Title: All Our Yesterdays
Airdate: 3/14/1969
Plot Summary
Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to a planet just before its sun is about to go supernova. There they find a library where the librarian mistakes them for some of the inhabitants and inadvertently send them back into the planet’s past. Bones and Spock end up in the planet’s ice age while Kirk ends up in the middle ages. Can they get back in time and back to the Enterprise before the sun explodes?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk turns out to be pretty good with a blade because… well you know. He gets some help and back to the present quicker than Spock and Bones. Atoz sure is a handful for him though.
Logical
This is a great episode for Spock. We see him revert to an earlier stage of Vulcan development and is quite emotional and irrational. He fights it but Zarabeth’s hotness overwhelms his good judgement. We see him confront a bit of his own humanity and some long held resentment towards McCoy.
He’s Dead Jim
McCoy on the other hand takes on the more measured and rational role this time. He correctly figures out what’s happening to Spock and is the one that talks sense into Spock.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is absent. In fact the entire supporting cast is not here and I believe it’s the first time we actually don’t have a single shot in the interior of the Enterprise.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov too. We wouldn’t see him again until the movies.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Nope. In fact, the last episode was also her last. We will see her again in The Animated Series.
My Wee Bairns
No Scotty either, except for his voice on a communicator.
Canon Maker
We confirm that Vulcan was much more savage 5000 years ago. Spock’s behavior gives us a glimpse. One wonders if the human part of him for once tempered his emotions instead of causing them.
We also set into canon that Vulcan’s are vegetarians. While it may have been mentioned before, I can’t recall. This definitely confirms it though.
Canon Breaker
A supernova wouldn’t get to the planet as quick as it did. Eh, poetically appropriate.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No deaths! Even though an entire planet is smoked.
Technobabble
The Atavachron is a unique time travel portal. If you don’t prepare for the time period you’ve gone through, you will die. If you are prepared you can never go back. Something to do with cell structure and neural patterns.
I Know That Guy:
Ian Wolfe plays Mr. Atoz. We saw him before in Bread and Circuses. His name is a play on words. Being a librarian, Atoz is “A to Z”. Nice.
Kermit Murdock plays the prosecutor. He didn’t do a lot but you might remember him as Dr. Robertson from the movie The Andromeda Strain.
Anna Karen Morrow plays the lady thief, like she just walked off the set of “My Fair Lady.” She didn’t do a ton and ended up retiring and selling real estate.
And finally Mariette Hartley plays Zarabeth in super hot animal skins. She had a strong career playing in all sorts of movies and TV shows, starred in Peyton Place, and did a series of Polaroid commercials with James Garner in the 70s and early 80s. You gen’xers might remember her in a memorable episode of The Incredible Hulk.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is a damn good episode and it’s too bad it wasn’t the finale because it would’ve been a nice note to go out on. While the Atavachron’s workings are a little wonky, it’s not all that important.
We get to see McCoy and Spock switch their usual roles and really have some nice character development. While McCoy was a little harsh with Zarabeth, assuming the worst of her motivations, it’s easy to see why he might think it.
He’s correct though, Spock gave in way too easy. When Spock finally snaps, McCoy shows a lot of the mettle he showed back in Space Seed. “Are you trying to kill me Spock?” He shows no fear but completely calls out Spock on his behavior and how he’s acting.
It’s great to see Nimoy portray Spock with a smile on his face and finding a woman attractive. No spores, no mind control or anything like that. This is pure natural Spock as he might have been before Vulcan’s change to a non-emotional species.
Kirk’s little romp into the medieval times is fun too. He has to be on his own completely. First he escapes and then is able to convince the magistrate to get him back. When he does get back, he then has to fight Atoz and his replicas just to get his friends back. He never gives up.
Mariette Hartley is great in her part. Of course the outfit ain’t hurting her appeal at all.
The Atavachron intrigues me. So you have to be biologically “prepared” to go back in time and if you go back through the portal to the present, you’re dead. What if you go back a week? Is preparation necessary? What about 40 years? Is it necessary then? Maybe it’s like Sam Beckett, you can go back and forth as long as it’s in your own lifetime.
I also found the whole idea neat. So your world’s about to be wiped out by a nova. You could escape on ships to another planet, and all the problems that come with that. Star Trek notwithstanding, trying to colonize a whole other world with it’s own biology is fraught with problems. Just a few microbes and you all might be wiped out.
Ah, but escape to your own planet’s past? You’re still “home,” so to speak. Sure travelling to the old west would be a challenge but there might be a lot less to overcome than other options. Certainly better than getting vaporized. It’s an imaginative solution.
All in all I really like the character development in this episode between McCoy and Spock, the neat twist on time travel, and the tragic ending hits hard. Very nice.
One more to go!
