Friday, March 4, 2011

Star Trek: "City on the Edge of Forever"

Time Travel Device: A sentient portal

Time Travel Outcome: Change history

Coolness Factor: What might have been!

Flaws: The heroes are unaffected by the changes--how convenient! And why can't a sentient portal control its own abilities?

Mike says "City" is one of those classic episodes that every geek MUST see- not only is it a great episode of classic Star Trek, but it is a great exploration of time travel and the pitfalls that come with.

Something Kate has said in the past is that "if you give the fans enough time, they'll fill in gaps themselves," or something like that. This is absolutely true with this episode, and every possible flaw has been explained so much that it's considered almost canon.

Probably the biggest flaw is the Guardian itself- a sentient portal that serves as historian for the universe, built by a long lost civilization. VERY COOL. But... the need for a portal to be sentient kind of ceases when it has no ability to control itself! In the end, I think the talking portal was a way to save money (no guest actors or make-up to pay for: Yay!). But still, a very cool concept. So cool in fact, that several novelists have used the portal in their expanded universe stories, and all have given the Guardian his full powers when they use him.

The episode is a great example on the relationship between the Trek Triad of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and of how Kirk and Spock bring out the best in each other. It also uses a ploy that is used so often in the old show that it's still joked about today: Kirk Falling in Love . While it is most certainly a heart-rending situation Kirk finds himself in (the woman he loves must die for his world to exist), the simple fact is that he is faced with this same crisis so often makes one wonders if James Kirk was a descendant of James Bond.

Perhaps the only other thing that bothers me is the bloodthirsty nature of the situation: this woman must DIE, not simply be removed from the time line. It seems that taking her to the future with them would have solved the problem too (something they actually do in another movie on our list!).

"City" really does deserve the attention it has received through the years. Extremely well written, rich with untapped back story and history, and perfected with great performances, it really is a classic episode.

Kate says this episode raises the classic grandfather-paradox: if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather, you will cease to exist, so you would never be able to go back in the first place and kill your grandfather.

Our travelers change history so drastically, the Enterprise ceases to exist.

Except! the travelers conveniently continue to exist.

The episode does imply that the time travel device is located in a bubble.

Once this problem is disposed of, "City" is a fairly cool time travel episode. It is also one of those episodes that prove what James T. Kirk is supposed to be: not the fighting captain who gets his shirt torn off every three seconds but the thoughtful captain who must make the ultimate tough decisions.

And his tough decision is to let history alone. In a way, this goes along with the idea of the Prime Directive (not the actual Prime Directive which captains break whenever the plot requires). Star Trek will continually preach the idea of history as a fixed purity that shouldn't be messed with.

I respect this approach, but I mostly prefer Connie Willis. In To Say Nothing of the Dog, she presents time as something that self-corrects itself. The outcomes are fixed but not how those outcomes come about. If time travelers mess stuff up, the time devices keep re-jiggling things until the travelers' minor actions work together to create the necessary outcome. (Star Trek Voyager uses this approach more.)

In any case, I do think "City" is one of the best episodes Classic Trek created. It was in Season 1 which includes most of the best scripts: the narrative arc is very nicely paid off--though I do think the beginning is unnecessarily long. To be fair, the idea of time travel is so well-established in science-fiction television now, tediously explaining it is kind of unnecessary.

And the characters/relationships of McCoy, Spock, and Kirk ARE the way they are now remembered. I especially like the exchanges between Spock and Kirk at the mission, and Edith Keeler's statement (in response to Spock's query), "You [belong] at his side, as if you've always been there and always will," and later, "'--Captain.' Even when [Spock] doesn't say it, he does."

No other Star Trek franchise captured this particularly type of camaraderie with the same panache.

2 comments:

Joe said...

This is one of the first and only time travel plots that is about time travel itself; that is it makes the grandfather-paradox central to the theme.

Most time travel plots don't even bother. They may give lip service to the paradox, but they're really an excuse to be about something else. ("Back to the Future" uses the paradox [effectively] as a running gag and as a dramatic climax, but it creates its own set of problems while doing so.)

I agree that the other great thing about this episode is that it strips Kirk and Spock of the trappings of Captain and First Officer and shows us a genuine friendship dynamic.

The one conceit that I overlook is that one person would have that much influence. While a single person can have great influence, without a whole lot of things going on around them, it won't add up to much. If there was a peace movement in the 1930s that was that powerful, losing a single individual wouldn't stop it. But this was the 1960s and this belief was rampant, expecially with the Kennedys and Martin Luther King and all that. In that regard, it's interesting how influenced Harlan Ellison and the subsequent rewriters. That said, this also cut against the grain of the peace-at-all-cost movement.

Kate Woodbury said...

The one conceit that I overlook is that one person would have that much influence. While a single person can have great influence, without a whole lot of things going on around them, it won't add up to much.

I've been thinking about this. On the one hand, I could accept an argument that without Lincoln, the Civil War would have lasted longer, possibly having a far different outcome for the structure of the U.S. I certainly believe that Reconstruction would have been slightly less horrible if John Wilkes Booth hadn't assassinated Lincoln.

On the other hand, I think things like the Industrial Revolution and women getting the vote would have happened whether or not a single individual was removed from the equation.

On the plus side, the minor individual within the grass-roots up-surge does make a difference. George Washington did make a unique (and possibly altering) contribution to the American Revolution, but the Revolution wouldn't have gotten very far if farmers and doctors and merchants hadn't thought it was a swell idea. (By the way, this is one reason, I've never understood why some political pundits place so much value on the president. I mean, really, how much can the guy do?)