What makes The City on the Edge of Forever the best Star Trek episode?
The original “Star Trek” series is iconic for many reasons, but age doesn’t always equal popularity. (For example, there are six episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which score a 9.0 on IMDb and add several famous faces to the “Stark Trek” character list.) Rather, there are some standout installments in the original series. Are. And many other mediocre ones with abundant potential, setting the stage for good times to come.
In the case of “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the episode surpasses the rest of the original series due to its extraordinary story and tragic outcome. The episode follows Kirk and Spock as they travel to the surface of a mysterious planet and through a sentient portal to 1930s Earth during the Great Depression to rescue an overdosed and temporarily mentally unbalanced Dr. McCoy ( DeForest Kelly) – aka Bones -. McCoy’s presence in the past erases the existence of the USS Enterprise in the future, leaving it up to his rescuers to stop him and return to the future before he makes the past worse.
Meanwhile, Kirk falls in love with Sister Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), but realizes that Keeler must die if the future is to be preserved. Worse, she had to play a role in his demise, including standing back and watching him get hit by a passing vehicle. A depressed, internally distressed Kirk returns to the future when everything is restored, and the landing party leaves the planet. The captain’s last words are chilling: “Let’s get out of here.”
It is a futuristic story based on the past that impacts the audience in the present. It’s no wonder it’s stuck with Trekkies the way it has.
