I will never forget this scene. Kirk just saved Edith from a fatal fall. The background music reflects Kirk's loving but tragic gaze into her eyes.This episode is timeless.
I keep thinking about this episode, and the more I do, I realize that Jason Sowards, the writer of the movie, "The Wrath of Khan" screwed up with Kirk's character and with the series continuity. About a year ago, I wrote this comment on a different TH-cam video also covering this Star Trek episode. I said: ====== I am reminded of Kirk's behavior in the movie "The Wrath of Khan" where it is pointed out that, when he was in the academy, Kirk "cheated" the Kobayashi Maru Test, which presents the student with a no-win moral dilemma, as "a test of character." In considering this scene, I realize that the writers have introduced a grave continuity and characterization error. In "The Wrath of Khan" in discussing Kirk's handling of the Kobayashi Maru Test, Saavik asserts that, because Kirk "cheated" the Kobayashi Maru Test, he has never actually experienced the no-win moral dilemma. That is a logical enough supposition, from Saavik's perspective, but what is incongruous to me is that Kirk agrees with her! WHAT? Clearly, this is not the case, and Saavik is wrong, as amply demonstrated by the events in "City on the Edge of Forever." In that episode, Kirk does confront a terrible no-win moral dilemma, and unlike the Kobayashi Maru Test, the stakes are real and personal, and not hypothetical. It is interesting how Jack Sowards, the writer for "Wrath of Khan," and seemingly, everyone else involved in it, has overlooked the events in "City on the Edge of Forever," and their significance, despite this episode's undeniable popularity. If Kirk and his story had been real and not fictional, would Kirk have been so quick to conclude that Saavik was right about him? I don't think so! As an aside, I am firmly in the Kirk philosophical camp: I don't believe in the inherently no-win scenario. ====== Consider Kirk's dilemma: he has to choose to which timeline he will be faithful. In one choice lies the fate of the world and the humanity and history that Kirk has known, all of his friends and family, his career, arguably, the Federation itself. In the other timeline, Kirk has met a woman for with whom he has fallen in love. Whichever timeline he chooses, that is the one which will go forward, from the point where Edith Keeler dies or would have died. Ostensibly, if he saves her, or does not stop Leonard McCoy from saving her, then Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and arguably Scotty, Uhura, and the two red shirts in the landing party would be marooned either at the Guardian's location, or somewhere in Earth's past, probably in the same 1930's America where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy landed. Edith would live, though, and clearly she had feelings for Kirk. The German Third Reich would have won World War II, but that was just a blip in the time line. Kirk has no real guidance as to which timeline will be "better" only that the one in which Edith lives will "overwrite" the one from which he and everyone he has known comes. To save his own timeline, he has to act at some point, and his action will result in Edith Keeler being killed. This is all just on Kirk. We could argue for one timeline or the other, by referencing the horrors of the Axis Powers and the people they murdered, but in either choice, untold billions of human beings and potential historical developments will never happen no matter which timeline Kirk chooses. He is literally playing God, for essentially the reason pointed out by Steve Martin's character in the comedy movie, "The Man With Two Brains," because "Well somebody has to!" What is worse, is to consider the beautiful tragic irony presented by the plot of this episode. It IS true that in the altered timeline, Edith Keeler lives because McCoy saves her life, but in one of those time-travel paradoxes, Edith Keeler's life would never had been in danger in that street at all if KIRK had not been there. It was Kirk's presence, not McCoy's that resulted in her death. James Kirk has never faced a Kobayashi Maru? Balderdash, Mr. Sowards.
This is a fine observation as far as plot and characterization go. But ultimately your point about continuity doesn't quite hold its water (? oops, metaphor gone sideways/lopsided here 😁 because continuity while important is only essential insofar as it supports the basic suspension of disbelief, don't you think? Which in turn supports the most important element in the unity of fiction which arguably is the theme. In the conte xt of this being a series and not a single work then, I'd say strict continuity loses a bit of its essential character, the lady (or gentleman) doth protest too much, methings. Framing all this another way, Kirk in his conversation with Savick maybe just forgot this huge event of his life, or was simply lying about it for comic or egotistical reasons. We'll never know. But the question is a fascinating one, thanks for raising it. The impossible moral dilemma probably is the fundamental philosophical question, or one of them, of our existence. I know someone who studied philosophy. I think I'll ask her. 😄
Yeah,this is the best episode!I do like;What are little girls made of?This also had something to say!Is thus you’re perfect world,is this you’re flawless beings,killing like a person does,like turning off a light?You “do feel” for Captain Kirk,too!I mean,in this particular episode!James Blish did the movie 🍿script’s,too!It was;”the written word” of Star Trek!
Definitely my favorite of the original series and along with maybe (as a tie?) TNG's "The Inner Light" the best of the canon! On another note, I had not thought of this until today, however, because Edith almost fell on the stairs AND the inevitable happened, I'm wondering if the doctor (and/or Kirk) had saved her from being hit in the street, even after they went back to the Enterprise, would she possibly have now passed away in some other fashion? Of course, it's all hypothetical, but I had never thought of that possibility before - that by the enterprise crew having met her ... THAT set that future in motion inevitably (that she would pass away and millions would be saved). Of course, there is also some chance that another solution could be found (to her dying) that would result in a similar (more positive or even more positive than what we know to be fact now) result (such as sticking around to change the course of Hitler's life?). Would be interesting to do some sort of an alternate sequel to COTEOF.
Makes you wonder if, when how many times this may have happened in real life, never know just sayin,. Maybe tales tell of people in the day seeing, meeting talking to someone who was there an hour or two or day or two before and then disappeared, much to the confusion of that person. Following with a cloud of amnesia so to speak quickly momentarily the memory fades fast, until the person find themselves thinking, questioning just what were they just thinking about. Perhaps the effects of the time stream resuming as should be, the time traveller/s memories of quickly fading into obscurity, perhaps this where we sometimes have these peculiar effects of deja- vu?
Time travel stories are always rather incoherent. Why didn't they just beam her "back" to the future with them? She and Kirk could live happily ever after, she would live her dream of the future of space travel and peace, and meanwhile her history on earth would be a sudden disappearance, hence non-interference in WW2.
Like McCoy was going to tell the era by a quick glance around the room... lol. That was a perfectly stupid line, probably added by Roddenberry. Besides, in any normal room, one might expect to see artifacts spanning decades. He might have guessed 1910. Just a dumb line.
Star Trek Came To Mayberry Well this is interesting, when Star Trek first aired, the show was so underfunded that they were forced to use the set for the town of Mayberry in the episodes “Miri” and “City on the Edge of Forever.” Now that you have read this, you will be able to see clearly Floyd’s Barbershop and the Mayberry Courthouse in some of the scenes.
Edward Price- I'm not sure that's a good example of underfunding. Living on a budget is more likely. And didn't they also use the same town in "Return Of The Archons?" No matter. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of us, have never seen Mayberry in all it's glory, so no harm, no foul. On the other hand, the television series "Combat" must have used the same French village forty times or more, sometimes twice in the same month of shows. (Not to mention the tree lined road used repeatedly, the same road shown often in the Outer Limits, and even used in the film "Vertigo.") Now that's an example of underfunding by studio executives who obviously thought viewers were too stupid to notice such a distinctive roadway. At least they tried disguising Mayberry!
For those of you saying Kirk should have just taken her back to the future, that wasn't possible. Kirk and Spock were at the mercy of the machine that sent them back into time. The machine presented the past in only one way, and Kirk couldn't just pack her up and head home with her. He would have had to have gone back to his own time, found a way to travel into the past via the available science of his era, and taken her back to the future in that way. Of course, that would have presented him with an entirely new set of problems, the biggest one being that he couldnt have very well shown up in the timeline where he and Spock were already living in the past for those few weeks. He might have tried returning to a point before McCoy appeared in that timeline, but if McCoy never saved Edith in the first place, there would have been no history to change, no change to correct, and YIKES-- The paradoxes start piling up to mind numbing levels! So actually, the idea of Kirk and Keeler living out a happy existence together in the 2160's was never a viable option. The unfortunate bottomline is probably something like this... You die when you're supposed to die or else!
Who says the machine couldn't bring her to the future? You pull her through the same portal. Bear in mind that this is all bullshit to begin with, so anyone can make up anything they want about the capacity of the machine. But in terms of the relatively simple premises of time travel given in the episode, there is nothing to preclude her forward time travel. But suppose only someone who had first passed through the portal on that planet in 2160 into the past could go "back" (forward) from a past era to 2160 (which is never stated in the episode). Why not convince the woman of their real identity, show her history books and newspaper articles (same ones they saw) from the future line in which she prevents the Allies from fighting the Nazis, persuade her as well not to become a suckass appeaser, then save her life (or rather it would probably now be unnecessary), then go back and visit her regularly as she leads the anti-fascist and anti-pacifist movement to get the U.S. into the war and also to protect Pearl Harbor?
Maybe as well some missing people, homeless or not have have run afoul of a similar incident not unlike the homeless derelict & Dr.McCoy? Makes you wonder.
Kirk really loved her then why just he didn't take her back to the Enterprise 300 he in the future so she could be saved and in the year 2230 she couldn't have wrecked world war 2
@@kurtbaumann7686 Kirk should have just told her about the future there was still time left he could have told her about world war 2 and then he could have told her that she is the reason world war 2 was lost and then he could have convinced her to go with him 300 years in the future to me sure that we win world war 2 and that she could do her peace ambassador work 3OO years in the future to save history !
The best Star Trek episode
This is unquestionably the best episode.
Great acting from Shatner at the end. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
I will never forget this scene. Kirk just saved Edith from a fatal fall. The background music reflects Kirk's loving but tragic gaze into her eyes.This episode is timeless.
Very well said, sir.
1:21 agreed 1:21
Thanks for your replies guys. It means a lot to me.
True love never lasts !
Man she was a doll
Never seen until today---- 2023
"The city on the edge of forever"... I still cry at the end...
With or Without You.
As do I
Can't hear it. Pls redo with better audio, thx
This is like watching TV through the neighbors window. I would say this sucks but after all it is Star trek and it's never bad.
I keep thinking about this episode, and the more I do, I realize that Jason Sowards, the writer of the movie, "The Wrath of Khan" screwed up with Kirk's character and with the series continuity. About a year ago, I wrote this comment on a different TH-cam video also covering this Star Trek episode. I said:
======
I am reminded of Kirk's behavior in the movie "The Wrath of Khan" where it is pointed out that, when he was in the academy, Kirk "cheated" the Kobayashi Maru Test, which presents the student with a no-win moral dilemma, as "a test of character." In considering this scene, I realize that the writers have introduced a grave continuity and characterization error. In "The Wrath of Khan" in discussing Kirk's handling of the Kobayashi Maru Test, Saavik asserts that, because Kirk "cheated" the Kobayashi Maru Test, he has never actually experienced the no-win moral dilemma. That is a logical enough supposition, from Saavik's perspective, but what is incongruous to me is that Kirk agrees with her! WHAT? Clearly, this is not the case, and Saavik is wrong, as amply demonstrated by the events in "City on the Edge of Forever." In that episode, Kirk does confront a terrible no-win moral dilemma, and unlike the Kobayashi Maru Test, the stakes are real and personal, and not hypothetical.
It is interesting how Jack Sowards, the writer for "Wrath of Khan," and seemingly, everyone else involved in it, has overlooked the events in "City on the Edge of Forever," and their significance, despite this episode's undeniable popularity. If Kirk and his story had been real and not fictional, would Kirk have been so quick to conclude that Saavik was right about him? I don't think so! As an aside, I am firmly in the Kirk philosophical camp: I don't believe in the inherently no-win scenario.
======
Consider Kirk's dilemma: he has to choose to which timeline he will be faithful. In one choice lies the fate of the world and the humanity and history that Kirk has known, all of his friends and family, his career, arguably, the Federation itself. In the other timeline, Kirk has met a woman for with whom he has fallen in love. Whichever timeline he chooses, that is the one which will go forward, from the point where Edith Keeler dies or would have died. Ostensibly, if he saves her, or does not stop Leonard McCoy from saving her, then Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and arguably Scotty, Uhura, and the two red shirts in the landing party would be marooned either at the Guardian's location, or somewhere in Earth's past, probably in the same 1930's America where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy landed. Edith would live, though, and clearly she had feelings for Kirk. The German Third Reich would have won World War II, but that was just a blip in the time line. Kirk has no real guidance as to which timeline will be "better" only that the one in which Edith lives will "overwrite" the one from which he and everyone he has known comes. To save his own timeline, he has to act at some point, and his action will result in Edith Keeler being killed. This is all just on Kirk. We could argue for one timeline or the other, by referencing the horrors of the Axis Powers and the people they murdered, but in either choice, untold billions of human beings and potential historical developments will never happen no matter which timeline Kirk chooses. He is literally playing God, for essentially the reason pointed out by Steve Martin's character in the comedy movie, "The Man With Two Brains," because "Well somebody has to!"
What is worse, is to consider the beautiful tragic irony presented by the plot of this episode. It IS true that in the altered timeline, Edith Keeler lives because McCoy saves her life, but in one of those time-travel paradoxes, Edith Keeler's life would never had been in danger in that street at all if KIRK had not been there. It was Kirk's presence, not McCoy's that resulted in her death. James Kirk has never faced a Kobayashi Maru? Balderdash, Mr. Sowards.
This is a fine observation as far as plot and characterization go. But ultimately your point about continuity doesn't quite hold its water (? oops, metaphor gone sideways/lopsided here 😁 because continuity while important is only essential insofar as it supports the basic suspension of disbelief, don't you think? Which in turn supports the most important element in the unity of fiction which arguably is the theme. In the conte
xt of this being a series and not a single work then, I'd say strict continuity loses a bit of its essential character, the lady (or gentleman) doth protest too much, methings.
Framing all this another way, Kirk in his conversation with Savick maybe just forgot this huge event of his life, or was simply lying about it for comic or egotistical reasons. We'll never know.
But the question is a fascinating one, thanks for raising it. The impossible moral dilemma probably is the fundamental philosophical question, or one of them, of our existence. I know someone who studied philosophy. I think I'll ask her. 😄
At 1:48, Spock pouring coffee at Starbucks?! 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣
❤
Yeah,this is the best episode!I do like;What are little girls made of?This also had something to say!Is thus you’re perfect world,is this you’re flawless beings,killing like a person does,like turning off a light?You “do feel” for Captain Kirk,too!I mean,in this particular episode!James Blish did the movie 🍿script’s,too!It was;”the written word” of Star Trek!
It's a day and a half.
0:37 *WTF!!!!!*
Again! Never seen.
Definitely my favorite of the original series and along with maybe (as a tie?) TNG's "The Inner Light" the best of the canon!
On another note, I had not thought of this until today, however, because Edith almost fell on the stairs AND the inevitable happened, I'm wondering if the doctor (and/or Kirk) had saved her from being hit in the street, even after they went back to the Enterprise, would she possibly have now passed away in some other fashion?
Of course, it's all hypothetical, but I had never thought of that possibility before - that by the enterprise crew having met her ... THAT set that future in motion inevitably (that she would pass away and millions would be saved).
Of course, there is also some chance that another solution could be found (to her dying) that would result in a similar (more positive or even more positive than what we know to be fact now) result (such as sticking around to change the course of Hitler's life?).
Would be interesting to do some sort of an alternate sequel to COTEOF.
If Enterprise is gone,? Why are they still there???
All is not! as it was before. Kirk is broken.
You can see it on his face as the Guardian speaks it.
Makes you wonder if, when how many times this may have happened in real life, never know just sayin,. Maybe tales tell of people in the day seeing, meeting talking to someone who was there an hour or two or day or two before and then disappeared, much to the confusion of that person. Following with a cloud of amnesia so to speak quickly momentarily the memory fades fast, until the person find themselves thinking, questioning just what were they just thinking about. Perhaps the effects of the time stream resuming as should be, the time traveller/s memories of quickly fading into obscurity, perhaps this where we sometimes have these peculiar effects of deja- vu?
Edith died because Spock shouted out "No Jim!", & Jim stopped McCoy too
The scene with McCoy borrowed music from the cage.
Time travel stories are always rather incoherent. Why didn't they just beam her "back" to the future with them? She and Kirk could live happily ever after, she would live her dream of the future of space travel and peace, and meanwhile her history on earth would be a sudden disappearance, hence non-interference in WW2.
That breathing in the background sounds a little like the Gorn slithering.
No it's just Darth vader
@@aarongranda7825 you really think so, Ay Ay Ron?
@@njpubadjuster3710 oh yeah wrong universe my mistake. BTW I get called that name at work too.
The room and fixtures were probably older. Hence. 1920-25.
Like McCoy was going to tell the era by a quick glance around the room... lol. That was a perfectly stupid line, probably added by Roddenberry. Besides, in any normal room, one might expect to see artifacts spanning decades. He might have guessed 1910. Just a dumb line.
Star Trek Came To Mayberry
Well this is interesting, when Star Trek first aired, the show was so underfunded that they were forced to use the set for the town of Mayberry in the episodes “Miri” and “City on the Edge of Forever.” Now that you have read this, you will be able to see clearly Floyd’s Barbershop and the Mayberry Courthouse in some of the scenes.
Edward Price- I'm not sure that's a good example of underfunding. Living on a budget is more likely. And didn't they also use the same town in "Return Of The Archons?" No matter. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of us, have never seen Mayberry in all it's glory, so no harm, no foul.
On the other hand, the television series "Combat" must have used the same French village forty times or more, sometimes twice in the same month of shows. (Not to mention the tree lined road used repeatedly, the same road shown often in the Outer Limits, and even used in the film "Vertigo.") Now that's an example of underfunding by studio executives who obviously thought viewers were too stupid to notice such a distinctive roadway. At least they tried disguising Mayberry!
Yes from the Andy Griffith show
somewhere somehow someplace this could be true..
Maybe in an alternate universe or parallel one.
It was based on actual events, didn't you know?
I don't remember this scene at all!!! They cut all this, on every show. Even the tunnel scene from the Nazis
Sorry to be an ahol but the big truck is 40s not 30s vintage
For those of you saying Kirk should have just taken her back to the future, that wasn't possible. Kirk and Spock were at the mercy of the machine that sent them back into time. The machine presented the past in only one way, and Kirk couldn't just pack her up and head home with her. He would have had to have gone back to his own time, found a way to travel into the past via the available science of his era, and taken her back to the future in that way.
Of course, that would have presented him with an entirely new set of problems, the biggest one being that he couldnt have very well shown up in the timeline where he and Spock were already living in the past for those few weeks.
He might have tried returning to a point before McCoy appeared in that timeline, but if McCoy never saved Edith in the first place, there would have been no history to change, no change to correct, and YIKES-- The paradoxes start piling up to mind numbing levels!
So actually, the idea of Kirk and Keeler living out a happy existence together in the 2160's was never a viable option. The unfortunate bottomline is probably something like this... You die when you're supposed to die or else!
What if he got the Enterprise up to 88 miles an hour?
@@aarongranda7825 , hahahaha ! He would have needed Doc Brown and Marty McFly to help him!
@@aarongranda7825 Late to the party, my apologies. 😪
But at 88mph, the Enterprise would be crawling through the Galaxy.😅
Who says the machine couldn't bring her to the future? You pull her through the same portal. Bear in mind that this is all bullshit to begin with, so anyone can make up anything they want about the capacity of the machine. But in terms of the relatively simple premises of time travel given in the episode, there is nothing to preclude her forward time travel. But suppose only someone who had first passed through the portal on that planet in 2160 into the past could go "back" (forward) from a past era to 2160 (which is never stated in the episode). Why not convince the woman of their real identity, show her history books and newspaper articles (same ones they saw) from the future line in which she prevents the Allies from fighting the Nazis, persuade her as well not to become a suckass appeaser, then save her life (or rather it would probably now be unnecessary), then go back and visit her regularly as she leads the anti-fascist and anti-pacifist movement to get the U.S. into the war and also to protect Pearl Harbor?
Maybe as well some missing people, homeless or not have have run afoul of a similar incident not unlike the homeless derelict & Dr.McCoy? Makes you wonder.
She could have just been part of the Enterprise crew in the year 2230 and peace ambassador 300 years later !
Kirk really loved her then why just he didn't take her back to the Enterprise 300 he in the future so she could be saved and in the year 2230 she couldn't have wrecked world war 2
It wasn't written that way. Destiny has the last word.
@@kurtbaumann7686 Kirk should have just told her about the future there was still time left he could have told her about world war 2 and then he could have told her that she is the reason world war 2 was lost and then he could have convinced her to go with him 300 years in the future to me sure that we win world war 2 and that she could do her peace ambassador work 3OO years in the future to save history !
It was a romantic tragedy
Maybe he could pick up a couple of humpbacks while he's at it!