Episode of the Week : All Our Yesterdays

[HarryM]

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.

In "The Immunity Syndrome" it's established that Spock has a telepathic link to other Vulcans, so maybe the same thing is affecting him here.

As far as taking the disks from the Library, yes, there is an unknown factor. They might not work without a reader. They might (though I think it's unlikely) explode. But once they are gone they are gone forever, and as a certain Captain said, "Risk is our business!". Too seek out and learn about alien worlds and cultures. The Sarpeidon library seemed a unique opportunity to further that, totally lost. Maybe the original title, "A Handful of Dust", was more appropriate in that respect since that's what they are left with, in the form of an cloud of superheated space dust and gas.

 

[Drusilla's valet]

Anytime Kirk gets into a sword fight you have the makings of an excellent episode. AtoZ was a brilliant character. Zarabeth was very well cast. Easily to me, top 3 from season 3. I gave it a 9.

 

[feek61]

I always found it interesting that during the ice age portion; the phasers didn't work but the tricorder and med scanner did.

 

[HarryM]

Yeah, a bit weird. Maybe the Atavachron is programmed to deactivate weapons, though you'd think it would deactivate any high-tech device, or even remove them to avoid contaminating the past *too* much (the people going back will obviously do that). It did remove the animal skins when Spock and McCoy came back through, but maybe it can only remove things physically on return.

 

[johnnybear]

But didn't the phasers remain in the ice age when Spock and McCoy came back?
JB

 

[Metryq]

And in a scene left on the cutting room floor, Kirk learns that the "Atavachron" is really a Matrix-like VR. Everyone who was "prepared" was really digitized, their bodies destroyed. In the accelerated time of the VR, all the refugees manage to live out subjectively full lives before the whole thing is vaporized by the nova. Hearing of Spock's behavior, Kirk decides not to inform him that he fell in love with one of the few computer generated "bots" left over from the VR development phase.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yeah, a bit weird. Maybe the Atavachron is programmed to deactivate weapons, though you'd think it would deactivate any high-tech device, or even remove them to avoid contaminating the past *too* much (the people going back will obviously do that).

How would the Atavachron identify Phasers as weapons, since to the that world's culture, Federation technology is completely unknown? Even if it detected an energy source, still--it should not be able to recognize it as part of an offensive device.

 

[Marsden]

I think the animal skins weren't removed, as such, but rotted to dust on the return trip as they were 5,000 years old.

And sometimes phasers don't work in bad weather, as silly as that sounds.

 

[Ssosmcin]

But didn't the phasers remain in the ice age when Spock and McCoy came back?
JB

Nope, they actually had them on when they went looking for the portal at the end of the episode. McCoy even had his medikit. This, to me, makes sense: remove the alien instruments from the future.

 

[Ssosmcin]

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.

That's kinda why I put the word in quotes. It was the last exterior shooting of the series. Either way, it looked crummy.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

That's kinda why I put the word in quotes. It was the last exterior shooting of the series. Either way, it looked crummy.

There were times when I would wonder and be unable to tell if Kirk's Sarpiedon street scenes were indoors or on the backlot. They must have either gone out at night, or else they shot it with a dark filter on the lens and put up big sun shades to keep people from casting pronounced shadows. I think they went out at night, which seems highly unusual.

For S3 in general, I've never had a problem with Al Francis.

 

[Harvey]

There were times when I would wonder and be unable to tell if Kirk's Sarpiedon street scenes were indoors or on the backlot. They must have either gone out at night, or else they shot it with a dark filter on the lens and put up big sun shades to keep people from casting pronounced shadows. I think they went out at night, which seems highly unusual.

For S3 in general, I've never had a problem with Al Francis.

It looks like day-for-night photography for me. I don't have the shooting schedule for this one, though, so I can't confirm that.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Yeah, I can't imagine they did night shooting, especially so late in the run when they were under a smaller budget and shooting schedule.

As a kid, I was really fascinated by Kirk's story, for whatever reason. I think some of it had to do with his greater involvement with the time portal than McCoy and Spock's. I loved the effect of the Atavachron, with the awesome sound effect and the color/negative flashes as a person passes through the doorway - the struggle as Atoz tries to shove Kirk through is great. Even the simple split screen of Kirk's hand and then body passing through the wall during the Three Musketeers era stuck with me. I was never a fan of the Trek romances, other than City (the only one that completely worked for me) and possibly Paradise Syndrome (because that one made sense as it took place over the course of months). However, McCoy goading Spock into anger so he can prove his point was brilliant. The idea of Spock's regression makes sense to me, thanks to the telepathic link Vulcans tend to share, as said above.

Great episode.

 

[UnknownSample]

Had this episode actually been the final episode (and for awhile, back in the day, for fans it was), it would have been a fantastic way to close the series. The TOS-R shot is nowhere near as satisfying.

For all of this and Nimoy's fine handling of Spock's journey, I give it a 9.

The original ending with that "winking out" of the planet with the supernova is poetry. Remastered ruined it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The original ending with that "winking out" of the planet with the supernova is poetry. Remastered ruined it.

I agree completely.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

That's funny, because the supernova is a case where I really liked the TOS-R fx scene. I think both versions are good.

 

[UnknownSample]

The Remastered effect just lays an explosion on us, matter-of-factly, splat ... it's crass, crude, and goes completely against the mood. What I especially hate is that they ruined what I've decided to regard as the final moments of ST (TOS).

Indulge my little mental rearragement of all this please... I like to think of AoY as the finale to season 3, after which came all the summer reasons, then in the Fall, a premiere episode of fourth season that never was, Turnabout Intruder. It was shown right when the next season was starting... I remember Shatner talking a bout it on Mike Douglas or something, by the way, how they'd show TI just before going off the air permanently.
-----------------------
Anyway, what a great moment to consider the finale of ST.

 

[One Lucky Red Shirt]

Actually, TI first premiered at the beginning of summer. The first week in June. Shame the network didn'torder 2 more episodes f the season. Boo hoo

 

[scotpens]

Indulge my little mental rearragement of all this please... I like to think of AoY as the finale to season 3, after which came all the summer reasons, . . .

I assume you meant "reruns" and got an auto-correct gremlin.

 

[UnknownSample]

I guess, though I didn't think I had AutoCorrect...
OLRS-- That's how I remember it, and it's also what Shatner said in that TV interview.