Title

Tomorrow Is Yesterday

Episode

Season 1
Episode 19

Air Date

January 26, 1967

Stardate

3113.2

Description

The Enterprise accidentally goes back in time and ends up orbiting Earth in the 1960s. After being classified as a UFO, the Enterprise must put history back on track and somehow return to its own time.

Personal Rating

I like the episodes dealing with time travel, but the ease and precision with which the Enterprise crew navigates through time begs the question: Why don't they employ time travel more often? There are many episodes in which their ability to go back in time would be enormously beneficial. Of course, they don't travel through time quite as easily as in Assignment: Earth.

Despite my criticism, I enjoy the way the Enterprise's interference with history gets increasingly complicated as more Earthlings are involved, as well as the way that the crew members carefully undo evidence of their unintentional visit.

As a child of the 1960s, I also appreciate the ambiance of this episode, including mention of the first moon landing, which didn't occur until two years after the episode was filmed.

Favorite Quotations

Kirk: "You said you had some additional information, Mr. Spock?"

Spock: "I made an error in my computations."

Bones, rolling his eyes: "Oh? This could be an historic occasion."


McCoy, anxious about the landing party: "How long have they been down there now?"

Spock, calmly: "Fifteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds."

McCoy: "Well, shouldn't they be coming up?"

Spock: "It is a fact Doctor that prowling by stealth is more time consuming than a direct approach. In our case a ..."

McCoy: "Shouldn't you be working on your time warp calculations Mr. Spock?"

Spock, succinctly irritating McCoy: "I am."


Mr. Spock, casually inspecting film of the Enterprise: "Poor photography."

McCoy, exasperated: "Blast your theories and observations, Mr. Spock. What about Jim? He's down there alone, probably under arrest. He doesn't have a communicator, and we can't locate him or beam him back aboard without one."


Security officer interrogating Kirk, referring to his clothing: "What is that? Is that a uniform of some kind?"

Kirk, not taking his arrest very seriously: "This little thing? Something I slipped on."

...

Security officer, annoyed: "I am going to lock you up for 200 years."

Kirk, glumly: "That ought to be just about right."