“Tomorrow is Yesterday”
Written by D. C. Fontana
Directed by Michael O’Herlihy
Season 1, Episode 19
Production episode: 1×21
Original air date: January 26, 1967
Star date: 3113.2
Mission Summary
In the radar room of a U.S. Air Base circa the late 1960s, someone notices a blip: some kind of ship has entered the atmosphere “like it fell out of the sky or something.” It beeps on the radar. A UFO sighting! The captain orders someone to go up and take a closer look. As the camera cuts to the pilots getting ready to intercept and investigate, we see the tiny figure of the Enterprise, in orbit around an ancient Earth.Through a captain’s log we learn that en route to Starbase 9, the Enterprise got sucked into a “black star,” and in order to escape the strong gravitational pull they had to reverse engines at full warp power. The result? A mumblemumble gravitational slingshot effect that sent them tumbling through space-time, “to stop here, wherever we are.”
With only impulse power, the Enterprise needs some time to get the engines back online. They try to contact Starfleet Command, but there’s no signal—all they can pick up is a news report announcing the first manned moon shot.
KIRK: Manned moon shot? That was in the late 1960s.
SPOCK: Apparently, Captain, so are we.
Just as that’s sinking in, the Air Force interceptor arrives and is ordered to either force the UFO to land or “disable” it. Worried about nuclear weapons that could harm the already-crippled Enterprise, Spock warns Kirk that any damage taken might not be repairable in this time period. Kirk decides to put the aircraft under a tractor beam, but the ancient plane begins to break up under the force of the beam. To save the pilot’s life, Kirk beams him aboard the Enterprise.
The pilot, Captain Christopher, is understandably freaked the fuck out, and stares wondrously at Kirk. He’s surprised that Kirk speaks English (and even more surprised to see lady crewmembers!), and absolutely astounded by the bridge, where Kirk has the foresight to tell him not to touch anything. Spock doesn’t think this tour of the ship is a good idea, and tells Kirk that given what the man has seen of the future, he can’t possibly be allowed to return to the present. The information could be dangerous. He might design miniskirts.
Christopher is none too happy about this—he has a wife and two daughters back home that he’d like to see again. Ironically, while the engines can be repaired in a matter of hours, Scotty reminds the captain that they have no place to go. Christopher demonstrates the maturity of a five-year-old by taking glee in this: “Too bad, Captain. Maybe I can’t go home, but neither can you. You’re as much a prisoner in time as I am.”
Way to be the bigger man, Christopher! He then attempts to escape, though Kirk is able to stop him. McCoy suggests that perhaps he could be retrained in the future, and become a productive member of society. Kirk, however, is way less politic, and states frankly that “in our society he’d be useless. Archaic.” Moreover, he’s skeptical that he could be “trained” to forget his family. Because McCoy and Kirk are such sensitive people, they have this conversation right over Christopher’s bedside, and he overhears the whole thing. Though originally they believed that the captain had made no “relevant contribution” to Earth history (ouch…), it turns out that his son winds up being a famous astronaut—a son that hasn’t been born yet.
With no choice but to return him (the captain’s “woohoo!” can be heard throughout the ship), Kirk decides that some damage control is still in order, and he and Sulu beam down to the air force base to recover any recordings and photos that the captain transmitted back to base. They find an old tape machine (which Kirk amusingly notes he’s only seen in museums), and they recover the tapes…just as a sergeant catches them. The sergeant takes the tapes, their communicator, and their belts, and orders them not to move. Meanwhile, worried that they haven’t reported back, Spock beams the communicator back to the ship—and the sergeant with it!
Sulu and Kirk move on to the photo lab to get the last of the evidence, but in doing so they trip a sensor, alerting the base to their presence. Three men enter the lab and find Kirk, who closes the door to the development room itself, allowing Sulu the chance to beam away. The three men are utterly mystified by Kirk’s miraculous presence, and not satisfied with his explanation that he “popped out of thin air.” The following interrogation scene is truly spectacular: a smug and wily Kirk toys with the Air Force personnel, headed by Fellini:
FELLINI: What is that? Is that a uniform of some kind?
KIRK: This little thing? Just something I slipped on.…
FELLINI: All right, Kirk. Maybe this will make you laugh. Sabotage, espionage, unauthorised entry, burglary. How are those for starters? And I can think up lots more if you don’t start talking.
KIRK: All right, Colonel. The truth is, I’m a little green man from Alpha Centauri. A beautiful place. You ought to see it.
FELLINI: I am going to lock you up for two hundred years.
KIRK: That ought to be just about right.
But before it can go much further, Spock, Sulu, and Christopher beam down and disable the men, freeing Kirk. They are all about to return and beam up when Christopher turns on them, refusing to beam back. Spock knew this would happen (who didn’t?) and uses his trusty Vulcan racial ability to nerve-pinch him into submission.
They return to the Enterprise, and with the warp engines back online they decide to try a reverse mumblemumble slingshot effect to get back…to the future! The two 20th century guys, Capt. Christopher and the sergeant, agree to be beamed back in time to the point at which they left, hopefully leaving them without any memory of the experience (mysteriously…). Because this is Star Trek, it totally works, and everyone makes it safely back to their proper place in space-time.
Analysis
Classic science fiction premise, classic television execution: just what the doctor ordered. Okay, so it makes absolutely zero sense: I can deal with that. We’ve got time travel to the past-as-present, two unwitting guys who get wrapped up in it, and a farcical attempt to restore order and balance to this kooky world. I really enjoyed this episode, perhaps more than it deserved (I’m a sucker for time travel stories). What made it for me was the humor. It didn’t rely primarily on cheap laughs built around stereotypes and cliches (see: “Shore Leave”), and it didn’t fall into the trap of making the situation so goofy that you miss the really serious threat of the premise. Instead, we get some hilarious character moments: Kirk’s “oh shit!” face when the sergeant beams up instead of him; Spock’s underplayed eyebrow raises and barely restrained smiles; and Sulu’s face brightening when he sees the classic tape machine that he had previously only see in museums. Kirk and Sulu exchange delightful glances at each other as they break in, like two kids who know they’re doing something naughty and aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
A huge highlight for me was the really well-choreographed fight scene between Kirk and the Air Force goons. Compared to the Gorn fight, in which the lizardman is so slow and awkward that it seems like he’s been mildly sedated, this is great fight. My favorite part of the episode was by far the Kirk interrogation scene right after the fight. Shatner pulls off that trademark blend of smug arrogance and puckish pranking with zest. And you know what? I think the lady computer was hilarious, especially when it changed from sultry woman to petulant child. I’d like to pretend that the Amazon planet programmed that as a big joke on Kirk, knowing it would fluster him. The whole episode was just a joy to watch from beginning to end.
Lastly, I love the way that the episode plays with the idea of space travel as a whole. What if men were the aliens that visited Earth? Would we recognize ourselves? Kirk, who’s traveled the galaxy, jokingly tells Christopher that he doesn’t believe in little green men—and yet he’s seen aliens so different from humans. How can he say that it’s not possible there might be some out there? I think it’s because our idea of the alien or the “other” doesn’t always mesh up with the reality, and the alien doesn’t have to be something frightening. Kirk is an alien to Christopher, and yet despite the centuries that separate them, they are so similar. We might be afraid to look at the unknown, but there’s no reason to be frightened: maybe it’s just another version of us out there, ambitious, spirited, and determined.
This aired at the height of the space program, before man had landed on the moon; the possibilities are endless, and the hope and optimism and excitement about the new frontier is undeniable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the child Christopher has after these events take place becomes an astronaut.
Torie’s Rating: Warp Factor 5 (on a scale of 1-6)
Eugene Myers: The premise of this episode is kind of cute: what if the Enterprise traveled back in time to modern day America (where modern day = 1967) and was mistaken for a UFO? This is something we’ve seen before (or…later?) in science fiction, including in Star Trek: DS9 (“Little Green Men”), and of course we have echoes of this episode in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where the modern day has been updated to 1986 and they get to run around another military base. The slingshot method of time travel that sends the Enterprise to the 1960s, originally established in “The Naked Time” (which is oddly not referenced in this episode at all) is also pivotal to that film’s plot.
So “Tomorrow is Yesterday” (one of my favorite episode titles in TOS) is mostly fun and mostly harmless, with some hilarious dialogue and terrific character interactions, though at times it’s a bit too meta and possibly too ridiculous (such as the sexy computer voice flirting with Kirk, which just feels so out-of-place). It has one of the most astonishing teasers in the series, a shot of the starship flying in Earth’s atmosphere against a clear blue sky. And it also deals with some interesting moral questions, direct and implied, that make this more than just a throwaway episode.
The primary issue is what to do with Captain John Christopher. Setting aside the fact that Kirk basically screwed up when he sets the tractor beams on Christopher’s plane, thereby jeopardizing the pilot’s life, the captain has to decide whether to send the man home or risk erasing their future. (Here’s that pesky interpretation of temporal paradox and a single timeline, which crops up again and again in the old shows.) There never really seems to be a question that preserving the timeline is going to take priority over Christopher’s life, even though it was their fault that he got involved in the first place.
In fact, they’re all a little bit cold to him, such as when Spock announces—in his presence—that Christopher basically accomplishes nothing important with his life. Ouch. How would that make the guy feel if he does get home? Moreover, he can’t even do anything useful in the future with his limited education. (If only he were a whale biologist! How Kirk changes his tune when the twentieth century traveler is a single woman.) Spock even seems to take pleasure in showing off his alienness in front of the ignorant human. Though they discuss the possibility, it seems unlikely that Christopher will ever see his family again, especially since they keep giving him more information about the future—the very thing they want to avoid! They certainly shouldn’t be telling him that he’s going to have a son, who is going to make a “relevant contribution” and seems essential to the space program and the eventual creation of Starfleet. Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it? Let’s send Christopher back, then.
They don’t really entertain many other options. They consider whether they can condition him to forget his family, but not if they can wipe his memory of the Enterprise. What about Spock’s Vulcan mind meld? Almost anything would make more sense than their eventual solution of replacing him with himself before he sees the Enterprise.
Okay, let’s actually talk about that for a second. What exactly did they do? Considering that the transporter beam overlaps him for a second, it looks like they’re beaming him back into himself, but since he doesn’t remember anything that happened from that point forward, it seems that they’ve actually… killed him. They’ve wiped out the other version of him, the Christopher that went aboard their ship. And I don’t think any interpretation of quantum physics can account for the fact that the Enterprise he saw isn’t there anymore, since they haven’t prevented themselves from traveling in time. It seems that the time stream can only accommodate one version of each, and the newer version replaces the old one, or something. Someone help me out here! Kirk doesn’t even bother trying to explain it to Starfleet when they call the Enterprise when it returns to its own time.
They do the same thing to the crazy catatonic sergeant, beaming him in moments before he discovers them. (But how can he discover them in the room when they aren’t there? Time travel gives me a headache.) But they may have actually done him a favor; what I find most distressing about what they do to Christopher is the implicit trust he has in them. It never crosses his mind that they might just kill him, since he’s essentially an inconvenient loose end. He even goes so far as to thank them for “the look ahead”: the glimpse of space and man’s future that he forgets moments later. Thanks for nothing, is more like it.
There are some rewarding elements that might slip by if you aren’t paying attention. This episode highlights the difference between the 20th century and the 23rd when Christopher sees (okay, ogles) a woman walking by and is astonished that she’s on board—and part of the crew. Spock later tells him about Cygnet XIV, “a planet dominated by women,” who unfortunately give their computer systems an “upgrade.” I liked seeing how much Kirk and Sulu enjoyed being in the military base, with all that old twentieth century stuff; you get a sense that this is what put them in space, their sense of adventure and curiosity, even if they’re showing the same response to their own pasts. I’m a bit surprised that they beamed down in their uniforms, though. Did anyone else think of a sonic screwdriver when Kirk used his whistling-thingy to unlock a door?
So basically, “Tomorrow is Yesterday” has a good setup but fails to follow through, though I still managed to enjoy a lot of it. I’m such a sucker for time travel stories. D.C. Fontana has contributed both some of the best and some of the worst episodes of the franchise, but this one falls squarely in the middle for me.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp Factor 4 (on a scale of 1-6)
Best Line:
KIRK: Now you’re sounding like Spock.
MCCOY: If you’re going to get nasty, I’m going to leave.
Syndication Edits: After the initial shake-up, Kirk asking about auxiliaries, Spock wondering if Scotty has taken care of the engines, and And Kirk helping up Uhura from the floor (panty-shot!); Captain Christopher gazing in astonishment at the miniskirted crewmember; McCoy and Kirk’s conversation about how the 430 people onboard would, if they came to earth, certainly change the future; Kirk and Sulu’s comment about only seeing the tape reels in museums; Spock’s captain’s log; and the first part of Kirk’s interrogation.
Trivia: The Star Trek Chronology apparently lists this episode as taking place in 1969, which leads to an interesting premonition: the “manned moon shot” that was Apollo 11 did wind up launching on a Wednesday in 1969 (July 16).
Other notes: This episode was originally part two of a two-parter that began with “The Naked Time.”
Next episode: Season 1, Episode 19 – “Court Martial.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.
Check the Star Trek Re-Watch Index for a complete list of posts in this series.
Wasn’t the Star Trek Chronology written in the 1990s? Unless the original script for this episode directly references 1969, it’s more likely they simply matched the story up with actual history for the book. Though it is still fairly prescient.
More trivia, which I learned from the fantastic The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss:
It’s amusing to us now that the writers screwed up the commonly-known term “black hole,” which was surely what the Enterprise had a run-in with (strong gravitational pull?). However, the term “black hole” cannot be traced to before 1964, and is generally considered to have been popularized in 1967 by John Wheeler. In other words, not only was “black hole” not a commonly-known term when this episode was taped, it was barely coined.
Torie, small point of fact, it was Christopher who said “I never have believed in little green men”, not Kirk.
Anywho, aside from the sloppy tie-up at the end, I really enjoyed this. The banter amongst the crew was genuinely funny, even by “today’s standards”, and the character-moments were good too (all listed above).
Eugene- When I saw Christopher transported back down, I just assumed they transported the older one back in the second the younger one left, which of course doesn’t hash since his jet would have already have begun to “break apart”.
My theory of instant relacement, though, was toasted with the sgt, who was replaced prior in time to when he left. Add in the magical disappearing Enterprise in the sky, and well, I really don’t know. I mean, if they were able to magical make themselves not have been there, why bother even going to retrieve the tapes/recordings? And, as pointed out, why “return” the people, when you could just lose them in the transporter buffer and be on your way? *shrug* “It’s the Science, stupid” I guess.
Crazy odd thing that stuck out to me: after Sulu beamed back up and left Kirk, Spock is looking at the tapes and comments to Sulu that he was right to beam back up, and the entire time Sulu is grinning like a proud little boy. After reading the review, I guess it could be that he was still just hyper about the old tech, but when I saw it my first impression was that he was beaming about Spock’s compliment. I wonder if I’m looking for “bad stuff” too hard….
@@@@@ 1
I think they were trying to pin the stardates down… it makes no sense, I know. I’m happy to assume it’s 1967.
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I’m confused–it wasn’t commonly known, therefore it’s not surprising that it would seem to us today to be “messed up.” Is that what you mean? As you said, the idea of “black hole” wasn’t popularized until later that year. COINCIDENCE?! Uh, probably. :)
Torie: My point is, they practically anticipated the term. Which is kind of cool.
@@@@@ 3 R.Fife
Oh, and tsk on me for misattributing the dialogue. It changes the meaning slightly, but I think the idea of aliens not being what you expect still works.
Torie:
19 episodes and this is the first one tagged handwaving mumblemumble? Perhaps you need to check the settings on your tri-corder’s handwavium profile? :)
Torie, yeah, and bad on me for forgetting the immediate, and almost better, line after, where Spock says “Neither have I”. Who better to deny little green men than the green-blooded man?
Also, I like Black Star better myself, more accurate, to what I understand of the physics of a collapsed, non-light-emitting star. Heck, they might have actually checked with a science advisor. “Black Star” could have been a competing term. Or, you know, they coulda just gotten lucky.
I’m amused at how closely I normally track to Eugene. In this case, however, I’d give it about a three or four. The humor is nice, but not as much fun as Shore Leave or ST IV.
I liked the episode, even though the ending was clunky.
My wide-eyed self at the initial viewing never doubted for a minute that Cap’n Kirk and Mr. Spock were always right. Until the unborn son was mentioned.
R. Fife @3- Sulu could be genuinely pleased and/ or surprised at a compliment from Spock. I bet he doesn’t hand them out like candy.
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R.Fife, I caught that expression on Sulu’s face and thought he was pleased, too. I’d say he earned that one, even if it may not be that professional to be overjoyed at a compliment. It’d be more likely for him to be relieved, since he had to be worrying whether he did the right thing leaving his captain behind.
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Church, I tried to give it a 3.5, but Torie wouldn’t let me. So I settled on a 4 since I did enjoy it :)
A generally enjoyable episode despite the weak resolution. I think perhaps we can forgive Cpt. Christopher for being a little petty, considering all that he has been through in the previous few hours.
The one thing that has always bugged me about this episode (I think it’s this one, anyway; could be _Assignment: Earth_) is the way the chronometers (all fancy and hi-tech with their digital flip display) run backwards as the ship goes backwards in time. Apart from the fact that chronometers do not directly measure the flow of time, if they did behave in this way, wouldn’t it have been really easy to figure out at the beginning of the episode just when they were? All they would have to do is look at a clock.
A minor point, but shouldn’t that be “time travel to the present-as-past”?
@@@@@ 7 HArai
Yes, well, I only thought of it just now. I do think that this has had the most egregiously bad science so far, though.
@@@@@ 11 Eugene
No wish-washy decimals! It’s a warp factor, not a Richter scale.
@@@@@ 12 DemetriosX
That made me laugh out loud. Totally absurd, yes.
@@@@@ 13 Black –
1967 isn’t the present anymore…
Torie @14: how about “time travel to the past-present-as-past”? :)
In this episode Kirk says to Christopher right before he leaves the bridge to go to the transporter room “you only have about 15 years left so you better hurry. ” Was Kirk actually telling him how much longer he had to live? Does anybody know the answer to that, if so that was awful cold blooded of Kirk.
@16 I think the conceit is that as they approached the sun the were going back in time. After breaking away, they were moving forward in time. When Kirk spoke, they were still 15 years in the past relative to the time of the incidents in the episode.
I hate time travel. It’s dumb, especially the ST way.
IMO, a far better story would have been for them to immediately realize they needed to scrub Christopher’s recent memory. I would have liked Spock to find a record of a strange incident where Capt Christopher disappeared on a mission only to reappear elsewhere shortly after, with no memory of the event. He would be dismissed from the USAF, becoming a writer of SF, which would inspire his son to become an astronaut.
(But this would reduce the onscreen drama. That could perhaps have been replaced with a conflict with the ship’s anthrophologist, who would want to interview Christopher as a subject in history.)
As for the guard, that was just nuts. It was fun, but stupid. Still, if you wanted, you could do a similar scenario as I propose for Christopher. He returns with a memory loss. He is fired, after an investigation that proves he was a low-level operative for the Soviet Union. Because the base would be used for some important secret stuff shortly after, the memory wipe protected the timeline.
I think the goal has to be to protect the timeline. And so whatever is done needs to protect the timeline. And therefore all actions must be considered in terms of what is the likeliest to protect the timeline. For Christopher, he needs to return, so the memory wipe is the best solution. And this can become a general rule: you have to do your best to get back to what would have happened without your interference.
@3 Sulu often smiles, even when you wouldn’t expect it. Like when he’s about to engage a course in some perilous maneuver. It’s a bit odd. George Takei is a smiler, I guess.
Re the recordings, at the time they retrieved them, they has not realized they could return the two men. But it’s still part of a dumb time travel story (the only kind they do in ST).
Great episode. I just watched it back to back with Naked Time, and the two really fit together pretty well. Someone should recombine them as a fanedit.
I also like that they brought up the idea of time travel / butterfly affect / changing the past, just a few episodes before City on the Edge of Forever. A lot of good set up for future stories here.
My own interpretation of the beam in is that they beamed up the old version first, overlaying the newer one to wipe the memories, then beamed him back down.
If not, the only solution is to assume that the sargeant was deemed crazy, and Christopher just kept his mouth shut. Just because they left the past doesn’t mean that their actions in the past should have disappeared, but by returning him, they rewrite the timeline a 2nd time, which technically would have kept the guard from ever seeing them to begin with, but the initial scramble for the UFO should have still happened regardless. I love time travel stories.
@ecmyers the dialogue in the episode specifically refers to “next Wednesday’s first manned moon shot”. Three years after the episode was filmed, Apollo XI launched on Wednesday, July 16, 1969!
This was a fun episode—the first time the Enterprise was thrown back to the 20th century and the misadventures thereof. I had a good laugh at the scene where the guard, seeing the food replicator or whatever they called it, asked “How about chicken soup?”—and got it. And it was good chicken soup, much to his surprise.
The episode was great overall if you don’t get to wrapped up in the contradictory logic leaps from scene to scene. The only thing I had trouble with was the TERRIBLE opening scene where the Enterprise is scene wobbling through the clouds! In this time line the Enterprise could not enter the earths atmosphere without burning up!
@21/Scott: It probably depends on its velocity whether it burns up or not.