During the thread on "The Bomber And Mrs. Moroney" I offered the theory that the name change of "Thad Vaughn" from "And They Painted Daisies On His Coffin" to "Joey Collins" was deliberately done to avoid anything that might have required permission from John D.F. Black the original author of "Daises" who had nothing to do with "Moroney". In a similar vein, we have the matter of "Carl Swanson" in S1's "Six Kilos" suddenly becoming "Charlie Swanson" in "The Box" even though they are played by the same actor, Gerald S. O'Loughlin but are aired out of film order sequence.

Well, I have just gotten a copy of the final shooting script for "The Box" and it reveals something that again untangles the snarl that like with the name change of Thad Vaughn to Joey Collins reveals a case not of stupidity by the producers but a clear attempt to sufficiently muddle things up so another writer, in this case Meyer Dolinsky the credited writer of "Six Kilos" wouldn't have to grant permission or get any kind of fee. The final shooting script by John D.F. Black for "The Box" reveals the character's name is supposed to be "Charlie HERROLD" but a note on the first page says, "Change the name of Charlie Herrold to Charlie SWANSON throughout" (emphasis original).

This is my theory on what happened:

1-Black wrote "The Box" without intending for the Charlie character to have any connection to a character from "Six Kilos", an episode he had nothing to do with.

2-Gerald S. O'Loughlin may have been signed originally for just "The Box" but then perhaps was persuaded to do "Six Kilos" as well in what amounted to a smaller part comparatively speaking and because both episodes were filmed sequentially it would have been easy for him to stick around to do two episodes.

3-With O'Loughlin cast they decided to give his "Box" character the same last name as his "Six Kilos" character, so that some people at home might assume it was the same character but by making the first name different and giving no explicit references to the events of "Six Kilos" they probably felt they'd covered their bases legally. Perhaps the decision to then air "The Box" before "Six Kilos" and shove that episode to the end of the season was another deliberate move to further muddy the waters and prevent Dolinsky from saying, "Hey, you used my character!"

Whatever the explanation, I think it again is another case of how these kind of inconsistencies that suggest stupidity on the part of the producers may have been quite deliberate in nature.