The City on the Edge of Forever
The City on the Edge of Forever (Memory Alpha; SD Video) has been one of the episodes that I’ve been looking forward to: it won a Hugo, and it’s got a little hype in the air.
It lives up to it.
The Enterprise is mapping out some temporal disturbances when McCoy accidentally overdoses on cordrazine and goes super-crazy paranoid. McCoy beams down to the planet that is the source of the disturbances and an away team follows. On the planet is the Guardian of Forever, that big oddly-shaped circle thing. It’s the cause of the disturbances.
Begin Spoilers
McCoy, trying to escape from the away team for fear that they’ll kill him (paranoid delusions!) jumps through. The Guardian breaks the news to the away team:
The Guardian of Forever: Your vessel, your beginning, all that you knew… is gone.
Kirk: McCoy… has somehow… changed history.
Scotty: You mean we’re stranded down here?
Spock: With no past, no future.
Uhura: Captain, I’m frightened.Really, Uhura? Nice way to speak the subtext, there.
So Kirk and Spock have to jump back in time and right history. They find the pivot point, and it’s a dreamer named Edith Keeler, whom Kirk promptly and inconveniently falls in love with. But to right the timeline, she must die.
End Spoilers
This really is a great episode. It’s got humor, it’s got conflict of interest, and you really do care for the characters. Sure, Kirk overacts a ton on some parts, and as always the sets and costumes are sad by today’s standards, but the story is good and incredibly rich; this episode has no problem filling out it’s time allotment (and Ellison wanted a B plot!).
And of course, McCoy gets the good lines:
McCoy: I am Leonard H. McCoy, Senior Medical Officer aboard the U S S Enterprise.
Edith: I don’t mean to disbelieve you, but that’s hardly a navy uniform.
McCoy: Quite all right. That’s quite all right, dear. Because I don’t believe in you, either.
But the power of this episode is the moral calculus it imposes on the characters. Is the price for righting the timeline worth it? Are untold millions of people lay in the future, do they have the same moral weight as the people around you right now?
What I would have liked to see was a bit more discussion about this. Instead, we just get anguish. That’s totally correct, but it’s only the half of the story that comes after the decision; the lead-in is just as important.
In any case, this episode deserves all the accolades it’s garnished, and I’m not about to withhold my own meager addition.
Grade
A+
