Episode of the Week : All Our Yesterdays
- Thread starter Botany Bay
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I think this is a good episode especially as it was the next to last to be broadcast.
So they were still trying. Spock's regression to relatively primitive behaviour was interesting. It had sometimes seemed that in earlier shows McCoy's goading of Spock went a bit far and Spock's stored anger seemed plausible.
The sets seem pretty good too. The ice world, Salem witch trial world and the time library all seemed well realised.
9
So they were still trying. Spock's regression to relatively primitive behaviour was interesting. It had sometimes seemed that in earlier shows McCoy's goading of Spock went a bit far and Spock's stored anger seemed plausible.
The sets seem pretty good too. The ice world, Salem witch trial world and the time library all seemed well realised.
9
The only thing about this episode that didn't really work for me is the cinematography. The scenes of Kirk in the Three Musketeers street were all actually exteriors but they were filmed and lit so ineffectively, they looked like sets. The last "location" shooting on the series and it might as well have been indoors. And the editing of the sword fight is lacking. Shatner has good theatrical moves, but when he disarms his adversary, it looks like the guy just drops his sword. You don't see the actual move that does it. One last "Kirk is a fighting badass" scene and it's pretty much a botch in the climax. Minor quibbles to some, but it's Kirk dammit!
Wow. Pretty hard, Harvey. In the 70s, some criticized this episode as being a "warmed over" COTEOF, but the feeling of approaching, unavoidable doom ending Spock's one chance for love (Chapel was already a closed matter by this time) was powerful.
As in the equally doomed encounter with Rayna, observers (in this case, McCoy instead of Spock to Kirk) show a deep care for their friends that illustrated the strength of relationship development built over the seasons. That added to the power of TOS' myth as the series moved into syndication.
Further, Zarabeth is just as sympathetic a character as (for example) Edith, perhaps more, as she knows she is fated to die isolated in the ancient past. Few ST characters could inspire so much feeling of loss and render the heroes absolutely powerless.
My rating....8, and that's only because the Kirk part of the episode was simply giving Kirk something to do.
Typical how Kirk came to the aid of the woman (The Mort) who was being harassed by the cavalier and then it is she that is his most ardent accuser when the judge trundles along!
JB
JB
That's called a manufactured dilemma to give Shatner busy work--or that was the ultimate effect of that part of the story.
I gave it a 9. One of my favorite 3rd season episodes and very good overall.
I think I would have had Kirk et al grab a few disks each before beaming out, since they had a moment to chat there before beaming out. Or while McCoy & Spock are having their exchange and Kirk is off camera then he reappears for the beamout with an armful of disks.
I think I would have had Kirk et al grab a few disks each before beaming out, since they had a moment to chat there before beaming out. Or while McCoy & Spock are having their exchange and Kirk is off camera then he reappears for the beamout with an armful of disks.
How much good are the discs going to be if they don't have the hardware to play them?
I'd be concerned about how the removal of the disks from the library would have on people who had traveled through the Atavachron to those periods. The disks were connected to the Atavachron, and people had to be prepared in order to enter history without ill-effects. It's possible that preparation was not only for the good of the travelers, but also to preserve the integrity of the timeline.
The library motif and episode title suggest that temporal paradox was resolved by having the travelers become part of the living history of the planet. History was evidently altered by the time travel, but in a way controlled by the preparation. Remove part of the system making that work, and you might break it.
Perhaps if you destroy a disk, it would prematurely kill the travelers who went through to that time. Move the disk beyond the Atavachron, and perhaps the same thing would happen. Spock would have cautioned against removal of the disks before they better understood their function.
The library motif and episode title suggest that temporal paradox was resolved by having the travelers become part of the living history of the planet. History was evidently altered by the time travel, but in a way controlled by the preparation. Remove part of the system making that work, and you might break it.
Perhaps if you destroy a disk, it would prematurely kill the travelers who went through to that time. Move the disk beyond the Atavachron, and perhaps the same thing would happen. Spock would have cautioned against removal of the disks before they better understood their function.
Except that the sun went Nova at the end of the episode, destroying Sarpiedon and the library. So, then, what's the harm in grabbing some discs and preserving some information about the planet's history. If destroying a disc kills the traveler, then they all died when the planet was comsumed and evacuating them was a total waste of time.
The way I always took it was the library was just that: a library. The "tapes" were just history texts which fed the Atavachron the pertinent information. The time machine did the rest.
I thought of that, too!
Perhaps the Atavachron performed a commit function during the nova that sealed the timeline. The Atavachron might have even been powered by the nova itself.
Those things *could* be true (and worth exploring in a sequel or fanfic), but nothing presented in the episode confirms it. We only know that the disks being viewed on a viewer link them to that time period when they go through the portal. The disks not on a viewer or in the drawers don't seem to be active to us (the viewer) or to our intrepid heroes who surely would want to preserve some Sarpeidon history.
I think it's cool that nowadays we can pop in an optical disc and view something, whereas that was pure, way-out science fiction in the episode.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but location shooting means shooting outside the studio, not on a backlot. The only third-season episode shot on location was "The Paradise Syndrome," with its outdoor scenes filmed in Franklin Canyon Park just north of Beverly Hills.
The point of what I'm saying is what I said before: "Spock would have cautioned against removal of the disks before they better understood their function."
Perhaps the disks could be safely removed and still function as you suggest; perhaps not. Perhaps they actually need the Atavachron to display the living history. Perhaps they go dark and blank when the Atavachron stops working. Perhaps when the sun goes Nova, the disks, being connected to the Atavachron, explode too. That would endanger the ship.
The supposition that the disks can be safely removed from the library and still function is just as out-of-story as anything else.
The people were altered by the Atavachron to be part of their new timeline so I'd say that whatever happened to the Library would not affect the temporal immigrants one bit!
JB
JB
The bit that always makes me laugh when I watch this one is where kirk is wrestling with Atoz and he shouts out, "It must be The Sarpeidan Ice Age!" But even now I still hear it as,' The Sarpeiden Air Siege!' Maybe back in their past there was a time with no oxygen? 
JB
JB
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Kind of a nifty idea...escaping destruction by going back through time..but how'd they discover time travel before interstellar spacecraft?
Why does a Vulcan revert to primitiveness simply by going through time?
Heavy use of Hodgkin's Law of parallel planet development too.
The drama is weakened because you know none of this will take, but despite this..I loved this episode as a kid. There's no hate in me for this. I can't say it's really a good episode though.
Why does a Vulcan revert to primitiveness simply by going through time?
Heavy use of Hodgkin's Law of parallel planet development too.
The drama is weakened because you know none of this will take, but despite this..I loved this episode as a kid. There's no hate in me for this. I can't say it's really a good episode though.
But it is a good episode! Especially for Spock and McCoy!
JB
JB
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