Yesterday's Enterprise

TrekToday · June 21 2008, 04:23 AM

Plot Summary: Just after discovering a temporal rift, the bridge crew spots a ship within it. In that instant, the USS Enterprise enters an alternative timeline where Tasha Yar is alive, the ship has been refitted for battle, and Starfleet has been at war with the Klingons for two decades. The ship from the rift is a previous USS Enterprise - the NCC-1701-C, which was reported destroyed 22 years ago. Picard learns from Captain Rachel Garrett that the ship had responded to a Klingon distress call when it was ambushed by Romulan warbirds, then slipped through the rift. When Guinan tells Picard that the entire universe is wrong - the war shouldn't be happening - Picard concludes that although the temporal phenomenon saved the Enterprise-C from destruction, that change set in motion an alternate timeline in which billions have died. Riker wants to repair the older Enterprise to fight for Starfleet, but Picard and Garrett agree that it must return to its own timeline - even if that means certain destruction - because honorable deaths might have been sufficient reason for the Klingons to avoid war with the Federation. Meanwhile, Yar, who is falling in love with one of the Enterprise-C's officers, learns from Guinan that her death in the peaceful timeline had no purpose. She asks Picard for a transfer to the Enterprise-C so that she can help them complete their mission. Three Klingon Birds of Prey attack the Enterprise-D as the Enterprise-C heads into the rift. Just as the warp core is about to breach, the rift closes and the Enterprise-D resumes its initial timeline, where Picard's crew is on the way to a peaceful meeting with the Klingons. None of them has any memory of the alternate reality except Guinan, who asks LaForge to tell her about Tasha Yar.

To read the full reviews, please click here.

tomalak301 · June 21 2008, 05:40 AM

[/quote]I will be out of town for the next five weeks, so this will be my last retro review for a while. I'll be back with "The Outcast" late in the summer![/quote]

I wish Michelle posted here on the board but I was wondering why she was going to skip to Season 5 when she gets back? Oh, and if you are reading this MEG, have a good vacation.

Jack Bauer · June 21 2008, 05:46 AM

Great episode.

DorkBoy [TM] · June 21 2008, 01:55 PM

I'm sure it was just a brain fart and she meant "The Offspring" not "The Outcast."

Similar titles.

Anyhow. This episode is the best episode of Trek, ever, and quite possibly the best hour of television I've ever seen.

I remember when it was first on, how excited everyone in the BBS community was. People lucky enough to have VCRs (I didn't) watched it over and over and over. Which I eventually did, once I was able to tape it in reruns. And of course now I have the DVD, which I've seen many times as well.

It is probably hard for newcomers to Trek to imagine just how great this episode was at the time, just because it has been replicated so many times on later serieses. Pretty much the same story as the Borg - time travel has been done a bit to death, as was mentioned in the review.

(Though I would have listed "Timeless," not "Year of Hell," as Voyager's "Yesterday's Enterprise" though both have that general idea.)

I especially like the guest actors from the C. Garrett is what I wished Janeway would have been, and what she was on her better days: a strong competent female captain.

I only wish the TNG movies had been as cinematic as this episode; it always feels more like a movie than a TV episode to me. Partly because of the TOS movie era bridge set and uniforms - I always liked this era's style the best.

Unicron · June 21 2008, 04:35 PM

This is probably my all-time favorite TNG ep, though a few others like AGT come close.

DarkHorizon · June 21 2008, 05:00 PM

My favourite Star Trek episode of all time - I still love to watch it, even though I must have seen it several hundred times, and know the episode from back to front. I remember having a debate about it with my dad after the BBC showed it for the first time. I was eight.

RandyS · June 21 2008, 07:22 PM

Unicron wrote:

This is probably my all-time favorite TNG ep, though a few others like AGT come close.

Yep, mine too, with Parrallels running a close second.

One thing though: Why the hell did MEG have to compare TNG's all time best episode with TOS' all time worst??? Yesterday's Enterprise is NOTHING like City on the Edge of Forever. It's a GREAT episode. City is just, just....

Ugh........

The Old Mixer · June 22 2008, 03:16 AM

^Just a guess, but possibly it has something to do with the fact that most consider "City" to be one of TOS's best.

RandyS · June 22 2008, 06:10 PM

^Ah. Well, see, I've always considered "City" to be one of TOS' Worst. I've always been in the minority there. On the other hand, I've always considered "The Alternative Factor" to be one of TOS' best, and for some reason, I've always been in the minority THERE.

Outpost4 · June 22 2008, 07:02 PM

You can say that again!

Pioneer · June 22 2008, 08:51 PM

One of the very best Next Generation episodes and an excellent review by MEG. If I had a daughter, I could hold up Yar's behavior as a model of courage, poise, and compassion. She really does shine under those difficult circumstances. I would have no problem serving under her command.

As for TOS: I think CotEoF is a masterpiece even if Harlan Ellison thinks that Gene Roddenberry "muffed it". TOS's "The Alternative Factor" was just so-so, in my opinion.

@RandyS: Please elaborate on your opinions about these episodes. Perhaps I'm (we're) missing something.

The Old Mixer · June 22 2008, 09:03 PM

RandyS wrote:

^Ah. Well, see, I've always considered "City" to be one of TOS' Worst. I've always been in the minority there. On the other hand, I've always considered "The Alternative Factor" to be one of TOS' best, and for some reason, I've always been in the minority THERE.

So...you don't happen to have some distinguishing feature, like a prominent facial scar or a goatee, do you...?

RandyS · June 23 2008, 12:36 AM

^No, none of that. Just a a pointed tail and pitchfork.

And this is for Pioneer, who asked for elaboration:

City is my least favorite TOS episode simply because Joan Collins has always annoyed the hell out of me no matter what I see her in. Plus, after reading Ellison's book which included the original script, I found myself liking that version much better. I thought it would have made a good two parter, with Keeler recast, of course. The finished episode just seemed to be an abridged version after that.

The Alternative Factor is one of my favorites because I liked the mystery surronding Lazarus at first, then it turned out it was two guys, pne of which is from a parrallel universe (one of my all time favorite Sci-Fi plot devices). Of course, I was disapointed that we didn't get to see what distingushed our uinverse from the other one (Like we did in my all time favorite TOS show Mirror, Mirror), but that's okay. It was still a good episode.

AntonyF · June 23 2008, 01:16 AM

An amazing episode, and still stunning to think this was something they knocked together really quickly because they hadn't got a story idea.

I do wish the intended demise of Wesley and Data made it into the final script though.

anti-matter · June 23 2008, 01:33 AM

One of my all time top 10 episodes of sci-fi...and what an incredible vehicle to return Denise Crosby to the fold. I thought she was much better character as a Romulan than the Enterprise security officer...not saying that to diss her...just say'en is all.