Since you were all studying for your exam today, I did not post this summary assignment over the weekend. Please post your summary of the Star Trek episode here as a comment to this blog entry by the end of the week.
12 thoughts on “After Class Writing: Star Trek, “The City on the Edge of Forever””
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We watched Star Trek’s “City on the Edge of Forever.” The episode starts off with the spaceship being in some turbulence and Sulu gets injured. Dr. McCoy comes to inject some medication into Sulu, but accidentally injects an overdose amount of the medication into himself. The overdose made McCoy go a bit crazy, he was being delusional and he teleports to the planet to run away. Captain Kirk and his crew also teleports down to the planet to look for McCoy and they come across an ancient artifact that is both a being and machine while maintaining that it is also not a being and a machine. It called itself “Guardian of Forever” and he can create doorway to any time and place. McCoy jumps to the past and changes something that causes the spaceship to disappear. Kirk and Spock goes after McCoy, they find out that when McCoy saved Edith, it changed the future. Kirk fell in love with Edith, but he knows he has to let nature take its course, so to say, in order to return the future to what it was before. Then they all returned to their original place and time and everything was restored.
In class, we had some time to learn more about Star Trek after watching an episode. The cast of Star Trek was the most racially diverse cast of that era. The 6 characteristics of Star Trek are: 1. Socially progressive and optimistic about the future, 2. Blends the fantastic with the familiar, 3. Social criticism of the here and now, 4. Each episode is a standalone, no cliffhangers, 5. Often alien super beings , and 6. Scientifically lax.
Mike Paar
After Class Summery
4/13/16
“The City on the Edge of Forever,” was the title of the episode of Star Trek that we watched for class. In the episode, McCoy accidentally injected himself with a medicine that caused him to fly into a delusional rage. Not knowing where he was or who his friends were to beamed himself down onto a planet where a lost alien ruins remained. Though a time gate that was among the ruins, McCoy traveled through time back to New York of the 1930’s. With his presence there altering time, Kirk and Spock also travel back in order to prevent McCoy from changing time and allowing the crew to return to the ship, which had been lost. While searching for McCoy, Kirk and Spock meet up with a missionary by the name of Edith, who preaches of a fantastic future free of war and poverty. Captivated by her words, Kirk begins to fall in love with Edith. While trying to figure out what it was that caused the shift in time, Spock discovers that it was the prevention of Edith’s death in that year that eventually led to the US’s neutrality in WW2. Knowing that her death must not be prevented, Spock warns Kirk to not get attached to Edith.
Meanwhile McCoy enters the city when the serum eventually wears off. He too encounters Edith and also begins to have feelings for her, but he is unaware of the situation that Kirk and Spock are trying to prevent. Eventually the three are reunited at the event of Edith’s death when she is hit by a car. Knowing the gravity of the situation, Kirk had prevented McCoy from saving her, in which the action devastated him. With the events of the future set in the right place, the three return to their present, where the Enterprise is back awaiting their return.
The class was accompanied with discussion on the characteristics that Star Trek typically followed. One was the fact that the show was considered socially progressive while at the same time socially critical of the time that it aired in. It also tended to blend the familiar with the fantastic, often including technobabble and supreme alien beings. Finally each episode was self contained, often not returning to previous plot lines in past episodes,
“Star Trek The City on the Edge of Forever” was actually very entertaining. We watched as Kurk and Spock travelled through time to stop McCoy from tampering with the time stream after McCoy accidentally injected himself with a serum that made him go temporarily insane for the episode. The episode starts with Kurk and the U.S.S. Enterprise and McCoy injecting himself accidentally with the serum as the ship was hit, knocking him down and landing on the needle. He beams himself to an alien planet, where Kurk and the crew beam down as well to find him. They stumble across an ancient alien technology which can let the user go to any time period they want. McCoy jumps in; Kurk and Spock not far behind. They have to wait a week for McCoy to arrive at the time they’ve landed in (Depression Era), and in that week Kurk falls in love with a woman, who ends up being the key to the time stream being tampered with. As they find McCoy, the woman is ultimately faced with her death. If Kurk saves her, or if he lets McCoy save her, the rest of the time stream will change and there will be no more U.S.S. Enterprise or the Earth as they know it. So Kurk is forced to let his love die.
I thought it was a very good episode, it definitely kept me interested. It did have a lot of technology, and it was interesting to see Spock trying to put together future technology using resources from the past which he is not familiar with. The story was predictable to me at the end, however, when Kurk first learns what will happen to his love if she does not die. The ancient alien technology tells them that if they don’t fix whatever McCoy did, there will be no Kurk or Spock or U.S.S. Enterprise or Earth for that matter. So when we find out Kurk’s love is the key, it is kind of predictable to what choice Kurk will eventually make. But other than this it was a pretty good episode.
Star Trek, “The City on the Edge of Forever” episode is mainly about one of the crewmembers one day Dr. McCoy accidently is exposed to an overdose of Cordrazine drug that makes him displays badly signs of paranoia after a malfunction of the spacecraft controls. Dr. McCoy beams down to a planet where he accidently changes human history by going into a living time machine on the planet he arrived on and destroys the existence of there being any other events that were suppose to happen but don’t; especially the rise of the Starship Enterprise aka the crew. Captain Kirk and Spock follow him threw the living time machine but in a set time where Dr. McCoy isn’t there yet to prevent the crew and themselves being non existent in the future and rest of history. In arriving to their destination of time, they meet a social worker name Edith Keeler who gives them a job and a place to stay for the nights they’re there and be prepare for Dr. McCoy arrival to prevent what he will do to disrupt the timeline and go home. As time moves on Captain Kirk and Ms. Keeler become close and the Captain wants to be with her, though that can never happen because she’s suppose to die by a hit and run with a car as she crosses the street without looking out. Spock tells the Captain this, and Kirk is heartbroken when he learns it’s this event that will decide if they will have a future to return to. The next day when the Capt. Kirk takes Ms. Keeler to the movies Dr. McCoy runs out, it turns out he was being taken care by Ms. Keeler at her dorm in the building the Captain and Spock are also staying in; they greet him in relief that he’s well again and isn’t so paranoid anymore. Though Ms. Keeler crosses the street to greet the men, she suddenly at that moment gets killed like it was said by Spock by a car, and even though Dr. McCoy tries to save Ms. Keeler his efforts is foiled by Capt. Kirk who blocks him from saving her and will forever regret what he has done to save the future timeline. Capt. Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Spock all jump back into the living portal to their timeline to where they belong in the end at a price of woman they wish that didn’t have to die in the end. Within regards of this episode and Star Trek series overall what made this show popular in 1967 to this day still is the fact that mostly the cast of Star Trek was a racially diverse cast at that time and along with that it had six characteristics: 1. Socially progressive and optimistic about the future, 2. Blends the fantastic with the familiar, 3. Social criticism of the here and now, 4. Each episode is a standalone, no cliffhangers, and 5. Often having alien super beings, and 6. Scientifically lacks tenobabble in the end.
Summary of the episode it’s begin with an orbit around an unexplored planet, the Enterprises on red alert as it pass through violent time distortions surrounding the planet. As the ship plots their orbit, Scotty warns that the control circuits are threatening to overload. No sooner does Captain Kirk acknowledge the report, than the center console on the bridge explodes and Lieutenant Sulu is injured. Scotty takes the helm as Doctor McCoy is called to the bridge for emergency first aid. Scotty questions if the ship should break orbit, but Spock advises against it – the ship is literally passing through ripples in time and it is of great scientific importance that they remain and investigate. Kirk agrees and orders Unhurt to broadcast to Starfleet his past week’s log entries, detailing the unusual readings on the instruments that has diverted the Enterprise to this planet. McCoy arrives and diagnoses Sulu with a heart flutter. He prepares a hypo of cordrazine, warned by Kirk that it is “tricky stuff.” Fortunately, the two drops administered by McCoy successfully revives Sulu. After raving and screaming about “killers” and “assassins”, McCoy breaks free from the concerned bridge crew and flees the bridge via the turbo lift. Kirk orders a security alert.
In today’s class we talked about Star Trek. The 6 characteristics of Star Trek are: 1. Socially progressive and optimistic about the future, 2. Blends the fantastic with the familiar, 3. Social criticism of the here and now, 4. Each episode is a standalone, no cliffhangers, 5. Often alien super beings , and 6. Scientifically lax.
The episode of star trek that was viewed in class was “The city on the edge of forever”. The episode was about going back in time to prevent the changing of history. After Dr McCoy accidentily injects himself with some meds he becomes crazed and delusional. He then beams himself onto the planet below. While in pursuit captain Kirk and some of the crew discover an ancient alien machine that is revealed to be a time machine. After McCoy jumps through it the present is changed and the crew can’t contact the ship. To prevent the changed history Kirk and Spock jump through the machine as well. The machine sends the back into the 1930s, new York. There they must discover what is the cause of the changed history. They meet a missionary known as edith who houses them and gives them some work. Later on Spock discovers that Edith must die to bring things back to normal. She also provided shelter for McCoy as well. When Kirk and Spock finally catch McCoy Edith is hit by car, McCoy would have saved her but Kirk stopped him as saving her would have altered history. Some things discussed in class were how socially progressive star trek was for its time. The show had the most diverse cast ever on television at the time, and for it brought controversy and hardship for some of its cast. Each episode of star trek was unique for the most part as it did not continue previous storylines, each episode is self contained.
This episode of Star Trek was about time travel and what changing events in the past can do. The doctor McCoy is injected with a serum that makes one pretty disturbed if they have too much. In a frenzy Mccoy runs to the teleporter and beams down to the planet below. The crew follows and he jumps into an ancient alien time travel machine that was showing them their history. McCoy saves some chick and the federation no longer exists so they have no choice cause the ship is gone so they’ve no way off the planet. They stop McCoy from saving the lady and return to their own time and all is well and they leave the planet.
Mathew Tackett
5/24/16
In the episode “City on the Edge of Forever” the Star Trek crew encounters some turbulence that leads to Dr. McCoy injecting a dose of medication that makes him crazy. He becomes delusional and teleports down to the nearest planet, which happens to have a Guardian of Forever on it. McCoy goes back in time through its doorway and changes the path of the past. Kirk and Spock follow shortly after him to try and correct the damage done. Kirk while living in the past while trying to make a way back home, falls in love with Edith. Spocks tries to course correct the captain in that he must let nature take its course otherwise they will forever alter the future. Edith is hit by a car after Spock and Kirk find McCoy in the past wounded, the distraction is enough for Edith to walk out in the street and unfortunately dies. They are then returned to their current time and place by the Guardian and are told everything is restored to its original state. In class we learned about the 6 characteristics of Star Trek. 1. Socially progressive and optimistic about the future. 2. Blends the fantastic with the familiar. 3. Social criticism of current events. 4. Episodes are stand alone for the most part. 5. Aliens are superior beings. 6. Scientifically relaxed in that it uses less technobabble then others.
“The City on the Edge of Forever” is a Star Trek episode where Dr. McCoy accidently injects himself with a drug. This causes him to be overdosed on that drug. Resulting in changes in McCoy’s behavior. McCoys becomes more agressive falls into a portal that sends him back in time. Once there McCoy somehow alters the history of the current timeline. Captain Kirk and Spock attempts to fix the timeline. They find the portal that McCoy went through and discovered that it can talk. They then follow McCoy’s journey into the portal and requests that the portal sends them back to McCoy. It is then discovered that they were sent to a time before America intervenes in WWII. After a period of intelligence gathering, Kirk and Spock discovers that McCoy’s intervention caused a woman named Edith Keeler to survive when she should have died. This alteration caused American to become much more pacifist and antiwar. The results was that Germany end up winning WWII. This causes the Enterprise to have been never built due to altered timelines. It is decided that Edith must die for the good of mankind.
In class we learn of the history of Star Trek. We learned of the 6 characteristics of Star Trek which are: 1. Socially progressive and optimistic about the future, 2. Blends the fantastic with the familiar, 3. Social criticism of the here and now, 4. Each episode is a standalone, no cliffhangers, 5. Often alien super beings , and 6. Scientifically lax.
Star Trek originally aired on NBC from 1966 to 1969 and created by Geene Roddenberry (1921-1991). Star Trek featured a racially diverse cast of characters.
Characteristic of Star Trek
Socially progressive and optimistic about the future.
Blends the fantastic with the familiar.
Social criticism of the here and now.
Formulaic and centered around individual episodes (stand-alone stories).
Aliens superbeings
Scientifically Lax (Technobabble).
The episode we watch for class was “City on the Edge of Forever”. The crew of the Enterprise investigate a disturbance. An accident causes Sulu to be injured and the doc. McCoy to accidentally inject himself with excessive amounts of cordrazine. The doc escapes to a nearby planet and a small group featuring Captain Kirk and Spock depart to find McCoy. They find a strange thing called the “Guardian of Forever”, which shows earth’s past history. McCoy escapes through the portal and inadvertently changes the present. Kirk and Spock go after him. They arrive in pre World War 2 North America. They discover that a girl Edith must die for the timeline to be restored and saving her causes North America not to enter world war 2. Kirk stops McCoy from saving edith as she is hit by a car. They eventually return back to the present and only a few moments have passed. They soon depart from the planet.
Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”, written by Harlan Ellison and broadcasted in 1967, starts on the USS Enterprise. They experience turbulence, as a result, Dr. McCoy injects himself with medication that turns him ill. He then experiences delirium and teleports himself down to an estranged planet to run away. The whole crew follows him and finds the “Guardian of Forever”. It states that Dr. McCoy had gone to the past and will change the future. Captain Kirk and Spock decide to enter the past a day before Dr. McCoy. They meet Edith a woman that run a shelter. She provides them with clothes, food, and shelter. Captain Kirk and Spock stop Dr. McCoy from altering the future/past. All three return to the future/present where nothing was changed.
6 characteristics of Star Trek are socially progressive and optimistic about the future, it blends the fantastic with the familiar, social criticism of the here and now, each episode are standalone stories, often alien super beings, and scientifically lacks “technobabble”.
In class we watch and episode of Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”, written by Harlan Ellison this episode is about the Star Trek crew going on a mission when the ship encounter torbulance due to the turbulence Dr. Mccoy inject himself with some serum that’s makes him go crazy after. the injection he become delusional and he teleport himself to a near planet. Mccoy managed to alter the pass and captain kirk has to find a way to fix it. While captain kirk tried to find a way to change things he encounter a young women name Edith who he them falls in love with. Edith heard a loud explosion and as she cross the street without looking and gets hit by a car and dies. Captain kirk want to change Edith future but know that’s if he changes it, it will never be the same so kept things the way they were. Captain kirk is then return to the ship by the guardian and were told everything was fine since they did not change the future.