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TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (s1e19)
102 Plays2 months ago
OH NO, DEAR. The Enterprise is thrown through time back to the groovy 60s and in order for Kirk & co. to escape that predicament they'll need to help of a pilot who couldn't make it into the space program and who has, apparently, never seen a woman in the workplace before. We conclude our Star Trek Predicts... Today! theme month by looking at an accidental time travel story that Bryan accidentally put in the schedule. Is this season one episode a TREK, MARRY, or KILL?
The grades begin at (15:38).
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Transcript
Introduction and Themes
00:00:00
Speaker
Next on Trek Mary Kill. Planes, Earth, Soup. Energize.
00:00:36
Speaker
has an unfortunate tendency to giggle.
00:00:49
Speaker
He doesn't have a communicator and we can't locate him or beam him back aboard without one. Sabotage, espionage, unauthorized entry, burglary. I am going to lock you up for two hundred years
00:01:09
Speaker
Mary Kill.
Time Travel Confusion and Clarification
00:01:14
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brian. Hi, I'm Kristen. Welcome to Trek Mary Kill, a Star Trek podcast that popped in out of thin air. This month, we've been looking at episodes that tried to predict the present day and a theme I'm calling Star Trek predicts today. That the month concludes so this week with tomorrow is yesterday from Star Trek, the original series. But Kristen, that was not my intention. I screwed up.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, you did. I confused it with the Simon Earth, everybody, if you must know. That one had Terry Gar in it, had the Enterprise traveling back in time to Earth this time in 1968 and before an important ah rocket launch that really happened. But actually, this one kind of fits anyway. I confused the two time travel episodes. Yeah. So.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, tomorrow is yesterday, is the episode we're talking about. It's the 19th episode of Star Trek's first season. It premiered on NBC January 26, 1967, written by DC Fontana, directed by Michael O'Hirley. He, in his only Star Trek credit, he did such a great job. He was invited back, but then he got like a Western and he's like, screw that TV shit. I'm going to go make a picture, become a big movie director. And the movie flopped and not return to Star Trek anyway. Oh, well.
Plot and Humor of 'Tomorrow is Yesterday'
00:02:30
Speaker
Memory Alpha describes the episode. The Enterprise is hurled back in time to the year 1969, where the US Air Force cites it as a UFO. The crew must find a way to erase evidence of their visit before trying to get back to their future home. What Memory Alpha doesn't tell us is that in order to to accomplish their goal, they need the help of Captain John Christopher of the United States Air Force. And in order to do that, Spock violates the temporal prime directive, which had not yet been a thing. I guess that's been a thought in Starfleet's mind. maybe Maybe this one. Yeah, this was an inciting incident. But Spock just straight up tells the guy, oh, you're not going to be important, but your son will be and ah ah to the future of the Federation. But even with this help, Captain Kirk can't stop exposing the future to a bunch of Earth people of 1969. And it all gets very goofy. And this episode also serves as the basis for the time travel gimmick in Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, with slingshotting around the sun.
00:03:27
Speaker
so An important episode in a lot of ways. It was actually also a turning point in the style of the original series. This was the pivot to when they started to really incorporate more humor into the show intentionally. ah DC Fontana transitioning from secretary, Jean Rundberry secretary, to just ah she's like, i I want to be a writer. I don't want to be secretary anymore. This is her taking the leap.
00:03:48
Speaker
um Yeah, so and like I said, the time travel gimmick becomes a thing, ah the direction. There's a shot of Scotty in this episode when the Enterprise is using its breaking thrusters or breaking away from the sun when they're trying to get back home where he's holding on to the.
00:04:03
Speaker
to the screen in the engine room. And that shot got reused in other episodes and just like, so it's an important episode. ah It's the first time they travel. Yeah, it's not the first time they travel back in time in the original series, ah but it's an important one. Anyway, let's talk about the Enterprise's horny computer. I fucking hate this so much. I have it in one of the grades. I dislike it a whole bunch.
00:04:30
Speaker
So this apparently was not a Gene Rundberry idea. OK, I'm actually shocked, but go on. It apparently was simply some other horny person, DC Fontana and Jean Kuhn. There's your other horny person. OK, kind of conspiring to be like, how can we make this funny? We like the idea that the computer is, you know, coming on the Kirk or whatever. What's something silly and that we can just thread it here to kind of keep things light, ah kind of like the the proto. What if Spock became obsessed with bacon? god Yeah. here of like, let's just shoehorn some comedy in the Star Trek. That's obviously Majel Barrett doing a performance, doing a bit. It is so obviously. yeah Yeah. Off-putting to me as a child when I first saw this episode. Oh, really? Not because, not because, not because I was like, ah oh, horniness, gross, but more like this is annoying. It is like nails on a fucking chalkboard to me.
00:05:36
Speaker
If you're a comedian though, just imagine that you could travel back in time and with modern comedy sensibilities. Going Mac, the bar could not be lower. You could score, like this was what qualified as comedy and in the sixties. Like that made sense to people. and Like that movie where that guy wakes up and no one's heard of the Beatles. And he just starts performing Beatles songs. And I was like, this is great.
00:06:05
Speaker
But the one joke I love about that is but someone on Twitter was like, imagine you just show up, and without having built all the good will that the Beatles did, and be like, here's my next song, Oobla Dee Oobla Da. And everyone just going, boo.
00:06:21
Speaker
That's right. Although Malcolm Gladwell probably doesn't have a cornerstone ah a touchstone for his book and and suddenly the world is a slightly better place because they're not obsessed with the 10,000 hours thing. so I don't know what that is. Oh, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called, I think it was called The Tipping Point. and it was It's that thing that you caught last decade you might have heard of. like You need 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. um like What are the conditions that
00:06:53
Speaker
create but not necessarily genius but like the best the best and he used the Beatles as like a centerpiece as a core example of like they played so much in clubs at a young age for so long together they built up enough time where they could start breaking the form and and you know what I mean like become the Beatles because they had so much time playing music but anyway I guess I was just trying to make a point the knock-on effects don't necessarily have to just be that you could Not have the goodwill of the Beatles you could have also prevented a lot of ah kind of pseudo intellectuals from gaining more. Oh, yes. Oh my god. Yes By drafting off what the Beatles did to make a name for themselves. Yeah anyway
00:07:35
Speaker
ah Mark Cushman encapsulates the draw of this episode in his These Are The Voyages, TOS season one book, which we've mentioned many times before.
Fan Appeal and Themes of Future Promise
00:07:43
Speaker
He writes, the concept of having a 1960s contemporary man receive a guided tour of the enterprise and for us to see the wonderment that is Star Trek through his eyes struck a chord with the fans, unquote. And I would imagine new viewers as well. um But he also, Cushman also thought that the horny computer was inspired.
00:08:05
Speaker
So that's how I got all this information about where the joke came from because he had us all the memos. So he's like, he's really into it. I was not. But I do think of the idea of like, if you've never watched Star Trek, you know, in the 60s and it's episode, what, 19, we're early on in the run of the show. Like, what is this program? What are you watching, Billy? You know what I mean? like And then you just get like a a normal guy being shown what Star Trek is all about. Yeah, that's a that's smart. That's a good idea. I also think there's something else a little bit deeper. Well, I'm putting on my like ah English major textual analysis hat here. and And it's kind of encapsulated in this line towards the end. Captain chriser Christopher says, ah Captain, thanks for the look ahead. Underneath the surface of this, and I don't know if it was intentional or not, and it's not indicated Cushman's book in any of the memo drafts,
00:08:57
Speaker
not the anxiety of the space race, but the promise of the future that the space race kind of suggests. And so the, you know, Christopher is sort of like I put in for the space program and I wasn't good enough to get it, you know, that kind of thing. And then Kirk's kind of which by the way, back then could have meant like, you're an inch too tall. Yeah, you're gonna be a very specific ah body type to be considered.
00:09:26
Speaker
Or if, according to For All Mankind, maybe he just lost a lot of Corvette races to NASA. But in any case, there's something about this episode that's like giving us all a glimpse, viewers, of like what's possible if we keep going this way, and that we don't need to fear the future. and But also, it kind of talks about the anxiety of what would we be moving from. right like the The core dilemma is, oh shit, we've got this guy who's seen us, and this is before they've tech the tech,
00:09:58
Speaker
with everything. And it's like, we just erase his memory. It's actually just a dilemma of like, oh, this guy's seen everything. We can't let him go back and risk ruining the future. And then his dilemma is like, well, I have a life on Earth. You know, I have a family and everything.
00:10:14
Speaker
And it's kind of it's that tension of progress. What does progress mean for either our traditional values or our present day or status quo, our families, whatever. It's like an interesting I don't know. I'm maybe I'm reading too much into it. But I guess on the rewatches ah late, I kind of thought, oh, there is something kind of going on here because otherwise there's a lot of goofy shit in this one.
00:10:36
Speaker
i yeah So I was I guess maybe I was looking for some underpinning, some meaning underpinning it to justify a lot of it. And that's what's kind of stuck with me of like, OK, this is kind of about a serious thing if you're if you're just kind of approaching it from the I'm living in the 60s and what's going to happen next yeah kind of thing. But oh, there's fun in here anyway.
00:10:58
Speaker
Some memory alpha notes, I'll erase it real quick. Apparently this episode originated from Bob Jessman, the associate producer, ah a little unheralded, ah very instrumental in the success of Star Trek and The Next Generation. um But apparently he he claims he pitched this idea. DC Fontana's quote in the Cushman book is saying, I came up with it on my own. I didn't know anything about that. According to Jessman, though, right away. Just so everyone knows, male coworkers then and today still try to take credit for women's work, so. It gets a little cloudier because Jasmine gets a little deeper in this. He says that
00:11:41
Speaker
He says that Roddenberry told him, when I pitch springboards to the studio, springboards are just basically almost like log lines or premises, very simple yeah ah germs of the idea. Germs are actually a different part of it. But basically, springboard is a very minimal amount of the idea to pitch for approval to get you know to proceed with developing the story.
00:12:03
Speaker
Because you know can't really develop anything without the network's approval, because you could spend a lot of time and effort and resources, and then they kill it. And like, why didn't you tell us about this? So anyway, Roddenberry told Jessman, they don't pay me for those. And so Jessman's like, oh, so then we all just throw our hat in the ring and hope. You know, then that that means there's no harm if I throw throw my hat in the ring, right? They're just taking ideas from anybody. And then he found out that they do pay Roddenberry for his
00:12:32
Speaker
So he's kind of pissed. So I don't know where the ownership of this comes from entirely. I mean, I'm i'm Team DC Fontana. So Dorothy Fontana saying I came up with them my own? Great. ah But it's it's a thing that at least it last century when a lot of these people were still alive, it was still a point of contention for some of those people.
00:12:54
Speaker
Roger Perry, who played Captain Christopher, wanted to steal his Starfleet uniform or take it home. He liked it so much. um And he regrets that he didn't. DeForest Kelly told him, well, they frowned upon that taking the uniform, but you could possibly just stick it it in your bag and nobody's going to say anything.
00:13:12
Speaker
I like to force Kelly going like, listen, if you're smart about it, just no yeah one's looking. Nobody can tell you, yeah, you can take it. This was this was the most permission he was ever going to get, which is look, you're not going to get like in trouble and you're not going to get like blacklisted for stealing it. yeah like No, no one is probably going to notice.
00:13:34
Speaker
It was incredibly ridiculous that they put him in the uniform though, I think. It's so ridiculous. it's like Who is this guy? It's it' some scrappy doo energy. I didn't really like that. ah Except for the 6am launch time for Apollo 11.
00:13:52
Speaker
ah which was actually 9.32 a.m. on Wednesday, July 16, 1969. DC Fontana correctly predicted the day of the week of the launch. ah and Anyway, the events of this episode take place in 1969, over a year after those events in 1968, when Assignment Earth takes place.
00:14:13
Speaker
So and the enterprise has traveled back in time to this point in history or present day a couple of times. In 68, there's kind of this idea of they in the Assignment Earth episode that we were supposed to do, but I wrote it down wrong. It starts off with Kirk saying, we've been assigned to travel back in time and do some research of Earth's past, which is ah absolutely absurd. The episode is setting up a spin-off. But the point is, is like you could kind of also imagine, they're like, well, since you went back to 1969, we actually need you to fill in some gaps to go back to 1968. So it all kind of links up, if you think about it, even though Star Trek
00:14:52
Speaker
It doesn't really do continuity. So just thought I'd point that out. ah Let's see here. This is the last episode in which Spock's rank is stated as Lieutenant Commander. Just thought that was interesting. I like when shows are still trying to figure themselves out in the first season. You've got a lot of ah half thoughts, leftover notions, that kind of thing.
Inconsistencies and Classic Scenes
00:15:11
Speaker
and then And one of those other things is the United Earth Space Probe Agency, which is the burning body.
00:15:19
Speaker
Uh, which we hear when they get back to the future though, it's called star, it's called Starfleet, but like the United earth space probe agency gets used again in enterprise. And that's just basically like, I guess they're NASA. So anyway, just thought that was interesting. Thought I mentioned that all that let's get into the grades.
00:15:38
Speaker
All right, Kristen, since I basically just talked at you there for 20 minutes, as is our format, why don't you kick us off? Great scenes. OK, so when the tractor beam is destroying the Air Force plane and the crew is beaming out the captain, I actually thought that was a cool scene. um Just everyone working together, I guess, even though Captain Kirk is told, hey, this is going to destroy the ship. And he was like, eh.
00:16:05
Speaker
Well, actually he had given the order and then Spock tells him and it's, he can't stop the order because Scotty, then the next breath Scotty's reporting. Okay. The tractor beans on.
00:16:17
Speaker
that' Uh, that was one thing that DC Fontana wanted was sort of Kirk did everything correct. It's just that everything worked out wrong for the first half of the episode. She really liked that. Cause you know, when Christopher meets them, right? He's like, you, you people are making a lot of mistakes or a lot of weird stuff happens to you. So the enterprise is not their best. Um, yeah, that's cool. Uh, what else do you have?
00:16:37
Speaker
So, there's a scene on the bridge where Spock and Captain Kirk are talking and in the background, Uhura is trying to get Captain Christopher to stop messing with her station. She's like, you can't hear what's being said. She's like pointing to stuff and like going, no, no, no. And then like trying to explain to him stuff. And it's great. It's great background acting. Yeah. Because it's like, no.
00:17:06
Speaker
stop Stop touching my my stuff, like, because he's just like going over there like, beep, beep, boop, boop. Is this where he mentioned him, ah his head nearly twisting off every time he sees a woman walk by? Oh, I have that in another grade. okay ah um Yeah, he he is. but Besides that, though, like when you see Spock, he's like, oh, but like he actually seems more like scared when he sees women on ah on a ship. That's part of the crew, just like he cannot take it. And then um I got to say it, the photo lab fight. ah that might This might be the greatest fight in the original series. Oh, absolutely. absolutely It's like legendary.
00:17:58
Speaker
Okay, so Kirk fights three MPs. hu Okay, he shoves a guy into a rack of film canisters. He flings his whole body at the other two so that when they try to catch him, they fall over.
00:18:13
Speaker
huh He does the clasp hand punch on a guy twice before he knocks him out with the right hook. Then he jumps up and grabs the door frame so he can pull his feet up. The sill on the door frame and swings his feet into something. Over the guy diving at him. And then when he lands, he like Super Mario hops over the next guy.
00:18:42
Speaker
Also, one of the stunt guys takes such a hard fall against the the metal cabinet. That's where the curve flips. It looks like a real cabinet, not like you know a foam one or something. ah That is a full Shatner, full Star Trek fight. It had everything you wanted. Yeah, I'm excited we don't have that in current day Star Trek. it's
00:19:12
Speaker
They're like, we don't want to hire another stunt coordinator who knows how to do fighting. You know, remember when Pike chased that one guy into the into the garden, the guy with the spear, they just ran around. They just ran around. OK. No, that wasn't a fight. It was half a fight. Any other great scenes? I mean, I do have another one, but I think it's probably not like the whole scene, just when Spock was like, oh, it turns out I was wrong about Captain Christopher not being of any consequence. And um Dr. McCoy is like, oh, this could be a historical moment. That is one of my great scenes is that whole sick bay scene after Kirk has knocked out after kirk has knocked out Captain Christopher, and now he's in sick bay. But kirk it starts with Kirk and McCoy discussing whether or not they stay, like the whole crew stays.
00:20:05
Speaker
because McCoy's like, what are we going to do? Just stay up here till all the power runs out and we have, you know, we just die up here. Or they take Captain Christopher with them to the future. ah You know, McCoy reminds him like there's 430 of us that which means 430 chances to change the future. And Kirk is wondering if ah Christopher can be retrained to forget his family. And Christopher's being conscious as he's like, I cannot. I will not be doing that. And then that's when Spock comes in being like, oh, yeah, I never thought to think, ah did you give did you did any of your offspring amount to anything?
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, you did it. and so that's You have no consequence. Right. but And he says that Captain Christopher's son will be the lead in a manned mission to Saturn, which a prediction they got wrong. That did not happen. We've never had a manned mission to Saturn. In fact, the last time we've had anything related to Saturn was Cassini, which was in orbit for 13 years. And then it had, a according to NASA, quote, a spectacular planned plunge in the Saturn's atmosphere.
00:21:09
Speaker
sending science data back to the last second. Let's see. ah and then And then he finds out he has a son. Oh, yeah, he's going to have a son. And he gets that stupid, goofy grin on his face. Spock just flagrably highlights the time. Yeah, i te it's very something slightly out of character for Spock. by only I was thinking, oh, maybe it's not like not even true. He's just lying to him to get him to like cooperate or something.
00:21:36
Speaker
but I still thought it was a it was a great scene because, you know, Shatner, the whole episode is thinking like, ah, shit, what are we gonna do? We're like literally stuck in the past. Yeah, like we kind of kidnapped this guy yep and ruined his life. What do we do? McCoy doesn't get very much to do in this episode and I thought he was really good. there It was, you know, the moments he had were very strong. And then the other great scene I had, I mean, besides that amazing fight, I mean, come on.
00:22:02
Speaker
Uh, as Kirk tells Christopher, he can't go back and Spock says he's not historically significant. So the two scenes previous, and then we've got the bit with the horny computer, which does suck. I'm not going to deny that, but it's being threaded. It's okay if you like it. It's okay if you enjoy it as a beat. I personally, the voice sounds like someone's grandmother trying to be sexy. It's horrible. It's ugh.
00:22:27
Speaker
But it basically presents the episode's dilemma. You know, it's kind of a weird judgment of these people saying, oh, you're trapped here. You can't leave. And then Scotty saying, hey, I can fix the engines. They'll be back up running in a little bit. Yada, yada, yada. But like, where are we going to go?
00:22:42
Speaker
you know we're in the past and then it ends on Christopher's line you're a prisoner in time as much as I am captain. I kind of feel like the scene is the agony and the ecstasy of Star Trek but also maybe just season one of the original series which is like goofy shit intertwined with an emotional dilemma. I think it actually kind of works because it in a way it kind of disarms Christopher right away where he's like these these people are from the future they've got a horny computer because they went to a planet that's largely women uh led and they felt that the computer needed more personality like he's like what am i listening to just send me home and then it becomes quite serious so it was it's kind of a way to balance that which i think is a nice attempt but uh yeah you neither of us appreciated the execution i do like the
00:23:32
Speaker
ah horney can The implication that like a matriarchal society is just fucking horny as hell. Like I honestly think that's probably true. Just like absolutely hot and bothered and to the point where like let's just let's Let's program their computer to be horny. The Lorelei signal. Remember that? I think it's, yeah. I think it's, it would have been funnier if if the voice weren't as, weren't clearly Majel Barrett trying to be sexy, which is being someone doesn't do it for me. yeah yeah yeah All right. Best Trek tropes. So the very beginning of the episode, like, oh, yeah, the captain's log was like, you know, we were, it was a violent, you know, like,
00:24:15
Speaker
Like, everyone everyone is just on the ground. And Sulu is, like, on the all the way on the floor and he looks beat to hell. And I love just, like, this is serious because we didn't see everyone shaking around, we just saw everyone getting up.
00:24:32
Speaker
And I enjoy the the more beat to hell the crew looks, the more serious the shaking or the, you know, the violent shaking was. I put that as a best trek trope, which is the captain's log because it's a pretty compelling one. of We were en route to Starbase 9 for a resupply when a black star of high gravitational attraction began to drag us toward it. It required all warp power in reverse to pull us away from the star, but like snapping a rubber band, the breakaway sent us plunging through space out of control to stop here, wherever we are. Ah, good stuff. Give me a good captain's log any day of the week and set me up. What else do you have?
00:25:12
Speaker
um so after the everyone gets back in their chairs and everything. Uhura can't find Starfleet frequency. So she says, but Captain, I'm getting another frequency. And it's the radio. um I don't care how many how often they do this on Star Trek. I'm still like, yes, that's right. It's a horrible television show or it's a soap opera.
00:25:34
Speaker
but It's an ad for mattresses or whatever. like it I don't know. I still like it all these years. It's doing every show yeah like that has to ah you know time travel. It's so incongruous and repugnant when it's sort of our modern day besmirching the beauty of Starfleet or like Star Trek technology. It's like, get out of there. We don't want to see Jerry Springer on the bridge. Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
scream At least this one's just like, and there's gonna be a you know a man's space flight. Yeah. And my next one is a woman on a ship. um Captain Christopher sees female crew members and it's just basically, he might as well just be like, oh, whoa. With steam coming out of his ear, like, oh, there's a woman?
00:26:25
Speaker
It's amazing. Yeah. That was great. he's I've craned my neck when I was younger that much where someone's like, are you all right? Like he's never seen a woman. Yeah, that's exactly right. Like, and he's married, allegedly, with two girls. Two kids. two Specifically, we let later told their girls. Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
Not in so many words, but I don't have a son, I think we can assume. Yes. Probably the other two girls. And also Spock is not taking any chances with this with the past. This man has to be there captive forever now. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Spock's playing fast and loose with this temporal prime directive, though. Yeah. Oh, no. No, I didn't have it yet. Yeah. No, it's right. No. His decision to tell about the sun flows from the hole. Well, we're not letting this guy go because he's like, I can tell him whatever because we're not letting him go. It's kind of he kind of drives.
00:27:27
Speaker
so He's like, I'm telling you this information, it just increases the dilemma. The dilemma of we can't let you go.
00:27:37
Speaker
um And then my last one is karate chop. Yeah, we get a karate chop in the hallway. Or. Oh, that when Christopher. Yeah. And then I think we get another one. OK, Captain Christopher knocks out an enterprise security guy. Yeah. That security guard should be fire fired. Absolutely. Trans or transferred to a different department. There's someone on the loose and you walk out of a turbolift and you're looking down the whole time. You're not and like your head should be on a swivel and you are just looking at your feet. No, no, Ensign. You are. so
00:28:11
Speaker
Go, go, go. They were, why weren't they manning this guy to begin with? Yes. yeah Like, this guy wants to go back. He knows what a transporter room is. He is dressed like one of us. I remember when Kirk and Sulu beamed down to the planet, they're all, they're kind of amused by all of this, ah the past. So maybe they're just kind of like, we'll put him in our uniform. It's kind of fun to dress up the the caveman. Maybe there's kind of that energy going. Like you put a bow tie on a monkey and it's funny for a little bit. Yeah, I think that's kind of what's going on here. He has no skills. to his weight yes Perhaps we can retrain him, and reeducate him like he can't read or something. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:51
Speaker
I fly fly a plane, which it seems. Flying one of those Air Force planes back then was probably like took more skill than flying like a shuttlecraft or something. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Like any idiot can probably. Yeah, the shuttlecraft's like, no, you're going to take over. it's Yeah. Yeah. Autopilot and everything else like those Air Force planes back then, like you actually had to know what you were doing.
00:29:16
Speaker
The only thing this episode is missing is the patented Kirk dropkick, which it does do. it and But otherwise, this is this is almost the perfect episode of Star Trek fighting. We've got the clasped hands. Yeah, the clasped.
00:29:32
Speaker
We've got, ah you know, Kirk as an awesome chop in the transporter room to disarm Christopher. And then in one smooth motion, he uppercuts him. It's so awesome. Shatter looks so cool doing it. It's just like you can just watch this episode for the fighting and being very entertained by it. Very good. Check you up there.
00:29:51
Speaker
ah The other ones I had were the tractor beam. ah Tractor beam is is a solid trek trope, like when they use it. And I really like that they use it to a ah point that affects the plot ah in a substantial way, which is that, oh, our 23rd century technology is actually too powerful for this little metal tube and it crushes the plane. I didn't put this down, I should have, but remember at first when they're like, well, this plane could be armed with nuclear warheads, and they're like, oh, Jesus, this guy could be crazy or so. Like, the nuclear their age of like, this was back in back then, I mean, they could destroy us or like, or Spock says like, it could damage the ship like a nuclear warhead.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, we'll just damage the ship, which we can't fix because we're not like in the future. dear yeah We can't fix ah radiation poisoning because where we're stuck we're stuck in the past, so we're all going to die.
00:30:45
Speaker
The Enterprise being one of only 12 ships like it, I don't know. There's just something nice about Enterprise being special. Yeah. And that kind of gets into the the time travel gag for this one about the slingshot effect and And all that, does
Time Travel Mechanics and Criticisms
00:31:03
Speaker
it totally make sense? No, I've got some of that for the worst truck trope. But there's a there's kind of a part of me where it's like, is this just the reason why they're able to use it in Star Trek IV is because this is something that really only happened to the enterprise. And so really, it's just what Spock knows about how to time travel in this specific way. So I don't know. I just kind of appreciated it. I thought it was a little kind of charming in its own way. And there's like a nice joke to that effect, which I'll mention later.
00:31:30
Speaker
um Oh, I'll mention here Spock doing complex math in his head as another great trek trope, best trek trope. He and McCoy, when they're waiting in the transporter room for Kirk and Sulu to return from the base, you know, McCoy's annoyed because Spock's not acting more urgently. And then he goes, shouldn't you be working on your time warp calculations, Mr. Spock?
00:31:49
Speaker
I am and all Nimoy has done in the scene is play Spock with like a very very serious look like he's like almost frowning because he's thinking really hard but he's doing the calculations you know Spock usually gives the odds but ah so this is like a perfect extension of that and then we actually get two neck pinches in this one and I think oh yeah great That's always a great best trek trope. But he gets the two are awesome in that ah one of the MPs just opens the door and he immediately pinches him like a forward assault. And then he sneaks up behind Captain Christopher and does it to him. And that's great. And I appreciate both those. And then my last one.
00:32:25
Speaker
the visual effects. I don't care what people say today. Oh, looks cheap. It looks whatever. These are cutting edge for their time. When I went back and I rewatched this episode, first I watched the the one that was on Paramount Plus. But then I went back and I dug out my Blu-rays so I could go back and watch the original effects because you can watch either version on the Blu-rays. Because I remember when I was a kid and I first saw this episode, I was immersed. I was enchanted. I was like, it looks like the enterprise is in the sky. How do they do this? Like, because I was actually interested to see what what the original what effects would have looked like. You look at it now, it looks silly, but I'm watching it on ah on a massive 60 inch TV, you know, like it with 4k, that's uprising, literally everything it does.
00:33:08
Speaker
But you're watching this on the TV of the time, and it looks it looks good. It looks convincing, and it does its job. And I actually think even in the old effect, when he makes contact with it, and we see that underneath Engel, and he's describing it with the two cylinders and all that stuff, the shot in the original actually still, even though it's got all the thick matte lines, and the film's very degraded when they scanned it, because it's been scanned so many times on the Blu-ray, it still actually looks better than what they did for the for the remastered one. So the shaking effects, obviously, ah the ones in the original are are not as good as what we get with them actually flying around the sun. That's not in. We don't see the sun in the ah in the original visual effects. It's just like a stat almost a static shot of the enterprise sitting still and kind of shaking. So that's not impressive. um But to that point,
00:34:02
Speaker
James Dewan in the 90s, Scotty himself had a comment about that. He goes, the special effects, shaking the ship slightly, that sort of thing seemed primitive compared to what you see nowadays. but back when But back then we were cutting edge and the viewership was willing to take a good deal on faith as opposed to today's far more literal minded fans who scrutinize every effect and hold it up to the highest standard. God damn Dewan, you got our asses.
00:34:31
Speaker
Got us. So I'm saying the 60s Star Trek visual effects are a best Trek trope. OK. Any others? ah No. Worst Trek tropes? The sexy computer voice. Like, I know it's not really trope, but I fucking hated it. Like, I just hated it so much I had to put it somewhere because I wasn't sure where we're going to talk about it or not. But am I allowed to mention Knight Rider? Sure. they were It doesn't remind me of, but this always happens with computer voices. Does Kit get horny at some point?
00:35:01
Speaker
There's always a moment where the writers are like, we need to change this up a little bit. How can we change that? So there's an episode where Kit and you know Michael and Kit are investigating something in like the back country. And there's a bunch of art there's an arsonist going around.
00:35:18
Speaker
But previously that they had been like in they've been in New York on some assignment and something happened in the kit circuitry where he suddenly started talking like a walk in here like a very New York. yeah And it would just come out occasionally in this this random episode where they're. actual episode is not in New York they're investigating fires suspicious fires in the backwoods but they had come from New York and just like the Enterprise had come from a woman planet and so Kit was just being like hey I don't know what you want me to do here Mikey he to it so just suck my balls yeah exactly
00:35:55
Speaker
ah The worst trick joke I had, I only had the one ah because the this horny computer voice didn't quite fit, especially knowing that it wasn't Roddenberry's idea. so wow But maybe we need to start developing the Gene Kuhn's horniness spectrum measurement here for for his time on the show, because he definitely contributed that Spock's Brain episode we both hated.
00:36:17
Speaker
um anyway okay yeah where the women were just dumb yeah right because they weren't dating the the ugly men they were only dating yeah uh so time travel shenanigans so i like the the slingshot uh concept is best trek trope but i didn't like Even then, especially now, though, so how does beaming reintegrate them with their past selves? Oh, my God, I know that was I was just like, what the fuck is happening? Spock says logically, as we move faster and faster toward the sun, we'll begin to move backward in time. We'll actually go back beyond yesterday, beyond the point when we first appeared in the sky. Then breaking free will shoot us forward in time and will transport you back before any of this happened.
00:37:05
Speaker
Just because you put logically in front of that does not make it logical. It doesn't make it. It means it makes any sense or will work in any possible way. So I'm calling total techno babble, Trek, no babble bullshit nonsense. getp It didn't make any sense. Like, OK, first I was like, OK, fine, they're going to beam them back down before any of it happened. But then, yeah, I don't understand them beaming them into into themselves. so That didn't make any sense. I'm not a fan of it. Uh, I also have, um, why doesn't the landing party where different clothes to blend in when they're like trying to burgle yeah an air force base? They hadn't figured all this stuff out yet. and like had like Not even like, Oh, with a janitorial staff, nothing, nothing, no disguise or attempt to blend in in any way.
00:38:02
Speaker
ah that's You know what that worst trickshope should fall into the umbrella of is, yeah, no precautions, ah no precautionary clothing or equipment on the landing party.
00:38:14
Speaker
Because, you know, like, they'll go to strange planets with like, no match. Yeah, when they didn't give the same the thing extension a blanket on that planet, or whatever or they didn't give him like a tent or something. Yeah, this fall, I think this they did go blank. And I'm sorry, they give him like the little ah right, the stupid solar blankets. That's right. But I think yours falls very neatly under under that. All right, most cosplayable character moments.
00:38:41
Speaker
um Okay, so normally I would say the photo lab fight, but I don't personally like fighting, so that doesn't like seem like it would be fun for me personally. But maybe they're sneaking around the base, but I would of course not. I'd actually come prepared. Just to be clear, you're talking about the hollow novel part. Wait. but I was doing the cosplayable character.
00:39:02
Speaker
character. Oh, you would cosplay as the as the guards. No, okay. So I think that when you say moment, I thought it was like something you want to like replay. Well, no act out. it seems like a laing thing Sometimes people will cosplay like What am I trying to say when I mean that like they'll they'll do the plexiglass and they'll have like a maquette or like ah a head of Kirk or Spock and they'll be dressed as you know, they'll be doing the Star Trek 2 ending but they'll put
00:39:37
Speaker
they'll attach like a plexiglass to themselves or they'll put something up that frames their face so it's like the end credits of the original series.
Creative Cosplay and Memorable Moments
00:39:44
Speaker
You know, it's always got the alien head. It says Desilu Production. I've seen that cosplay. That's a great one. So I just mean like they'll they'll kind of like snip out a moment. um I think it would be funny though to to your point is if you were wearing the guards uniform and then you attach two guard heads to either side of your head and you're holding in your arms like a Kirk doll like that you could do that that's the moment that's like a moment that I'm talking about I see okay all right I misunderstood the question
00:40:17
Speaker
Um, in that case, I don't know. I just put kept in John Christopher and his flight suit. But as I was spitballing there, I think I came up with the fun one. So of just being all three guards or it's only two guards. So being two guards and then having like all on your hands yeah si holding those big.
00:40:37
Speaker
like reels of the shooter tape. That's a good one. That's a deep cut. I like that. You've got the satchel bag with the the film reel in there. That's ah the tape reel. No one would know what that is for a second except for really intense Star Trek fans. How long do you think it would take you?
00:40:53
Speaker
I wouldn't get it. No, I wouldn't get it at all. Because it wasn't until the third viewing, or I'm like, you know, Sulu's doing a lot of business with that bag. i It's, it's noticeable. But I'm, I'm like, ah I think I'm just more so shocked. I'm like, this is the most I've seen Sulu from behind the con before. Yeah, now.
00:41:14
Speaker
ah Now it's time for the line, Mr. Jones. Yeah, great lines. When Kirk says, man, a moonshot, that was the late sixties, in the late sixties. And then Spock says, apparently so are we. It doesn't really make sense, but I like it.
00:41:30
Speaker
I did like in that scene though, where Kirk gives a very modern, what? It's like, what the hell is going on? but We're in the past? I thought it was good. um But what else do you have? um I mean, you already mentioned it when um Captain Christopher says, maybe I can't go home, but neither can you. you and You are as much a prisoner in time as I am. Although I don't think I copied it down verbatim. It's OK. Great act outline.
00:42:00
Speaker
The lost art of great act outlines. And also, um when Captain Kirk and Sulu are in the computer and the computer is so fucking huge, which by the way, I totally forgot about that too. ah The computers used to be large. Large with giant um wheels of like what looks like videotape today.
00:42:23
Speaker
He says, it'll make the devil's own noise if you start it up.
00:42:30
Speaker
I've never heard that turn of phrase before, but i I like it. It reminds me of the there is a very brief viral tweet about, you know, well, there's been in the past other ones, but basically like it used to be that when you connected to the Internet, the computer would scream. We should have yeah taken that as a warning. But there is another one where it's like when I was younger and I'd hear that, I'd be like, why is the computer crying? My dad would say, don't say stuff like that.
00:43:01
Speaker
But just that it was painful for computers to negotiate with each other, almost like the devil's own noise. I had Kirk's line to Spock, your logic can be most annoying. Nice. I'm going to put it computed, dear.
00:43:22
Speaker
a Spock rolling his eyes when he's talking about the computer, it also has an unfortunate tendency to giggle. We didn't get a giggle. Yeah. He set it up. We don't have it funnier. Yes. And it's just this giggles occasionally. That's right.
00:43:36
Speaker
hu And then, oh, I didn't realize I put down so many interactions with the computer. Kirk, maintenance note. My recording computer has a serious malfunction. Recommend it either be corrected or scrapped. Compute. Computed. It's kind of pouty. Christopher, I see physical training is required in your service, too, after Kirk knocked him out. but That was a good line. It's very respectful.
00:44:01
Speaker
ah And then when Kirk, after Kirk knocks out the guy he had been fighting earlier because he gets recaptured, but then Spock just comes in and neck pinches the guy, ah that momentary distraction allows Kirk to get up and finally knock the guy out, but he hits him harder because he knows he has to, to really knock him out. And he's holding his hand and Spock goes, did you find that painful, Captain? And then Kirk just goes, yes, I did. but I don't know why that was a great line. I just like to admit into the pain. And then my last one was, I never thought I'd make it into space. I was in line to be chosen for the space program, but I didn't qualify. And then Kirk tells Captain Christopher, take a good look around, Captain. You made it here ahead of all of them. I thought that was a neat line. Yeah. Good job, Star Trek. Would this be a fun hollow novel to play out? um I think so, honestly. ah I mean, it's all fake. So yeah.
00:44:53
Speaker
But I mean, fighting the guards, the guards, of I mean, the bumbling MPs, I should have put that as a best trek trip just because it's a good um TV trope. Yeah, just bumbling the Keystone Cops guys, you know, carrying around those ridiculous guns, the revolvers or like Luger or whatever it is. I mean, I guess.
00:45:21
Speaker
Also yeah having your guns drawn on in the middle of an army base where like there's probably civilians who go there to work is wild, but. I also, so between that and the time warp bip a bit, where you're bouncing around the ship and you're trying to do the breakaway, because obviously if this is on holodeck, you might calculate it wrong and just go into the sun and then it just suddenly ends. So I don't know. I think that would be kind of fun to do that. ah The Anton Karudian award for best. By the way, swinging from a door frame and picking a guy in the chest is probably fun. Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:54
Speaker
The Antoine Caridian Award for Best Performance. um I actually don't know. Who do you have? I left it blank because I really was... My thought process was this. Shatner's fantastic and the fighting was amazing. Is that a Shatner or is that a Caridian? Because it's he's playing such a range of emotions and qualities for Captain Kirk.
00:46:16
Speaker
And he never lose like we see him later in the show become hamier as the line of the show gets funnier. We know that Shatner is a huge ham. But here he's trying to be a little more clever, I guess. He's also throwing his body around. But then also Nimoy is so good. He's just always so good. But Spock's not as kind of the Spock we totally expect. But Nimoy is definitely Spock 100 percent. So I know I kind of just want to give it to Shatner.
00:46:43
Speaker
But if you don't think, if you think it belongs in the shedder. I think that's fine. Who doesn't belong to the other MP they kidnapped? Oh, for sure. Who's asking for chicken soup or whatever. And he literally is, he's like a mannequin in McCoy's pulling the gun out of his hand and the communicator. He's just frozen and petrified. He just doesn't know what to do. That was great.
00:47:06
Speaker
So you want to give it give both the Anton Caridian and the Shatner to William Shatner? Anton Caridian to Shatner, the Shatner to that second guard, they the guard they beam up. I wouldn't say he was going for it. I think he was...
00:47:21
Speaker
not great, but okay, that's fine. I'm fine. Who would you give the Shatner to then? Shatner? Computer voice. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Magel Barrett. Oh, you're right. Magel Barrett as the computer voice, for sure. I did like her computer. Yeah, she needed to have some lines in this one, and she got some. Yeah. No close-up, no visual, but That's right. But we will never forget that she was in this. Yeah. Shoot to thrill most exciting image or sequence. It's the fight. There's a fight. I have two honorable mentions. OK.
00:47:56
Speaker
um The vintage Air Force footage. I love I love that stuff. I think like if when when you like license footage from them, they actually get like approval over the episode or something. Right. And they're probably like, I'm fine.
00:48:14
Speaker
But the the photo lab fight is amazing. And also the slingshot around the sun is a cool sequence, too. Like go and the one that I saw. Yeah, it's cool in the remastered. It is actually cool. It's not cool in the original, but ah great. What part of this will they teach at Starfleet Academy? I don't i think it's unclear about the slingshot, because if i really cadets knew about that, then everybody would be warping through time to do it again in the movie.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, but it's it doesn't seem like... There's a version of this where it just seems like this was a unique experience that the Enterprise encountered and sort of by the skin of their teeth they got through it by simply reversing the events that happened. And then it sounds like in Star Trek IV that it's Nimoy or it's Spock trying to remember this incident.
00:49:06
Speaker
to replicate that because now they need to actually try to go back in time. What options do they have to do that? Well, I could i remember my formula that I did for this warp around the Earth Sun, which we've already warped around, time warped around before Earth Sun. So we'll do it again, and but I don't have to go back all the way to 69. I can do 86 or whatever it is.
00:49:27
Speaker
You know what I mean? like so yeah If it's all within just the crew of the Enterprise, I don't think it's going to Starfleet command. I don't think they're teaching the Academy cadets about it so much. okay um But I still think like because this kind of got folded into that assignment Earth thing and we get that little, that stray, stupid line of Starfleet sent us back in time to do some historical research, it's entirely possible that like protocols for time travel come about from this, like you might have to kidnap someone. you If you kidnap a guy from the past, don't tell him about his future. Yeah. Because they stopped doing that. The ethics of time travel, you may have to kidnap a dude. So alien abductions turned out to be real.
Critique of Episode's Tone and Entertainment Value
00:50:12
Speaker
yes likely but yeah ah Could this episode have been horny or would that have made it better? No, it needed to be less horny. Yeah, it needed to dial it down just a little.
00:50:24
Speaker
Uh, so Trek, Merry, or Kill, tomorrow is yesterday. Okay, I think it's a strong Trek for me. Strong Trek? Okay. I think it's really entertaining.
00:50:38
Speaker
I was a kill on this one forever since I saw it as a child. So, you know, almost 30 years, it's been a kill for me. And then on these rewatches, i'm i I am now at a trek. So it's a trek because that fight is undeniable. And it's like if you are a fan of Star Trek, you have to watch that fight. And then there are other great scenes and there's great moments. in there I just thought the episode was so silly. If you're not a fan of Star Trek.
00:51:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Good point. If you got an hour into our podcast and you're not a fan of Star Trek, ah I guess it's just auto played while you were sleeping or something. I'm sorry. And I think ah my literary mindset, if the deep textual read of it matters at all, holds any weight. It's about something, right? With the future's end episodes for Voyager, we were kind of trying to figure out what it was actually if it was commenting on anything if it was really about anything and we i feel like we walked away from that being like not really but it was still really entertaining and i feel like this one is pretty entertaining and even if it's not directly saying something ah um commenting on something it is
00:51:46
Speaker
sort of playing off emotions of the time, a vibe, if you will, something in the air about the promise of the future and what's what's next. So I thought that was all very interesting, especially from to look back on it. But I mean, come on, that fight is so great. It's fantastic. But I was really like, wow, Shatner uppercuts him with such a nice ease. And you know, you have fun doing that, right? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. No, what if I just chop him?
00:52:16
Speaker
but Yeah, I don't think the guy who threw himself into the cabinet was having a good time, but... No, no. I mean, I think they put padding on them, right? I don't... In the 60s, I don't put... Yeah, in the 60s, I don't... Yeah. Like, now they put, like, pad padding on stairs if you have to fall down the stairs and stuff. Yeah. Some of that stuff is rubberized. I always... ah I always... Was that not the... No, not then. That was a metal cabinet. That they had in the, like, production office, probably. Yep.
00:52:46
Speaker
All right, next week, two episodes. And yes, I'm sure about which ones they are, for sure. I did not. okay I've looked at the schedule multiple times. They're the ones I intended for the for the what we're doing next. Katie Hampton's going to return, and we're going to start up our monthly animated spotlights. So we're going to start with the first two episodes of Lower Deck Second Season. And so in order to set that up, you and I, Kristin, we will be playing Trekmarion Kill with Darmok from Star Trek The Next Generation. Temba, his arms wide!
00:53:18
Speaker
We're at Trek Mary K Pod on social media. If you feel so inclined, be sure to like and review us wherever you listen. TrekMaryKillPod.com for all of our standings. So until next week, Tam K out. Bye.