Just caught this Star Trek gem on one of the antenna stations. I had't seen it in years, and I knew it was good (probably the best episode of any Star Trek ever), I just forgot how nearly perfect it is.
Economy of words: There is not an ounce of fat in this episode. Every line, every scene moves the story forward. They don't waste a second. Watch the sequence where Spock sees a guy working with intricate tools, he cracks a safe and steals them, Edith Keeler confronts Kirk and Spock about the theft. This all happens in the space of two minutes.
McCoy's recovery scene: We learn more about McCoy in this tiny, well-written exchange with Keeler than we will in the whole series. He's not just a cranky Spock antagonist. He's realizing he's somehow on earth in 1930 and instead of freaking out, he sees it as another day working for Starfleet. When Keeler sympathetically says, "We've all drank from the wrong bottle at one point." He just laughs at the analogy. "Not like the bottle I drank from." Then he offers to help out. The viewer imagines he's going to make the best of things by practicing medicine just in a different time.
McCoy's back alley scene: What a great monologue, "people sewn like garments!" He's mad, but he's right. In the future, we won't be sewing people like garments, and it's barbaric to him even in his demented state.
Kirk/Spock interplay: "Sometimes I expect too much of you." Spock has a genius intellect yet Kirk is still able to play him. This answers the question, if Spock is so smart, why isn't he the captain? Because Kirk knows all the angles you'd never read in a book (previously this was done with Kirk routinely beating Spock in chess).
Heartbreaking ending: It's all wrapped up in a minute, there's no epilogue to explain everything, there's no moment where they're back on the bridge for a laugh/freeze frame. Just heartbreak.
It's like a two hour episode packed into 60 minutes. If it were made today the story would have been spread out over the whole season. Not too crazy an idea. Think about Kirk telling the Red Shirts (who *don't* die!) to follow him into the time portal if they think he'd been gone too long. Imagine what those subplots could be had they listened to him.
My only question is why they didn't use the Guardian of Forever again? They used different means to time travel, it might have been better if they stuck with this one.
Harlan Ellison wrote a book about the making of this episode, and it includes the original script. It also recounts some shady maneuvering from Shatner and Roddenberry. If you can find it get it.
Great stuff
