COTEOF - Question

[Commishsleer]

I just watched COTEOF and have a question.
I'm sorry if you've been over this before.

I'm wondering how Spock see the two different fates of Edith Keeler on his tricorder?
He was recording history before/as McCoy jumped so I think he should have recorded McCoy saving her.
Then where does he get the recording of the car accident?

If he recorded the car accident then where does he get the recordings after McCoy saved her.

Sorry if there is some obvious answer I haven't thought of.

 

[The Old Mixer]

First, good lord that's an ugly acronym.

Second, I'd have to rewatch to be sure, but I think he made a series of scans after McCoy went in, at which point the timeline was altered...and it was because he was working with stone knives and bearskins that there was any doubt which recordings were from which version of the timeline.

 

[Metryq]

You're expecting any time travel story with paradoxes to make sense? "City on the Edge of Forever" is more than just alternate time lines, it invokes outright paradoxes, a common fault of far too many time travel stories.

 

[RandyS]

The Guardian works in mysterious ways.....

 

[Shawnster]

What also doesn't make sense is Spock berating Kirk for saving Keeler when she stumbled on the stairs. "That could have been the moment she died." Um, no. You saw her obit, Spock, so you know the date she died. Odds are the obit might have also included how she died.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IIRC, Spock was scanning history through the Guardian even before McCoy jumped through it.

 

[Melakon]

IIRC, Spock was scanning history through the Guardian even before McCoy jumped through it.

This. Spock had separate record tapes he was viewing, just like we might compare two different but similar files on a computer.

Umbrella Corporation, you can usually refer to the episode as "City" and people will know what you're talking about.

 

[T'Girl]

A question that alway comes to me watching this episode is, immediately after subduing McCoy, why wasn't he beamed up to the ship and sickbay?

He had a dangerous overdose of a drug in his system and they just let him lay on the ground while they examine the Guardian.

They could/should have done both, sent McCoy immediately back to the ship, and examined the Guardian.


.

 

[Melakon]

^ But then the episode's over before the first act ends, and we never learn about Edith Keeler. It was just a framing device that Ellison used to get to the real story he wanted to tell.

 

[FormerLurker]

Actually it was Dorothy Fontana and GR's device. Ellison's device was a Scotty pastiche* named Beckwith, who was a drug dealer and a murderer.


*Ellison will never admit it, but Beckwith was doing Scotty's job, and the military vets at NBC would have picked up on it and made GR change the character to cut down on cast salary expenditures. And cut their budget.

 

[Melakon]

I've not read Ellison's original script, but I knew of the drug plot. I was referring to the Guardian of Forever itself as the framing device, which I thought was his invention.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Actually it was Dorothy Fontana and GR's device. Ellison's device was a Scotty pastiche* named Beckwith, who was a drug dealer and a murderer.


*Ellison will never admit it, but Beckwith was doing Scotty's job, and the military vets at NBC would have picked up on it and made GR change the character to cut down on cast salary expenditures. And cut their budget.

What was Beckwith doing that would be Scotty's job? Scotty's the Chief Engineer and has other engineer's working under him. They used "guest crewmen" often in TOS, especially in the first season.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I thought Beckwith was just some random security redshirt.

 

[Melakon]

It took Harlan almost the entire first season to finish his first draft according to reports, so maybe he had no idea who the chief engineer was.

 

[Maurice]

Actually it was Dorothy Fontana and GR's device. Ellison's device was a Scotty pastiche* named Beckwith, who was a drug dealer and a murderer.


*Ellison will never admit it, but Beckwith was doing Scotty's job, and the military vets at NBC would have picked up on it and made GR change the character to cut down on cast salary expenditures. And cut their budget.

BZZZZT. Wrong.

Ellison replaced Beckwith with McCoy in his second draft, not Fontana.

 

[Harvey]

It took Harlan almost the entire first season to finish his first draft according to reports, so maybe he had no idea who the chief engineer was.

Any "reports" that indicate it took Ellison "almost the entire first season" to finish his first draft are simply wrong. The first draft was delivered on June 3, 1966. To put that in perspective, 'Mudd's Women' (the fourth episode produced, after the two pilots and 'The Corbomite Maneuver') had only completed its second day of photography on that date.

 

[Maurice]

But why do homework when it's easier to spout the same old (disproven) stories again and again. Btw, have you seen Scotty? He has my drugs...

 

[Harvey]

I've thought about blogging about certain myths about the episode, but, honestly, there's very little that Ellison doesn't deal with comprehensively in his book about the whole affair. Anyone who is interested in the making of the episode or has heard a thing or two about its making (particularly from Roddenberry) in the past should read it.

 

[T'Girl]

^ But then the episode's over before the first act ends, and we never learn about Edith Keeler.

They could have omitted the subduing of McCoy and had the landing party be distracted by the Guardian. This would have avoided leaving the man with the serious medical problem just streached out in the dirt.

 

[Melakon]

I always like McCoy's first line when arriving in the past. "YOU! What planet is this?!" And the Rodent is going through a WTF moment.