in morph for more than two hours isn't much to worry about.  Tobias having the option to permanently become human again and choosing to stay as a hawk is a pretty important part of his character.

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of a technological reason, but you make a good point that Tobias having to make that choice established some important things about what he really wanted. Although that could be established another way. There are plenty of ways to explore this relationship to his nothlit status in-story; the Ellimist route is just the most direct way.

I don't think that "staying in morph for more than two hours isn't much to worry about," because you'd still lose your human body. For Tobias that wasn't a big deal, but for the rest of the kids - who have families that love them and a fairly happy, established human life - that's kind of horrible. Rachel, for example, wouldn't be thinking, "Well, I guess I'm a bear now, but at least I can still morph other stuff!" She'd be thinking, "Jesus Christ, what are Jordan and Sara going to do? What are my mom and dad going to do? They're all going to be devastated."

You do make an excellent point upthread, however, that Elfangor's story has to be completely overhauled to explain how he became Tobias's father without the Ellimist. But again, that can be done with some creativity and thought. I also kind of like the whole "Animorphs are the Ellimist's child soldiers, manipulated into fighting for his cause" revelation that slowly creeps up on you throughout the series. It's really quite disturbing when you think about it, and I love the sense of darkness it imparts to the story. On the other hand, he is way too powerful for audiences not to think, "Why doesn't he just fix everything?" especially since he keeps violating his code not to interfere. I don't know. I can see benefits and drawbacks to excising the Ellimist and Crayak.

The main points in the first season that are essential:

1) The general origin story.
2) Tobias trapped in morph and the establishment of his new life.
3) Rescue and establishment of Ax
4) Establishment of the primary controllers (Tom, Visser Three, Chapman)
5) An early visit to the Yeerk pool, seeing how terrible it is, etc.
6) Marco's mom storyline
7) Destroying the Kandrona (their first major victory will frankly be considerably MORE compelling without the help of an omnipotent being, we need to believe the Animorphs actually have a chance by the end of the first season)

My concern is, three and a half of those were covered in the very first book. So this would work out to be only five episodes, unless you stretched it out really far (which might make people bored) or filled the season with original stories.

[MoppingBear]

"Why doesn't he just fix everything?" especially since he keeps violating his code not to interfere. I don't know. I can see benefits and drawbacks to excising the Ellimist and Crayak.

He doesn't actually violate the code all that often IIRC, most of his intrusions required a concession to Crayak.

[Snakie]

Well, wait, is there any good reason why you can't just get the power back from the Escafil device after being nothlited? Maybe once they get the blue box back (although the thing in book 20 where apparently it had just been sitting around the construction site, completely unnoticed by the Yeerks until David happened to pick it up like a year later really annoys me, but that's a whole other story), Tobias regains the power to morph, but he doesn't get to morph back into his old body until he finds it floating in Z-space. Just a thought.

Yes there is, otherwise staying in morph for more than two hours isn't much to worry about.  Tobias having the option to permanently become human again and choosing to stay as a hawk is a pretty important part of his character.

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of a technological reason, but you make a good point that Tobias having to make that choice established some important things about what he really wanted. Although that could be established another way. There are plenty of ways to explore this relationship to his nothlit status in-story; the Ellimist route is just the most direct way.

I don't think that "staying in morph for more than two hours isn't much to worry about," because you'd still lose your human body. For Tobias that wasn't a big deal, but for the rest of the kids - who have families that love them and a fairly happy, established human life - that's kind of horrible. Rachel, for example, wouldn't be thinking, "Well, I guess I'm a bear now, but at least I can still morph other stuff!" She'd be thinking, "Jesus Christ, what are Jordan and Sara going to do? What are my mom and dad going to do? They're all going to be devastated."

You do make an excellent point upthread, however, that Elfangor's story has to be completely overhauled to explain how he became Tobias's father without the Ellimist. But again, that can be done with some creativity and thought. I also kind of like the whole "Animorphs are the Ellimist's child soldiers, manipulated into fighting for his cause" revelation that slowly creeps up on you throughout the series. It's really quite disturbing when you think about it, and I love the sense of darkness it imparts to the story. On the other hand, he is way too powerful for audiences not to think, "Why doesn't he just fix everything?" especially since he keeps violating his code not to interfere. I don't know. I can see benefits and drawbacks to excising the Ellimist and Crayak.

The main points in the first season that are essential:

1) The general origin story.
2) Tobias trapped in morph and the establishment of his new life.
3) Rescue and establishment of Ax
4) Establishment of the primary controllers (Tom, Visser Three, Chapman)
5) An early visit to the Yeerk pool, seeing how terrible it is, etc.
6) Marco's mom storyline
7) Destroying the Kandrona (their first major victory will frankly be considerably MORE compelling without the help of an omnipotent being, we need to believe the Animorphs actually have a chance by the end of the first season)

My concern is, three and a half of those were covered in the very first book. So this would work out to be only five episodes, unless you stretched it out really far (which might make people bored) or filled the season with original stories.

I'm entirely off the notion of 1 book = 1 episode, and this is just a skeleton anyway.  Stories will be fleshed out, and not all material need come specifically from the books.  Other things from other books could also be incorporated, this was by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of topics, merely an outline of the essential things that would need to be established in a season.  Other early book storylines could be included as well.

For one, the general origin story and learning about their morphs easily constitutes its own episode even though it only really makes up part of one book.  The first visit to the Yeerk pool would also be worthy of one episode when factoring setup and escape.

The same can be said for a book like (for example) The Predator, which I think could easily be fleshed out into a 2 part episode quite naturally.

[Liora]

I'm entirely off the notion of 1 book = 1 episode, and this is just a skeleton anyway.  Stories will be fleshed out, and not all material need come specifically from the books.  Other things from other books could also be incorporated, this was by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of topics, merely an outline of the essential things that would need to be established in a season.  Other early book storylines could be included as well.

For one, the general origin story and learning about their morphs easily constitutes its own episode even though it only really makes up part of one book.  The first visit to the Yeerk pool would also be worthy of one episode when factoring setup and escape.

The same can be said for a book like (for example) The Predator, which I think could easily be fleshed out into a 2 part episode quite naturally.

That's a good point. I understand theoretically that it doesn't have to be 1 book = 1 episode, but I've grown so used to these stories being told this particular way that it's hard for me to think about them differently. The TV show, IIRC, split the first book up into three episodes. And I think they also did The Predator as a two-parter. But I think a lot of that was due to the time restrictions of a half-hour show. Would you have this show as a half-hour or hour-long? How many episodes do your think each season should have?

He doesn't actually violate the code all that often IIRC, most of his intrusions required a concession to Crayak.

You might be right. It's been a while since I read the Ellimist-related books, but I seem to recall that in his first-ever appearance, he offered to take the Animorphs and their families to another planet, like a nature reserve for humans. That seems like a hell of a concession.