Somebody in the Star Trek production Office has been in the stock footage library perusing US Air Force films. Tomorrow is Yesterday begins in contemporary times with aircraft taking off, setting the scene for the Air Base where much of the story takes place. A UFO has been spotted in the sky and you’ll never guess what it is. It’s only the chuffing Enterprise!
So how did all this come about? Well, a black star started to pull the ship towards it, and in an effort to break free, Sulu put the pedal to the metal, broke free and flew back to sixties Earth. The Enterprise is damaged, the crew look rough and beaten up and the engines can only manage impulse power. Unfortunate, but on the plus side, what a great chance to buy some Beatles collectables.
The Air Base launches nuke-bearing planes to intercept the “UFO”, and in the Enterprise’s current state this could be a problem. The only thing for it is to beam the pilot aboard. Captain John Christopher is somewhat disorientated at first and Kirk is less than forthcoming with the answers. When Captain Christopher sees a space girl, he says, “A woman?”. “Crew,” Kirk explains. Everyone loves a space girl.
Scotty soon fixes the shields, but this leaves Kirk with a problem. They can’t send Christopher back. He’s seen too much and could influence the future. He’s gotten himself a Starfleet uniform, he’s seen the futuristic computer system, Spock’s ears and more spacegirls than you could shake a stick at. On the other hand Scotty doesn’t even know how to get the Enterprise back to the future. Great Scot! Wait a second, what about The Naked Time episode in which they invented time travel at the end?
When Spock discovers that a future son of Christopher’s will be historically significant (he invents the parsnip). So, that settles it, he has to return. This means Kirk and the crew have to go down and steal all the evidence that the Air Base had gathered so that even if Christopher does tell his superiors about it, there’s nothing to back him up. He’ll look like a raving nutter.
So Kirk and Sulu beam down. In their Starfleet uniforms. I can see that these guys don’t get a lot of undercover work. They walk down the corridor then break into the lab. Why didn’t they just beam directly into the lab in the first place, I wonder. Things, of course, don’t run according to plan resulting in another local being beamed up and, after taking on three guards, Kirk being taken into custody.
Needless to say, things work out in the end, with Scotty having figured out a way of slingshotting around the sun and the Air Force men being beamed back to their bodies before they encountered the crew. This does actually present a small flaw in the logic, in that they are going into the future, not the past, so how could they have sent Captain Christopher to an earlier point in time and… oh my god… I’m a nerd.
Never mind. The script is actually exceptionally good with well-written, funny, dialogue. The action scenes are very exciting. When Star Trek breaks away from its usual format to tell a different type of story sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. With Tomorrow is Yesterday it really, really works.
Cast:
William Shatner as James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
DeForest Kelley as Leonard H. McCoy
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu
Guest Cast:
Roger Perry as Captain John Christopher
Hal Lynch as Air Police sergeant
Richard Merrifield as Webb
John Winston as Lt. Kyle
Ed Peck as Colonel Fellini
Mark Dempsey as Air Force captain
Jim Spencer as Air policeman
Sherri Townsend as Crew woman
Majel Barrett as Computer Voice
Creative Staff:
Director: Michael O’Herlihy
Written By: D. C. Fontana
