“Yesterday’s Enterprise” is written by: Ira Steven
Behr, Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, and Ronald D. Moore, from a story by:
Trent Christopher Ganino and Eric A. Stillwell, and is directed by: David
Carson. It was produced under production
code 163, was the 15th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 3, the 63rd episode overall, and was broadcast on February 19,
1990.
The best alternate universe stories in science fiction
television work in one of two ways.
First, there is the evil alternate universe, pioneered by Star Trek
in “Mirror, Mirror” where that evil is played to the extreme, and often to
camp. The second is the more dramatically
interesting alternate universe, one played entirely straight where you can see
the characters you love in different places because different choice have been
made, these not being exclusive to the first decision. The most famous of these in popular culture
is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, but the I was first exposed to was
the Doctor Who serial Inferno, a serial that sees the Doctor
encounter counterparts of his colleagues and other characters in an
authoritarian, militaristic setting with a dystopian tone that leads to the end
of the world. Despite Star Trek: The
Next Generation having the option to go fully for the first type of
alternate universe episode because the mirror universe exists, it goes largely for
the second in its first proper alternate universe (or in this case alternate
timeline) in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. It’s
an episode that on a production standpoint, should not work. On screen there are four writers credited
with the script and two separate writers credited with the story, plus new showrunner
Michael Piller taking a pass at the script at some point during the production. With that many credits, more than the Writer’s
Guild of America would usually allow, being given an exemption because of how
much everybody involved contributed, it should fall apart from competing
visions. Television at its best,
however, is intensely collaborative. As
a script, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” clicks, likely having everybody who has a
pass adding something to create a new layer before it even goes before the camera
where David Carson, fresh off the incredibly atmospheric “The Enemy” is in the
director’s chair is adding his own atmospheric touch with the dynamic lighting
does a lot to elevate the performances in the episode and the script.
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” is an apology to Denise
Crosby, returned for a single episode as Tasha Yar as a rip in the space-time
continuum bringing the Enterprise-C into contact with the Enterprise-D
creates an alternate timeline. The
Federation is far more militaristic, Federation-Klingon relations broke down
and peace was never reached, the war is not going well as resources are depleted,
Worf never became part of Starfleet (and likely doesn’t exist), and Tasha Yar
never died. The only person on the Enterprise-D
who knows something is wrong with this timeline is Guinan, and even she cannot
put it together. Structurally, “Yesterday’s
Enterprise” is a perfect episode of television: each scene serves multiple purposes
in balancing the plot and the character drama, especially as it needs to
establish the new personalities of the alternate timeline Enterprise
crew viewers will know and the important members of the Enterprise-C (her
captain, Rachel Garrett played by Tricia O’Neill, and her first officer
Castillo, played by Christopher McDonald).
Visual shorthand of the lighting and the more striking versions of the
costumes, even seeing Wesley Crusher in a Starfleet universe, create that
initial link during the pre-credits sequence, but the script also is moving things
to make the alternate timeline work. Garrett
and Castillo are parallels to Picard and Riker, all trying their best in the
circumstances that sending back the Enterprise-C will be leading them to
their deaths. That is the dilemma and
what makes it unique is how understated it is.
Whoopi Goldberg’s performance as Guinan is given the most focus the
character has actually gotten so far, if this wasn’t an episode so focused on
Yar it would be easily labeled a Guinan episode. Guinan is the one piecing together and the moment
she sees Yar for the first time Goldberg does so much with this one facial
expression of such mixed emotions your heart breaks if you’ve been watching the
show up to this point. Guinan knows that
Yar should be dead, she should not have a relationship with this woman and yet
she does. This moment comes full circle
in the episode’s final shot between Guinan and Geordi La Forge: she asks to be
told about Tasha Yar, who she was and how she had meaning.
Crosby is given her best material here as Tasha Yar. There is a hinted romance between her and
Castillo, though it reads as two people in very desperate situations finding
comfort and companionship with each other.
The writers clearly understand the criticism of the first season of Star
Trek: The Next Generation laid by Crosby of not needing to actually be
there because Tasha is proactive throughout “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. She is able to work out that correcting the
timeline, if that is indeed what they are doing, but the way that she loses her
cool is fascinating because she doesn’t.
She knows that there is a duty to send the Enterprise-C back and instead
of lashing out, Yar makes the decision to go back with it to fight, almost to ensure
the Klingons see the fighting against the Romulans as a truly honorable death. It’s a meaning in her own death that she was
denied by Star Trek: The Next Generation. She gets one final scene with Captain Picard where
you can just see on a very tired Patrick Stewart, giving Picard that war torn
look, that he doesn’t want to let Yar go even if she is going to die
anyway. That decision to leave is what
cements Yar’s character and almost retroactively makes her death in “Skin of
Evil” worthwhile. The episode could have
chickened out and negotiated with Crosby to return full time to the series, but
it doesn’t, Tasha Yar is still dead but this time she is going out on her own
terms. Because Crosby is being given her
best material she is actually able to give a performance that feels fully
rounded and not just a generic security guard stereotype that the character so
often was reduced to, though to be fair everybody’s characterization in the
first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was thin.
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” succeeds almost because while
there is conflict and a moral dilemma that has the obvious solution reached, it
actually doesn’t have any external conflict and somehow is written with Gene
Roddenberry’s rules about future interpersonal conflict being followed. It’s genuinely a miracle that it works
because of just how many voices have a hand in how everything plays out, but it’s
a tour de force for the cast as a whole.
The tone never winks to the camera that this is an alternate timeline,
or treats it as something unnecessary because there is technically a status quo
reset at the end even if Guinan remembers everything and wants to learn about
Tasha Yar. There is the perfect understanding
of what a good piece of television is and does a lot visually instead of just
letting everything work through dialogue of a script that is full of great
dialogue. Blocking is attentive, lighting
is perfect, and by the time the episode ends you realize you’ve watched another
episode that just elevates what Star Trek: The Next Generation is
capable of doing when it is at its very best.
10/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment