Product Details

• Actors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden
• Directors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303447740
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,813 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, "Yesterday's Enterprise" was written by committee and hastily finalized to meet shooting demands. The end result is arguably the best episode of the series. (It often outranks "Best of Both Worlds" in fan top 10 polls.) What easily could have been a typical TNG time-anomaly story turns out to be a powerful and disconcerting teleplay about the cost of war versus the price of peace.

The teaser opens with Guinan (Whoopie Goldberg) introducing Mr. Worf to a new beverage. After no small amount of wheedling, the recalcitrant Klingon dubs prune juice "a warrior's drink." This is a pivotal scene. Why? Because later, when Guinan looks out the window of Ten-Forward, she sees a strange cloud--and when she looks back, nothing is the same. The Enterprise-D is now a battleship, the Federation is entrenched in a 22-year war against the Klingons, and tactical officer Tasha Yar is very much alive. To the astonishment of the bridge crew, the long-lost Enterprise-C hovers badly damaged within a temporal rift. And something deep within Guinan tells her none of this is right...

"Yesterday's Enterprise" has it all: great writing, great acting, and, above all, honor. This episode belongs in every TNG video collection. Note: it contains tons of embedded trivia. Combat date is used instead of stardate and military log for captain's log, and early film uniforms are worn aboard the Enterprise-C. Watch for Geordi's famous "cuff" blooper in the last scene. --Kayla Riggney

From the Back Cover

The Enterprise discovers a rift in space that reveals a familiar-looking starship- its predecessor, the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-C, believed to have been destroyed in battle over twenty years ago!

The ship's captain (Tricia O'Neil) tells Picard (Patrick Stewart) that the Enterprise-C was under attack from four Romulan Warbirds when it broke through the rift. But Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) is bothered by things she can't explain: why the Federation is presently engaged in a bloody and senseless war with the Klingon Empire, and why she doesn't seem to know her ship's security chief, Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). Convinced that the space rift has changed the course of history, Guinan pleads with Picard to send the Enterprise-C back through the rift to face its destiny.

But will Picard give such an order, knowing that it will result in the destruction of the Enterprise-C and its crew?

Guest starring Christopher McDonald.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the top 5, November 22, 2000

By 

magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 63: Yesterday's Enterprise [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was an original Star Trek fan back in the 60's but didn't catch hardly any of the Next Gen. series until after it was over went into reruns. Then I caught all of them in a year and a half, since they were playing them 5 nights a week on a local station.

Having now seen probably all of them, I have to say this is one of the greatest episodes. Denise Crosby gets to reprise her Tasha Yar role in a dramatic episode where she returns with an earlier doomed Enterprise (about 70 years earlier) to its past to try to save the ship, which is losing a battle with the Klingons. She is told by Guinan that her death was "...without meaning," and now she has a second chance. She goes back with the doomed crew to see if she can make a difference.

There are some other nice touches to this episode, such as Guinan's relationship with Captain Picard, who must convince Picard that there is something wrong with their timeline and something has altered their present, and so it must be changed back by returning the earlier Enterprise to its past. But Crosby finally gets to be the star of this one episode. Don't miss it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yesterday's Enterprise; one of ST:TNG greatest achievements, January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 63: Yesterday's Enterprise [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is one of the finest hours of Star Trek. Denise Crosby returns to portray Tasha Yar and die meaningfully. This is one of those episodes that can change the way you look at life because it shows in the tradition of the original generation that one life or one choice can make all the diffrence.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another in the Proud Tradition of Enterprises, December 1, 1999

By 

Susan Shwartz (Forest Hills, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 63: Yesterday's Enterprise [VHS] (VHS Tape)

YESTERDAY'S ENTERPRISE is probably my personal favorite TNG episode. Surely, Captain Rachel Garrett's attempt to defend the Klingon colony at Narendra III ought to rank up there with some of the fabulous rear-guard actions of history and literature, if some Sir Charles Oman in the future decides to write another book of famous battles.

This episode was one of the inspirations for Josepha Sherman's and my novel VULCAN'S HEART.