This episode is often said to be one of the best episodes in the franchise. I certainly think the concept is excellent but is it the best? Lets find out.
The beginning of the episode is the weakest part. It relies on an accident coupled with incompetence. I think they could have come up with a better way to get us to the story.
The Enterprise is at red alert. They are passing through ripples in time. These ripples shake the ship. They come to an unknown world that is the focus of the time ripples.
After Sulu’s console explodes, McCoy is called to the bridge. He injects Sulu with Cordrazine – a potentially dangerous medicine administered by the drop.
When the ship is rocked again McCoy accidentally injects himself. This part doesn’t really work for me. If cordrazine is measured by the drop why was there so much in the hypospray? That little nitpick out of the way Deforest Kelly does portray this very well.
Subjects failed to recognise acquaintances, became hysterically convinced that they were in mortal danger, and were seeking escape at any cost. Extremely dangerous to himself or to anyone else… Spock, on the effects of Cortrozine (TOS: The City on the Edge of Forever)
Given this description McCoy wants to get off the ship. That makes sense. Even a barren planet might seem appealing in those circumstances.
What makes less sense is how easily McCoy does this. The Enterprise is already at red alert. Despite this there is no extra security in the transporter room. Without any real effort McCoy knocks out the transporter chief and beams down.
Kirk leads a landing party to search for McCoy. For no particular reason, except the plot needs it, this seems to be a literal search – they can’t just pick McCoy’s life signs on the tricorder – or from orbit for that matter.
They discover extensive ruins. Spock calculates that they are 10,000 centuries old. His, and Kirk’s, attention is quickly drawn to a pulsating doughnut shaped object. I suppose I should call it a torus.
The doughnut introduces itself as the guardian of forever. It is a portal to the past. When asked if it is ‘machine or a being’ it states it is ‘both and neither’. Clearly the guardian attended the Royal Vorlon Collage of Not Giving a Straight Answer. Spock is irritated. I agree. I don’t like riddles either. (With the exception of the Voyager episode with that name.)
Kirk wonders if they can use the guardian to prevent McCoy’s accident. This feels like using a laser to remove a hangnail.
Unfortunately the doughnut doesn’t have an iris or a Walter Harriman. McCoy runs past and dives into the past. This is where the episode loses me a little. It is a pretty serious design flaw to allow any one, especially a drug-addled man, to get through.
Suddenly the landing party is all alone. McCoy has changed history. The Enterprise no longer exists. They are people out of time.
Time travel stories are always liable to create paradoxes. If McCoy changed history then the landing party shouldn’t exist either, but also McCoy would never have been born, and so on. (Wibbly Wobbly timey wimey)
Also none of the landing party manages to stop McCoy! You do have a stun setting!
Kirk and Spock head into the past. The doughnut cannot send them to the exact same point. It can only show the passing centuries at one speed. So it is less user friendly than a VCR!
Kirk and Spock arrive in 1930. They are there less than a minute before they commit a crime – stealing clothes off a fire escape. Literal seconds later they are caught by a police officer. Spock nerve pinches him but not before Kirk explains Spock’s ears: ‘He caught his head in a mechanical rice picker.’
Why didn’t Kirk bring Scotty? Surly having Spock along could create unnecessary complications. To show that there is no nitpicking depth I will not plunge – it was very lucky that the stolen clothes included a hat to cover Spock’s ears!
All kidding aside the episode is efficient at getting the characters where they need to be. After making a run for it they end up at the 21st Street Mission.
The first priority is to discover what McCoy did. Spock was monitoring the doughnut when he jumped through. Unfortunately, for reasons the episode doesn’t explain, he can’t access the data on his tricorder.
They are interrupted by Edith Keeler. She offers them work for $0.15 an hour. They start by cleaning the basement.
Keeler gets up on stage and talks about her, for want of a better word, philosophy. For all intents and purposes she is talking about the world Kirk and Spock know. I have to agree with Sfdebris. If I was homeless and hungry I don’t think that knowing that there would be a bright future would help me much.
The reason this is here is because the story depends on Kirk falling in love. Edith, therefore, has to be an intelligent and forward thinking woman. Despite the reputation Kirk is not the womaniser he is often said to be. That applies far more to Riker. (Look no further than his favourite planet.)
I think Edith is a little too on the nose. Talk of space craft and atomic power isn’t much good when you don’t know when, or if, you will eat tomorrow. I think the episode would have been better if she was a progressive thinker – not a seer. She is not literally a seer but that is how it comes across.
Some time later Spock has managed to build a computer. I don’t see how, but Spock is a genius.
Spock is also logical to a fault. He states, in a matter of fact way, that he needs platinum. I tried to look up the value of 5 lbs of platinum in 1930. I couldn’t find a result. However it is safe to say it would be beyond their means.
Kirk walks Edith home. (Spock works and Kirk gets a date. Now that does sound typical) They take a moment to look at the stars. Kirk talks about a writer who lived on a faraway planet. It is things like this that make Temporal Investigations label him a menace.
By the time Kirk returns Spock he has discovered that Edith Keeler is the focal point in time. (Apparently the platinum wasn’t important)
Meanwhile McCoy arrives and is yelling at the sky. He spots a homeless man stealing milk. He yells that he won’t kill him, grabs the man’s head, and passes out. The man checks McCoy’s clothes and finds his phaser. He accidentally kills himself.
The episode spends no time on this man. McCoy probably wasn’t even aware that he died. And I wasn’t aware he had a name. (Rodent according to Memory Alpha) His death, apparently, had no effect on the timeline one way or the other. This leads me to a tangent.
I don’t want to get into the behind the scenes stuff, at least not in depth, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say something. I am given to understand that the original version of this script was very different. If I am understanding correctly that draft did have a homeless character who would have been more important to the story. The script as written has the man’s death not matter at all. I suppose that is true of most of us.
McCoy finds his way to the mission. The cynic in me wants to say it was very convenient. Edith helps get out of sight into a back room. For her the only important thing is that he is in need.
Spock discovers what happened. Edith Keeler became the leader of a peace movement. This delayed the US’s entry into the second world war – which Germany then won. Edith had the right idea – but at the wrong time. To preserve the timeline Edith Keeler must die.
At the top of the stairs Edith stumbles. Kirk catches her saying it is not yet time – it is also not the way that history reported that she died.
McCoy seems to have a hard time believing he is in the past. This seems odd given the events of ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday.’
Quickly everything comes together. Kirk and Spock are reunited with McCoy. Edith crosses the street and is hit by a van. The horrible tragedy is that not only can Kirk not save her he also has to prevent McCoy from doing so.
The presentation of the ending never quite worked for me. It looks like the van had plenty of time to stop and chose not to. However that is getting into some real nitpicking territory.
The trio return to the present, which is the future, and for Scotty no time has passed. The final line of the episode: ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’, was a big deal at the time. It is hard to imagine that now.
This is an excellent episode. It is one of the best of TOS. Kirk having to weigh personal feelings against larger considerations is very well done. The death of Edith Keeler allowed for the future to happen.
Star Trek is about a positive future. In order for that to happen an innocent woman had to die – not to mention millions of others in the three world wars. This story is very well told and I recommend it if you have not seen it.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
Unstable Orbit 