Star Trek – The Original Series, Vol. 11, Episodes 21 & 22: Tomorrow is Yesterday/ The Return of the Archons
Nov/095
Amazon.com
Volume 11 in the classic Star Trek series on DVD contains the delightful episode “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” a time-travel story with an infectious blend of suspense and humor. After dropping into a black hole, the Enterprise ends up orbiting the Earth in the late 1960s, and is spotted by U.S. Air Force Captain Christopher (Roger Perry), who happens to be flying by in his jet. Inadvertently giving poor Christopher an unwanted glimpse into the future, and wrecking his jet with an overpowering tractor beam, Capt. Kirk (William Shatner), not having a good day, beams him aboard the Federation starship. The collision of sensibilities and reference points between characters born several centuries apart has a fresh, urgent tone that subsequent Star Trek series have never captured (though Deep Space Nine came close with its dazzling episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”). The problem, of course, is what to do about Christopher now that he knows what he knows, and history demands that he stay put in his own world: the pilot’s unborn son, it seems, will one day make a space flight of historic importance. Terrifically entertaining and something of a precedent-setter for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the theatrical feature set in contemporary San Francisco), “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” is Trek at its best.
Also on this disc is “Return of the Archons,” a cautionary story about mind control written by Gene Roddenberry. The tale begins when Ensign Sulu (George Takei) is taken hostage on an Earth-like planet with a primitive culture. Zapped by a weapon that leaves him under the control of someone or something named Landru, Sulu is then pursued by Kirk and Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who discover that Landru has the same grip on everyone else. Once Landru becomes aware of efforts by the captain and first officer to interfere with its bidding, Kirk and Spock become the target of a massive hunt by locals. A minor episode with a somewhat obvious scenario, “Return of the Archons” does have novel appeal in its heightened role for the ever-charming Sulu, and in Roddenberry’s characteristically humane interest in elements that make people (and intelligent aliens) everywhere free to fulfill their destinies. The solution to the who-is-Landru mystery won’t surprise anyone, but it may strike you as a prototype of several future episodes, from all the Trek series, involving centralized caretaking on various planets. –Tom Keogh
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10:07 am on November 25th, 2009
Great! Would buy from this seller again, rec’d order in reasonable time.
Rating: 5 / 5
11:22 am on November 25th, 2009
“Tomorrow Is Yesterday” The Enterprise is thrown back in time to the 20th century. How will they get back to their own time?
“Return of the Archons” A computer is ruling a planet & forcing the people to behave strangely. How will it be stopped?
Rating: 4 / 5
1:34 pm on November 25th, 2009
Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise travel through both time and space to make the universe a better place in the pair of episodes offered upon Volume 11 of the Star Trek DVD series. For the first time the Enterprise goes back in time in “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” thrown back while trying to break free of the gravitational pull of a black hole. The Enterprise ends up in the late 1960’s (neat coincidence, huh?) over the United States, where a jet fighter is scrambled to check out the giant blip on the radar. Worried about nuclear missiles, Kirk uses the tractor beam to stop the aircraft, which then falls apart. The Enterprise rescues the pilot, Captain John Christopher, who finds everything (including Spock) a little hard to believe. Then Kirk discovers he is between a rock and a hard place: they cannot let Christopher return with his knowledge of the future but the officer has to return because his son, who is not yet been conceived, is going to be a famous space explorer. There are some nice moments in “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” having to do with the sudden confrontation of the past and the future, the best of which (Kirk being interrogated by the Military Police) will pop up again in the movie “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” I have to admit, I like a time travel episode where the entire fate of the universe does not hang in the balance, as in “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
“The Return of the Archons” offers up one of those dystopian societies that the Enterprise stumbled across from time to time. The Enterprise visits Beta III looking for the Archon, a ship that disappeared 100 years ago. The away team discovers a population where all the citizens seem drugged until that evening when they all go crazy. Seeking an explanation from the town’s elders, they are told that this is the will of their leader, Landru. A long time ago the planet was ravaged by war and Landru brought an era of peace and tranquility. Before he died he programmed a super computer that has been controlling the lives of the people. Like all computers in the future, this one is doing a horrible job, apparently thinking that by letting the drugged out citizens do a little fighting and looting from time to time will achieve a sense of balance. I am not particularly impressed by either the society or this episode, especially since this is the first of several times that Kirk will use logic to defeat a computer (come on, Spock never even says, “Way to go, Jim,” or anything during these encounters). The situation is certain spooky enough (think the end of “6,000,000 Years to Earth”), but the truth behind the mystery is less than satisfactory.
Rating: 4 / 5
2:11 pm on November 25th, 2009
REVIEWED ITEM: Star Trek ® Original Series DVD Volume : Tomorrow is Yesterday © / The Return of the Archons ©
TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY © PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:
Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: the consequences of messin’ ’round with the space-time continuum
Historical Milestone: Star Trek’s first full-fledged time-travel episode
Notable Gaffe / Special De-fect: Be on the lookout for a scene where Spock’s poppin’ a communications earpiece into his noggin with his back facing the camera. If you take a good look at his ears, you can see the lack of craftsmanship in the particular pair he was wearing that day! It was definitely an off-day for the makeup department’
Expendable Enterprise Crewmember (’Red Shirt’) Confirmed Casualty List: 1 Incapacitated
REVIEW/COMMENTARY: Ah, nothin’ like a good time-travel eppie of Star Trek that tries to clear things up about the whole space-time thingy yet leaves you even more confused than ever before! For example, if the abducted Air Force pilot’s progeny is going to make so significant a contribution to Earth’s future that if he hadn’t existed the Federation may not have ever existed, it would… umm… well, see what I mean? It’s high time for me to dispense with the temporal mechanics and head into the fun parts of this eppie…
In one of the most unbelievably silly fights ever filmed for network TV, Kirk manages to fend off three US Air Force officers in a scene more reminiscent of the Keystone Kops than Bruce Lee! Putting into consideration the high-quality (*snicker*) choreography of Kirk’s previous Star Trek fisticuffs, it’s not like it was any big surprise. Speaking of choreograohy, Tomorrow is Yesterday© is also one of the series’ best showcases of the bridge crew’s amazing ability to lean in unison with the lurching ship! Heck, if synchronized leaning were an Olympic sport, all the US would do is send out the original Trek cast to compete! They’d win the gold by an even greater margin than the first couple of US Olympic Basketball Dream Teams did!
THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS © PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:
Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: The downside of cultural stagnation leading to a soulless society and other excuses for Kirk to ignore Starfleet’s Prime Directive
Historical Milestone: Star Trek’s first significant ‘Kirk-versus-machine’ episode
Expendable Enterprise Crewmember (’Red Shirt’) Confirmed Casualty List: 2 ‘absorbed’, subsequently recovered
REVIEW/COMMENTARY: Seen by many as Gene Roddenberry’s commentary about the dangers of conformity in a society, ‘Archons’ is notable for being the first time Kirk saves the day by talking a computer to ‘death’. In this instance, the computer is Landru, a machine that rules and guides a society of seemingly content and happy, yet soulless beings. One particular moment in this episode that really strikes me is the Festival, where the planet’s citizenry go berserk and start a riot, complete with people wiggin’ out, beatin’ up on each other, and storefront windows gettin’ smashed! It was likely a disquieting scene to behold for this episode’s first viewing audience, what with the Watts riots having occurred a mere two years prior.
Keeping with classic Star Trek’s tradition of Kirk interpreting the Prime Directive in a way that suits his own beliefs, Jimbo convinces Landru that it is performing an evil deed by allowing the society that it leads to stagnate. And as one might expect, the master computer eventually self-destructs in a cloud of smoke after the good captain’s little soliloquy about how a society needs challenges to overcome and other pro-organic-being rhetoric overloads the machine’s logic circuits. Now if I only I could do to the computers of people who keep spamming my e-mail inbox what Jimmers did to Landru, I’d have one less frustration in the world to deal with…
…’Late
Rating: 4 / 5
3:28 pm on November 25th, 2009
Although Tomorrow is Yesterday is an okay episode, it is not one to rave about.It is certainly not one of the original series’ best. However, Return of the Archons is one of the best and one of my favourites.Kirk, Spock and McCoy investigate a planet where the inhabitants appear to be in a drug-induced state then rapidly change from walking peacefully and amiably along the streets into violent and looting maniacs that seem to lose all inhibitions. A mob attacks Kirk and crew and they are forced to defend themselves with their phasers. It seems the planet is run by a man named Landru, who advocates peace and tranquility to the extent that you get “absorbed”.A kind of brainwash conditioning into thinking only of harmony and serenity.Later it is discovered that Landru is a computor projection;the edict of Landru who died 5,000 years ago has been continued by a computer I just read a review saying the solution to the Landru mystery won’t surprise anyone, it sure surprised me. I didn’t see that one coming.
Rating: 5 / 5