Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 28 The City on The Edge of Forever #StarTrek
This is one of the greatest Star Trek episodes of all time, and arguable one of the greatest TV show episodes of all time. I’d put it up there against any one episode from any other series. Star Trek was not all amazing but when it was it really was.
This was the first really good time travel episode and had far reaching effects in that the acclaim it garnered caused us to get Return to Tomorrow and the awful Assignment: Earth (suck it, Gary Seven). 
Furthermore whenever the newer series started scraping the bottom of the barrel for story ideas they always seemed to pull up time travel. This would be cool if Star Trek had pioneered time travel on TV (and were called Time Trek) but Doctor Who had been doing it for six years prior to this episode (Van Gogh Tardis image courtesy of the Doctor Who T shirt category)
Anyway, this is the episode that made me realize how hot Joan Collins was in her day. The rumor has always been that Edith Keeler was Kirks one true love and all the other green chicks he hooked up with were to help him forget her. I think that is one medicine I would enjoy taking. This is one of the few time Kirk cusses when he says “Let’s get the hell out of here” (another time would be when Kirk says “Go to the devil” in Day of the Dove). It was also the source of a lot of controversy when Harlan Ellison sued for royalties. I guess they settled but I read his original treatment and if anything I think he owes Roddenberry some money for that train wreck.
So a great episode and everything Star Trek is supposed to be about. Of course in the movie with the whales they managed to just bring a chick home with them but whatevs. I’m sure if they use this episode for a new reboot movie Kirk will need to save Edith Keeler so she can become an American super spy who guns down Nazi’s wholesale but really at this point I’m so burnt out on those I can’t even be bothered to speculate. Suck it J.J. Abrams.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.