2x20 Return to Tomorrow

[9.7/10] When you sit down and make yourself review everything you watch, a funny thing happens – you start to tease out things you like in storytelling that you may never have realized otherwise. Those thoughts crystalize, solidifying aspects of your taste that you may not have been aware of. I learned that as much as I appreciate subtlety and rawness and sincerity in my art, I also respond when shows go big, grasping for large or fantastical ideas, and that I’m especially moved when they add a level of pathos, of noble tragedy to that type of story.

That is “Return to Tomorrow” in a nutshell. It’s an episode that offers one of the most succinct but sincere encapsulations of the Star Trek ethos ever. It’s an episode that has a fantastical premise but which grounds it in a very recognizable and relatable sort of human frailty. It’s an episode that raises profound political and moral questions. It has humor and chances for the actors to spread their wings a bit and even the future Dr. Polaski in it. This one took me by surprise, in a good way.

That’s cemented by the way the episode ends, with Sargon and Thalassa choosing to send themselves into oblivion rather than risk abusing their godlike powers again. In many ways, “Return” functions as a cautionary tale, a warning that for as much as Star Trek offers a certain utopic view of the future where technology will help mankind overcome its prejudices and ills, that the same technology may also convince man that he is without limits, and that such acts of playing god may lead to one’s own destruction.

It also casts doubt on the idea that man will ever truly be rid of his lesser impulses. The presence of Henoch sees to that. It’s always great to see Leonard Nimoy able to break out from the Vulcan stoicism and flex his muscles as the well-rounded actor he is. Seeing him play the veritable devil, plotting against Sargon, tempting Thalassa, using his powers to wipe away memories and cause others pain, shows not only Nimoy’s prodigious talents, but the sense that even the destruction of one’s entire civilization and millennia to reflect will not stamp out the weaker impulses of man.

And yet, it also serves as a salve, as a bit of hope. “Returns” predicts that even if the guile of man will never be eliminated, neither will his nobility, or his sense of love. The notion that Sargon and Thalassa will wipe themselves from existence instead of potentially allowing themselves to succumb to the temptations of their own power is almost as selfless a gesture as one could imagine.

Still, even with that high-minded ideal driving their actions, they ask for one last kindness – the ability to breathe, to see, to feel, but most importantly to embrace one another, one final time. It is a profoundly human moment amid this high concept science fiction fantasy, and it creates a poignant, emotional dimension alongside the broader ideas. That final image, of Sargon-qua-Kirk and Thalassa-qua-Mulhall, sharing one last moment together before blanking themselves from existence, is a stark, romantic, bold, and tragic one, a layered moment alongside the best Star Trek can offer.

That’s part of what makes “Return” so great – the layers in so many scenes and moments like that one. The episode spends a surprisingly little amount of time with the actual crew (or as themselves) and devotes much of the story’s focus to Sargon, Thalassa, and Enoch. It becomes a story about temptation, about evil, about having great power and not being able to keep yourself from using it. Thalassa becomes the focal point of that, the symbol for the battle for the soul of these beings, and in a way, for humanity’s future. In many ways, this is their story more than it’s ours, and the focus on what it must be like to give up such things, to employ restraint with limitless power, is the kind of outside the box stories that make Star Trek worthwhile.

What also sets these energy beings apart is that there is a benevolence to them (save Henoch) which is almost unprecedented for Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise has encountered no shortage of god-like creatures, but they’ve all been somewhere on the scale of dismissive to downright evil. Some mean no harm but treat our heroes as “flies to wanton boys,” while others have been content to destroy or torture them.

But Sargon is the first who flat out states that humans are lesser beings, but who also treats them with dignity. Kirk senses a benevolence in him (and his mini-mind meld is a canny way to breeze through the “why should we trust them?” portion that inevitably pops up in these episodes). Sargon himself is uniquely concerned with ideas of consent, that he and his cohort will not “borrow” the humans’ bodies by force, and promises that if Kirk & Co. refuses, they will be allowed to leave with no trouble. There is something refreshingly different about that – a supernatural force far beyond the abilities of the Federation, who nevertheless treats the crew as sentient beings worthy of agency and self-determination.

The scene where the Enterprise’s senior staff exercises that self-determination that proves to be the other standout part of “Returns.” Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, and Mulhall debate whether they will agree to go along with this plan – to lend their bodies to these beings and help them build android bodies to move to. It’s a step we don’t see enough in The Original Series and one that was a staple of The Next Generation -- mulling over whether this is the right course of action, tempering the decision in the flame of respected peers hashing out the potential consequence, and calm respectful debate centered on the ideals of the federation.

It’s Kirk’s affirmation of those ideals that unexpectedly proves to be the most stirring part of returns. Dr. McCoy, with his well-established luddite streak, is understandably hesitant about all of this. (As an aside, his sarcastic quips, like responding to Scotty’s question of whether Kirk is right in the head with “no comment” or offering a smart remark after Kirk describe the occurrence as simple and routine are great). On paper, what Kirk and the energy beings are talking about sounds crazy, and involves much of the senior staff.

But Kirk offers the founding vision of not just the Federation, but of Star Trek as a whole. It is a grand, wild, unpredictable universe out there. To explore it, to uncover it, to grow as a species and as a community, requires exploring that unknown, of taking chances in the hopes that it might lead to a better tomorrow. “We are in the risk business” he says, as the camera zooms in and the music swells to highlight the point.

There are dangers to what Sargon is proposing, there are dangers to what the Enterprise does everyday. But they do these things not because they are wholly without danger, but because the possibilities of what they could learn, what they could achieve, what they could do for the future of their people and maybe the galaxy itself, far outweigh the dangers. Starfleet, and the show that features it, are borne from that idea – that to go forth and explore and embrace those possibilities will always be fraught, will always be a risky endeavor, but that the future of mankind, of life in the universe, depends on that boldness, on people believing the best in one another and depending on it.

There will always be Henochs in the universe, those who have power and strength and inevitably use it for their own ends. But there will also always be the Sargons and Thalassas, the ones who learn, who see the error of their ways and try do better by the sentient life they encounter. With any luck there will always be Kirks and McCoys, people who have their reservations but strive and struggle in the hopes of making a better world. And hopefully there will always be Genes (of both the Roddenberry and Coon variety) and John T. Dugan, who look to what the future has in store for us and imagine a world where we can do better, be better, and continue to do those noble, brave things that make us more than just base creatures, that make us into loving, caring spirits, in bodies, in pure energy, and in oblivion.