Original air date: April 6, 1967
Captain’s Log, no Stardate.
SYNOPSIS
When a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy accidentally changes history and destroys his time, Kirk and Spock follow him to prevent the disaster, but the price to do so is high.
CANON CONTEXT
Of all the episodes I’ve read up on, this one by far had the most background history to it! But I chose a small portion to share here: The episode received widespread critical acclaim and has been frequently stated to be the best episode of the entire Star Trek franchise. Elements such as the tragic ending were highlighted by several reviewers. It won several awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Episodic Drama on Television (Ellison, 1967) and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Ellison and Pevney, 1968).
RECAP
I swear this show is so good it’s infuriating sometimes!
Let’s start with cordrazine. Some sort of steroid medication used to jump start a person back to consciousness. While the Enterprise is going through some things over some planet somewhere, Sulu gets shocked by his station and Bones is called to revive him. He uses cordrazine and it does the trick like a charm. Except, too much of it isn’t a good thing. Unfortunately, as Bones is about to put his needle away the ship jerks once more and he accidentally plunges a large amount of this stuff into himself. Not good!
It’s not too long afterwards that Bones manages to transport himself down onto the planet where strange occurrences are taking place. These things seems to happen often in the first season.
While there they encounter THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVER. His voice is pretty grandiose because his job is a pretty big deal. He keeps time going on a pretty even field. To prove how advanced it is it begins to replay events in history. Should they jump in it would not be good. So what happens? Bones in his paranoid state jumps in and whatever he manages to do he changes the events of history. Meaning there is no more Enterprise.
The only solution is for Kirk and Spock to try and jump back in time at as close an approximation of time as when Bones went in.
Enter the femme fatale. Or in this case Joan Collins.
She is a social worker at a mission in Brooklyn and without any hesitation offers to help Kirk and Spock to get work, food and shelter. While they wait for the moment when Bones enters that time period Spock busies himself trying to make some computer thingy that is able to miraculously show him what he needs to see. If you remember the whole point of their mission is to find Bones and stop him from doing whatever it is he does that alters the course of history. But, what do you suppose happens?
You guessed it. Jim’s in love with Edith Keeler (aka Joan Collins). And she kinda digs him too. But their love affair must come to an end when Spock is shown the following article:
As he’s about to show this to Kirk completely different possible scenario presents itself. Edith Keeler becomes the leader of some resistance group that forces the United States to enter WWII late. This results in Germany creating the A-Bomb first and as you would expect they use it in the worst way possible, resulting in millions killed. Therefore, the conclusion is that Edith Keeler must follow the path Spock first saw that is her accidental death. If she lives millions will die and the Enterprise will not exist.
Enter Bones in his most paranoid of states.
He needs some serious help and who should provide it but a social worker we already are familiar with. She jokes that he reminds her of a fella she’s going to the movies with one evening. One guess who that is…
And now the moment has arrived. What we’ve all been waiting for and hoping never comes. With Bones all healed thanks to the lovely Edith Keeler, he is reunited with Kirk and Spock. As Edith crosses the road to inquire as to how they all know each other she fails to see or react to the truck speeding in her direction.
In a split second Kirk must decide to let it happen and stops Bones from running to her rescue. It was quite a scene. Happened so fast. But it was so well done.
With time put back as it should be there is nothing left to do but for the three of them to return to the planet where Mr.Scott promptly informs them they were hardly gone but a short while.
I want to say one thing more about the music. This is the first time I’m actually mentioning the music but I felt it added so much to just the feeling of the episode. It made me feel like I was watching an old tv show like Father Knows Best or something like that. It had a very distinct sound throughout and will make this one rank highly in my book because of it.
DID THEY REALLY SAY THAT?
Capt. Kirk: Spock... I believe... I'm in love with Edith Keeler.
Spock: Jim, Edith Keeler must die.