Tomorrow is Yesterday by: D.C. Fontana and directed by: Michael O'Herlihy

 

“Tomorrow is Yesterday” is written by D.C. Fontana and is directed by Michael O’Herlihy.  It was filmed under production code 21, was the 19^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on January 26, 1967.

 

Adding time travel to your media property is always a bit of a gamble.  It’s a trope that doesn’t exactly have a standard execution, often becoming whatever the plot requires it to be to fix the plot but often breaking the universe.  Star Trek introduced time travel in the fourth aired episode, “The Naked Time” as a way to resolve the plot point of the engines failing, resetting the plot to a point before the Enterprise came into contact with the virus.  “Tomorrow is Yesterday” is an episode that was initially proposed by D.C. Fontana as the second part of “The Naked Time” with the time travel as the central conceit of the episode.  A black star hurtles the Enterprise to the late 1960s, losing much of the ship’s power in the process.  An U.S. Air Policeman, Captain John Christopher played by Roger Perry, is sent by to investigate the Enterprise and is brought on board.  The rest of this episode balances the idea of maintaining the integrity of the timeline, the fear being that Christopher will take back what he sees of the Enterprise to the US government.  The plane he was abducted from is destroyed in the Enterprise’s tractor beam and the government has images of the ship that must be destroyed.  This is a genuinely great setup for drama and the infiltration of a government base, however, much of the episode is undercut by the ending which literally resets the timeline instead of perhaps the far more satisfying ending of Christopher being put back with knowledge of the future but nobody to tell it to.  While the climax is exciting and incredibly well shot, ending with the Enterprise back in its own time but equally as damaged, it kind of leaves the viewer a bit lacking.  This also might be a bigger issue for me since I’m such a fan of Doctor Who which by this point had already done The Aztecs, The Space Museum, The Time Meddler, and The Massacre, all serials that dealt with the ramifications of time travel in some way without an almost deus ex machina ending.

 

Outside of the ending, “Tomorrow is Yesterday” is a genuinely great hour of television.  D.C. Fontana provides her second script for the series and her first not to be somebody else’s idea that she adapted for television (“Charlie X” was a pitch from Gene Roddenberry).  The moral dilemma at the heart of the episode is fascinating, with subtle nods to how different the vision of the future is despite not being explicit in terms of the racism and the bigotry of the time.  Christopher is shocked to see female officers, and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock is used consistently as being the alien outsider that Christopher doesn’t understand.  The character of Christopher is fascinating as he is driven by wanting to go home and not reacting with immediate violence when faced with people and aliens from the future.  Skepticism, most definitely, but not violence.  Perry plays the anger of being told he is not allowed to go home brilliantly and subtly, acting in his own self-interest.  The second act of the episode is Kirk and Sulu infiltrating the base to steal the photographs and files back before the Enterprise can go back in time.  Kirk is captured and interrogated by the colonel of the base, played by character actor Ed Peck, and the way Shatner plays the interrogation scenes are incredibly witty.  This is down to Fontana’s knack for sparkling dialogue and Shatner’s almost unintentional campy performance.  There’s also just some great scenes for Sulu, despite getting minimal dialogue George Takei does an excellent job at facial acting.

 

Overall, “Tomorrow is Yesterday” is one of those episodes that would be a perfect episode of Star Trek if the ending didn’t end up meaning a lot of what happened didn’t actually matter in the end.  Fontana’s script is sparkling and it’s clear that she’s a writer to bring back whenever they need to do something great and the performances are brilliant at focusing in on a lot of the character moments.  It uses its 1960s setting to both save budget and contrast the present day society (though not to the fullest) to Roddenberry’s vision of a utopian future.  It’s just that ending that doesn’t quite work.  7/10.