Star date: 3113.2
Summary: This show starts from the perspective of late-1960's U.S. Strategic Air Command, as they detect a UFO on their air scanners and scramble a jet to get visual confirmation. The UFO is the Enterprise, flung back in time and with limited power as a result of an encounter with a "black star". Unable to outrun the Air Force jet, the Enterprise locks onto it with its tractor beam. When this maneuver causes the jet to break up, Kirk is forced to beam the pilot, Captain John Christopher, aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk and crew now face two challenges: returning Captain Christopher to Earth without affecting the future, and returning themselves to their own era. Kirk's initial inclination is not to return Christopher to Earth, but Spock discovers that Christopher's as-yet-unborn son will make an important contribution to space travel, and therefore Christopher's return is imperative. Further complicating matters is that the Air Force now has video and voice recordings of Christopher's encounter with the Enterprise, and those recordings must be destroyed.
Kirk and Sulu beam down to retrieve all evidence of their visit, and are arrested by a security guard who inadvertently signals Spock to beam him aboard. Kirk is then arrested by another security force while Sulu returns to the ship. Spock and Sulu beam down again with Captain Christopher, and this time the full Enterprise crew manage to return to their ship with Christopher, despite his attempt to stay on Earth and report what he has learned. Scotty and Spock then "slingshot" the Enterprise around the sun to propel themselves forward in time to their own era, a maneuver which briefly moves them backward in time as well, allowing them to return Christopher and the security guard to a point in time before the Enterprise was ever detected, thus restoring the continuum of history.
This episode was pretty fun, as time-travel stories usually are. The writers also threw in an amusing side story about the ship's computer being given a female personality, and an especially sensuous one, so that the computer refers to Kirk as "dear" and gets emotional. And opening the show on a contemporary air base instead of in space is effective in getting the viewer's attention.
While this is a fairly light-hearted episode, emphasizing the amusing aspects of late 1960's Earth encountering a ship from 300 years in their future, it seems like William Shatner is suppressing a grin through much of it, which gets a bit wearisome. And what's going on with the direction in this episode? Shatner's face is in shadows in about 50% of the scenes, and I have no idea why. Certainly it's not to heighten any dramatic effect, not with Kirk smirking and cracking jokes through the whole show.
As usual, the folks who beam down to the surface are all the guys in the chain of command. For example, when it becomes necessary for someone to beam into a secure Air Force installation to retrieve the evidence of their visit, they send Kirk and Sulu, the first and third in command. Really? And when it's necessary to go rescue Kirk, they send Spock and Sulu.
I realize the security team of the Enterprise is particularly feckless --- early in the show, when Captain Christopher goes missing and Kirk orders security to find and detain him, you just know Christopher is going to overpower a security guy and get his phaser, which he does --- but still. There are 430 people on that ship, surely they can send someone besides the top 3 guys in command to go lift some files from a military installation!
Finally, while this show doesn't have the script problems that many of them do, the ending is spoiled a bit by the fact that we're supposed to believe Christopher and the security guard don't remember anything that happened to them on the Enterprise just because they've gone back in time. Well, gee, the whole Enterprise crew went back in time when they were "slingshotting" around the sun, but they didn't suddenly forget where there their ship was or what they were trying to do!
Other observations about this episode:
Kirk tells Christopher that the Enterprise operates under the authority of the "United Earth Space Probe Agency".
As Christopher is in his jet, following the Enterprise, Air Force Command tells him: "We want it brought down, or at least disabled". Not necessarily the best way to start a relationship with an interplanetary species, one which is almost certainly more technologically advanced than you are.
Using the sun's gravity to "slingshot" the Enterprise forward in time is a helpful way to get them back to when they're supposed to be, but no one mentions the risks resulting from the heat or radiation involved in getting close to the sun.
It would be difficult enough to be an Air Force pilot snatched from your ship and onto an Earth spaceship from 300 years in the future. That would take some time to wrap one's mind around. But then to have a Vulcan come and inform you, in a matter-of-fact way, that "all historical tapes" show "no record of any relevant contribution" you made during your life --- that's gotta sting.
The Moral of the Story: Be careful not to fly too close to black stars.
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