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Star Trek - The City on the Edge of Forever
episode 1.28
Raumschiff Enterprise - Griff in die Geschichte
USA 1967
produced by Gene L.Coon, Gene Roddenberry (executive) for Desilu, Norway Corporation/NBC
directed by Joseph Pevney
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Joan Collins, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, John Harmon, Hal Baylor, David L.Ross, John Winston, Bart La Rue (voice), Eddie Paskey, Bill Blackburn, Howard Culver, Carey Loftin
written by Harlan Ellison, created by Gene Roddenberry, music by Alexander Courage
TV series Star Trek, Classic Star Trek, Star Trek (original crew)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Thanks to a freak accident, the Starship Enterprise's doctor McCoy
(DeForest Kelley) goes totally bonkers, beams down to the nearest planet,
finds a time portal (as these things seem to grow on planets like this),
alters the future, and suddenly there is no more Enterprise ...
Fortunately some of the Enterprise's key personnel, including Captain Kirk
(William Shatner) and Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy) have beamed down to the
planet too, and Kirk and Spock step through the time portal as well to go
after McCoy - but actually arrive there a couple of weeks before him, in
the USA of the 1930's, a country torn by the Great Depression.
Still, Kirk finds a job and an appartment for the two of them pretty
easily, thanks to social worker Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), and in no
time at all, Spock has built a machine that can look into alternative
futures out of tinfoil, spit and gum.
Kirk and Edith Keeler fall in love, as was to be expected, but Spock
finds that she and exactly she is the key to the alternative futures -
either she dies in a car accident in a few days from now or she will
become a leading peace activist ... thing is that in the real (as in our)
future she has to die in a car accident, while in the alternative future
she is saved by McCoy, becomes a prominent member of the pacifist movement
and ultimately convinces Franklin Delano Rossevelt to stay out of World
War II - which caused the Nazis to develop the atom bomb first and
conquer teh world ... so ultimately, Kirk and Spock have to prevent McCoy
- who has meanwhile gone sane again - from saving Edith Keeler from dieing
in a car accident ... even if it breaks Kirk's heart ...
In the end, Kirk, Spock and McCoy return to their time, which is once
again intact in the way they left it - with the Enterprise up in space and
everything -, and the time portal, which actually has a voice (that of
Bart La Rue), inviting them to return anytime, to meddle with time some
more.
This episode is based on a very interesting premise - that doing
everything right can ultimately lead up to something very wrong -,
however, the story that works on this basic premise is less than
convincing: it relies way too much on coincidence and at times seems
far-fetched to the hilt. That said, the episode is far from being all bad,
it's actually quite amusing to see familiar Star Trek
characters in Depression-torn America - just don't expect the
philosophical treatment that Harlan Ellison, screenwriter of this episode
and acclaimed science fiction author, was no doubt capable of, and instead
lean back for a little time travel nonsense with a message.
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