Ep. 21 Tomorrow is Yesterday

The Enterprise gets thrown back in time quite violently by a black star, ending up in the 1960's. They are spotted by the United States Air Force's John Christopher, the pilot up observing the apparent UFO. He is rescued by transporter when the Enterprise locks onto his ship with a tractor beam and accidentally destroys it. Spock realizes that they have to return Christopher because his son, which has yet to be conceived, will be an important man. While covering up their presence, Kirk and Sulu break into an Air Force base to erase tapes of the Enterprise and doctor the wreckage of the jet, another 1960's officer gets beamed up, and Kirk gets captured. Spock and Sulu rescue him, then they slingshot around the sun to fix everything.

Not only is this the first real Star Trek time travel episode (other than that re-live a few days thing), but it actually deals with the realities of time travel by showing how something done can affect the future. It is definitely weird that the Enterprise was traveling within the atmosphere, and the view from the screen doesn't seem to match the shot we saw of it in the sky. Despite this episode being a full two years before the first moon landing, they correctly identified the events at the late 1960's, and that there would be three astronauts. Kudos to their continuity experts. Was the Enterprise really afraid of the jet's missiles, though? I love that the computer malfunctioned and became sultry. Why did they give Christopher a Lieutenant's uniform? There were no civilian clothes aboard? Kirk's fight in the photo room was the funniest, and most unnecessary, fight ever. They sling shoted the sun to travel back, which they do again later in the series. I am confused on how taking Christopher back in time erased his memory, but whatever. This was Mr. Kyle's first episode, who would actually become a true recurring character, appearing many more times. This was a very amusing episode. It really kept my attention.

RECURRING CHARACTERS:
DeForrest Kelley as McCoy
James Doohan as Scotty
George Takei as Sulu
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
John Winston as Mr. Kyle

NOTABLE GUEST STARS:
Roger Perry as Captain John Christopher
Ed Peck as Colonel Fellini
Hal Lynch as air police sergeant

Quote:
"Now you're sounding like Spock."
"Well, if you're going to get nasty, I'm going to leave." ~ Kirk and McCoy