TOS - 1.21 - Tomorrow Is Yesterday

This episode has a somewhat startling opening as we see contemporary fighter aircraft manoeuvring on the runway, rather than the usual shot of the Enterprise in space. I can imagine that this might have made a viewer on broadcast television wonder if  they have tuned into the right programme. However, its soon revealed that these aircraft are about to take off in order to intercept a UFO, which happens to be the Enterprise that has been thrown back in time as a result of escaping the gravitational pull of a “black star”.

“Tomorrow Is Yesterday” is a thoroughly entertaining episode. Time travel will become a fairly frequent activity in later Star Trek shows, but it is still a novelty here. There are no actual villains or even anyone acting with malicious intent, but there is still plenty of drama as Kirk and the crew must preserve the timeline. The troubles start when a US Air Force pilot called Captain John Christopher ends up the Enterprise, but things soon escalate with a confused military policemen also being beamed aboard and the Kirk getting arrested while infiltrating an Air Force base to remove evidence of the Enterprise’s existence.

The story being told is engaging and punctuated by some effective action, notably a well-staged fight between Kirk and no fewer than three guards, but it is the lightness of touch that makes the episode so enjoyable, with lots of humour that manages not to undermine the drama. Much of this comes from the characters, with some lovely moments such as Spock reveals himself as Captain Christopher talks about not believing in little green men and McCoy’s reaction to Spock admitting to having made a mistake (“This could be an historic occasion”), but there is also an amusing subplot where Kirk’s computer has been reprogrammed to have an affectionate and flirty personality. Even the more obviously comic moments, such as the bemused reactions of the poor military policeman who ends up on the Enterprise and Kirk’s bravado while being interrogated, are actually funny, and not over the top.

The main guest character is Captain John Christopher who is well played by Roger Perry. Christopher is a likable character and we sympathise with his situation when Spock suggests that he cannot be returned home since he has seen too much. It is therefore entirely believable when he does try to act against the crew in order to return home and do his duty. He also gets a lovely moment at the end of the episode when he gets to enjoy being in space having been rejected from the astronaut programme.

The only really problems with the episode really arise from the mechanics of the time travel as featured. There is an attempt to introduce jeopardy by questioning whether the Enterprise will ever be able to get home, but this is undermined by the fact that we have previously seen Spock and Scotty invent time travel in “The Naked Time”. The omission of this is presumably hold over from the fact that “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” was originally intended to follow on directly from that episode, with the Enterprise ending up in the 1960s as a result of what happened there rather than a completely separate incident. However, the bigger issue arises with the end of the episode in which the Enterprise is able to travel back in time slightly to when it arrived, returning Christopher and the policeman to the point at which they left with the effect of making them forget everything that they have seen. This makes no sense in terms of “cause and effect” (to quote a later time travel episode title) and results in history being changed and therefore making a lot of what happened in the episode irrelevant!

Planetary Gazetteer

Earth: This is the first episode of Star Trek to feature Earth, albeit one in contemporary times. The time period to which the Enterprise has travelled is not specified other than it being the late 1960s. However, it is shortly before the first “manned moon shot”. Assuming that this is referring to Apollo 8 (which travelled to the moon, even though no one landed on it) then this means that the episode takes place in December 1968, almost two years after it was first shown in January 1967. I see that other sources have interpreted this as referring to Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the moon, which puts the events of the episode in July 1969.

Cygnet XIV: A planet that is “dominated by women” when the Enterprise put in for general repair and maintenance and where Kirk’s computer was given a more feminine personality.

Starship Spotting

Kirk says that the Enterprise is one of 12 starships, all of the same design. I think the intention at this point is that this is the entirety of Starfleet, but I suppose we could interpret the dialogue to mean that there are 12 ships in what will become known as the Constitution class given that Starfleet is a lot bigger than this in Discovery, which of course is set earlier in its history.

The Enterprise has a crew of 430, which is almost the same figure as given in the previous episode (“The Alternative Factor”).

General Observations

• Four Stardates are given in the episode, ranging from 3113.2 and 3114.1. It is interesting that Stardates continue to be used in the Captain’s Log, even when it is known that the Enterprise has travelled back in time. This suggests that it is some sort of shipboard time, rather than anything absolute.
• The Enterprise was travelling to Starbase 9 for resupply prior to being thrown back in time.
• Kirk says that the operating authority for the Enterprise is “the United Earth Space Probe Agency”. This matches the reference to “UESPA” in “Charlie X”, but it is unclear how this organisation fits in with Starfeet, given that this has also already been established and indeed is mentioned in the episode (although in the context of the Enterprise trying to contact “Starfleet Control”, rather than Starfleet Command as has been used previously).
• Captain John Christopher is married and has two daughters at the time he encounters the Enterprise. He will go on to have a soon called Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher who will go on to lead the first successful Earth-Saturn probe. Given the setting of this episode, this suggests that this probe will be in the late 20th or early 21st Century and so we are seeing a very optimistic vision of space exploration compared with what happened in reality!
• The episode goes to a lot of trouble to avoid stating the date that the Enterprise has travelled from, with Spock at the end saying only that they are approaching “our century”. When Kirk is captured and Lieutenant Colonel Fellini tells him that he should have him locked up for “200 years”, Kirk replies that this should be about right. This is not completely correct in terms of later assumptions concerning the period in which Star Trek is set (I see that it is generally assumed that the Original Series is 300 years in the future), but it is still a very funny line.
• There’s lots of lovely little details in the episode which show the care and attention that has been put into it. My favourites are Kirk and Sulu admiring what is to them an old fashioned noticeboard in the air force base, and Spock subtly showing Captain Christopher where to stand on the transporter pad.