3x23 All Our Yesterdays

[5.7/10] I try not to make too much of plot holes or scientific improbabilities, especially on a show like Star Trek that applies the veneer of hard science to its various technical solutions to problems, but is mostly working in the realm of well-jargoned magic when it comes to the various fixes and technologies employed. It’s churlish to take such a fantastical show to task for not making much real life sense.

But when the plot hole is not only so significant to the plot, but so vital to how a character is acting in an episode, it makes it hard to set things aside. That’s what bothered me the most about “All Our Yesterdays,” an episode where Spock acts grossly out of character for the flimsiest of reasons, leaving his whole chunk of the story feeling unsatisfying.

Before Spock can get there, however, “Yesterdays” has to set the stakes. The planet of the week is near a star that’s about to go Supernova, and Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to what seems to be some sort of library to investigate the usual mysterious readings coming from the planet’s surface. What they find is a gray-haired librarian with several robotic(?) duplicates who, it turns out, has helped to evacuate his people not through space, but rather through time. Through an “atavachron” machine, Mr. Atoz (the librarian) can send individuals into his people’s past, using a series of CD-sized discs and a camouflaged portal.

Naturally, our heroes get split up and scattered across time. Kirk finds himself in a time that sharply resembles 17th Century England, right down to the fops and sword fighters, running afoul of local authorities for rescuing a local wench and seeming to be a witch. Spock and Bones follow Kirk through the portal in an effort to retrieve him, but due to the vicissitudes of the machine, end up in the planet’s ice age instead. It’s then a race against time as all three of the main trio try to get back to “The Library” in the present day before the local sun goes nova and they’re trapped forever.

It’s not a bad premise on paper, but a good chunk of the execution doesn’t work. For one thing, while the scenes set in the library have some high concept, sci-fi charm, it’s never really clear why the real Mr. Atoz is so dead set on sending the Enterprise folks through the portal, or why he won’t be straighter with them about what happens and why. That makes him more of a plot device than a character. And while his efforts to wheel barrow Kirk into the past are kind of amusing, and while there’s something bizarrely compelling about watching Kirk beat up a series of identical old men, his reasons and his unreasonableness are never really explained which weakens the central problem of the episode.

Also, this may be the first time you’ll ever read me saying this in a Star Trek review, but we also didn’t get enough of the captain’s story. His adventures in Jolly Old England were as corny as usual whenever one of our heroes ends up either back in time or on a suspiciously similar planet to where they may as well be. Him being able to out-fence the locals, and karate chop his way out of jail, and win the love of a local (nigh-incomprehensible) lady are all funny enough, par for the course Kirkery.

But his story also has the best hook. While the prospective witch trial isn’t all that exciting, Kirk’s foil in his story is -- a local prosecutor whose eyes grow wide when Kirk speaks of having come from The Library. It’s then that Kirk realizes the prosecutor is another resident of the planet evacuated through the portal, but one who’s resolved not to help Kirk or be seen acknowledging him for fear that he too will be called a witch. There’s a sense of the Sarpeidonians simply resigning themselves to their fates, contrasted with the members of Starfleet working to get back home, and that’s the best inflection point of “Yesterdays.”

Still, it ends pretty weakly and pretty quickly. The prosecutor ends up agreeing to help Kirk and all it takes, for some reason, is just finding a different wall than the one where he came in? It’s a pretty quick fix to an interesting conflict, and then it’s just Kirk spinning his wheels with Mr. Atoz trying to find the right portal where Spock and Bones went in.

The story about the other two members of the command trio turns out to be the weaker part of the episode. There’s some decent stuff about Spock being unwilling to leave McCoy behind as the cold starts to get to them, and some solid worldbuilding when they run into Zarabeth, another Sarpeidonian who was marooned in time, but on the whole, it relies on too many contrivances and strange choices to really be effective.

Chief among these is the fact that Spock is suddenly very emotional, prone to things like anger and romantic affection that are outside the norm for the Vulcan. The explanation for this is incredibly weak -- specifically that because he’s jumped 5,000 years into the past, he’s reverting to the emotional state of the Vulcans of that time, who were barbaric and passionate. It makes little sense that he would suddenly revert to these conditions just because it’s the past (and the fact that his and McCoy’s ability to return to the present hinges on the time machine having specifically not altered their basic cell structure militates against hand-waving explanation), which renders the whole thing sort of hollow.

It doesn’t help that the big emotional climax of the episode, Spock contemplating staying in the ice age to be with Zarabeth and arguing with Bones over what the right course of action is, is founded on yet another romance that’s only been brewing for ten minutes. Maybe I’m just not enough of a “love at first sight” person to buy these deep emotional connections blossoming in less time than it takes to grill a good steak, and perhaps I should be more open to the inevitable shorthand that comes from trying to tell a complete story in forty-five minutes, but it’s hard to be too invested in Spock’s anguish over being pulled apart by conflicting impulses toward love and duty when that “love” is more declared than developed.

The result is that Spock acts unlike himself, but for two reasons -- one faux-scientific, one emotional -- that don’t really land. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this sort of thing from him, and while it’s a minor thrill to see him challenge McCoy on the Vulcan insults or reason why there’s nothing wrong in recognizing that woman is beautiful, the weak foundation those moments are built on renders them unearned.

There’s always going to be something at least somewhat effective about the tragedy of Spock feeling emotions, maybe even wanting some freedom from his duty, but not being able to do so because of his upbringing, species, and loyalty to Starfleet. “Yesterdays” trades on that in the same way that “This Side of Paradise” did. That means some of those big scenes are okay in the moment, but when reflecting on how we got there, the characters feel inadequately motivated, and the central emotional conflict of the episode gets the short shrift as a consequence. There’s a number of solid ideas in “All Our Yesterdays,” but sadly, few of them come to life in a genuinely compelling way.

It's a pleasant sci-fi experience until Kirk ends up among - who are they? - Irish prostitutes practicing witchcraft and a D'Artagnan lad from Rembrandt's night watch? Then he gets into a foil (?) fight. Why doesn't he use his trusted fists? Quickly the show returns to normal: Kirk is imprisoned. AGAIN! How often can one man be put behind bars?

The general notion of a time travel portal used to flee from the danger in the present is quite enjoyable. I also like the mysterious librarian and the fact that the landing party is separated. I also like the Nova works like a ticking bomb that ups the stakes and ads some excitement to the last part. The supernova btw is the best actual depiction of a phenomenon on space in the whole show. It may not be accurate by modern astronomy standards but Carl Sagan would be proud that they at least tried (correction: checked Memory Alpha after watching: the remastered version actually uses Hubble images to make the blast more realistic. The original FX may have been less impressing).

I very much like the Spock part. Nice to watch him contemplate and interact with Zarabeth and care for the good doctor. Zarabeth, btw, sports an inappropriately brazen outfit for an ice age climate. In this dire situation Spock can't always surpress his emotions. Don't exactly understand why but I blame the fact that Spock's race showed more emotions 5000 years ago. Fascinating.

He's a witch!

He's a witch? You're the ginger! You're the witch. Every redhead is. That's common knowledge since the middle ages.

Overall it's a good episode. Way better than the season average. I fear the show's finale will be worse. I predict this episode would have been the better finale.