LogFAQs > #967485656

Episode 28: The City on the Edge of Forever

Had high expectations for this episode, since its apparent greatness is one of those pop culture points that it's impossible to avoid. For the most part it met, even exceeded, them, but with one big caveat that I'll get into at the end. (CassandraCroft basically hit the nail on the head, but I'll give my own thoughts on the subject). First, though, the good, which is almost everything.

Time travel is a plot point I'll never tire of. Investigating temporal disturbances is a nice reminder of the Enterprise's scientific mission. The Guardian of Forever is a fantastic design, with a unique method of time travel and a massive potential for backstory and lore, which I'm sure the expanded universe has run with and ruined (some mysteries should stay mysterious). The 1930s is a pleasantly surprising era to visit. I would've expected them to visit the wild west, next, but this is frankly better. They do a decent job of highlighting the pains of living in that period, though they obviously can't go too far. Having their timeline erased around them is some good understated horror.

The characters are fantastic. The Guardian is more of a plot device, but he gets some good lines that hint at him being a figure of temptation. Edith is great. I could do without the romance (it's a little surplus to requirements given what her point is) and the filters and love music, but she's intelligent, insightful, compassionate and has good banter with both Kirk and McCoy. The tragedy of her being ahead of her time was a little obvious, but the script mostly makes it work, although her initial optimistic speech about the future seemed to go beyond merely being insightful. Little bit clunky.

Kirk and Spock's banter has been perfected. I'm loving how comfortable Spock gets when it's just the two of them. He's definitely getting more human. He's even fallible in a way we haven't seen before (forgetting to record the living history). One highlight is how they play off each other just before neck pinching the cop.

McCoy's delusions are a hilarious delight. Trying to figure out the strange world he's in once he's lucid is a nice demonstration of his intelligence. I love how resigned he is to the possibility of being insane. Having his compassion for someone he's barely met be the crux of the episode is the kind of wonderful character moment he rarely gets and is perfectly true to what we know of his character. The hug when they reunite is pretty sweet, too.

Sulu and Scotty get to show up which is perfectly alright. Sulu got to give a creepy smile when he woke up. Uhura actually got to do something. It wasn't much, but at least she's no longer chained to her panel.

The ruins around the Guardian give of a sublime ethereal vibe. The 1930s are realised quite well. There's building, alleyways and scruffy vagrants wondering around. Helps give a feeling that its a real city. The soup kitchen was a nice set. I'm a big fan of old style technology, so I enjoyed seeing Spock piss about with vacuum tubes and the like.

Onto the big caveat. Ethics in time travel stories have an unfortunate tendency to devolve into hand wringing over the trolley problem. Preserving the world you come from is all well and good, but there's something uncomfortably Conservative about insisting that time has a natural order that must be maintained. Any time any story suggests that a sacrificial lamb is necessary, I tend to naturally gravitate towards the individual's right to live. Doctor Who has a similar problem with its fixed points and I dislike it there too.

They do try to extol the virtues of the Prime timeline by having Edith and Kirk (and to a lesser extent, McCoy) bond over the wonder and possibilities of space travel. They even include mention of the nazis winning to cheaply add impetus towards the goal of "fixing" the world. The problem is Edith's convictions of peace and pacifism. The timeline changed because she convinced America to be better. But America has to play the "good guy with a gun" role in stopping Germany (let's ignore what the rest of the world was doing), which is an especially unpleasant theme given the ridiculous gun culture over there. So, her ideas are ahead of her time (as Kirk puts it).

Well, there's a solution: let her go to the future. Show her that the world she dreams of exists. Let her live in it. Subvert the tragedy and stay true to the themes of the show by making the Guardian into a benevolent, but tricksy, figure who set this up to rescue someone who's world was ill suited for her ideals. Instead, a damn fine character is forcefully defined by an insulting pointless subversion of the great man theory of history and also by the fact that Kirk loves her. That's the only reason they concede that maybe she should get to live: Kirk is horny. When it's all finished and the Guardian temps them with more possibilities, who can blame Kirk for muttering "let's get the hell out of here"? After what we've just seen, why bother with time travel again? You know exactly how it ends and you won't even enjoy it.

Believe it or not, I actually like this episode and I understand why it's considered a classic. Everything production wise is brilliant. I don't even mind the bleak ending, so much. This may be an optimistic show, but to suggest that it can't go against itself every once in a while is to unfairly limit the stories it can tell. But if you are going to subvert something so fundamental to the show, try to actually say something with the subversion. Errand of Mercy managed that and I loved it for that. Tomorrow is Yesterday was clearly a comedy episode and so didn't expect the audience to care. The only point I can scrounge out of this that might vaguely be intentional is that time travel stories are pointless, miserable and should not be pursued. I may have spoiled myself with Doctor Who, which has done a similar story far too often and I dislike it there too.

It's up high, but not at the top. Honestly, I've spent more time writing this review than I have any of the others because I'm adamant about properly articulating my feelings. I'm still not satisfied with how it's turned out, but I can't spent forever on it.

Operation: Annihilate is next.