{"id":5389,"date":"2017-06-28T18:28:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T01:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:45:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:45:51","slug":"you-mean-yet-tos-21-tomorrow-is-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/06\/28\/you-mean-yet-tos-21-tomorrow-is-yesterday\/","title":{"rendered":"You Mean Yet!: TOS #21: &#8220;Tomorrow Is Yesterday&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Enterprise accidentally travels back in time to Earth in the 1960s, where it\u2019s seen as a UFO, and then struggles to erase records of its visit and to return to its own time. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/tomorrowis.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5393\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/tomorrowis-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"626\" height=\"440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/tomorrowis-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/tomorrowis.jpg 544w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 626px) 100vw, 626px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is a <strong>fun episode<\/strong> that <strong>doesn\u2019t bear close examination<\/strong> of its plot points or theoretical basis.<\/li>\n<li>The episode opens, as \u201cThe Conscience of the King\u201d did, with a brief scene without reference to the Enterprise \u2013 in this case, a contemporary US Air Force base reacting to the appearance of a UFO, and scrambling a jet to approach it. (No date is mentioned, but it\u2019s presumed it\u2019s contemporaneous with the viewer\u2019s present, in early 1967.)<\/li>\n<li>And then it\u2019s quite striking to see that the UFO is \u2013 the Enterprise! One of the best episode teasers ever.<\/li>\n<li>Despite Memory Alpha (<a href=\"http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/Tomorrow_is_Yesterday_(episode))\">http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/Tomorrow_is_Yesterday_(episode))<\/a>, Kirk does *not* say \u2018subjective time\u2019 in his log entries. After all, in the first one, he doesn\u2019t yet realize the ship has been thrown back in time. It does however raise the question of what \u2018stardate\u2019 actually means, but this is a topic that, though raised many times, has no satisfactory resolution.<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>two areas of mind-boggling coincidence<\/strong> in this story. The first is the sheer <strong>physical exactitude<\/strong> with which the Enterprise, having encountered a \u201cblack star\u201d and then been thrown some light-years, presumably, off its course, should happen to land *just within the extremely thin atmosphere* of Earth \u2013 not smashing into the planet, not arriving at some random point in space billions of miles away \u2013 and furthermore, not still moving at some great speed &#8212; but rather, as we see, limping slowly upward into Earth\u2019s sky. (The image above is from the original show; the enhanced graphics on the currently available Blu-Ray discs greatly improve the images of the Enterprise among the clouds.) And over the US, another coincidence!<\/li>\n<li>Later, at the end of the episode, <strong>similar miraculous exactitudes<\/strong> are achieved when the Enterprise, having slung-shot around the sun to accelerate and reproduce the time effect (though for some reason this time in the other direction, toward the future), passes quickly by the Earth and while doing so manages to time the beaming down of both its accidental tourists from this era who\u2019ve managed to get aboard the Enterprise\u2014to <strong>exactly<\/strong> the spots, or close enough, from where they were first beamed up. And via a chain of vocal commands! To achieve such precision is, to put it mildly, amazing.<\/li>\n<li>A nit: Captain Christopher is beamed out of his jet in flight position, yet appears on the transporter pad standing up.<\/li>\n<li>Christopher, 1960s US Air Force pilot, is <strong>appropriately amazed<\/strong> by appearing aboard the Enterprise, as he gradually gathers what kind of ship it is. Cushman suggests this is part of the charm of this episode \u2013 it visualizes a <strong>viewer fantasy<\/strong> for a contemporary person to actually *be* on the Enterprise.<\/li>\n<li>A female crewman? Wow. Kirk mentions that there are only 12 like this ship in the fleet. It was an accident that the Enterprise is here; Christopher replies, \u201cYou seem to have a lot of them,\u201d referring to the prevalent speculations about UFOs at the time.<\/li>\n<li>Spock quickly realizes the consequences of Kirk\u2019s rather rash decision to beam Christopher aboard: now that Christopher has seen the future, he <strong>cannot be returned to Earth<\/strong> of this time, lest he use that knowledge to make certain speculations that might change history \u2013 and wipe the Enterprise and all aboard out of existence, like a soap bubble. There are of course <strong>many, many theories of time travel <\/strong>among science fiction stories, of which Spock\u2019s worry is a common one, but far from the only one; there are many other possibilities. (Examples: the past is fixed and cannot be changed, so that Christopher\u2019s efforts were he returned would have no effect; or, the past might be changed and branch a separate timeline.)<\/li>\n<li>This episode features a <strong>gratuitous humor<\/strong> element that I\u2019ve never cozied to: the computer Kirk speaks to replies in a <strong>sultry, female voice<\/strong>, and calls him \u201cdear\u201d. Cpt. Christopher, hearing this in Kirk\u2019s cabin, observes how people of his era have such interesting problems. Spock drolly explains that the computer system was programmed by the female society on Cygnet XIV, which gave it, of course, a female personality. And that to fix it would require a complete three-week overhaul at a starbase. But really: <strong>three weeks<\/strong>?? Whereas now we can change the voice option on our phone or in our car with a few swipes, in a few seconds. Failure of imagination.<\/li>\n<li>Anyway, the voice is sexist. But fans at the time \u2013 and the producers, and NBC \u2013 loved it.<\/li>\n<li>Act 1 ends as Scotty repairs the engines, but observes: \u201c<strong>We have no place to go<\/strong> in this time!\u201d. A startling observation, but\u2026 how <strong>could this be true<\/strong>? Did the entire Federation of Planets, as we later understand it, arise only because *Earth* emerged into the galaxy? Weren\u2019t there other races who\u2019d developed space flight and colonized other worlds before humans, whom the Enterprise might have sought out in Earth\u2019s 1960s? Surely one would think so, but Trek producers and writers never thought very deeply in these directions, or <strong>avoiding doing so<\/strong> to not complicate scripts.<\/li>\n<li>In a <strong>sloppy bit of plotting<\/strong>, as in \u201cThe Alternative Factor\u201d, Cpt. Christopher is allowed to wander around the Enterprise decks on his own. Allowing him to knock out a crewman, steal his phaser, and use it to try ordering the transporter room guy to beam him down. Kirk shows up to belt him.<\/li>\n<li>Leading to the scene in which Spock reveals that Captain Christopher\u2019s *<strong>son<\/strong>* &#8212; not yet born! \u2013 will have an effect on history, heading the first successful Earth-Saturn probe. Christopher says he doesn\u2019t have a son. McCoy, with a twinkle in his eye, says \u201cYou mean yet!\u201d And Christopher realizes what this means. \u201cI\u2019m going to have a son\u2026!\u201d It\u2019s a <strong>legitimately charming moment<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Then we have Kirk and Sulu beaming down to the base to try to retrieve whatever camera recordings and other data that would leave evidence of the Enterprise\u2019s visit. It\u2019s always struck me as <strong>amazingly coincidental<\/strong> that, by opening up a <strong>computer unit with tape reels<\/strong>, they can identify which reels contain evidence of their visit; and a bit later, find the photographic evidence too, so easily.<\/li>\n<li>This episode is regarded as the <strong>first deliberately semi-comedic episode<\/strong> \u2013 the result of D.C. Fontana\u2019s script. The next scene (after the female computer voice) that displays this is Kirk\u2019s being captured and playing dumb. \u201cI popped in out of thin air.\u201d He\u2019ll be locked up for 200 years. \u201cThat ought to be just about right.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>episode\u2019s endgame<\/strong> has the Enterprise trying to recreate the <strong>slingshot\/time travel effect<\/strong> by swinging around Earth\u2019s sun (though, as above, they think it will throw them forward in time, not back). In the original episode, there were no special effects to support this \u2013 we never saw the sun itself, just the Enterprise jiggling in space. The <strong>enhanced graphics<\/strong> for this episode do show the sun, and in fact shows the Enterprise banking closely around the sun \u2013 but in a <strong>nonsensical way<\/strong> that echoes the way the Enterprise has always been shown to \u2018bank\u2019 around planets it orbits \u2013 visibly arcing, and banking like a jet fighter would do in an atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li>A recurrent <strong>Trek bad physics<\/strong> theme: \u201cSince we passed Mercury\u2026 the sun\u2019s pull has increased on us greatly.\u201d No. The Enterprise is flying though space; the \u201csun\u2019s pull\u201d is only a matter of being in orbit, or doing a flyby; it\u2019s a matter of the trajectory the Enterprise will take around the sun. It\u2019s not a matter of the sun *pulling* on the Enterprise, as if it were an object not moving relative to the sun.<\/li>\n<li>Anyway, this sun flyby works, as the Enterprise accelerates through the warp drive, and then passes Earth and achieves those amazing precise beam downs\u2026.<\/li>\n<li>The Enterprise \u201c<strong>passed Pluto<\/strong>\u201d. Well, no; this presumes that the planets around our sun are somehow lined up, so that the Enterprise entering the solar system, or leaving it, would pass by the planets in order. While of course, at any given moment, the planets are in their orbits but scattered around the sun in their orbital arcs. Would have been better to say, \u201cpassed Pluto\u2019s orbit.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Of course, the Enterprise might well have been heading somewhere in the galaxy <strong>not along the Sun\u2019s ecliptic<\/strong>; that is, at some acute or right angle to the plane of the planets. So \u2018passing Pluto\u2019 or \u2018passing Pluto\u2019s orbit\u2019 would be an academic point, since the ship might well be headed in some relatively perpendicular direction. Trek routinely assumed \u2013 to the point of visualizing the Enterprise\u2019s encounter with other spaceships, and the way it departed planets at the end of episodes \u2013 that the galaxy lay in some flat plane. Yet even the Milky Way galaxy\u2019s plane doesn\u2019t match the solar system\u2019s. A prominent Trek example of how complicated physics and astrophysics is simplified for intuitive, non-scientific viewers.<\/li>\n<li>And finally, the story ends as the Enterprise winds down its warp-drive thrust into the future\u2026 and gets voice confirmation from Starfleet that they are back in their age. Really? <strong>Exactly back in their age?<\/strong> The exact time they left from, before encountering that \u2018black star\u2019? Don\u2019t ask.<\/li>\n<li>Again, a fun episode that does not bear too close examination.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Music notes<\/strong>: the whirling music as the Bluejay 4 pursues the Enterprise is the \u2018spinning cube\u2019 music from The Corbomite Maneuver; and in the next scene, Cpt. Christopher\u2019s view of the Enterprise is underscored with the \u2018Fesarius\u2019 theme from that same episode score.<\/li>\n<li>The music as Kirk and Sulu slowly wander the hallways of the air force base is the slow, creepy version of the main Mudd\u2019s women theme. We hear the \u201cShore Leave\u201d bunny music as a wandering security policeman is beamed up.<\/li>\n<li>The fight in the photo lab is scored with Finnegan\u2019s fight theme from \u201cShore Leave\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>When the security policeman gets his chicken soup in the transporter room, we hear a version of the \u201cShore Leave\u201d theme; the following scene, back at the base, opens with Courage\u2019s \u201cNo Man\u201d theme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blish\u2019s adaptation, in ST2:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blish omits the initial off-ship scenes<\/strong> of the US air base detecting the \u2018UFO\u2019 and sending up a fighter to bring it down. But he does spend a couple long paragraphs at the beginning providing some astrophysical background about the notion of \u201cblack star.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In passing, Blish establishes that warp 4 is 64 times the speed of light.<\/li>\n<li>On the one hand Blish describes the Enterprise as being in a \u201cfixed orbit\u201d around Earth, but on the other hand that the ship is \u201ctoo low in the atmosphere to retain this altitude,\u201d which doesn\u2019t sound like an orbit at all. So even Blish doesn\u2019t seem to have a <strong>reasonable understanding<\/strong> of orbits or how things move through space.<\/li>\n<li>As Blish does several times in his books, he describes Uhura as a \u201cbeautiful <strong>Bantu<\/strong> girl,\u201d which surely was never in any script.<\/li>\n<li>In the scene in which Spock relates his research in the future contributions of this Air Force pilot, Cpt. John Christopher, Blish (unlike the scriptwriters) has Spock note that \u201cThere was a <strong>popular author by that name<\/strong>, but it was a pen name; you are not he.\u201d He\u2019s referring to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/christopher_john\">http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/christopher_john<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Similarly, Blish adds a bit of background or perspective that didn\u2019t occur to the scripters. When Scott says the engines are working, but \u201cwe\u2019ve no place <em>to<\/em> go in this era,\u201d Blish has him go on: \u201cMister Spock tells me that in the 1970s the human race was wholly confined to the Earth. Space outside the local group of stars was wholly dominated by the <strong>Vegan Tyranny<\/strong>, and you\u2019ll recall what happened when we first hit <em>them<\/em>.\u201d <strong>Fascinating.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>And Kirk clarifies, for Christopher: \u201cThere is no such solar planet as Vulcan\u2026 Mr. Spock\u2019s father was a native of The Vulcan, which is a planet of <strong>40 Eridani<\/strong>.\u201d 40 Eridani being a real star, only about 16 light years from the sun (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/40_Eridani\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/40_Eridani<\/a>). But no Trek episode ever established Spock\u2019s Vulcan as being a planet of 40 Eridani. Anyway Spock warns: \u201cIf we took the <em>Enterprise<\/em> there, we would unwrite their future history too.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Blish omits the entire subplot of Kirk and Sulu beaming down to retrieve Air Force evidence of the Enterprise, their capture by a policeman, and the inadvertent beaming up of yet another local.<\/li>\n<li>As they discuss the idea of slingshotting back into the future, Blish has Kirk made an <strong>extraordinary concession<\/strong>: \u201cI would rather destroy the <em>Enterprise<\/em> than the future.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>And as Christopher expresses distress for possibly losing his memories of this glimpse of humanity\u2019s future, <strong>McCoy offers some advice<\/strong>, which at first <strong>repulses<\/strong> Christopher, then <strong>deeply impresses<\/strong> him. McCoy: \u201cIn perhaps sixty more years, or a few more, you will forget things many times more important to you than this\u2014your wife, your children\u2026 You will forget every single thing you ever loved, and what is worse, you will not even care.\u201d Christopher is shocked; but McCoy goes on: \u201cI\u2019m only trying to remind you that regardless of our achievements, we all at last go down into the dark. \u2026I\u2019m trying to call to your attention the things that are much more valuable to you than the fact that you\u2019ve seen men from the future and a bucketful of gadgetry. You will have those still\u2026\u201d He goes on; <strong>it\u2019s quite a passage<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Blish, more than once, refers to a \u201c<strong>navigation tank<\/strong>\u201d located presumably at the helm and nav station \u2013 a suggestion that a depiction of 3-dimensional space would need a 3-dimensional image, not a flat, round panel.<\/li>\n<li>And Blish implicitly acknowledges the <strong>absurdity of the crew manually timing the beam down<\/strong> of Christopher as the Enterprise flings past Earth: \u201cThis was going to have to be the most split-second of all Transporter shots. No human operator could hope to bring it off; the actual shift would be under control of the computer.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>And Blish avoids the question of whether the Enterprise returns <em>precisely<\/em> to its own time, by not mentioning it at all, nor having the Enterprise contact star fleet command. Instead Blish ends with Spock alluding to the poet Omar, and the passage about the <strong>moving finger that, having writ, moves on<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Enterprise accidentally travels back in time to Earth in the 1960s, where it\u2019s seen as a UFO, and then struggles to erase records of its visit and to return to its own time. This is a fun episode that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/06\/28\/you-mean-yet-tos-21-tomorrow-is-yesterday\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5389"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7243,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389\/revisions\/7243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}