1.21 : Tomorrow is Yesterday.

[Dave]

The Enterprise encounters the gravitational forces of a "black star and is thrown back to 1969.

The first Star Trek 'time-travel' story, a personal favourite, and one of the most popular epiosdes. The sequences when Sulu visits the twentieth century Omaha installation and Kirk is captured, are a forerunner of 'ST:IV The Voyage Home', while the Enterprise's appearence, dismissed as as a mirage or mass of swamp gas, being tied into contemporary urban myths, is a theme that 'Little Green Men' DS9 would revisit.

Flying over Nebraska, the starship is sighted, photographed by a jet, and classified as a UFO. They then accidently destroy the jet with their tractor beam. At first they decide that it would not alter history if the Air Force pilot never returned to Earth, but then find historical records show that his son, Shaun Geoffrey Christopher, commanded the first Earth-Saturn probe. This leaves them with three problems: The Enterprise was filmed in Earth orbit; the pilot must be returned to where they belong; and they need to return to their own time.

 

[Shaun]

I really like this episode and it has a special place in my heart, as it was the first Star Trek episode I ever saw. I can't remember much about it because I don't think I've seen it since, but the scenes in the airforce base with Kirk (or was it Spock) stuck with me for some reason.

 

[Dave]

It's one I remember from early on too!

Probably, it's the placing on the futuristic Enterprise in the present day setting that did it.

 

[Starbeast]

I haven't watch the original series in a long time, and I had long forgotten this episode. I just watched it on tv, and was blown away at how great it is. Now it is one of my ultimate favorite episodes from the 1960's show. I'm so thrilled about "Tomorrow is Yesterday", I had to say something about it.

 

[Droflet]

Yeah, great episode. Whenever I'm showing this to someone who hasn't seen it before (yes, there are still some out there) they are invariably thrown by the beginning. I simply smile and say, 'Wait for it.' Then comes the holy cow comments. Sometimes not that polite. I will convert the world to Star Trek tos, one by one if I have to. Yeah, I'm comin' for you!

 

[Vince W]

One of my favourite episodes. I thought the Gary Seven storyline really brought something to it. I know they were trying to create a spin-off series out of him, but I would rather have seen him in a few more episodes of Star Trek. It could have been interesting to have him time travel in and out of some episodes.

 

[Ursa major]

a theme that 'Little Green Men' DS9 would revisit

This was on CBS Action last week. A rather fun episode.

 

[BAYLOR]

This was on CBS Action last week. A rather fun episode.

A very entreating episode.

 

[logan_run]

I would of liked to seen a gary seven series.

 

[Extollager]

I seem to be a minority of one here. I don't much like this episode. This one has always, even when I was a kid, I suppose, seemed to me less compelling than quite a few of the episodes. The beginning with the Enterprise as a lovely UFO in Earth's blue, cloud-pasturing skies, is attractive. But the development, with the beamed-aboard Air Force pilot and the ensuing discussion of complications (he can't be returned, because now he knows the future, etc. -- no, we have to return him so he can father the not-yet-conceived Saturn astronaut) was probably a little cerebral for a youngster in the 1960s. Then you get Kirk and Sulu beaming down to the Air Force base to steal the film footage of the Enterprise, and the feel is that of a warmed-over secret agent caper. The episode concludes with standard Star Trek count-downs (they did a lot of those) before time is reversed and (as in a Carl Barks Duck comic) all is restored to the way it's supposed to be.

Watching it this evening, a long time after the 1960s, I thought the first 20 minutes or so were a bit better than I'd remembered (i.e. before the "secret agent caper" stuff). But I wish they'd done something else, and better. For one thing, the situation of the difficulties of time travel, changing history, etc. was to be done with much poignancy in a little over two months, with "The City on the Edge of Forever." I'd have liked to see that one and "All Our Yesterdays" as the only two time travel stories.

This one was, at least, better than the very regrettable Gary Seven one at the end of the second season.