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(More customer reviews)Now we come to what is clearly the most famous, most admired and most controversial Star Trek episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever." As I would think most people know by know, McCoy goes back in time through the time portal of the Guardian of Forever and changes history. Kirk and Spock follow to set things right, ending up in the U.S. during the Great Depression where they learn that the focal point in time is Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), a social worker: Because McCoy will save her life, Edith will lead a peace movement that will delay U.S. involvement in World War II, allowing Hitler time to create the atomic bomb first and win the war (which is not a good thing). Unfortunately, Kirk falls in love with Edith and does not want her to die.
Originally written by Harlan Ellison, who has published both the original script and his side of what really happened (that's an understatement), the only thing everybody can agree on is that changes were made in the script. The biggest difference in the two versions has to do with which character prevents Edith from being saved: in the episode it is Kirk, but in the original script it is Spock. Ellison's point was that Kirk was willing to sacrifice the future for love; the powers that be maintained their hero would not act that way. But then they also think that two hundred years from now no one will remember Clark Gable (or "Gone With the Wind" apparently).
Ironically, these two opinions are enshrined in the second and third Star Trek movies, where we go from the good of the many outweighs the good of the one (Spock sacrifices live to save the ship), to the good of the one outweighs the good of the many (Kirk save Spock at the expense of his career). I have to admit that I very much like both versions; it was years before I stopped crying when I watched the end of "The City on the Edge of Forever." Yet as great as that ending is, with Kirk having nothing to say about what has happened except "Let's get the hell out of here," what Ellison was attempting was even more operatic.
Ultimately, what hurts this episode the most is not the great debate over which version is superior, but that Kirk would have a different girl on a different planet for what seemed like every other episode during the rest of the series, which undermines his (supposedly) epic love for Edith Keeler. If you have not read Ellison's script, then you should do so. You can even skip the vitriolic account of the bad blood between Ellison and Gene Roddenberry, but there is a minor character named Trooper in the script who deserves to be remembered because he was deemed negligible by history.
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