| Intl. Notebook | Jun 8 2024 |
A timeless show's most timeless episode.
Was Star Trek the greatest sci-fi series ever aired? We think so, though there have been other great ones. But even if Star Trek wasn't the best, it was the most topical and groundbreaking, with its anti-war and anti-racism allegories, diverse crew, and costumes that pushed the bounds of censorship. The two shots above are from the 1967 episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” written by Harlan Ellison and considered by many fans to be the pinnacle of the series. In the photo are Enterprise crew members looking at the Guardian of Forever, an eternal being that records all of history and acts as a gateway for those who wish to observe the past firsthand.
When Doctor McCoy suffers an accidental drug overdose that makes him psychotic he leaps through the gateway to a past Earth. At that moment the Enterprise, which is in orbit, disappears. Somehow McCoy has changed Earth's past, and caused the ship—possibly all of humanity—to wink out of existence. The crew members have no choice but to follow McCoy into the past to try and stop him from doing whatever altered history. Spock refers to that past—the 1920s—as “a rather barbaric time.” We wonder what he would think if he came from the future to the 2020s? We have a feeling the word “barbaric” wouldn't suffice.
