TOS 29: The City on the Edge of Forever

Original air date: 04/06/1967
Star date: None given

Summary: The Enterprise is charting temporal disturbances above an unnamed planet, disturbances which periodically send shockwaves through the ship.  One of these shockwaves knocks out Sulu, and McCoy is summoned to the bridge.  After reviving Sulu with a small amount of cordrazine, another shock rocks the ship, causing McCoy to fall on his hypodermic, inadvertently giving himself an overdose.  The overdose sends McCoy into a state of raging paranoia, and he knocks out the transporter chief and beams down to the planet's surface before anyone can stop him.

Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura and two redshirts beam down to retrieve McCoy and find a large, sentient portal which describes itself to them as the Guardian of Forever.  After McCoy is found and subdued, the Guardian starts to show images of Earth's history to the landing party, which Spock starts to record.  Fascinated by the portal, the landing crew forgets about McCoy, who awakens and jumps through the portal.  Immediately after this, communication with the Enterprise is lost, and the Guardian explains: "Your vessel, your beginning, all that you knew --- is gone".  McCoy has altered the past in such a way that the Enterprise no longer exists.

Kirk and Spock also jump through the portal in an effort to find McCoy and restore the past.  They find themselves in the depression-era United States, a few days or weeks prior to McCoy's arrival, and end up working for Sister Edith Keeler in her mission house.  Spock's primary focus is building a primitive computer which he can use to read the recordings he made in front of the Guardian, in an effort to determine how McCoy changed history and how they can prevent the change.  Toward this end, Spock and Kirk do honest work (and resort to at least a couple of thefts) so Spock can obtain the materials he needs.  Kirk develops feelings for Sister Keeler, which she seems to reciprocate.

Unfortunately, Spock determines that McCoy will somehow prevent Keeler's death, which will delay the U.S. entry into WWII, thus allowing Nazi Germany to ultimately win.  It is therefore imperative that Kirk and Spock allow Keeler to die.  Despite this reality, Kirk continues to date Keeler.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Kirk and Spock, McCoy has taken up residence at the mission while he sleeps off his cordrazine overdose.

One night, as Kirk and Keeler are walking to a Clark Gable movie, Keeler mentions McCoy's name to Kirk, letting him know McCoy is staying at the mission.  Kirk then leaves Keeler and rushes across a busy street back to the mission.  McCoy comes out the mission door just as Kirk reaches him, and Keeler starts across the street to join them.  McCoy sees that a large truck is about to hit her, and starts to rush out in the street to save her, but Kirk holds him back, allowing Keeler to be killed.  The scene then returns to the Guardian and we see Kirk, Spock and McCoy return through the portal.  History has been restored.

There are a number of problems with the initial setup for this episode, on the planet in front of the Guardian.  But the 40 minutes or so played in 1930's America is very good.  There are some lighter moments, provided by McCoy, and by Kirk and Spock, and Joan Collins gives a great cameo performance as Sister Edith Keeler.  And the ending is poignant and moving, with Kirk actively preventing the death of a woman he loves.  The story works in a lot of ways.

One particularly humorous moment occurs shortly after Kirk and Spock arrive in the 1930's.  Looking very much out of place in their Starfleet uniforms, Kirk steals some washing hanging on a fire escape.  Kirk's bravado and Spock's stoic calm heighten the amusement factor:

Kirk: I think I'm gonna like this century.  Simple, easier to manage.  We're not gonna have any difficulty explaining . . .
(Cop walks up)
Cop: Ahem.
(Kirk and Spock stare at Cop, speechless)
Cop: Well?
Kirk: You're a police officer.  I, uh, recognize the traditional accoutrements.
Spock: You were saying you'll have no trouble explaining it.
Kirk: My friend is obviously Chinese.  I see you've noticed the ears.  They're actually easy to explain.
(Kirk and Spock stare uncomfortably at one another)
Spock: Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child.
Kirk: The unfortunate accident he had as a child.  He caught his head in a mechanical --- rice picker.  But fortunately there was an American missionary living close by who actually a, uh, skilled, uh, plastic surgeon in civilian life . . .
Cop: All right, all right, drop those bundles and put your hands on that wall, there!

Spock eventually learns that if Keeler lives, she will become the leader of a peace movement, and meet with FDR.  Her peace movement will delay U.S. entry into WWII, thus allowing the Nazis to develop the atom bomb before the U.S., thus allowing them to win the war.  I wonder if some other change in history, some other explanation as to how Keeler's survival led to the ultimate non-creation of the Enterprise, would have been sufficient for Kirk to allow her to die.  Accepting an alternate reality is one thing; accepting the deaths of millions of people, and Nazi rule of the planet is quite another.

When Kirk prevents McCoy from saving Keeler, McCoy doesn't yet know all of the history that will change if she lives.  He only understands that Kirk actively prevented him from saving someone.  This makes for a great ending, with McCoy saying to Kirk in disbelief: "Do you know what you just did?" --- and as Kirk moves speechlessly away to deal with his grief, Spock says simply: "He knows, doctor.  He knows."

And Shatner does something dangerously close to acting at this point.  After Keeler dies, he goes from grappling McCoy to leaning on him for support.  Then he looks like he might cry, and finally leans against the mission window.  Actually a moving performance.

This episode is also notable for not one, but two big-name guest stars.  The first is obviously Collins, who was already well-known and established as a starring actress in 1967.  The other is writer Harlan Ellison, who apparently objects to changes Roddenberry made to the script, and who eventually sued CBS Paramount (now owner of all things Trek, after buying the original production studio, Desilu) for a share of the income from the episode, one of the most popular in franchise history.

Other observations about this episode:

Like I said, the show is good once it gets going, but the getting there is a bit rocky.  Problems in the show include:

• When they subdue McCoy on the planet, why don't they beam him up to sickbay immediately?
• Or at the very least, why doesn't security actually RESTRAIN him?
• When McCoy jumps into the past and causes the Enterprise to disappear, the rest of the landing party should disappear as well.
• When Kirk realizes that the Guardian is a portal into the past, which can be used to change the past, why is his first thought to try to prevent McCoy's accident, rather than, say, WARS?
• Kirk and Spock jump through the portal to prevent McCoy from altering history, but they certainly make no effort to ensure that they don't disrupt history themselves.  They steal on at least two occasions, they interact with a number of people, and Kirk continues dating Edith Keeler even after he learns that she holds the key to Earth's future.

The Guardian's existence is unbelievably dangerous.  How lucky we are that no one else has found it and used it for nefarious purposes --- like, for example, saving Edith Keeler's life so the Nazis win WWII.

At one point in 1930's Earth, while McCoy is still whacked out on cordrazine, he encounters a bum.  After McCoy passes out, the bum steals McCoy's phaser and accidentally kills himself with it.  I thought it would have made for an interesting turn if the bum were involved in the main story somehow (for instance, what if he were Keeler's killer, and now it's impossible for him to kill her?), but apparently there was no real purpose to that part of the script.

Apparently Spock is a vegetarian.  At one point, Kirk returns from shopping and tells Spock "I've brought you some assorted vegetables, bologna and hard roll for myself."

Another example of what McCoy is not.  He tells Keeler "I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist."

Even though Joan Collins is billed as "Sister Edith Keeler", she never mentions the Bible or religion, does not wear any habit or other religious artifacts, and seems to enjoy dating men more than your typical nun.

At the end of the show, 7 crew members beam up from the planet's surface simultaneously (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura and two redshirts).  But the transporter platform is only big enough for 6.

Interestingly, no star date is ever given in this episode.  I'm guessing this is intentional, consistent with the episode's time-traveling, time-altering theme.

The Moral of the Story: Sometimes one must die, so that many may live.