Kirk faces an ethical and moral dilemma: Let the woman he loves die? Or let the Nazis win World War II? It’s a hard knock life in “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
Mission Log #28 – Episode 028 – The City on the Edge of Forever
Kirk faces an ethical and moral dilemma: Let the woman he loves die? Or let the Nazis win World War II? It’s a hard knock life in “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
One scene that you gentlemen didn’t mention that still haunts me with this episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1yRKpoe9A&list=FL9ZlZDgHr1CjoqrnAj1aw5g
How Edith is so perceptive is brushed over, but it fits very well with the whole tone of the episode. The slightly creepy music helps, too.
Hi Mike, I think you misunderstood me. I said (according to the show) WWII was a “just war”, not “just a war”. I meant “just” as in ethical or moral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
Really enjoyed the podcast. Brought me back seeing the first run of this episode. When times where simpler and Star Trek was state of the art television.
As for Justin, World Word II was not just a war, it was about geo politics (mapping the land mass and raw material) and world domination, and using the people for slave labor to get the raw materials and farm lands to serve the AXIS Nations.
World War II is the failure of World War I when it came to the Allied Nations. When they allowed the Armistices instead of going for unconditional surrender.
Hi guys, I just listened to your podcast of the “City on the Edge of Forever”. It was excellent, as always. But I have to disagree with you that it didn’t have a “message, moral, or meaning”. I think are viewing the show out its historical context. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I think it is interesting to discuss the historical context as well.
In the episode, Spock says, “Peace was the answer, but at the wrong time” (or something to that effect). In 1967, when the episode first aired, the US was involved in a controversial war in southeast Asia. To a viewer in 1967, I think the message was obvious: WWII was a just war (for the US and her allies that is; not so much for Germany and Japan) but the Vietnam War was not.
How about this: If the Enterprise crew hadn’t come back in time, Edith wouldn’t have been going out with Kirk to that movie, and therefore wouldn’t have absently crossed back to get hit and killed in the street. What if, originally, the hobo that died in the alley would have drunkenly stumbled out into the street and Edith, who just happened to be outside the mission and seeing him in danger, saved his life at the cost of her own.
Thus, McCoy letting the hobo die is what caused Edith to live and screw up the timeline, but then it was his reunion with Kirk and Spock that inadvertently imperiled her life by causing her to cross unsafely. And then, Kirk was forced to stop McCoy from re-screwing up the timeline by saving her.