Return to Tomorrow by: John Kingsbridge and directed by: Ralph Senensky

 

“Return to Tomorrow” is written by John Kingsbridge, a pseudonym for John T. Dugan, and is directed by Ralph Senensky.  It was filmed under production code 51, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 49^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 9, 1968.

 

Sometimes Star Trek does such a brilliant job of cloaking their progressive messaging, something too intense for the time period.  “Return to Tomorrow” is one of those times, the initial reading on my viewing being one of being pro-euthanasia and pro-quality of life as a reason to enact euthanasia.  This is done through a race of godlike aliens having lost their bodies, using, initially with consent, Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Ann Mulhall, played by Diana Muldaur, to build android replacements to they can continue living.  This is already an interesting idea, Star Trek establishing a core philosophy that the classic science fiction trope of transplanting one’s brain into android bodies creating an imitation in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “I, Mudd”, but “Return to Tomorrow” decides to largely ignore these ideas so the aliens can make their own bodies throughout the episode before deciding at the end that, no, while it would be closer to life than the holding pattern they were in at the beginning of the episode, it wouldn’t truly be life.  The two surviving aliens, Sargon and Thalassa, die in an embrace in Kirk and Mulhall’s bodies, their last moments being one final kiss which is a bittersweet ending for these characters.  Because the aliens have taken the bodies of our characters, this is one of the few episodes where the main crew of the Enterprise are in the background, though sadly this doesn’t mean characters like Sulu, Uhura, or Scotty are given a greater focus.  McCoy and Nurse Chapel get quite a bit of focus due to the main conflict of the episode becoming the third of these aliens, Henoch, being power hungry, creating a formula to kill Kirk and Sargon so he can rule.

 

This means that Leonard Nimoy’s performance in the episode is a particular highlight of the series overall.  While Nimoy is a very nuanced actor whenever he’s portraying Spock, playing Henoch he is allowed to really cut loose and play an evil character.  The performance goes over the top almost immediately, hypnotizing Nurse Chapel and almost laughing at her protests of creating a poisoned hypodermic needle.  The hypnosis is an incredibly fun little plot thread that adds some very nice drama between the characters, especially as the resolution of the episode involves Spock’s consciousness briefly jumping into Nurse Chapel to play into the unrequited love story between their characters.  Majel Barrett doesn’t get too much to play off as Spock, but the few moments she does get are solid and show that as an actress she is capable when given material and not just regulated to being a nurse.  Diana Mulduar is also an interesting single episode actress since the Wikipedia page for this episode reveals that she will eventually be a regular playing a different doctor in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Mulhall is a character clearly written to be a single episode love interest for Kirk, but Dugan’s script goes to great lengths to make Sargon distinct from Kirk, William Shatner giving an unusual performance since for much of the episode he is not actually playing Kirk.  James Doohan is also responsible for voicing Sargon, though it’s a little difficult to tell if he is also overdubbing Shatner, there are scenes where it is clearly Shatner but others where it’s not entirely clear.  Sargon as a character is wise, and directly written to be an inspiration for human gods which is sadly not really explored, but allowed to be flawed.  It adds this nice action to the story being very explicitly human.

 

Overall, while “Return to Tomorrow” as a title makes absolutely no sense, it’s one of those episodes of Star Trek that genuinely should be remembered for being an absolute highlight.  It hits on an incredibly standard Star Trek idea, but it also stands out incredibly unique.  Ralph Senensky once again brings a romantic tone to the direction of the episode while the performances are on top form with John T. Dugan requesting a pseudonym for a script that he really should have been proud of writing.  9/10.