by Elijah Sauder
A time to laugh, a time to weep
Before I discuss the latest episode of Star Trek, I feel it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge the loss that we experienced on the 27th with the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee in the mishap during the Apollo 1 rehearsal test. It is in times like these, times when our dreams of reaching the stars seem to be shaken, that we are reminded of the danger involved in such dreams. However, though the stark reality and harshness of the danger can make the dream seem unattainable, we should stand and support the astronauts that choose to risk their lives, and follow the footsteps of those who have gone on without us, follow their dream and see it to fruition. This mighty loss deserves remembering, let us remember these brave three and carry their dreams with us.
It feels weird to transition to summarizing an episode of a fictional TV show about space after remembering the events of the 27th, but “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, one of my favorite episodes so far, provides an eerily appropriate counterpoint to the Apollo 1 disaster.
We find the crew of the Enterprise in the late 1960s, stranded in the past after a brush with a "dark star", which renders the ship largely inoperable. While they are trying to figure out how to get the ship operational and get back to their own time, the Air Force detects them and sends fighters to investigate. This results in one of the pilots, Captain John Christopher, being beamed aboard. All well and good, Captain Kirk thinks. But the pilot had taken and transmitted recordings of the sighting. The crew beams down to try and destroy the recordings and set history to rights.
"You're coming with me to see Colonel Bellows!"
During all sorts of amusing antics, another non-crew member gets beamed aboard and Kirk gets captured. Spock, Sulu, and the pilot, go down to rescue Kirk and despite some duplicity, manage to retrieve him and beam back to the ship with everything they went to acquire. The episode ends with Scotty and his crew getting the ship running again (though still in need of more thorough repairs) and then using Spock’s idea to try and repeat the maneuver that got them to the past but in reverse by using the sun to 'slingshot' the ship forward in time. Through this process they go back in time a bit, which allows them to return the pilot to the past before the Enterprise beamed him up. They then continue forward, making it back to their own time and communicate to Starfleet that they have returned.
It's a sharp right past Mercury.
I absolutely loved this episode. It felt lighthearted and didn’t take itself too seriously. And whether it was meant or not, the fights in the show were quite humorous. But those things alone do not make a good episode. All the actors did a wonderful job this episode really selling the characters. I also appreciated the more science fictional premise. The previous couple of episodes have involved highly advanced species that border on gods and while I feel those stories have their place in science fiction, I much prefer premises like this episode’s.
Flying Kirk Attack!
Of course, "Tomorrow is Yesterday" was not without its flaws. The most glaring ones were at the end where the Enterprise beamed the pilot down to a location his past self already was, and that the timeline seemed to be rewritten after doing that; no trace of the Enterprise or its Earth-based gamboling. I personally didn’t mind these too much as I felt the fun of the rest of the show made up for them, but they may turn some people off.
"UFO? What UFO?"
Overall, for me this episode was a solid 4.5/5.
Get me to the Church on Time
by Abigail Beaman
Since this is my first time contributing to The Galactic Journey, I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Abigail Beaman or Abby for short. I started watching Star Trek during its 11th episode, "The Menagerie (Part One)", and to date, my favorite episode is "The Galileo Seven". I may or may not have created a wedding certificate for me and Mr. Spock–a girl's got to prepare for the future.
Mr. Abigail Beaman
Star Trek as a whole is a very interesting and wild concept that I support, but I feel that most episodes suffer from slow plots or the crew feeling out of place. That’s how I originally thought "Tomorrow is Yesterday" would have played out. While I normally dislike time-traveling episodes for their bad writing and forced narratives, this episode has helped change my opinion. With that being said I wholeheartedly believe that this episode wasn’t interesting because of the time travel, but rather how the characters interacted with said travel.
"And this is how you make a warp engine!" "That's enough, Lieutenant…"
In past episodes, there have been moments where I thought a character acted strangely or dumb just to continue the story. However I feel proud to say, not once did I question any of the characters' actions in this episode. Mr. Lieutenant Commander Spock was probably my favorite example of this episode. While yes, he was already my most beloved and favorite character, the sheer number of witty, very logical, and utterly Spockish retorts made the episode even better. I found the scene when Captain Christopher pulls a gun on Sulu and Kirk to be my favorite. Spock is already expecting this, so he beams up to the ship and then beams back down to knock out Captain Christopher. A nice application of logic and technology.
Funny. That's now how I look when he does that to me…
At the end of the line, I am going to rate "Tomorrow is Yesterday" very highly, as it was altogether a silly episode that made my day. However, I understand not everyone likes silly time travel episodes and their usually unaddressed ramifications. It’s all up to personal opinion, and with that said I rate this episode 4.5/5.
by Lorelei Marcus
Tragic Predictions
I had originally intended to write about my thoughts on the episode's predictions of when we will be launching our first manned moonshot. With ten Gemini missions rapidly successfully flown, and the Apollo program just around the corner, I felt "the late '60s" was a perfectly reasonable estimate. The Moon was practically in our grasp. Or so I thought.
On January 27, at 6:31 PM, three astronauts were killed in a freak accident fire on the Apollo One spacecraft. Experts think it was caused by faulty wiring which sparked with the 100% oxygen atmosphere of the cockpit.
I was numb when I first heard Mike Wallace report on the disaster. The dread and realization mounted over the course of the CBS Special Report, but the reality of what had occurred didn't really hit me until Walter Cronkite, a face I associate strongly with another world-shifting tragedy, came on the screen. To paraphrase his words, "This may shift our plans back from 1967 to 1968, from '68 to '69, from '69 to even 1970. But we must have courage…no, the guts to continue forward with this space program."
I'm glad "Tomorrow is Yesterday" writer D.C. Fontana never explicitly named the three men who will be on the Apollo flight to the Moon. While an author could never have predicted something like the Apollo 1 fire, not hearing Grissom or White's names mentioned in the episode allows it to remain plausibly our future and the Enterprise's past.
Maybe "the late 60s" won't be a far off guess after all.
Four stars.
by Andrea Castaneda
A dimension too far
Star Trek already has a grandiose premise, which I love and appreciate. It leads to many possible scenarios for adventure, conflict, and character development. But when time travel gets added, it takes it a dimension too far and exponentially expands the potential for plot holes and inconsistencies.
The episode started out strong. I liked seeing how our 1967 perspective would process seeing a starship suddenly appear. I also liked the high stakes of a small event altering the future irrevocably.
The Enterprise as seen from Captain Christopher's F-104. This is one of the more effective shots in the show.
However, the setting of outer space has fixed rules, whereas the logic of time travel seems too flimsy to be consistent. We're given a brief explanation of Trekian physics. One needs massive amounts of energy and velocity to propel oneself through space and time. Therefore it makes sense that stars with their immense gravities are necessary to do so, and that the crew would repeat this process to go home. But then the logic starts to bend to fit the narrative. They conveniently go back a day in time before they arrived, returning their 20th century guests.
Yet despite how inexperienced they are with time travel, they manage to know the precise moment they were beamed up and can seamlessly beam them back to that exact moment. Which somehow removes their memories of everything ensuing. And because the Enterprise has gone back in time, it now could never exist in our time, making the entire second act pointless. Everyone goes home, the crew of the Enterprise cheer, and they continue to go boldly where no man's gone before.
Time travel fixes everything!
This end frustrates me not only because of the paradox it creates (how is the Enterprise no longer in the past? Shouldn't it exist twice?) but because the character development in Captain Christopher is now rendered moot. He was, to me, the strongest aspect about this episode. Through him and Kirk, we see what past and future can learn about each other and how despite the centuries between them, they're both still human.
I think a scenario where things ended in a time loop would have been far more interesting. Christopher could have returned home, had his son destined to explore Saturn, and raised him to keep looking to the stars– all inspired from his day-long romp in space, making the end of this episode feel less hollow. Certainly, it would have been a less problematic presentation of the time travel cliché.
Still, this "Tomorrow is Yesterday" was overall enjoyable to watch. It allowed much of the ensemble to shine, offered up hilarious gags and an interesting perspective about humanity's advancement. I just hope that going forward, the writers keep this time travel plot device to a minimum.
Three stars.
Well, at least it's unlikely this week's episode will involve time travel. Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific)!
"Captain Kirk, This is Your Life!"
This one really falls apart at the end, but getting there is lots of fun. The dialogue, in particular, just sparkled. Kirk's "This little thing? It's just something I threw on" was great, but my favorite has to be McCoy's response when Kirk tells him he's starting to sound like Spock: "If you're going to get nasty, I'm going to leave." I also really liked the obvious joy both Kirk and Sulu showed looking at all the neat old stuff when they first beamed down.
That's been a very consistent part of Sulu's character. He loves old stuff! And Kirk was clearly enjoying interviewing a relic.
I dunno. To me this was a fairly routine caper story with Star Trek bits, not too far from the sort of thing The Man from UNCLE has developed into. I didn't dislike it but it was a big drop after the greatness of "Arena" for this 11-year-old viewer.
Nothing to report with this one as regards wigs and caves. I think we'll get some wigs next week but no caves. It shoudn't be long, though, before Cave Trek properties reappear.
They should have combined this one with "The Naked Time" (which had the ship going back in time a few days after an encounter with a dying star) to create a two-parter – the computer's voice could have been explained as an aftereffect of Riley's actions.
Another "worth watching but not a classic" episode.