Episode of the Week : Tomorrow Is Yesterday
- Thread starter Botany Bay
- Start date
I guess it's one of those "gimmick" stories, and you either like the gimmick or you don't. There isn't much drama to it all, except the "what to do with your involuntary visitor from the past" bit - and they deliberately gloss over that one. But the gimmick gives the chance to pit Kirk against everyday phenomena (at least by Cold War standards), which probably sounded extremely good to the writers.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
But I like the female computer (and how Kirk is embarrassed)! 
Scenes like the one where the Sargent is alone with Lieutenant Kyle are missing in seasons 2 and 3.
Scenes like the one where the Sargent is alone with Lieutenant Kyle are missing in seasons 2 and 3.
Given how they played with time in the last TAS episode (with Robert April) and that certain things would cause one to get younger, and as you got youger you lost knowledge. I take it as what happened to the two locals that were beamed back. They restarted at an earlier point an the time stream made them youngers to that point, so they forgot what happened afterwards.
Enterprise and her crew did disappear though.
Enterprise and her crew did disappear though.
To me it was an episode that did not live up to it's potential. I like the premise but the end where they beam the guys back into themselves while being way out of transporter range was just weak writing, IMO. The female computer thing bugs me but it was cool seeing the F-104 footage. Still, it could have been so much more. I give it an 8
I don't understand how Christopher and the Sergeant forget everything that happened to them during this episode. The Christopher that gets beamed back into the cockpit of his jet is the same Christopher that had all the experiences aboard the Enterprise, not the same one that was beamed out, so he still should remember them. Kirk states that he won't remember anything because "It never will have happened." Following the same logic, the crew of the Enterprise should remember nothing of their experiences in the past when they return to the twenty-third century.
Also by the same logic, all the hard work the crew did getting those photograph and records never happened, and is rendered needless anyway, since Christopher ends up never getting those shots of the ship.
After they send Christopher back to his jet, the bridge crew listens to a transmission from the air force base dismissing the sighting as a mirage. The Enterprise is supposed to be hurtling backward through time at a superfast rate! How can they be receiving this message in realtime?
After Spock tells Christopher that they're going to have to return him to Earth after all, Christopher says "You said I made no relative contributions." What he meant to say was "relevant" contributions. However, since it is Christopher's son that has an impact on history, it turns out that he did make a "relative" contribution after all . . .
Also by the same logic, all the hard work the crew did getting those photograph and records never happened, and is rendered needless anyway, since Christopher ends up never getting those shots of the ship.
After they send Christopher back to his jet, the bridge crew listens to a transmission from the air force base dismissing the sighting as a mirage. The Enterprise is supposed to be hurtling backward through time at a superfast rate! How can they be receiving this message in realtime?
After Spock tells Christopher that they're going to have to return him to Earth after all, Christopher says "You said I made no relative contributions." What he meant to say was "relevant" contributions. However, since it is Christopher's son that has an impact on history, it turns out that he did make a "relative" contribution after all . . .
You make some good points, but Kirk's transporter solution really did make sense. Allow me to reinterate and try to better-phrase my prior post:
When the Enterprise returns to Earth after its time-traveling trip around the sun, there are now two Christophers. The one who never got aboard the Enterprise will live on, but the one who met Kirk and Spock will be beamed to his death.
Normally, the transporter scans you to make a map of your atoms, which is then stored in the pattern buffer. Next it de-materializes you, then it transmits you as a particle stream to the destination, and finally it re-assembles you there according to the stored map.
But this process is cut short when Kirk gets rid of the "knowing" Captain Christopher. After de-materializing Christoper, the transporter system finds that (the unknowing) Christopher is already at the designated re-materialization point, in the fighter cockpit.
Nobody told the transporter that there are two Christophers. To the machine, they come across as one and the same.
At this point, the transporter says "Okay, the job I'm doing is finished [the machine doesn't care how, it's a computer program]. And since the job is finished, now I quit and wipe the pattern buffer." The Christopher who knew too much then ceases to exist. And of course Kirk never explained it to him, because the knowing version of Christopher would never agree to his own death.
Obviously, the same goes for the Air Force MP who got beamed up accidentally.
To me, this episode is remiscent of a vaguely-remembered twighlight zone or outer limits episode. I can't really remember it much at all, except that an air force pilot somehow gets caught in a time warp. Everything on the ground is very very slow motion, except for him. He has landed but can see his jet is still suspended in the sky.
At one point he saves a little girl riding a tricycle from getting hit by a car by somehow tying up her tricycle with I think a seatbelt so when time "catches up" again her tricycle will stop.
I wish I could remember that episode.
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But yeah...explanation of what happens to the "extra" copies of the pilot and guard just isn't in the script.
At one point he saves a little girl riding a tricycle from getting hit by a car by somehow tying up her tricycle with I think a seatbelt so when time "catches up" again her tricycle will stop.
I wish I could remember that episode.
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But yeah...explanation of what happens to the "extra" copies of the pilot and guard just isn't in the script.
It was a second-season episode of the original Outer Limits, titled "The Premonition."
All these years and I can't believe I never picked up on this pun! I assume it is a deliberate joke from the writer?
As for the "final solution" at the end of this episode it has always irked me as well, precisely because it undermines all the effort that the crew went to previously. ZapBrannigan's theory about the "reintegration" of people is a compelling one. An alternative viewpoint is given in Christopher's "Watching the Clock" novel (using quantum flux techi-talk) where both individuals still continue to exist (in a sense), but the end result is the same - the knowledge and experiences of the older Captain Christopher is gone forever. To me, that means the older version is DEAD.
What doesn't get addressed at all is what happened to the UFO that Captain Christopher was sent up to investigate. He's still in the plane, so obviously the earlier version of the Enterprise must still have been present in the sky for a short while.
Why does it vanish, when does it vanish, and where does it go?
A starship is capable of high acceleration, and of being invisible to radar via the use of standard shields (even if in some innovative way). It's quite possible that the Enterprise disappeared from Christopher's line of sight and his radar screens one second after the mess with the tractor beam and the transporter beam was over, simply because Scotty's repairs finally took hold.
In the original timeline, Christopher might have seen the UFO accelerate away (although at 1,000 gee, there's not much to be seen!). In the altered one, Christopher would be confused by the transporter beam for the crucial few seconds and would completely miss the escape of the UFO.
As for the "going back in time to kill the copies" thing, we should indeed consider the fact that it's awfully big effort for virtually no gain - Kirk could have marched the two 20th century characters to the transporter chamber with any made-up story and killed them with the device in the most merciful way possible without sending his entire starship to the past. Christopher certainly wouldn't have known better!
What did the ship achieve on Earth the second time around (in this theory or others)? Well, perhaps she towed her other self out of the atmosphere, and/or jammed USAF tracking systems, i.e. made her disappear...
As for issues of transporter range, I don't see big problems there. They do say they are approaching Earth, and then there are multiple cuts back and forth. For all we know, the ship made several close loops around Earth to achieve the two beam-downs, and then spent several minutes reaching the "past Pluto" point where the camera finally stays with the starship. That'd be consistent with the other snail-paced time travel warp flight adventure, ST4:TVH.
Timo Saloniemi
In the original timeline, Christopher might have seen the UFO accelerate away (although at 1,000 gee, there's not much to be seen!). In the altered one, Christopher would be confused by the transporter beam for the crucial few seconds and would completely miss the escape of the UFO.
As for the "going back in time to kill the copies" thing, we should indeed consider the fact that it's awfully big effort for virtually no gain - Kirk could have marched the two 20th century characters to the transporter chamber with any made-up story and killed them with the device in the most merciful way possible without sending his entire starship to the past. Christopher certainly wouldn't have known better!
What did the ship achieve on Earth the second time around (in this theory or others)? Well, perhaps she towed her other self out of the atmosphere, and/or jammed USAF tracking systems, i.e. made her disappear...
As for issues of transporter range, I don't see big problems there. They do say they are approaching Earth, and then there are multiple cuts back and forth. For all we know, the ship made several close loops around Earth to achieve the two beam-downs, and then spent several minutes reaching the "past Pluto" point where the camera finally stays with the starship. That'd be consistent with the other snail-paced time travel warp flight adventure, ST4:TVH.
Timo Saloniemi
True, but Spock seems to indicate that the travelling back in time is simply a "logical" consequence of entering the time-warp, no extra effort required. That being the case, I think Kirk just seized upon the opportunity to deal with the "Christopher Issue" in the most convincing way (to his victims) possible. The issue with the guard is less critical, since without UFO photography being made there'd be no Captain Kirk sneaking around to arrest in the first place. I presume that's why they are less careful with the timing of when he's returned.
I've got no problem with the range, but what about the timing? The Transporter cycle takes 5-10 seconds to complete. To be in sync with the planebound Christopher the Enterprise would need to be travelling forward in time at the same rate. Could they really do that, and then speed up their rate of progress again? Otherwise, even travelling at 30 times normal, Captain Christopher would experience an alternate copy of himself smeered across his molecules over several minutes of flight. Now that would be quite the distraction, no wonder he missed the UFO!
I trust the actual belching of the "phased matter stream" to our regular realm only takes a fraction of a second. If you time that correctly, it doesn't matter that the rest of the transporter cycle actually takes hours from the POV of the base personnel.
Makes sense - the timelines would supposedly branch instantaneously with every alteration made. Then again, why bother with returning the Sergeant at all? He could be killed by arbitrary means now that messing up with Christopher's kingpin moment has branched the timeline for the better.
Corollary to that, if all they do is branch new and better timelines, then doing nothing would also be an option. There still remains a timeline where the Enterprise was spotted, although now parallel with one where she wasn't. Our heroes aren't tasked with helping out an infinite number of realities; they could just go straight home, and beam the two victims to the Sun while they are at it.
Timo Saloniemi
Makes sense - the timelines would supposedly branch instantaneously with every alteration made. Then again, why bother with returning the Sergeant at all? He could be killed by arbitrary means now that messing up with Christopher's kingpin moment has branched the timeline for the better.
Corollary to that, if all they do is branch new and better timelines, then doing nothing would also be an option. There still remains a timeline where the Enterprise was spotted, although now parallel with one where she wasn't. Our heroes aren't tasked with helping out an infinite number of realities; they could just go straight home, and beam the two victims to the Sun while they are at it.
Timo Saloniemi
They were in the ship, which was in the time warp, therefore they were protected from not remembering because it was their time in the ship. They were in the past for several days, even if they returned to their correct time a minute after they disappeared they still lived through the last few days since the incident occured.
I think this is a good point but also best the way it is. Mr. Spock didn't have the plan formulated at the time, so they recovered the evidence. If they knew at that point they would be able to go back in this way, they may not have bothered, but at the time of the raid on the data they were still thinking about just finding somewhere to live in the past.
By that point the were going forward in time.
That's a good point, he should have said relevant, but the way the scene played, it was like Spock thought of it as he said it.
Maybe it hit him as he was saying this to Christopher and that's why he used the wrong word. It is kind of shortsighted to assume that a person not recorded in history tapes didn't make a contribution, what if he didn't have any famous son, but his son was one of the tech's on the famous Christopher's mission. What if he cut him off in traffic and made him late one day and he didn't get into an accident because of it. Even from City on the Edge of Forever, it's easy to see that history really can't record everyone's contributions about everything.
All these years and I can't believe I never picked up on this pun! I assume it is a deliberate joke from the writer?
As for the "final solution" at the end of this episode it has always irked me as well, precisely because it undermines all the effort that the crew went to previously. ZapBrannigan's theory about the "reintegration" of people is a compelling one. An alternative viewpoint is given in Christopher's "Watching the Clock" novel (using quantum flux techi-talk) where both individuals still continue to exist (in a sense), but the end result is the same - the knowledge and experiences of the older Captain Christopher is gone forever. To me, that means the older version is DEAD.
What doesn't get addressed at all is what happened to the UFO that Captain Christopher was sent up to investigate. He's still in the plane, so obviously the earlier version of the Enterprise must still have been present in the sky for a short while.
Why does it vanish, when does it vanish, and where does it go?
So, if you hit your head and suffer amnesia, you're DEAD?
I think everything happened as it was shown, the ship was no longer there because that was the point were they got their shields and engines online and whipped away, he only got a glimpse of it. They saw it on the radar briefly and it was gone. There were no more photos or tapes because they never got made and the two individuals were safely transported back to they're respective places and could not remember the events that did not happen.
This is what I think the final version of things would be:
The air force radar detects the Enterprise and they send the fighters to investigate, Christopher catches a glimpse of something and it's gone. He returns to base and they forget about it.
The Seargent is walking in the hall at night doing his rounds, checks on a sound and keeps going.
Col. Felini and the rest have a normal night and there is no break in, or nothing to steal other than their regular equipment and information.
We shouldn't mistake J.S. Christopher for somebody actually "famous", as none of our heroes make the connection even after having had some time to think about it. It takes digging into the records to find out that J.S. Christopher existed and contributed.
So, he's not Neil Armstrong. If he's David Scott, will history care if he never makes Apollo 15 and the mission patch now reads "Gordon" instead?
Timo Saloniemi
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