Writer: Harlan Ellison
Director: Joseph Pevney
Producer: Gene L. Coon
"City" is perhaps the most beloved, critically acclaimed episode of the Original Series, widely considered worthy of "best episode" status. It also has some of the most vicious behind the scenes drama associated with it.
The Enterprise is investigating a temporal anomaly centred on an uncharted planet. When Sulu is injured on the bridge, McCoy comes up to treat him, but accidentally injects himself with an overdose of a powerful drug, driving him into a paranoid, maniacal state. He beams down to the plane, and when a landing party pursues him, he ends up jumping through a time portal on the planet, the source of the temporal disturbances. At that point, the Enterprise ceases to exist, the landing party the only survivors of McCoy changing the past in some way.
Kirk and Spock go after him, and end up in Depression-era New York. There they end up relying on the hospitality of Edith Keeler, who runs a mission, feeding the out of work men of that time. She's also a visionary, preaching of a future of peace, progress, and understanding. So of course Kirk falls in love with her. When McCoy arrives in the past, a raving lunatic, it's Edith who nurses him back to health. Then Spock discovers what happened to change history: in the proper timeline, Edith Keeler dies in a traffc accident. In the altered one, she lives and goes on to lead a peace movement that delays US entry in WWII long enough for the Nazis to develop the A-bomb first and win the war. Thus, to restore the timeline, Edith Keeler must die.
It's a set up for a perfect sci-fi tragedy, as the love between Kirk and Edith grows. This isn't just a woman he loves, but a woman who's fighting for exactly the right things -- it's just, as Spock says, at the wrong time. In the end, when the time comes for Edith to be hit by a truck and killed, McCoy runs out to try and save her, and Kirk stops him. McCoy, aghast, asks Kirk if he knows what he's done. "He knows, doctor," Spock replies, as Kirk struggles to hold himself together The timeline restored, the Trinity returns to the present, and Kirk orders a somber "Let's get the hell out of here."
It's a big contrast from Trek's usual "make a joke at Spock's expense, laugh it up on the bridge" endings, and cements this as a powerfully dramatic episode. It's also a very dense one, fitting a lot of plot, tragedy and character development into a single episode. It's also paced very well, with the central dilemma of Edith's fate being discovered late enough in the running time that it's not sitting on the table long enough to be stale. And before that, the episode develops in alternatingly tragic and comic ways, with a lot of fun being had at Kirk and Spock's attempts to "blend in".
"City" was written by reknowned sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison, one of many top sci-fi writers tapped by Roddenberry to contribute to the series in its first season, but like many scripts in Trek's first season, it was heavily rewritten by Roddenberry. Ellison, ever a firebrand, did not take kindly to this, and ever since has complained about the way he was treated, about the changes made, and promoted his original script as being the superior version. Having read it, I heartily disagree -- Ellison's script involves an illicit drug smuggling ring among Starfleet officers on the Enterprise, the ringleader escaping down the planet where he finds massive ruins of an old civilization guarded by powerful guardians, flees through the time portal, which causes the Enterprise to be replaced by an evil pirate version, not unlike "Mirror, Mirror". Kirk and Spock follow, and in this rendition they're both kind of assholes -- Spock a murderous jerk and Kirk an imperialist and racist. The conflict that Edith Keeler must die is still present, but in the end Kirk tries to save her, and it's Spock who has to stop him. Ellison's version ends with Spock saying "No woman was ever offered the universe for love", rather than the finished product's terse, Hemingwayesque, "Let's get the hell out of here."
Roddenberry objected to criminals aboard ship, objected to the expense of the ruins as written and the expense of the pirate ship subplot, objected to the portrayal of the series main characters and most of all objected to the ending, arguing that Kirk being the one who ensures Edith dies was the stronger, more tragic ending, as well as ensuring that Kirk as the serie's hero was not unduly compromised for future episodes. Ellison's script is a good script, but it's not Star Trek, and that's why Roddenberry rewrote it (and had every right to). Ultimately, Ellison wanted his name taken off it, but Roddenberry refused (Ellison's name value being why he was hired in the first place). Of course, if Roddenberry had agreed, Ellison would've spent the last fifty years bitching about that too. He's just that kind of guy.
Either way, "City" is an utter classic. I've just never bought into the premise that the original version was in any way superior.
Rating: 4 out of 4
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