When the Enterprise is sling-shotting around the sun, exteriors of the ship don't show the sun anywhere nearby. Also, shots of the Enterprise shaking reveal portions of the stand the model is mounted on. There are "bluescreen effect" artifacts as well when the ship is leaving Earth orbit: part of the warp nacelle vanishes as it passes above a section of Earth's oceans.

The military designation for an unidentified flying object is bogey, a term Captain Christopher did not use. Also, Christopher did not report the position of the bogey (the Enterprise) as being at twelve o'clock.

During the slingshot manuver, you can see the bracing on the model, right after the breakaway begins.

I don't understand how Christopher and the Sargeant forget everything that happened to them during this episode. The Christopher that gets beamed back into the cockpit of his jet is the same Christopher that had all the experiences aboard the Enterprise, not the same one that was beamed out, so he still should remember them. Kirk states that he won't remember anything because "It never will have happened." Following the same logic, the crew of the Enterprise should remember nothing of their experiences in the past when they return to the twenty-third century.

Also by the same logic, all the hard work the crew did getting those photograph and records never happened, and is rendered unneccesary anyway, since Christopher ends up never getting those shots of the ship.

After they send Christopher back to his jet, the bridge crew listens to a transmission from the air force base dismissing the sighting as a mirage. The Enterprise is supposed to be hurtling backward through time at a superfast rate! How can they be receiving this message in realtime?

What happened to those food processors in the transporter room? They're not in any other episode in which we get a view of this wall.

After Spock tells Christopher that they're going to have to return him to Earth after all, Christopher says "You said I made no relative contributions." What he meant to say was "relevant" contributions. However, since it is Christopher's son that has an impact on history, it turns out that he did make a "relative" contribution after all (grin)!

Here in the 20th century all suspected "black stars" are associated with other stars. (But then, how would you see a black star against black space, unless it were near a star?)
Trivia Note: The term Black Hole was not coined until after this episode aired.

Exactly what has Captain Christopher seen and heard that would allow someone to change the future? A beam which destroyed his plane; magically appearing on the ship; a United Earth; a United Earth Space Probe Agency (Which could be a phony name that Kirk made up since we all know he really works for Starfleet. Wink, wink.); a pointy-eared alien; and a bunch of consoles and pretty pictures on the Bridge. (Oh, yeah, and really short skirts on the women!)

On page 77 of the Classic Guide, Phil questioned Kirk & Spock using Stardates in their log entries, well, when Kirk makes an entry he hesitates on the Stardate.

If the tractor beam crushed the plane, what about the nuclear missiles that it may have been carrying? If the tractor beam did crush a nuclear missile wouldn't radioactive particles be raining down on the ground below?

The Sergeant says, "One at a time, hand me those belts." Then Kirk and Sulu simultaneously remove their belts.

Why doesn't the sergeant try to threaten Spock, McCoy and the transporter chief with his gun? Why don't Spock, McCoy and the chief pull out phasers on the sergeant?

Kirk and Sulu head for the photolab, then hear someone coming and duck into a side passage, and flatten themselves against the wall when the two guys walk by. Those photolab guys must have very poor peripheral vision not to have seen those gold shirts.

Kirk asks what he has sabotaged and the colonel says that they stopped him before he could do anything, but what about the missing film, the missing computer reels and the missing sergeant?

The ship is traveling toward the sun at warp 8, but Spock says that the sun's gravity is pulling them. If you are traveling faster than the speed of light, then are you not also traveling faster than the 'speed of gravity'?

Scotty says the engines are buckling. Now what would cause an engine to buckle? Don't you need stretching and folding for something to buckle?

On page 78 of the Classic Guide, Phil commented that only one physical manifestation of an entity can exist in any time frame, referring to the disappearance of the Enterprise and the later versions of Pike and the Sergeant replacing themselves. However, Phil failed to consider that the Enterprise had to travel back in time to the start of the show, so it actually existed twice in the same time frame, up until the point when it started traveling backward in time. When the ship headed for the sun, the Enterprise and crew now existed three times in time and Christopher and the sergeant twice, until the Enterprise passed the point when they first appeared, of course. Then when they beamed Pike and the sergeant back the two men actually existed three times in one time frame, although the Enterprise was now quadrupled. Of course all this ignores the two manifestations of Kirk Spock and McCoy in The City On The Edge Of Forever; the doubling of the Enterprise and crew in Assignment: Earth; Kirk Spock & McCoy again going back and forth in time in All Our Yesterdays; and two times for the Bounty and Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov and Scotty in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I figure all told Kirk Spock and McCoy existed 12 times at that point in time; 8 times for Sulu, Uhura and Scotty, 7 known times for Chekov, and 6 times for the Enterprise. (I didn't count The Naked Time since the ship only went back three days, not three centuries.)

I believe the credits refer to John Christopher as a Major, not a Captain.

Now that I think about it, I may be wrong on some of those doublings. It's June, 1969, and when they go toward the sun and back in time that wouldn't add to their going back in time in STIV which was to 1986. Sheesh, even I'm getting confused and it's my example.

My mistake. Actually the food dispensers also appear in "This Side of Paradise." (Spock punches one out.) However, in subsequent seasons, they've been replaced by a computer station.

Christopher is said to have beaten everyone into space (Kirk's comment before he sends him to the transporter room) even though the first manned moon shot is about to take place? There had been numerous people in space by that point.

The Enterprise takes a long, long time at high warp to pass by Earth from near the sun, and a long time further to pass Pluto.

They weren't at all precise in the moment to begin braking, yet arrived back at their proper time all the same. Once again, Captain Kirk must have horseshoes up his... um, ...

How is easy. It's the same principle as beaming someone into solid rock. How the two men survived is the unanswered question.
Maybe beaming them into their previous selves killed off their future selves and the timeline they had experienced???

Ok,now that we know about the Temporal Prime
Directive from the DS9 episode TRIALS AND
TRIBBLEATHONS and the VOYAGER episode RELATIVITY
now would be a good time to ask the obvious:Did
Spock break the Temporal Prime Directive when he
told Christopher about his son?

I realize that there might not have been a TPD
at that point of time..but the thing with temporal
mechanics is the TPD could have come into being
when they returned and they could have broken it..
as Tom Paris once said,"Is this making any sense?"

As time travel was an accidental business at this point, there was no Temporal Prime Directive that Spock had ever sworn to uphold.
Also the fact that Christopher forgot everything he had learned about the future, makes it all a moot point, anyway.

LOVELY MOMENTS:

The stock footage of the Air Force base
works quite well in this episode.

Also the shot of the Enterprise racing
through the sky is quite good.

However, I must say the footage of the Earth
on the screen and the shot of the Enterprise orbiting the Earth is taken from "Miri"

GREAT LINE:

"Oh? This may be a historic occasion"

McCoy after Spock confesses his error regarding Christopher's offspring.

I just watched the excellent DVD transfer, and I found something no one has mentioned.

At the beginning, Kirk orders "Screen on." The viewer shows North America in its entirety, from a very high altitude, much, much to high for a fighter plane circa 1968 to approach.

JBA

END CREDITS NITS (again)

During the end credits it lists....

"SCPIPT SUPERVISOR....Billy Vernon"

SCPIPT?!

This happened before in "Return of the Archons"

As I said, it's sarcasm. See my Jan 13 2001 706PM post.

Fred: [something really stoopid]
Barney: [BEGIN SARCASM]I could care less... If I really tried.[END SARCASM]

Actually, they never had to go down and steal the proof, and they never had to beam the two air force people off. Once they did their sleight of hand time warp, Christopher and the policeman should have vanished, POOF from the ship.

I think a great moment was when Fellini's guard opened the door and saw a pointy-eared Vulcan. Can you imagine the conversation those two had when they woke up?

Fellini: Airman, what did you see when you opened the door.

Airman: Um, sir... I... uh...

Fellini: Spit it out!

Airman: I saw the devil himself, I think. I know it had pointed ears, whatever it was.

Fellini didn't seem too non-plused when he beheld Spock, but maybe it was reflex at his airman falling to the floor, and Kirk nailed him before Fellini really had a chance to take in the Vulcan standing in his office.

The Enterprise is shown below the clouds in the opening sequences. There's also inconsistency between Christopher's jet and the Enterprise. Chris sees the Enterprise -- above him! -- in a blue sky, and yet long before interception, Christopher is seen before a deep blue sky like you'd expect to see at a high altitude.

Did the Enterprise emerge from the last vestige of its time warp, and the Earth just happened to slip into place, wrapping the atmosphere around it? The Enterprise should have burnt to a cinder from an atmospheric flight at normal interstellar speeds (even at impulse speed), and dropping into the Earth's atmosphere at normal impulse speed, to say nothing of warp, should have caused a shock wave that would make the Tunguska incident look like a half-inch meteorite hit the Earth. It's a wonder the whole of North America wasn't wiped out by the Enterprise's hitting the atmosphere!

I'm inferring the "first manned moon shot" means Apollo 11, but it could as easily have been Apollo 10 or 8. However, 8 occurred in December, 1968.

I suppose, in the Star Trek universe, the Apollo 1 fire didn't happen, and the summer or fall of 1967 or early 1968 may have seen the lunar landing.

At least the Ruskies didn't get there first in the Star Trek universe!

Are you sure that they didn't? Ask Chekov.

GREAT MOMENT: When Kirk gets into a fight with the guards, he uses HIS ENTIRE BODY to lunge it at two of the officers, effectively knocking them down. I have YET to see ANY Starfleet Captain top that manuver.

It’s hangin’ low, dude!
The closing shot of the teaser, and the opening shot of Act 1 shows the Enterprise well within the Earth’s atmosphere. Specifically, it’s in the stratosphere, the second of five layers from the ground, since that’s where clouds are located, and the Enterprise is among the clouds. Spock himself refers to being very "low in the atmosphere," but then, Spock refers to the Enterprise as being "in orbit." A ship is definitely not considered "in orbit," low or otherwise, at that height.
It was either that or the floral sundress with the red pumps.
The clothing that Capt. Christopher is issued by the quartermaster is a crewman’s uniform, instead of a civilian outfit.
"Sorry, our captain is not on the bridge at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, he’ll get back to you as soon as he escapes from the United States Air Force. Thank you!"
It sure is convenient that the guard who confiscates the communicators from Kirk and Sulu accidentally activates the emergency beacon. You’d think the mechanism to activate it would be designed to be difficult to hit accidentally.
He’s acting all stiff and wooden because he’s doing his Kirk impersonation.
The actor who plays the air police sergeant beamed onto the Enterprise after confiscating a communicator from Kirk and Sulu acts stiff and frozen on the transporter pad, as if paralyzed with fear, standing bent at the waist, pointing his gun straight ahead, even when Spock confiscates it from him.
Maybe he thought it was soylent green?
Speaking of this guy, why is he so mystified by the chicken soup the transporter chief provides for him?
Forget………that you have this ability until two years later.
Part of the conflict in the beg of this episode is Christopher’s knowledge of the future, but Spock very easily makes Kirk forget about his entire experience with Rayna Kapec in Requiem for Methuselah, by simply touching Kirk’s head and saying, "Forget." Spock apparently forgets this ability in this episode. Or did his abilities simply get better with practice by the latter episode?
Colorado Supermax Prison log. December 1, 2139. Warden Smith reporting: It’s day 53,655 of imprisonment for that nut from 1966 who thought he was from the future, and boy, are the inmates complaining about the stench coming from his corpse!
At one point, Colonel Felini becomes so ticked off at Kirk’s refusal to answer any questions for fear of contaminating the timeline, that he threatens to lock Kirk up for 200 years. Kirk figures that that’s "just about right." Now either the creators had not yet decided at this point in the series how far in the future the series was set, or "just about right" must mean "give or take a century". Kirk is from 300 years in the further, not 200. (Actually, this is one of only two episodes, the other being The Squire of Gothos, that to my knowledge, screws up the time setting of TOS a bit.)

Speaking of this guy, why is he so mystified by the chicken soup the transporter chief provides for him?

Because the transporter chief went to a hole in the wall, said "Chicken Soup", and a bowl of soup "magically"¹ appeared.

Note 1: Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

At one point, Colonel Felini becomes so ticked off at Kirk’s refusal to answer any questions for fear of contaminating the timeline, that he threatens to lock Kirk up for 200 years. Kirk figures that that’s "just about right." Now either the creators had not yet decided at this point in the series how far in the future the series was set, or "just about right" must mean "give or take a century". Kirk is from 300 years in the further, not 200.

Kirk was just making a sarcastic remark, just because something's not accurate doesn't stop someone from saying the smart alic (sp) remark that it sets up. It's not correct on Kirk's part but it is not a nit because it is human.

Great Line: "Never mind". Kirk to Spock as he's counting down the years on the return to the 23rd century.

Spock says they can't let Capt. Christopher go back because "Knows too much" and can alter and ruin all of the future. Too much about what ??? a bunch of blinking lights and switches and a then proposterous story ... Not only would he not be able to Manipulate anything but who the hell would ever believe him, even with the fact that his jet was destroyed if he managed to get safely back to land they would just simply attribute it to ejection and parachute. Telling the truth may even ruin his career and make him end up like Barry Goldwater or Jimmy Carter !!

Actually, qttroassi, Spock's line is 'He already knows too much about us...and is learning more." We don't see what exactly Kirk lets him access before that warning is given, but even going by what we do see, Captain Christopher knows that: mankind has survived into the 23rd-century; roughly the government/military structure Earth will be operating under in that future; that life exists on other planets.

Even operating entirely on his ownesome, any one of those basic items - combined with whatever detail he picked up offscreen - would be enough for him to effect changes, however minor, that might very well 'change what must be'.
Remember, one woman's action in 'City on the Edge of Forever' was enough to allow the Nazis to win WWII...and in the realm of reality, imagine what might have been avoided had not a lone assasin not been waiting for the Archduke Ferdinand's motorcade in 1914 Sarajevo.

No postings regarding this ep for almost a year. Must rectify that.
Capt. Christopher got demoted when he was issued the uniform, Luigi. He has lieutenant's bars on his sleeves. (Khan was also issued a redshirt uniform in "Space Seed.")
Scotty's sideburns aren't pointed here.
Where were the scenes in the Air Force Base filmed? The film room looks like it could have been a Desilu editing room, as there is a device in it that may be a Moviola.
The performances here are great. The cast have begun to get comfortable with their characters here, and it seems like they had a lot of fun shooting this ep. Particularly fun here is the way the Spock/McCoy relationship gels.
They got the furniture on the base right. The desks look like typical government issue.
Sci-Fi Channel's cuts are horrendous. Don't even get me started on that. However, it looks like most of the "garbage mattes" were cleaned up.
Keith, remember what Capt. Janeway said about temporal contradictions-"Don't even bother."

Adam Bomb:Capt. Christopher got demoted when he was issued the uniform, Luigi. He has lieutenant's bars on his sleeves.
Christopher is an Air Force Captain; Starfleet uses the Navy ranking system. The Army and Air Force rank of captain corresponds to the Navy rank of lieutentant.

Yeah, but Janeway's comment was made just to cover up bad writing.

Oops, my bad. Sorry about that, chief.
Actually, wardrobe doubtless gave Roger Perry whatever shirt fit him.

In Solow and Justman's book, Inside Star Trek (I think that was the title), Robert Justman reprints a one-page story idea that he submitted . It is almost beat-for-beat the same as Tomorrow Is Yesterday. Justman was rather shocked that he did not receive a story or premise credit for this episode.

His synopsis was submitted before this episode was made, and the episode was based on his synopsis, for any who might say he duplicated a story already in progress.

It seems unlike D. C. Fontana to do this.

Sir Rhosis

The title of the episode is also very similar to that of an early (unrelated) story idea submitted by David Gerrold called "Tomorrow WAS Yesterday".

Captain Christopher is eager to get back to Earth to report, but not so much to see his wife and daughters. You'd think he'd freak out more about the possibility of not seeing them again (other than comments made in sickbay), so maybe his marriage is on shakey ground, and work is more important to him.
About a day passes from the time Christopher is brought aboard, and the situation is rectified. In that time the military would surely have informed Christopher's wife about his jet crash, which would, again, make him crazy-desperate to leave and tell her he's alright.
The comment about it being a 'primitive computer' by Kirk must have been funny in 1967 (Computer geek; "Hey! That's not primitive! That's a Univac-1000!"), but it's even funnier nowadays, considering what's out there even in people's homes, let alone military bases.
When I was younger I used to think that Kirk should just take the ship to Vulcan, who would probably keep their existence a secret, but now that it's been established that first contact took place decades later than 1969, you can see the helplessness in Kirk's eyes. Sure, they could travel to a planet listed as uninhabited in their computer banks, but if it's uninhabited in the 23rd century, what happened to his crew? And even if they found a planet to settle on, he might encounter any number of alien ships roaming the galaxy, and have some 'splainin' to do.

Captain Christopher is eager to get back to Earth to report, but not so much to see his wife and daughters. You'd think he'd freak out more about the possibility of not seeing them again (other than comments made in sickbay), so maybe his marriage is on shakey ground, and work is more important to him.
About a day passes from the time Christopher is brought aboard, and the situation is rectified. In that time the military would surely have informed Christopher's wife about his jet crash, which would, again, make him crazy-desperate to leave and tell her he's alright.

Would it? I forget if it made it into the finished ep, but in Blish (first-draft) version Christopher notes bitterly, "I have a wife and children...but I don't suppose that means anything to you." To which Kirk replies, "It means a great deal to me - but I cannot allow it to interfere..." etc.
Just IM-non-military-minded-HO, but I do think this exchange does a fine job of demonstrating a)a seasoned serviceman's discipline in terms of leaving loved ones behind; and b)his deep anguish in the face of same, nevertheless.


...but now that it's been established that first contact took place decades later than 1969, you can see the helplessness in Kirk's eyes.

Yep. It's never made quite clear in the finished ep, but Blish has Scotty reminding Kirk that the area immediately outside the Sol system was '...dominated by the Vegan Tyranny. And ye'll recall what happened when we first hit them."
Presumably the line was dropped when the idea of the 'Tyranny' was, leaving the issue vague.

**Leslie Alert** Mr. Leslie can be seen briefly at the Engineer's Station during this episode. Also, yet again, his name wasn't mentioned in the end credits. Why am I not surprised?

Spock calls Kirk in the transporter room after Christopher has been beamed up. "The aircraft has completely broken up. Shall we turn off the tractor beam?" Did he really need to ask?

When they use the slingshot effect at the end of the episode, Spock looks at his viewer and says, "Braking should begin...now." But he isn't telling Scotty. He tells Kirk, who has to call Scotty. They have a few lines about whether or not to do it. Then Scotty casually walks over to his redshirts and tells them to do it. So much for pinpoint accuracy. I'm surprised they made it back.

All this time travel stuff is confusing, but one thing does seem inconsistent. When they beam Christopher into his jet, the earlier Enterprise disappears. But since Christopher doesn't remember anything (and Kirk said earlier "it never would have happened"), it appears that the later Christopher disappears. Does this make sense?

And if they recreate the slingshot effect, wouldn't it logically throw them farther back in time? Spock said it was a reverse application of the accident that sent them there, but what was the 'reverse' part? Did I miss something?

This episode has several problems with time travel but to answer some of your questions: They didnt transport the later chrsitopher into the jet and overlay the earlier one they transported the earlier one up briefly overlaid him onto the later one and then beamed him back to the jet. As for getting back to the future all one has to do is accelerate close to the speed of light but not exceed it and stay there for a predetermined duration and ship time will slow down while realworld time will stay the same. or something like that. Look up the twin paradox in physics to see what I am talking about. Sorry i am being so brief but life and work are both rather hectic for me right now.

Spock calls Kirk in the transporter room after Christopher has been beamed up. "The aircraft has completely broken up. Shall we turn off the tractor beam?" Did he really need to ask?

Well, the unspoken part of that question was likely: '...or do you want to keep al these [relatively] teeny bits of debris together for study or some other obscure reason, you being the Captain and all?'
But you're right, Spock probably coulda figured that one out himself.

Time travel stories tend to oversimplify. In this episode, for example, Spock somehow believes that any significant historical change brought about by Capt. Christopher's disappearance would be something they could find in their computer database. There could be millions of small changes that could never be catalogued. And the effects of some of these could increase as time goes on. Some of these effects could end up being very large, yet impossible to track down. But time travel stories seem to indicate that the effects are easy to trace.

Todd: Also by the same logic, all the hard work the crew did getting those photograph and records never happened, and is rendered unneccesary anyway, since Christopher ends up never getting those shots of the ship. ...

Two other nits I wondered about: Why do Kirk and Sulu take the computer spool at all? This is primitive magnetic storage. One spool missing is sure to be noticed. If they just brought a big magnet along and held it close to all tapes, thus distroying the data on them, people would think either "manufacturers fault" or "equipment problem". With one spool missing, people will think only of sabotage.

How can there be film to look at if the plane broke apart during the tractor beam encounter? Modern satellites send images electronically, which are then assembled digitally. But this is film, and dialogue seems to indicate that the cameras where on board of christophers plane. So when did a) christopher notice that his plane was in danger, b) shut of the cameras, c) eject the film - while the plane was breaking apart and he was in the grip of a transporter beam- , d) somebody else collect the film from the site of the crash or elsewher e) bring it to the secret facility lab - all in what time?

Keith, Kirk and Sulu head for the photolab, then hear someone coming and duck into a side passage, and flatten themselves against the wall when the two guys walk by. Those photolab guys must have very poor peripheral vision not to have seen those gold shirts. ...

Of course, I wondered why Kirk and Sulu don't wear any inconspicious clothing inside a secret base ! At least, clothing relating to the time period rather than uniforms, better simple soldiers which would belong in this base, best: maintenance coveralls - nobody would ask any questions and they could turn on the light bold as brass instead of using a little flashlight which only attracts attention.

And don't tell me they don't have time period clothing aboard the enterprise, since several times when they visit planets they wear normal things (somebody with a better memory can surely list the ep.s where they have the right clothes and where they use their uniforms?)

Luigi Maybe he thought it was soylent green?
Speaking of this guy, why is he so mystified by the chicken soup the transporter chief provides for him?

I wondered about that, too. This guy seemed to be the slow one on the guard, probably chosen because he could stand still longest without spraining his brain. I mean, he could have achieved the same effect by having a cook behind the screen place the soup in the slot.

Why doesn't Spock say to this guard when he first materializes "this is only a dream" or something like?

Of course, Kirk has no security concerns or even thinks of the possible problems for the timeline telling christopher everything he wants to know and taking an unknown, non-starfleet person onto the bridge for sightseeing. (Starfleet has not only IFOS, they also have Invader-Friendly Crew, who will always be nice and show you everything you might need to know.)

Luigi, Forget………that you have this ability until two years later.
Part of the conflict in the beg of this episode is Christopher’s knowledge of the future, but Spock very easily makes Kirk forget about his entire experience with Rayna Kapec in Requiem for Methuselah, by simply touching Kirk’s head and saying, "Forget." Spock apparently forgets this ability in this episode. Or did his abilities simply get better with practice by the latter episode?

I also wonder that McCoy doesn't suggest any medical solution - a certain chemical or procedure to remove short-term memories. When Kirk decks christopher during his escape attempt and he ends up in sickbay, Kirk remarks that his hand hurts, but McCoy doesn't suggest a sedative or the like, or psychological counseling or anything compassionate.

After Spock tells about his mistake, Kirk agrees to bring Christopher back to earth. Why does Christopher then steal the gun during Kirk's rescue attempt, wanting to stay inside a secret base, instead of waiting a few hours to be transported back into his plane? (Kirk even remarks on this).

Even if a cook was behind the screen, he wouldn't be able to whip up chicken soup within ten or so seconds after the guard asks for it. That's why the guard was so amazed. You couldn't even pour it out of the can that quickly!

Just why are there food dispensers in the Transporter Room anyway?

Kirk states in this episode that there are only twelve other ships like the Enterprise in the fleet. This statement can be taken either to mean that there are twelve Constitution class starships in total, or that there are twelve OTHER ships like the Enterprise, in which the total number would be thirteen. However, there are at least fourteen different ships mentioned or whose existence is implied during the course of the original series which are given the "U.S.S." designation, which presumably indicates a Constitution class starship.

First off, the phrase "Constitution Class" (was it ever used during the original series?) implies the existence of a ship named the Constitution, even though that ship never actually figures in any way in any of the stories.

Then of course there's the Enterprise.

And now twelve others:

The Constellation appears in "The Doomsday Machine"
The Defiant appears in "The Tholian Web"
The Excalibur appears in "The Ultimate Computer"
The Exeter appears in "The Omega Glory"
The Farragut is mentioned in "Obsession"
The Hood appears in "The Ultimate Computer"
The Intrepid appears in "The Immunity Syndrome"
The Lexington appears in "The Ultimate Computer"
The Potemkin appears in "The Ultimate Computer" and is mentioned in "Turnabout Intruder"
The Republic is mentioned in "Court Martial"
The Yorktown is mentioned in "Obsession"
And the Valiant (not to be confused with the plain "S.S." Valiant of "Where No Man Has Gone Before") is mentioned in "A Taste Of Armageddon".

So that gives us a total of 14 ships. Of course, there is no reason the designation "U.S.S." automatically means a Constitution class ship. It is also possible that one or more ships were constructed and put into service since the time Kirk made the statement in this episode.

John asked: Just why are there food dispensers in the Transporter Room anyway?

The producers didn't want to spend the money on an extra to bring the Air Police Sgt. his food, or take him past the Transporter Room.
We only saw the food slot in the Transporter Room once more, when Spock used it as a punching bag in "This Side Of Paradise."

Granted that Trek books have usually listed the Republic and the Valiant as Constitution-class ships, but actually there's no evidence of this. Kirk served on the Republic some 13 years earlier, but it could have been a different class of ship. It might have even been a destroyer, and not a heavy cruiser. And the heavy cruiser Valiant isn't mentioned in any episode, just the namesakes from 200 years ago and 50 years ago.
We didn't see the Defiant until 2 years after this episode, so it could have been a new ship. The Ultimate Computer is a late second season episode, which could mean that the Excalibur, Lexington, Hood, or Potemkin could also be a new ship, making Kirk's statement at the time numerically correct, if we include the Valiant and Republic.

They should have taken better care of their stock footage. Whenever they're showing the military stuff, the film is spotted and streaked. It's not just a bad print of the episode; the original footage is fine. What's even odder is that the cloudy blue sky background is also in bad shape. I presume this was lifted from some other production too. Couldn't somebody go out and film the sky for a few minutes? Did their optical printer chew it up?

Anti-nit: I thought for a moment that the guard had been beamed up with both belts and communicators, which would have made it impossible for Kirk to call the ship. But on replay, I noticed that the guard crouched down a bit and there was the sound of something dropping, so it looks like he dropped the belts on the floor before opening the one communicator. Good job!

Ever since I was a kid, I always thought that the actor playing the Air Police Sergeant looks like Martin Milner of Route 66 and Adam-12 fame.

"Only 12 like it in the fleet..." implies that there are either a dozen ships total including, or a dozen in addition to, the Enterprise.

Several of these ship names are recycled in the 24th century, but it's amazing that they aren't Hood-A, Farragut-B, and so on. Was the Enterprise really the most remarkable ship in Starfleet history, and her voyages the most amazing?

Oops, I wanted to say: Was the Enterprise really the most remarkable ship in Starfleet history, and her voyages the most amazing? If so, why were these other ship names passed on (other than the fact it's been a tradition in Earth's wet navies, especially the British and American navies)? Presumably, these other ships had some good adventures of their own; but because Kirk's Enterprise was the creme de la creme, it's the only ship who's registry number gets passed on to it's namesakes as well.

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


The Enterprise should not be seen below cloud level in the teaser or when Capt. Christopher is studying it from below. I would expect its minimum altitude to be 8-15 miles above sea level. The optical of the ship trying to climb, before Sulu gets back into his chair, looks crude, and again, should be against a dark sky. Perhaps it could be changed to a shot of Earth from, say, 10 or 12 miles up, the deep blue of the thicker atmosphere below, the Enterprise trying to climb above it.

The Enterprise is also often shown over other parts of the world such as India. In order to transport up the air policeman just before that, they should have been over the eastern seaboard, and to be at the disposal of the landing party, they should be in synchronous orbit over Nebraska's longitude, at the equator (which would be west of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean).

Since the Enterprise might want a good starting run, it probably didn't head right for the sun from Earth, but flew out a couple billion miles first. Also, the ship needs to recede in time long enough (at least a day) to be passing Earth on the way out from the sun, yet be close enough to do the two beam-outs.

Therefore, rather than a fully lit Earth in the fly-away shot, it might be better if it shows as waning from a quarter to a crescent as the Enterprise curves out and flies away. The clock readout might show that it is estimating the actual Earth time from fast- changing astrometric readings of the planets' and satellites' positions.

The sun is not visible when they are supposedly flying right towards it. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home did this sun approach much more believably. They should not be flying right at Earth, but just a bit to the side. There are also no "weird star effects" or strange visual effects on the Enterprise when the Enterprise is rocking in position, trying to exit the final time warp.

This is one episode where there are problems with the appearance of the starboard nacelle while the ship is flying out toward the viewer. (Perhaps the shot originates as long ago as "Charlie X", when the offending area might have been in shadow.) This shot shows up over and over, at least as late as "The Trouble With Tribbles".

In the transporter room, three food slots were installed for this episode. (Viewed from left to right, number them 1, 2, 3. Kyle uses number 2 in this episode.) Considering there is usually only one person on duty, two of them should be considered to be superfluous. Number 1 should be blotted out of view with computer animation in this and all subsequent episodes. Number 3 should be changed to a "service access panel" with the same size door and colour of door panel, but distinguished with different controls and no microtape slot, since Spock punches out number 3 in a future episode.

This is one episode where there are problems with the appearance of the starboard nacelle while the ship is flying out toward the viewer. (Perhaps the shot originates as long ago as "Charlie X", when the offending area might have been in shadow.) This shot shows up over and over, at least as late as "The Trouble With Tribbles".

Phil mentions that it his TOS Nitpickers Guide, saying that it looked like a big chunk was bitten out of it.

I finally got around to watching Disc Five of Season One tonight before coming online and noticed something very obvious about this episode that Phil failed to mention in his book and apparently so did everyone else who posted here (and I carefully looked over this entire thread to be sure): Towards the end Kirk, sitting in his command chair, says a kinda goodbye to Christopher, who then heads for the turbolift and when the doors open and close it's without the whooshing sound! Instead you just hear a kinda regular sound of wood sliding on wood.

TRIVIA: The door "swish" noise is the sound of an air gun firing played in reverse.

John A Lang, not that I doubt you, but where did you get this information?

Im surprised CG Capp missed the fact that they didn't add in the whooshing sound of the door towards the end, and suggested that they put it back in! You are not preforming your duties as "Enhancement Expert" CG!!!!!

RE: John-Boy: I have the 33 1/3 record of the "Sound Effects of Star Trek". The information about the doors is printed on the back of the album

The 'physical' Cristopher that is returned into the cockpit is not the same Christopher that was flying the airplane a few days before but the Christopher that has been on the Enterprise for a few days, thus he should remember everything, unless there was a mind-wiping-substance handed over to him, perhaps disguised as chicken soup. 8-)))
Anyway, the future IS altered as the 'biological clock' of Christopher one vs. two must have an 8 to 36 hours gap (I dunno how much time C was on the Enterprise).
In order to produce exactly the same future, Christopher must produce a son. One chance out of two, one might think. It is not. C2 should produce exactly the same son as C1 did. This means that the sperm cell that created the son of C1 must EXACTLY be the same sperm cell that will create C2's son (let's not take his wife's cells in consideration for a minute).
An ejaculation has about 40 to 150 million sperm cells, let's make that a 100. If Christopher is a healthy man he may perform the horizontal tango 2 and a half times a week with his wife. If she will get pregnant two years later the chance that exactly the same sperm cell will fertilate the female cell is: 2 years times 52 weeks times 2.5 times (here we go) 100,000,000 spermy things = one shot out of 26,000,000,000.
Blimey, that Spock is a fine calculator... unless Christopher's son was a time-travel paradox to begin with and the Enterprise HAD to travel to the past to start this thing up... Phil Farrand is right, time travels give headaches, now let's only hope Christopher's wife doesn't get one of these at the wrong moment.

> The 'physical' Cristopher that is returned into >the cockpit is not the same Christopher that was >flying the airplane a few days before but the >Christopher that has been on the Enterprise for a >few days, thus he should remember everything, >unless there was a mind-wiping-substance handed >over to him, perhaps disguised as chicken soup. >8-)))

I totally concur on this point, Felix, as reference my post way, way, back on 3/31/99

After the Enterprise leaves Earth orbit to engage the "Slingshot Effect", Dr. McCoy is on the Bridge. However, when Captain Christopher is ready to beam back to his jet, Dr. McCoy is seen in the Transporter Room.
(Dr. McCoy must be taking "Leslie Lessons")
=================================================

Additionally, the end credits list Roger Perry as: "MAJOR CHRISTOPHER"...He's CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER!

GCapp wrote something on Oct.26, '04 that made me do a Jon Stewart- "W-W-W-W-Whhaaaaat????!!!"
GCapp wrote;
'The Enterprise is also often shown over other parts of the world such as India. In order to transport up the air policeman just before that, they should have been over the eastern seaboard, and to be at the disposal of the landing party, they should be in synchronous orbit over Nebraska's longtitude, at the equator (which would be west of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean).'

Again, I gotta say, "W-W-WWWHHAAATT???!!" G. is showing a shocking lack of geographical knowledge with these 'improvements'. The whole episode revolves around the base in Nebraska, so there would be no reason for the Enterprise to be anyway other than over that state, especially not over the eastern seaboard, hundreds and hundreds of miles from centrally-located Nebraska. Nor is it anywhere near the equator! Columbia and northern Brazil down in South America intersect with the equator, nowhere near the U.S.! I can't figure out where he even came up with these weird geographical statements!

Hopefully, though, when this episode is remastered they'll take some of GCapp's suggestions into consideration, like keeping the ship over the U.S., and when the Enterprise leaves Earth it's more of a crescent shape, since they're supposed to be heading outward, to get a running start for the time-lash maneuver.

Constanze mentioned the 'secret base' in Nebraska; it wasn't a secret base, it was simply an American base.

Others have mentioned that stealing the film wasn't necessary, since they went back in time to fix things. Sure, but until Spock and Scott came up with that plan, they had to eliminate all visual records of their existence.

Remastered visual effects have been noted, but how about a remastered bit of audio, ending the episode with a little shock element;

Starfleet; "Enterprise, this is Starfleet Control, come in, please."
Kirk; "Starfleet Control, the Enterprise is home."
Starfleet; "Um, who is this? Is that you Captain Archer?"

Kirk told Christopher that he didn't know the tractor beam would crush his plane. Um...didn't Spock say that it would right before he ordered the tractor beam turned on?

Why doesn't the sergeant try to threaten Spock, McCoy and the transporter chief with his gun?

Shock at being suddenly taken to another place and seeing an alien. For some people, shock can last awhile.

The remastered version is on next week, 1am, pst(my area at least).Wonder how the earth will look like...

The promo shows a great picture of the fighter chasing the Enterprise.

And unfortunately, that great shot was cut for syndication. (The remastering does the whole episode; the broadcast version has the usual syndication cuts.)

As expected, the Earth looks much more realistic. Shots of the E in the atmosphere are somewhat a mixed bag. The slingshot around the sun now includes the sun.

Phil didn't mention it in his "Boys in the Hall" sidebar, but the "feminized" computer is an odd bit of humor. Of course a planet of women would make the computer call the captain "dear"?

Although the creators probably didn't intend it this way, you could read it sarcastically now: annoyed by Kirk hitting on them, the women programmed the computer to be as cloying as possible.

I stii like the original 1966 Tommarow is yesterday, ( how do engines buckle?).
------------------------------------
So what they gonna do with the 4 starships in Ultimate Computer?

I'm hoping that the CGI whiz team will do something special with the four Federation star ships that are doing war games against the Enterprise.Its obvious that back then all they did was use stock footage of the E,multiply the image,& use them as the other star ships.It'd be great to see them give us the other ships coming at the E from different angles.Couldn't some of the star ships be a different class than the E,that way they could create an original looking vessel or two? Be nifty if the could jettison the other stock footage used in this otherwise terrific episode,lose the space station from "The Trouble With Tribbles",& the ore ship that is the Botany Bay from "Space Seed." Come up with original designs for both.

I suspect that they probably won't change the class of the other ships, since TPTB in charge of the project have been reluctant to dramatically change established facts in episodes,(like a ship's class) but I think that they will change some angles and positioning. Maybe they'll show some wespons fire too.

A TOS-era Miranda class would be nice, but I seriously doubt it'll happen.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENTS

The stock footage of the airbase is cleaned up

New footage of Enterprise flying up in the sky

New footage of jet chasing the Enterprise

New view from Captain Christopher's cockpit...complete with reflection of Christopher's face

New footage of Earth

New slingshot effect (ala STIV)

New chronometer

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" again next weekend.

That sounds surreal.

The opening of this episode really suffers in syndication -- the power seems to come back on abruptly, and they seem to know a fighter is chasing them without discussing it.

The bridge usually looks great, but the screens over Uhura's console are clearly wrinkled plastic sheeting when they're not lit up.

You should never watch these episodes in sydication, you should buy the DVDs.

Before being beamed to his ship, Kirk hails Christopher in the transporter room to see if he's ready. Christopher strides over to the console and flips a switch like he owns the place. Seems odd.

When is Kirk going to upgrade his security protocols? When Christopher tries to beat it from the ship, Kirk alerts security that his destination is probably a transporter. First Christopher jumps and disarms a security officer who is just lollygagging down the hallway. Then, despite the warning, he does come close to a transporter. Why didn't they just LOCK THE DOORS for cryin' out loud?

I love the look Kirk gives Sulu after he uses the device to unlock the door on the base. The subtext of the look is like, "Wow....awesome!! These things are great!!!"

In the un-remastered version, it looks like they fixed the problem with the digital clock on the bridge.

RUMINATION: Most of you probably can't remember back that far, but prior to Apollo 8, I don't think we really knew what Earth looked like from space. The common idea was that earth looked like a Rand-McNally globe. Green and Blue. As a kid I remember seeing those Christmas eve images of earthrise fromt he moon and being awestruck by the reflected sunshine gleaming so white off the clouds. Thank goodness for CGI that, I guess, has corrected this using Apollo images in the remastered version.

The Phil Farrand Theory of Temporal Relativity suggests that only one version of a person can exist in one time-place. This got me thinking long and hard about time paradoxes and relativity.

Perhaps there is no time paradox at all, if we consider that our timeline is RELATIVE to our passage through time, just as Einstein proposed that time and space are RELATIVE to our velocity/acceleration.

So, you can't really damage the future by your actions, because the only future you can effect is your own future which is the timeline you're currently living in. That is, to the Enterprise, Christopher beamed aboard an hour or so AFTER, the ship arrived in earth orbit and NOT sometime in the Enterprise's PAST.

Here, maybe this is better. You can't go back into your own past. It's just travelling into a different timeline's past, but your own timeline continues to proceed forward. Any changes you might cause will affect THAT OTHER timeline, but not your own. Because you're not IN your OWN past, just this OTHER past. You're continuing to proceed into your OWN FUTURE.

Make sense, AT ALL??

Oh, I realize the previous post renders CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER impossible, but I'm talking about time travel in the REAL WORLD, not the Star Trek Universe.

:-)

Dan, what you've postulated sounds very much like the time travel scenario envisioned by Alfred Bester in "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed".

There are some early NASA photos here dating from before the Mercury program. I think the issue was simply the complexity of the effect. Shooting a globe (at least it was one without the country names printed on it!) was much cheaper.

TOS, however, was an early user of genuine space footage. The rocket booster separation seen in "Assignment: Earth" is from Apollo, and they also used a NASA photo for the aerial view in "The Cloudminders".

Just got the Blu-Ray discs and noticed a few more nits.

The remastered version fixes the nit where the Earth is too far away on the viewscreen (shot of a globe). The remastered viewscreen uses something that looks like Google Earth.

After their belts are taken, both communicators are flipped open. But when the sergeant hears the hail, he has to open it.

They steal the tapes that they say have the voice communication on it, but call them computer tapes. And the actual prop is early 2" videotape.

NANJAO: The Earth is much larger relative to the ship than normal in orbital shots. It's actually more realistic -- the old shots look like the planets are only a few times larger than the Enterprise. However, most of the remastered orbital shots retain the same scale as the originals.

It's improbable that something as big as the Enterprise would go unnoticed in orbit (this happens in "Assignment: Earth" as well). It should be clearly visible from the ground. Ordinary satellites can be seen with the naked eye.

Spock's line "Neither have I" in reference to believing in little green men is very funny. However, as a nitpicker.... We've seen green people (Orion slave women), and we've seen little men (Alexander of the Platonians, the two gold-skinned ambassadors in "Journey to Babel"), so a little green man doesn't seem much of a stretch.

I just read at a science site today that scientists are now theorizing about the possibility that when stars spiral around a black hole the motion will create gravitational waves,& these waves can actually create ripples in the space-time continuum!!! If such a theory is one day proven it sure makes the Enterprise's encounter with a black hole in this episode & then a travel through time sound plausible.

Kirk claims that Christopher will be 'useless, archaic' in their 23rd century. Archaic, perhaps, but useless? Not at all. He would be a valuable witness to 20th century history from a 20th century viewpoint, as well as technical knowledge about cars, jets, and whatever else he experienced in a century 300 years prior to Kirk's time. They might even have to re-write 23rd century history books because somebody down the line got their facts wrong, and Christopher could fix that.

Spock says Christopher didn't make any 'relevant contributions' to history, but when Christopher quotes him later, the pilot says, 'relative contributions'.

Anybody that doesn't like the new effects must be crazy. The CGI improvements for this episode are spectacular and make so much more sense (slingshot around the sun, atmospheric entry, clouds in the sky).

Spock has a line; "Suppose an unscrupulous man were to gain certain knowledge of the future. Such a man could manipulate key industries, stocks, and even nations, and in so doing, change what must be."

Hm. Sounds like George W. Bush to me! Maybe the Enterprise picked up Bush and not Christopher!

I wish that this episode could have included the wonderful dialogue from the James Blish novel between Dr.McCoy & Captain Christopher.Christopher is feeling sad that if the Enterprise can reverse time & return him to his jet that he will lose all knowledge of the incredible future he's seen.McCoy tells him they are sending him back to his wife,children & life & isn't that worth the price?

The remaster version shown in syndication in the US from 2006-2009 does not show a very active solar surface.

However, the complete episode, as I saw on TV today from the Space channel telecast, shows an arcing prominence as the Enterprise flies around the sun. There's also a shot of the Enterprise trying to escape Captain Christopher's jet, with the jet very close behind. I'm not certain, however, if the sequence of leaving Earth to fly near the sun, showing the moon also receding past the warp nacelles, was in the cut-down version.

My amateur astronomer eye caught a small nit in the remastered version. When Enterprise leaves Earth to go to the Sun, it is shown flying past the Moon as well. However, a previous shot in the program showed the Moon with a gibbous phase as seen from Earth. With the Moon in the location it was depicted, its phase should have been a crescent instead.

So why here, and not in the Kitchen Sink?

Because the comet was headed to Earth... like, um... the Enterprise was in this episode... and it ended up on the, er... day side of Midwestern USA? :-)

Scottn, can _you_ tell me why I couldn't post it under the movie topic? Why is my username and password valid here, but not there? That's illogical, to coin a term I've heard once or twice in my life.

Steve McKinnon, re your March 8, 2007 message, you cannot have a synchronous orbit over a location unless that location is on the equator. The only points on the equator due south of Nebraska are in the Pacific Ocean.

If you put yourself in synch orbit over Nebraska, 12 hours later, you'd be at the same latitude over the southeast Pacific Ocean, and 12 hours after that, you'd be over Nebraska again. The center of an orbit has to be the center of the body you're orbiting. The latitude line of Nebraska does not pass through the center of the Earth - only the equator does.

I suggested first that the Enterprise could not already be over India if it just beamed someone up from Nebraska a minute or two ago. It should only be over the eastern seaboard, if that. I went on to say that, in order to be at the disposal of the landing party, they can't be moving around the Earth, but must be in synchronous position over the same longitude.

Fortunately, the mass and rotation of Earth allows you to be at 22,500 miles above the surface, over the equator, and be able to "see" 45 percent of the Earth's surface (not the far side, and not anything more than about 80-85 degrees around the circumference from the point you're hovering over). A communications satellite in such a position cannot transmit signals to the extreme polar regions, and in fact, three such satellites are the minimum requirement to cover the entire Earth other than points north of 60 degrees, which has only partial coverage, and points north of 80-85 degrees, which have no coverage.

No clue. Talk to the mods.

I don't know why you couldn't post there. My question was, "Why here, specifically?"

I tried e-mailing the mod of the movie section when I had the same problem as Geoff. I got no reply.

I had the same problem a couple of months ago that Geoff mentioned. I tried to post in the movie section, under King Arthur. I sent an e-mail to the mod of the Movie Section, explaining the problem.

Not only did my e-mail go unanswered, but, two months on, it seems no action has been taken to fix the problem. What does it take to get something done around here

Oh, there's my first post (the 10:32 one). For some reason, it didn't show up at first.

Anyway, back to Tomorrow Is Yesterday.

Geoff, re. the synchronous orbit-- I've always assumed that it meant that the Enterprise was lining up overhead of a spot on the planet, and maintained that position, as in 'in synch', following it as it when from day to night to day again.
What basis do you have that 'synchronous' means anything with the equator, let alone travelling around the planet's other continents along the orbital line of 'synchronous orbit'? Is this something from NASA? Did the shows producers get it wrong from the start and think 'synchronous orbit' meant the same thing as I do?
Just curious.

Synchronous orbit, to me, seems little different than "geosynchronous orbit", where such a thing as a communications satellite maintains the same position over a spot on the ground at all times.

Such a thing is only possible if the orbit is precisely over the equator at all times, because the center of the orbit has to be the center of the Earth. A polar orbit passes over both polar regions, but varies the longitude at all times as the Earth rotates beneath it.

The Space Shuttle is never in an equatorial orbit - if you look at a flat-map projection of the Earth, it keeps swinging north and then south of the equator, one of each on each orbit, and as the Earth turns, those swings are over different tracks.

In order to maintain synchronous position relative to the Omaha base, the Enterprise would have to be in an equatorial orbit, 22,500 miles above the ground, at the longitude of Omaha. It could not be flying over India.

Interesting.
I've seen those orbital diagrams of the shuttle's weird zig zag across the Earth. Do you have any idea why they fly like that? It never really made sense to me before.

very simple, get yourself a globe. You can't have an orbit around any latitude line except the equator. Where the shuttle reaches its northernmost, e.g. 55 North, half an orbit later, it's at 55 South. At the one quarter and three quarter positions of an orbit, it crosses the equator. An orbit can only be around the center of the mass that the object is orbiting, so objects orbiting the Earth - shuttle, space station, satellites, the Moon - are orbiting around the center of the Earth, not the axis of rotation. I'd make and e-mail you a chart, though I don't know your e-mail.

Because Florida is not on the equator.

Plus, the ISS is in a high inclination orbit so that the Russians can launch to it (Baikunar is at an even higher latitude than Canaveral).

Ooookay, wait a minute. Just a second! I think I've located a boo-boo in your theory of an orbit only being around an equator.
When I watch a weather report on the news, I see a satellite image of the Great Lakes area, from Minnesota to Massachusetts, northern Ontario to Pennsylvania. The satellite is in orbit over that area, because if it was over the equator, the weather images would be distorted, like trying to read a newspaper from 100 feet away on the floor.
Every satellite up there, American, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, whatever, is not hovering over the equator. If you go to http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_junk.html you'll see them, and other bits of space debris, scattered all over the circumference of the Earth like a swarm of mosquitos.
If everyone's satellites are lined up nice and neat in front of each other along the equator, how could weather images be broadcast to countries like Britain, Japan, Australia, and Sweden which are nowhere near the equator? How could spy satellites give exact images, if they're looking at something thousand sof miles across the horizon?
If you go to Google maps, click on 'satellite', and zoom into your own hometown, you'll see images taken from virtually straight down.
I'm not saying objects are orbiting from the North Pole to the South Pole and back up to the North Pole. I'm saying that everything is orbiting at latitudes north and south of the equator.
I disagree that an 'orbit' is only an orbit if it's centered around the equator.

Wikipedia's definition of Synchronous Orbit.

Geoff Capp - so objects orbiting the Earth - shuttle, space station, satellites, the Moon - are orbiting around the center of the Earth
Actually I believe that the moon & Earth are orbiting around a common center of gravity, which because of the Earth's greater mass, is within the Earth, but is not at the center of the Earth.

Steve - Geosynchronous orbit takes place around the equator, it has to be in order to stay in the same place over the same spot. That's where we put communication satellites for that very reason.

Weather satellites, spy satellites & the like usually follow a polar orbit where they orbit the earth in an up/down fashion. For ones taking pictures/readings of the surface of the Earth that has the advantage of being able to get a complete picture of the entire surface within a day since the entire Earth will have rotated under it's various orbits within a 24 hour period.

If everyone's satellites are lined up nice and neat in front of each other along the equator, how could weather images be broadcast to countries like Britain, Japan, Australia, and Sweden which are nowhere near the equator?

That's two questions. The first is "how could such images be captured?" The answer is several satellites in polar orbits are constantly getting pictures of any given area. Those images are constantly beamed down to various relay stations around the globe that retransmit them to home base.

As for how they can nations not on the equator receive communication/TV satellite broadcasts when they are not on the equator: satellite dishes aren't generally pointed straight up. They are usually pointed towards the equator at an elevation where they can send/receive signals from the geosynchronous communication/TV satellites.

Only a geosynchronous orbit must be over the equator. As long as geosynchricity is not required, the orbit does not need to be over the equator. Satellites looking straight down at any point other than the equator are not in geosynchronous orbit.

From geosynchronous altitude, almost an entire hemisphere is within view of the satellite, close to but not quite half the Earth's surface. The polar regions, north of some 80 degrees of latitude, are beyond the reach of all geosynchronous satellites, so they can only be reached by satellites in relative motion such as those in a highly-inclined orbit, even a polar orbit.

Check this out: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_orbit.ogg

It's an animation of a polar orbit, and how the satellite "sees" the ground.

I think Geoff left out an important word: "Geosynchronous"

KAM, you are correct about the E/M center of gravity

Another possible time change the Enterprise could have caused: "sorry, you can't launch your moon shot on Wednesday. We have reason to suspect a ship could run into a hazard... but the reason is classified." They think there's hostile aliens up there who'd kidnap Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins...

Constanze - "Why doesn't Spock say to this guard when he first materializes "this is only a dream" or something like?"

Because Vuicans do not lie.

I never noticed how much Ed Peck, a.k.a. Colonel Fellini, looks like a fifty-ish version of actor Corey Feldman. Sort of.

Kirk was able to knock out Christopher with one punch, but in the fight at the base, Fellini endures three good punchs from Kirk, and still has enough energy to keep fighting. Of course, later on, Kirk is back to the one-punch-and-you're-knocked-out ability, when Spock shows up on the base.

I wondered when the Enterprise visited Cygnet 14 and had her computers 'feminized' by the ladies there. If you go by stardates, this is 3113.2, and the previous episode was 3087.6 - 'The Alternative Facttor.' But if you're going by previous episodes on TV, then it was 'Squire of Gothos', 'Arena', and then this one.

I realize that even a chronology book by Michael and Denise Okuda can't be considered canon, but I just thought I'd note here that they placed Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher's Earth-Saturn Probe mission as taking place in 2009.

I wonder if Christopher's plane cameras were able to catch the 'NCC-1701' nomenclature painted on the underside of the saucer?

I noticed Kirk never warned the crew that they were about to have a very bumpy ride as they time travelled back to their own time. He usually gives them a warning, but not here.

Given the times it took place in, with a Cold War out there, I doubt the U.S. government would have welcomed Christopher back and his life would ever be the same. They might just have locked him up as a crazy person, possibly in league with Russians and their unknown super-technology.

I'm diappointed that Harve Bennet got the time line wrong when he helped write Star Trek II, which established Trek time as being the 23rd century.
This episode, with Fellini's threat, "I'm going to lock you up for 200 years!", and Kirk telling Khan in 'Space Seed' that he'd been asleep for 200 years, both came first, and clearly established Star Trek as taking place in the 22nd century.
Perhaps the leaps and bounds of Trek technology just didn't seem realistic to ever be achieved, back in 1982, but really, he just had to pay attention to that.
It would have spared us all a bunch of debates and contradictory facts.

I realize that even a chronology book by Michael and Denise Okuda can't be considered canon, but I just thought I'd note here that they placed Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher's Earth-Saturn Probe mission as taking place in 2009

The recent novel, Rings Of Time, places it in 2020. I reviewed that novel in the Trek Novel section, if you want to take a look.


I'm diappointed that Harve Bennet got the time line wrong when he helped write Star Trek II, which established Trek time as being the 23rd century.
This episode, with Fellini's threat, "I'm going to lock you up for 200 years!", and Kirk telling Khan in 'Space Seed' that he'd been asleep for 200 years, both came first, and clearly established Star Trek as taking place in the 22nd century.
Perhaps the leaps and bounds of Trek technology just didn't seem realistic to ever be achieved, back in 1982, but really, he just had to pay attention to that.
It would have spared us all a bunch of debates and contradictory facts.

Uh, that was Harve Bennett's fault. TOS never really could pin down how many centuries have elapsed between our time and Trek. Squire Of Gothos suggested TOS took place in the 28th Century!

It was not until the movies that it was firmly established that TOS took place in the 23rd Century. It was not until TNG and the subsequent shows that the Star Trek time line really took shape.

"Uh, that was Harve Bennett's fault." This should read "Uh, that was NOT Harve Bennett's fault."

D'OH!!

Steve - Because Vuicans do not lie.
First established in The Managerie which had Spock... lying multiple times.

Probably truer to say, "Vulcans prefer not to lie" or "Vulcans are so good at lying you almost never catch them at it!" ;-)

I'm diappointed that Harve Bennet got the time line wrong when he helped write Star Trek II, which established Trek time as being the 23rd century.
Actually if you read The Making of Star Trek Gene Roddenberry refers to Trek as being set in the 23rd century multiple times. As this book was written during the show's second season I'd say that's around when TPTB decided it was the 23rd century, it just wasn't stated onscreen until the movies.

Guys, 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' takes place in 1969.
Fellini says he's going to lock up Kirk for 200 years, which would make it around 2169, which Kirk says, 'That oughta be just about right.'
Khan's ship left Earth in 1996.
Kirk tells him he's been asleep for two centuries, which would make it around 2196.

I realize this debate has gone on for 30 years, thanks to Kirk reading the year 2283 on his bottle of Romulan ale, but those two examples I've given pretty well point to it being close to 2169 to 2196. Even 2206 would be close enobut a full 100 years is a century, so how could 2169 'oughta be just about right' to Kirk, if he's from 2267?
Just because TNG established timelines doesn't help, when the Original Series gave those examples.
Yea, 'The Squire of Gothos' mucked up thiongs with that '900 years past' comment.
I've read The making of Star Trek several times, but what counts is what's on the screen.
I don't remember any freferences to the 22nd centrury in the second season.

Kirk's comment is in this episode is more flip than anything. Or do you honestly think Kirk would be alive after 200 years in lockup?

If you ended up in 1713 and some authority figure said he'd lock you up for 200 years are you gonna nitpick it? "Can you make it 300 years because then it'd be perfect." ;-)

Space Seed's 200 years makes less sense though.

What I find funny is that by our usual nitpicking standards a fact or incident that doesn't correspond with established facts, such as Spock telling Uhura in 'The Man Trap' that Vulcan has no moon, but we see one (or something) in STTMP, thus creating a nit, it's accepted as a mistake.
However, the timeline gets a pass from TNG onwards, because producers and writers chose to ignore what was spoken in something like 'Space Seed'.
By those standards, every mentioning of what year it is should be a nit, but because it was 'corrected' retroactively, what was established first becomes the nit instead of everything that came later!

My understanding is that Vulcan has no "moon" per se, it's a dual planet.

Correct. Vulcan itself does not have a moon, but it has a "sister" world known as T'Khut. According to Memory Beta, Vulcan is one of seven planets orbiting 40 Eridani A, which is part of the trinary star system 40 Eridani. Vulcan shares a tidally locked co-orbit with T'Khut, which has a moon called T'Rukhemai. That was the moon seen in TMP, when Spock looks up and sees T'Khut and it's moon in the Vulcan sky.

That's pretty cool, I think!

We've all been spoiled by the movies and the later TV series

However, if you go back and watch TOS, in regards to the time they lived in, never once was any specific year or century ever mentioned. It was always "Stardate blah-de-blah", and that was pretty much it. Because of this, conflicting information on how many centuries separated our time from theirs happened, IMHO.

As I said, it was the movies and the subsequent Trek shows that finally cleared it up for good.

Of course it's accepted as a nit, but the year nit in this episode can be easily anti-nitted. (The other eps, not so easily.)

Steve - I've read The making of Star Trek several times, but what counts is what's on the screen.
Doesn't the Chief's rules of nitpicking also mention sources that the creators consider canonical?
And if the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, isn't considered canonical, then who is?

When Roddenberry used 23rd century in The Making of Star Trek most people took that as Word of God.

Tim: However, if you go back and watch TOS, in regards to the time they lived in, never once was any specific year or century ever mentioned.
Luigi Novi: Actually, they mentioned or alluded to this in a few episodes (though ironically, they all conflict with the creators' basic assumption that TOS was set 300 years in the future of when it was broadcast).

In The Squire of Gothos, Trelane indicated that he had observed Earth's history nine centuries ago, and described events of the early 19th century, indicating that TOS was set in the 28th century.

In Tomorrow is Yesterday, Colonel Fellini threatens to lock Kirk up "for two hundred years", Kirk wryly responds, "That ought to be just about right", implying, according to Mike Okuda in The Star Trek Chronology, that TOS was set in the 22nd century.

In Space Seed, Kirk mentions to Khan that the Botany Bay had been in transit for about two centuries, again implying a 22nd century setting for TOS.

Yes, but my point is that no specific year or century was ever mentioned. I think this is the reason these problems crept in. If they had, early on, anchored TOS in a specific year or century, they might have avoided these conundrums.

Mind you, TOS had many continuity problems early on. For a while, Kirk and Co. didn't seem to know who they worked for (UESPA, Space Central, Space Command and a few other names before they settled on Starfleet Command)!

Back in 2009 I said 'Spock has a line; "Suppose an unscrupulous man were to gain certain knowledge of the future. Such a man could manipulate key industries, stocks, and even nations, and in so doing, change what must be."
Hm. Sounds like George W. Bush to me! Maybe the Enterprise picked up Bush and not Christopher! :-)'

Considering what's happening these days, better change that to Trump!

The model of the Enterprise in the sky before the opening credits doesn't look right. The engines seem a little bit too short.

There's a strange shadow behind one of the transporter chamber walls when Christopher beams up. It looks like a vacuum cleaner or pole is behind it.

Security is posted at the transporter room to stop Christopher from beaming down, then Christopher knocks out a guard, and runs into the transporter room. The only problem is the guard walked PAST the room before he was hit! I guess he wasn't the guard that was going to be posted, or maybe he's lost

Kirk opens up the door to the records room with...what? The Starfleet Sonic Screwdriver?

How did the guard that finds Kirk and Sulu turn on the lights so quickly? The switch is one his right side, about three or four feet away when we see him, and his right hand is holding his gun. But it looks like he was standing there, not leaping closer to them when the lights came on.

Logically, Spock should have beamed Kirk's communicator back down to him, but then we wouldn't have had such a good climax.

That console that Scotty leaps onto to contact the bridge at the end of the show, when the ship is bouncing about from the whiplash maneuver, is never seen again. In fact, it weas never there before in any episode.

The model of the Enterprise in the sky before the opening credits doesn't look right. The engines seem a little bit too short.

Another nit done away with by the remastered version.


Security is posted at the transporter room to stop Christopher from beaming down, then Christopher knocks out a guard, and runs into the transporter room. The only problem is the guard walked PAST the room before he was hit! I guess he wasn't the guard that was going to be posted, or maybe he's lost

Another guard perhaps. There are most than one Security Guards on the ship.


Kirk opens up the door to the records room with...what? The Starfleet Sonic Screwdriver?

Trek got there first this time.


Spock should have beamed Kirk's communicator back down to him

And risk it falling into the hands of the base personnel?

What I mean is as soon as the Air Sargeant was beamed up, and McCoy took the communicator from his hands, Spock should have beamed the communicator back to Kirk in the computer room. Felini found him later in the Photo Lab, which would have complicated things, and made it unnecessary to beam down with Christopher.
As it was Kirk had to use Sulu's communicator to speak to the ship.

And how would Spock know where Kick was? For all he knew, the Sgt had taken the communicator somewhere else and was playing with it.

Well, they did have a second communicator, which Kirk used to call the ship just after the Sargent was beamed up.

So it wasn't like they were totally cut off from the Enterprise at that point.

Right. As I said, McCoy took Kirk's communicator from the Sargeant that was beamed up. Spock knew exactly where they were, thanks to speaking with Kirk, who was using Sulu's communicator.
Get the Sargeant off the platform, and beam the communicator back down to Kirk so he has one.

No doubt that the protocols for time travel, that the Federation later adopted, were inspired by the events of this episode.

I would imagine that the whole slingshot around the sun thing was classified super duper top secret. And for good reason.

I noticed the moon is wrong in this episode, when the ship is headed away. The view shows mostly maria, which are prominent on the near side. Since Earth is lit in a gibbous phase from the direction that the Enterprise is leaving it, the moon would have to show Earth a crescent phase at most. But it would correctly show, from our POV, a crescent phase like Earth. But it should show the far side: mostly heavily-cratered highlands and virtually no maria, like at the end of episode 1 of "V: The Series".

Sorry, from our POV, a gibbous phase like Earth, not a crescent phase.

A nit that was created, not eliminated, by the remastering.

There's a 'black star' near Starbase 9? Shouldn't the people that established the base already know that? And why would they build such a base so close to something so dangerous?

The Enterprise was whiplashed all the way back to Earth, all the way past 6 other planets-- good thing their course didn't have them splat right into Jupiter, or worse, the Sun!

Did American interceptor jets in the 1960's really carry nuclear warheads? And if so, if the jets are flying over the U.S. (as Christopher was flying over Nebraska), if the pilot fired one, a nuclear explosion would go off right over the U.S.! Sounds (literally) like over-kill to me.

Kirk tells Christopher that it was an 'accident' that brought them back in time to Earth, and Christopher says, "You people seem to have a lot of them!"
If he only knew! Truer words were never said before-- Salt Vampires, gigantic First Federation ships, invisible Romulans, shore leave planets, deadly 300-year old diseases, twins created by faulty transporters, etc etc etc

Kirk knows what a 'dark room' is? In this day and age of digital photography, will such primitive things know as 'photo developing' even be known in the 23rd century?

Shouldn't Kirk be handcuffed as he's interrogated by Felini? He's already proven he's a dangerous fighter that can take on THREE men.

Did American interceptor jets in the 1960's really carry nuclear warheads?

A quick google search reveals that yes, some of those planes did carry nuclear armament. Better safe than sorry.

There's a 'black star' near Starbase 9? Shouldn't the people that established the base already know that? And why would they build such a base so close to something so dangerous?

Unless said black hole recently formed.


Francois nicely covered your nit about the nuclear missiles


Kirk knows what a 'dark room' is? In this day and age of digital photography, will such primitive things know as 'photo developing' even be known in the 23rd century?

Don't forget that Captain Christopher briefed him and Sulu, before they beamed down. Christopher no doubt told them where to find the pictures he took of the Enterprise.


Shouldn't Kirk be handcuffed as he's interrogated by Felini? He's already proven he's a dangerous fighter that can take on THREE men.

Yes, but he was well guarded. Fellini and his men had no idea that they were dealing with people who could beam in an out of the base, after all.

Unless said black hole recently formed.

Given what we know about the creation of black holes (assuming that is what was meant by "black star") that seems unlikely.

Black holes form when a star collapses, so something should have been charted in that location, so the Enterprise shouldn't have gotten close enough to worry about since the mass of the black hole would still be the same as the star it once was so no change in it's gravitational pull.

Maybe it was a rogue black hole no one had ever charted before, or maybe it popped out of a random wormhole?

A solitary black hole that just sits there in space is one of the hardest things to detect. Also, being "near" Starbase 9 could still mean it's a couple of light years away. If it's out of the paths ships normally use to go to Starbase 9, it would not be surprising that it went unnoticed up to that point. Enterprise, being on a mission of exploration and thus travelling on headings not normally used by other ships, could have been the first ship to pass anywhere near the thing.

Ship's computer: The thing about a black star, its prime distinguishing feature is that it's black. And the color of space, its main color, is that it's black...

;-)

It would have such fun to see Kirk dealing with Holly.

Indeed it would have.

Capt. Christopher's remark, "you seem to have a lot of them". I initially thought it was sarcastic:

"Oh, we accidentally destroyed your interceptor because I didn't know it wouldn't bear up under the tractor beam. Oh, we accidentally dropped into your time from the future."

But later, he could have been linking the Enterprise with other UFO incidents, alleging that Kirk's people are responsible for other UFO reports.

I would rather ascribe his remark to sarcasm about a time warp and a tractor beam snafu.

Well, it wasn't Kirk's people, but Earth of the Trekverse has been visited by aliens on multiple occasions.

We had the aliens whom the Greeks and Romans worshipped as gods. Around the same time, we had that lot from Plato's stepchildren.

We had Redjac, who became Jack The Ripper.

We had the Preservers, who removed those Native Americans.

We had Quark, Rom, and Nog, who crashed in 1947 and became the infamous Roswell aliens.

We had a Vulcan survey ship crash on Earth in 1957, and one of the Vulcans who chose to remain on Earth when the others were rescued.

We had those aliens whom Chakotay encountered, who visited Earth long ago.

The list goes on and on.

We can point and laugh at Erich von Däniken and Giorgio A. Tsoukalos in our world. However, in the Trekverse, these men are right. Ancient Aliens did visit.

We had Redjac, who became Jack The Ripper.

While it would make sense that the entity was an alien, it was not actually stated in the episode. Redjac required human spacecraft to leave Earth and move out into human colonies. Not anything an alien with its own spacecraft would need.

Redjac required human spacecraft to leave Earth and move out into human colonies.

That was never actually stated. All Kirk said was that, when humans left Earth, Redjac went along with them.

It was never established how long Redjac was on Earth.

Redjac was probably like the Gorgan (And The Children Will Lead) or the entity of Day Of The Dove, capable of moving about without a ship.

The only use any of these beings had for a ship was because said ship was full of humans that they could prey upon.

I recall reading that this episode was initially to come right after The Naked Time, while the effect at the end of that episode was supposed to propel them back to the 20th Century instead of just three days. At some point in time the change was made and Tomorrow Is Yesterday moved to much later in the season. But I think that would have worked much better than the "black star" explanation that they gave.

In no other episode that I can think of does a crewmember casually greet the captain as s/he passes in the corridor. Not that it's a nit, it's just a bit unusual. How many times do we see Kirk walk past people in a corridor and they just ignore him? That seems to be the norm. But maybe the lady we saw is just a very friendly person.

One thing I've always noticed is in the background of Christopher's first scene on the bridge. While Spock expresses his concerns to Kirk, their guest is talking to Uhura (at first she isn't at her station and when it looks like he's about to push a button, she comes over and stops him) and she seems to be showing him her whole station. Considering Spock's concern about him having too much knowledge of the future, shouldn't he have ordered the entire bridge crew to tell him nothing?

"Computed and recorded, dear"

I recall reading that this episode was initially to come right after The Naked Time, while the effect at the end of that episode was supposed to propel them back to the 20th Century instead of just three days. At some point in time the change was made and Tomorrow Is Yesterday moved to much later in the season.

Yeah, I've heard about that as well. It does makes sense.


In no other episode that I can think of does a crewmember casually greet the captain as s/he passes in the corridor. Not that it's a nit, it's just a bit unusual. How many times do we see Kirk walk past people in a corridor and they just ignore him? That seems to be the norm. But maybe the lady we saw is just a very friendly person.


That's probably it.

I've had another thing occur to me that I never realized, despite countless viewings of this episode for decades. Weird how that still happens after all this time, but here goes;

Many episodes have the Enterprise flying through space and is accompanied by a whoosing or engine rumbling sound (despite the sound of the ship's engines wouldn't be possible in the void of space). It's a TV sound effect thing, fair enough.
However, if there was ever a time when we really should have heard the Enterprise's engines rumbling from the outside, it's this episode when she was in the Earth's atmosphere! No longer in a void, it would have been scientifically accurate, not to mention logical, for us to hear the impulse engines pushing the ship higher and higher into the atmosphere.
Instead, we have a completely silent starship in the sky, as it tries to ascend into space.

Guess the music drowned them out