Star Trek episode review — 1.28 — The City on the Edge of Forever

Original air date: April 6, 1967
Director: Joseph Pevney
Writer: Harlan Ellison

Rating: 10/10

This is regarded by many to be the best episode of the original series. I even watched it for some class in graduate school a while back. It’s not difficult to see why it’s considered great, though it isn’t my favourite.

McCoy goes crazy and travels back in time, ending up changing history significantly. Kirk and Spock have to go back and stop him.

They end up in Depression-era New York City, where immediately Spock’s Vulcan appearance poses some problems. He’s eventually outfitted with a hat and the two men end up at a mission, where Kirk meets Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), with whom he falls in love.

Spock finds out that McCoy saved her life, and that she’ll eventually found a pacifist movement that will take off so much that it delays US interaction in World War II, allowing Nazi Germany to develop nuclear weapons and ultimately win. It’s a fantastic dramatic plot, and it does what Star Trek does best: examine complicated moral issues.

Because of that, it’s certainly one of the best episodes, if not the best. It feels different from the rest of the show in some way. It’s almost more drama than it is science fiction.