The City on the Edge of Forever (episode)

After taking an accidental overdose of cordrazine, Doctor Leonard McCoy goes back in time and changes history.

Summary

The Enterprise passes through violent time distortions surrounding a strange planet. During one of these events the center console on the bridge sparks and Lt. Sulu is injured. Doctor McCoy is called to the bridge for emergency first aid. He prepares a hypo of cordrazine, warned by Kirk that it's "tricky stuff".

After Sulu is revived, the ship violently rocks as it passes through a very heavy time displacement. McCoy falls on the hypo and is injected with an extreme overdose of the red liquid. He shouts in pain. The negative effects of the drug push him to paranoia, and he is convinced that he is at risk of death from "murderers" and "assasins". He breaks free from a hold on him by Spock and escapes the bridge. Kirk scrambles security teams however McCoy reaches the transporter room, disables Lieutenant Kyle and transports to the planet below.

Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scott and two security officers beam down to look for McCoy. During their search, Spock and Kirk discover the source of the time displacement. It is a rough, egg-shapped ring. Upon discussion between Spock and Kirk, the portal introduces itself as the Guardian of Forever, and being its own beginning and its own ending. It begins to display the history of Earth through the center of the ring. A curtain of mist descends across the images.

McCoy is discovered and subdued by a Vulcan nerve pinch. After the struggle, Kirk and Spock return to the portal. Spock is upset that he is not recording the events visible through the portal. He begins recording. McCoy awakens from his unconsciousness and learns enough to realize he can escape through the Guardian. He races past Spock and Kirk, through the Guardian, and into Earth's past. Then Uhura notes that contact with the Enterprise has been lost. The Guardian explains that history has been altered, resulting in the ship's absence.

Kirk and Spock are forced to enter the portal in an attempt to stop McCoy from changing history. Spock uses his tricorder recording to estimate the appropriate time for their leap.

The two arrive on Earth in 1930 in the United States. They are obviously out of place with their Starfleet uniforms and Spock's pointed ears. Kirk steals clothes from a fire escape to aid in their disguise. A policeman catches the two in the act, and after a poor excuse for the theft, and Spock's ears, they subdue the officer with the Vulcan nerve pinch. With other law enforcement hot on their heels, they duck into a soup kitchen called the Twenty-First Street Mission. There they meet Edith Keeler, the woman who runs the shelter.

Unable to view the video acquired on the tricorder, the two must work to pay for supplies to modify its rate of playback. Kirk returns with radio tubes, wires and other items. Spock is noticably frustrated at the lack of technology of the 1930's. He spends many hours building circuits and connections. After several successes and setbacks, the tricorder eventually reveals its wealth of information. Spock sees Edith Keeler's obituary. Then he plays the recording for Kirk -- and they see a report about Edith Keeler's meeting with United States President Roosevelt. She cannot have two futures; they've discovered the point where McCoy altered the past. But did he save her? Or kill her? And how?

McCoy arrives approximately one week after Kirk and Spock. His face is mottled and green from the effects of the cordrazine. He shouts, "Murderers! Killers!", from his paranoia. He meets a homeless man who frequents the 21st Street Mission and questions him about their location, time, planet, and constellations. His shock at the unfamiliar world, combined with the side effects of the drug, force McCoy into unconsciousness. The homeless man searches McCoy and finds his phaser. While trying to assess its value, the man engages the device and annihilates himself. We are briefly left to wonder if this is the alteration: did this man's inadvertent death alter Keeler's future?

After sleeping off some of the effects of the cordrazine, McCoy makes his way to the shelter, where Ms. Keeler helps him into a room where he can rest. Spock narrowly misses seeing him in the lunch room.

With more work, Spock concludes that McCoy changed history by saving Edith Keeler's life. Keeler went on to organize a peace movement that delayed the United States' entry into the war -- and Germany was able to complete its heavy water experiments, and its rocket experiments. With atomic bombs, and rockets to carry them, the Nazis conquered the world.

Kirk admits that he is in love with Edith Keeler. Spock informs him, "Edith Keeler must die."

The effects of the drug slowly wear off and McCoy eventually has the strength to offer to help at the shelter, in gratitude. Edith explains that her "young man" is taking her to a Clark Gable movie. McCoy, not knowing who Clark Gable is, shocks Edith with his lack of knowledge.

That evening, Kirk and Edith are strolling along on their date. As they make their way across the street, Edith mentions going to the Clark Gable movie. Kirk asks, "A what?" Edith responds in shock that Dr. McCoy said the same thing. Kirk, finally hearing of McCoy's existence, tells Edith to stay put and heads back to the shelter yelling for Spock. As he approaches the curb, McCoy exits the front door. With expressions of joy and relief, they hug.

Edith, confused by the commotion, begins to cross the street. A large truck is heading her direction. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy look on to see the event that is about to take place. Kirk restrains McCoy and prevents him from rushing to Edith to save her life.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" McCoy questions. Kirk, in agony, pushes him away. Spock responds, "He knows, Doctor. He knows."

Having corrected history, the three men return through the portal to their own time. The Guardian offers more opportunities to visit the past, but Kirk declines, saying only "Let's get the hell out of here."

A heartbroken Kirk and the rest of the landing party return to the Enterprise. History has been saved, but at a terrible personal cost.

Log Entries

Captain’s log, supplemental entry. Two drops of cordrazine can save a man's life, a hundred times that amount has just accidentally been pumped into Dr McCoy's body. In a strange, wild frenzy, he has fled the ship's bridge. All connecting decks have been placed on alert. We have no way of knowing if the madness is permanent or temporary, or in what direction it will drive McCoy.

Captain’s log, no stardate. For us, time does not exist. McCoy, back somewhere in the past, has effected a change in the course of time. All Earth history has been changed. There is no starship Enterprise. We have only one chance. We have asked the Guardian to show us Earth's history again. Spock and I will go back into time ourselves, and attempt to set right whatever it was that McCoy changed.

Memorable Quotes

"One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom, energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in... some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future. And those are the days worth living for..."

- Edith Keeler

"A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space, and before your race was born, I have awaited ... a question."

- The Guardian

Kirk: "Are you being, or machine?"

The Guardian: "I am both, and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending."

Spock "I see no reason for answers to be couched in riddles."

The Guardian: "I answer as simply as your level of understanding makes possible."

"A time portal, Captain. A gateway to other times, and dimensions, if I'm correct."

"As correct as possible, for you. Your science knowledge is obviously primitive."

- Spock and The Guardian, discusing its nature

"My friend is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain. "

"Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child."

"The unfortunate accident he had as a child. He caught his head in a mechanical...rice picker. But fortunately, there was an American missionary living close by who was actually a, uh... skilled plastic surgeon in civilian life."

- Kirk and Spock explaining Spock's appearance to a police officer

"A lie is a poor way to say hello"

- Edith Keeler

"You deliberately stopped me! I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?"

"He knows, doctor... he knows."

- McCoy and Spock after Kirk prevents McCoy from intervening in Keeler's death

Background Information

This was the most popular episode of the original series (TOS), earning a 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It would be 25 years before another television program received the honor. TV Guide also ranked it #68 in their 100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History feature in the July 1, 1995 edition, and also featured it in another issue on the 100 greatest TV episodes of all time.
The set used for New York City in this episode (called "Forty Acres") is the same set used for The Andy Griffith Show. If you look closely while Kirk is walking with Edith Keeler, you can see them pass the courthouse and Floyd's BarberShop.
We have yet to hear this episode as it was originally broadcast. Due to copyright issues, the original recording of "Goodnight, Sweetheart" was replaced by another version. New music was also composed for this episode, incorporating the song, but the composer of this music is not credited. In the scene when the Rodent is stealing the milk, music from "Mudd's Women" is heard. An ominous, discordant piano note is added to the music to make it even more sinister.
Much of the dialogue in the scene where Kirk and Spock encounter the police officer is looped due to the outdoor location. Strangely, the dialogue of the police officer is used exactly as it was filmed, including the background noise, giving the scene a clunky feel.
When Kirk looks up at the stars at the end of Act One, an overlay effect allows us to shift from the planet set to a starscape, similar to the ending of each episode of "The Twilight Zone." For unknown reasons, just before the scene fades out, the stars jump and change to a different pattern.
Watch for Scott and one of the security officers looking for their transporter positions at the end of the episode when the crew are beamed back aboard the Enterprise.
The Guardian of Forever claims it is its own beginning, its own ending. But when asked by Kirk if it can alter the speed at which time passes in the portal, the Guardian says it was "made" to offer the past in this way and that it cannot change. There seems to be a contradiction in logic: A machine/entity capable of self-creation (its own beginning), yet unable to change itself.
The portal is revisited in the animated series episode Yesteryear, and numerous books.
Harlan Ellison was dismayed with the changes Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana made to his story (which included, among other things, a drug addicted Enterprise crewman). So much so, that he wished his credit to read "written by Cordwainer Bird," a request Roddenberry denied. Though Ellison had the final right to have his pseudonym attached, he claims that Roddenberry made veiled threats to the effect that if he did so he would "never work in this town again."
Bantam Books published a series of novelizations called "foto-novels," which took photographic stills from actual episodes and arranged word balloons and text over them, to create a comic book formatted story. The first installment was an adaptation of this episode.
James Doohan can be seen rubbing his neck after McCoy leaps into the portal, yet McCoy never struck Scotty in his escape. A more involved escape by McCoy was likely filmed and edited out.
The alley in which Kirk steals the clothing from the fire-escape is the same alley seen in "Miri", in which Spock and the guards have debris dumped on them by the children.
The footage seen through the time portal is lifted from old Paramount films for the most part.
The effects team nicknamed the Guardian "the big donut."
Well-documented by fans is the fact that Clark Gable was by no means a leading man in 1930. We could take 1930 as a round figure, but for the fact that Kirk says 1936 is "six years from now." (The final shooting draft of this script has Edith reference "a Richard Dix movie," but it was probably decided on-set that even in 1966 Dix was long forgotten, and someone probably suggested his name be replaced by that of the more recognizable Clark Gable.)
Some excellent double-exposures allow our heroes to leap out of brick walls in this episode.
Seven people are beamed up to the ship at the end, but the transporter has only six pads. In "Day of the Dove" a much larger group is dematerialized at the same time, but some are held in transit.
Stock footage from Dagger of the Mind is used for Kirk and Spock reaction shots to McCoy's cordrazine overdose on the bridge.
Though uncredited, the yeoman at the beginning of this episode looks like Maurishka Taliaferro, who will appear in the next episode, Operation -- Annihilate!, as Yeoman Zahra.
The stock footage used in this episode was well-selected, nevertheless, there are two anachronisms visible in the stock shot representing Kirk and Spocks' flat: a nuclear fallout shelter sign on a wall and a lady wearing 1960s horn-rim glasses.
No stardate is logged in the episode. Bjo Trimble assigned a stardate of 3134 based on Harlan Ellison's original teleplay, which covered stardates 3134.6-8.
This is the first mention of Nazi Germany in Star Trek. A race which adopted a Nazi style regime also appear in TOS: "Patterns of Force". The theme is reprised in later shows, on VOY: "The Killing Game", where Hirogen take over USS Voyager and use the holodeck to recreate Nazi Germany, and then in ENT: "Zero Hour", and "Storm Front", when agents from the Temporal Cold War send Captain Archer and the Enterprise (NX-01) back to the Second World War.
The title of this episode, of course, refers to both the dead city on the time planet and New York itself, where the timeline will either be restored or disrupted. In Ellison's original script, Kirk, upon first seeing the city sparkling like a jewel on a high mountaintop, reverently says it looks like "A city on the edge of forever." A poetic line, sadly excised.
During the speech scene in the Mission where Kirk and Spock have sat down with their soup, the director repeated (and slowed down) several close up shots of Spock and Kirk, taken from later in the scene, and used them as reaction shots during Edith's prognostications.
In the scene where Kirk and Spock first encounter the Guardian, there is a sliver of dialogue that seems out of place. As Spock is sharing his observations of the Guardian, Kirk says, "That's funny," a line that begs for an additional bit of explanatory dialogue but was evidently clipped in editing.
The close up of the tricorder showing the 'rewinding video' is used several other times throughout the series.
In Ellison's first treatment for this episode, Edith's last name was Koestler. The city they traveled back in time to was Chicago.

Links and References

VHS edition available through Amazon under ISBN 6300213323

Main Cast

William Shatner as Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
DeForest Kelley as McCoy
James Doohan as Scott
George Takei as Sulu
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura

References

20th century; Alnitak; Boise; constellations; cordrazine; duodynetic field core; flop; Gable, Clark; Germany; gold; Great Depression; Guardian of Forever; March Bake Shop; mechanical rice picker; mnemonic memory circuit; Orpheum; Outer Mongolia; platinum; World War II; silver; Star Dispatch, The; stone knives and bearskins; Twenty-First Street Mission; Victor Ice Company; Walt's Restaurant; Widin Dairy Farm; zinc

Harlan Ellison; The City on the Edge of Forever; White Wolf Publishing; ISBN 1-56-504964-0 (1st edition, hardcover, 1996)

Previous episode produced: Errand of Mercy	Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1	Next episode produced: Operation -- Annihilate!
Previous episode aired: The Alternative Factor	Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1	Next episode aired: Operation -- Annihilate!
Previous remastered episode aired: None	TOS Remastered	Next remastered episode aired: None

The Guardian of Forever in 2267
Series:	TOS
Season:	1
Original Airdate:	6 April 1967
Production Number:	28
Broadcast Number:	28
Year:	2267/1930
Stardate:	3134.0
Written by:	Harlan Ellison
Directed by:	Joseph Pevney