"The City on the Edge of Forever" - Season 1, Episode 28
Star Trek saves history and creates its own.
Is this the best episode of Star Trek?
There may have already been better ones. “The Corbomite Manuever,” “Balance of Terror,” “The Devil in the Dark,” “This Side of Paradise,” and perhaps “The Naked Time” stand out as the height of the show’s first season. And while I am rarely interested in assessing Star Trek as a cultural phenomenon in these pieces, it’s impossible to talk about “The City on the Edge of Forever” without acknowledging its status as “the best one.” It won a Hugo. It was written by famed science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison. It is beloved by fans, cast, and crew to this day. It tops every list. It is great. But at first blush, it seems so small.
A plot recap is almost unnecessary, as very little happens. While above a planet sending out damaging ripples in time, McCoy is accidentally injected with a drug that drives him mad. He flees to the surface, where the crew subdue him after encountering “The Guardian of Forever,” a large stone doubling as a sentient time machine. In a moment of distraction, McCoy escapes through the Guardian and into the past, to 1930s Earth. Whatever he does there destroys the present. The Enterprise disappears. Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and others are left alone in the universe. With no choice, Kirk and Spock follow McCoy into the past in an attempt to save the future.
Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Scotty observe the Guardian of Forever. The original script featured personified Guardians, giant men who protected a time machine in the titular “City on the Edge of Forever.” Given the plotting changes, it’s fascinating that the title still works. 1930s New York may not have a time machine, but it sits at the fulcrum of history.
Once in 1930s Earth, New York City in fact, the two find refuge with the kindly, and beautiful, operator of a homeless shelter, Edith Keeler. Keeler dreams of a future after the Depression, when man will reach the stars and life will be both easy and plentiful. Kirk finds her imagination, generosity, and vision moving. He falls in love. However, Spock, having recorded some of the future McCoy, learns a cruel fact. Keeler’s generosity and kindliness will lead her to become a prominent pacifist, world-renowned and federally powerful, and her movement will keep the United States out of the coming World War. Without American intervention, the Nazis will win. With fascism ascendant, mankind remains earthbound and oppressed. The future of Kirk and Spock will fade; McCoy’s great mistake was somehow saving Edith Keeler from a car accident. Kirk’s great burden is to let it happen. And he does.
This relatively melodramatic plot is accomplished with an admirable amount of naturalism in the dialogue, with multiple wistful, star-crossed conversations between Keeler and Kirk. They are both people out of time, although that is more literal for Kirk. Shatner and Joan Collins are spectacular throughout and bring a believable sense of curiosity to their relationship. They want to know more about each other and are bemused by what the keep finding. What else is love but such an endless interest?
That it’s legible at all is miraculous given the script, an object of writerly torture that went through over six drafts, five writers, and only barely resembles Ellison’s original treatment. Indeed, Ellison was so upset with the final version that he fought to have his name removed from the credit, only relenting when series creator Gene Roddenberry threatened to take the matter to the Writer’s Guild. Ellison’s name meant something at the time that Roddenberry refused to lose.
Kirk and Spock meet Edith Keeler for the first time. Keeler was played by Joan Collins, probably the most established guest actor the show ever had. Collins was a bona fide movie star during the 1950s who, while not receiving much critical recognition outside of stray nominations, still headlined multiple studio system films. Her career declined slightly in the 1960s but she has worked since, although mostly in television. She later went on to a leading, acclaimed role in the hit primetime soap Dynasty during the 1980s, and even appeared in the eighth season of American Horror Story in 2018. She is 90 and remains active.
Curiously, Ellison’s original draft ends diametrically opposed to the episode itself. For Ellison, Kirk would not let Keeler die; Spock was forced to hold him back from saving her. The exact opposite happens in the ending as filmed and it is essential that it does.
The ending is the most daring decision in the episode and certainly the source of its lasting reputation. Yes, the 1930s Depression setting is well-realized, especially on a television budget. Yes, Joan Collins and Shatner have a bashful chemistry that makes the love story believable despite the limited run time. And yes, it is funny to watch Kirk fumble to explain why Spock looks like that. But these elements do not add up to immortality. Great tragedy though can get you there. Ultimately, this episode comes down to one question, in a way the best Trek episodes do. That question is a moral one, in a way the most interesting ones often are. It asks if you would sacrifice someone you love for the good of all humanity. And it makes Kirk answer it actively, emphatically, regretfully, “yes.”
That directness and simplicity contributes both the episode’s lasting reputation and it’s concomitant feeling of smallness. Above all the question is personal, it does not engage with philosophies or structures or societies in the way that science-fiction is often uniquely able to do, and it is not particularly pressing without a good degree of abstraction. It is mostly a thought experiment for you or I. But not for Kirk. Rather than give him a way out the episode follows through on its stakes. Keeler is dead and history is saved. Spock and McCoy do not even get time to comfort the captain; they return to the present and the Guardian greets them with a great lie: “All is as it was.” Kirk contacts the Enterprise. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says quietly as they beam away. Romance, tragedy, an immortal kind of thing.
Kirk holds McCoy back from saving Keeler from her death. Shatner has stated this and “The Devil in the Dark” are his favorite episodes. DeForest Kelly also described the episode as the best they ever did, which in some ways says more. After all, he spends most of the episode either absent or acting manic under a bucket of fake sweat and caked makeup.
Within the show, Kirk has been defined by an unwavering loyalty to his crew and ship, a loyalty that in prior episodes has been explicitly compared to romantic love. It has been the barrier between him and other relationships. But in those prior episodes, that loyalty has always been rewarded. Choosing the crew, choosing his love, meant saving others and doing the right thing. It meant killing monsters or deposing despots. Here, that loyalty to his loved ones is pit against preventing horrifying, global fascism and the erasure of humanity’s utopian future. His loyalty gives. Kirk will almost always choose right, of course (“This Side of Paradise” notwithstanding), but for once, the right choice is hard. What the episode brings to the table, why it is great and not merely affecting is that it tests one of its characters instead of simply deploying them. Many of the best episodes have only done the latter, even when presenting more interesting questions.
“The City on the Edge of Forever” describes Edith Keeler as “right, but at the wrong time.” What makes it great is that in spite of everything, Kirk believes it, and believes it about himself as well. At one point, he tells Keeler a story from the future. A great poet from a planet far away, orbiting a star in Orion’s belt, will one day write that “Let me help you” is the greatest expression of love, that it should even take precedence over “I love you” as a pledge. Maybe that’s true, but it isn’t right now. This may not be the best episode of Star Trek, but it is right on the edge, and will be forever.
Stray Thoughts
Despite the ultimate tragedy, this is the funniest episode of Star Trek yet. Highlights include:
Kirk, when asked what’s up with Spock: “My friend is obviously Chinese.” Is that obvious??
Spock: “Unbelievable object, sir.” Kirk: “That’s funny.”
Keeler, about a thirty five year old Kirk: “My young man is taking me to a Clark Gable movie!”
There is another view of this episode that I considered, revolving around Keeler’s pacifism and the somewhat odd decision to lay the blame for Nazi success in WWII at the feet of one who seeks to prevent war. I do think that message is there, i.e. the naïve pacifist causing more harm than good, but the episode seems uninterested in it, and I consequently was as well. Ultimately, I think the device is a short way to the central question the episode wants to present. It raises the stakes of the moral calculus to absurd degrees to make Kirk’s “correct” decision necessary and sympathetic while keeping Keeler likeable.
Photo Credits
Kirk and Keeler: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708455/
The crew and the Guardian of Forever: https://powerpop.blog/2019/12/14/classic-tv-episodes-star-trek-the-city-on-the-edge-of-forever/
Kirk, Spock, and Keeler: https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2021/02/11/a-tale-of-two-cities-star-treks-city-on-the-edge-of-forever-1967/
Kirk holding McCoy back: www.everythingishorrible.net/p/star-trek-tos-s1e27-the-city-on-the