Ep. 28 The City on the Edge of Forever

After McCoy accidentally injects himself, he escapes to a strange planet and flees back in time to 1930's Earth through the Guardian of Forever. In the past, he saves a woman named Edith Keeler, destroying history. Kirk and Spock are mercifully protected from the time ripple by their nearness to the Guardian, and so follow him. Kirk falls in love with Edith, but allows her to die to fix history.

Arguably the best episode of the series, it does have all the most important recurring characters, even if they are barely used. It is written by a genius of the science fiction world, and has a very compelling, human story to it. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1968, fully deserved. It also won the Writer's Guild of America Award. The only slightly cheesy part was Edith's death. I love it, and I dare anyone to watch it and not. I won't write a big long review on this one because most people have seen it, and I'd honestly rather let it speak for itself. WATCH IT!!!

RECURRING CHARACTERS:
DeForrest Kelley as McCoy
James Doohan as Scotty
George Takei as Sulu
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
John Winston as Kyle
Michael Barrier as DeSalle
David L. Ross as Galloway

NOTABLE GUEST STARS:
Joan Collins as Edith Keeler

Quote:
"I think I like this century. Simple. Easier to manage. I think we're not going to have any difficulty explaining... "
"...you were saying you'd have no trouble explaining it."
"My friend is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain."
"Perhaps the unfortunate accident I has a child..."
"The unfortunate accident he had as a child. He caught his head in a mechanical rice picker." ~ Kirk and Spock

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