Product Details

• Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy
• Writers: Gene Roddenberry
• Producers: Douglas S. Cramer
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: CBS Paramount International Television
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1994
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300988740
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,755 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The Enterprise prepares for the evacuation of doomed planet Sarpeidon, but Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) find that all inhabitants have left via a time-travel device that has sent them to different periods of their own choosing. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy accidentally pass through the device, with the captain landing in the middle of an 18th-century-style witch-hunt while Spock and McCoy travel back 6,000 years to the Ice Age.

The script, by UCLA librarian and spec writer Jean Lisette Aroeste (who also wrote "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" for the original series), gives the episode a special charge with its dual story lines set in the past. The dramatic weight of the story, however, is clearly with Spock, who regresses into the savage emotions of his prehistoric ancestors--eating meat, choosing another transportee (Mariette Hartley) as a mate, and nearly killing McCoy when the good doctor insults him. This is a favorite among some Trekkers, made all the more enjoyable by the anxious, White Rabbit-like performance of Ian Wolfe as a Sarpeidon librarian in charge of the time-travel facility. --Tom Keogh

From the Back Cover
When Spock and McCoy try to rescue Kirk from a time machine accident, they emerge in an ice age. Spock, now a throwback to earlier Vulcan times, falls in love and refuses to return to Kirk or the starship.

TREK TRIVIA
Emmy Award-winning actress Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth) later appeared as James Garner's wife in a series of tremendously popular Kodak commercials.
The viewer on Mr. Atoz' desk is Sargon's stand from "Return to Tomorrow" upside down!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars visionary and fascinating with a pinch of cheese, November 10, 2004

By	Shelley Shay (Denton, TX **(God Bless the USA!!)**) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's easy to look back at these nearly 40-year-old TV shows with a pompous attitude on how unsophisticated the special effects were or how cheesy some scenes were, but these shows were truly visionary and had fascinating sci-fi concepts. The Enterprise goes to an M-Class planet (like Earth) to evacuate the inhabitants as their sun is going to go super-nova very soon - 3 hours to be exact. How many people can the Enterprise hold (food, air and physical space)? Even 1,000 would be impressive - but with only 3 hours before the sun goes Super-nova, the Enterprise arrives to a planet that has no space travel and will try to convince the inhabitants that they are doomed, that the humans (and one Vulcan) are their friends, and even though there are billions of people on the planet and only 3 hours to go, they will manage to evacuate them all. Ok - lots of cheese and crazy thought here. First contact for one - in the Next Generation series and following, the Prime Directive would have just allowed these people to die rather than interfere. Not kind and gentle, but certainly more responsible.

Spock, Bones and Kirk beam down to a building complex where they read one humanoid life form. No other life on the planet can be detected. What happened to them? Mass suicide? Plague? They know the people didn't evacuate by ship, so where did they go?

They find themselves in an interesting archive of sorts. Character actor Ian Wolfe portrays Mr. Atoz, the Sarpeidon librarian in charge of the archive library. He is the last Sarpeidon, the one who runs the Avatachron that no one seems to quite understand.

Confused, but willing to learn about the doomed culture, the landing party goes through the various discs in the library, looking through various images of Sarpeidon's past. Kirk looks at a scene from what looks a lot like the 1620s in New England - Puritan types with British accents, belief in witches, etc. He hears a scream coming from the other side of some pillars and begins to run to rescue a maiden in distress. Mr. Atoz yells at Kirk, "but I haven't prepared you yet!" and Kirk, being the macho-man that he is, ignores Atoz and runs into another time period in Sarpeidon's past.

McCoy and Spock were viewing a slide of Sarpeidon's ice age 5,000 years earlier when Kirk vanishes and they run after him - but instead of going to where he is, they end up on an ice cliff, freezing their respective butts off. As they are close to death, They find a Sarpeidon in animal skins who leads them to a warm cave. When they settle in, the Sarpeidon takes off the animal skins to reveal a stunningly beautiful woman who just so happens to think Spock is da bomb. Mariette Hartley does a fantastic job of portraying the lonely, yet thoughtful Zarabeth. She did not choose this time, but was sent here by an evil ruler who wished to banish her. The Atavachron altered her cellular structure for this time period, so she may never return, or else she will die.

Not being "prepared" as Zarabeth was, Spock and Bones aren't doing so well. Spock is reverting back to his Vulcan ancestry - savage, emotional and horny - and he finds Zarabeth to be beautiful. This is the episode where Spock utters his famous line, "I have eaten animal flesh and I have enjoyed it!"

Meanwhile, Kirk is once again in trouble for his heroic antics and is accused of being a witch. Witnesses heard the voices of McCoy and Spock on the other side of the portal and assumed they were spirits. When Kirk called out to McCoy, using his pet name, "Bones," they were perceived to be spirits or familiars and soon Kirk's goose will be cooked.

Kirk needs to find a way out of jail and back to the portal, and McCoy needs to figure a way to keep Spock out of Zarabeth's pants long enough to reach back into his logic. Poor Zarabeth. You can't help but feel sorry for someone condemned to an icy, barren loneliness forever, only having a brief moment of joy, for it only to be taken back again.

Once again, the Enterprise and her crew has totally interfered in cultures and timelines and barely escapes with their hides before they tie everything up in a neat little bow. For TOS, this was a solid episode. By today's standards, totally laughable - but we wouldn't have today's standards in TV sci-fi had it not been for the genius of Gene Roddenberry.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Our gallant triad is in trouble - again!, November 14, 2001

By A Customer

This episode is obviously from late in the series when the formulaic Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio or any combination thereof, go downplanet and immediately find a whole heap o'trouble. In this case Kirk goes back to a Salem-esque era and Spock and Bones go back to the Ice Age. But the plot works, mostly due to the interplay of the Spock/McCoy characters. Look for the Tollhouse Cookie Girl in the role of the scantily clad Zarabeth, Spock's love interest.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best episodes and a great performance from Spock, September 4, 2000

By	retrowens (Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"All Our Yesterdays" is one of the best and most original episodes of the original Trek. Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy are in a library when they find a strange old man that tells them to view some tapes from the past. But what they don't know is that there is a time portal nearby and if they go through it, they will end up going to the time period that is on the tape in which they are viewing. Spock and Dr. McCoy end up going back to the Ice Age while Captain Kirk goes to a place that looks like it's from the 1800's. They must find a way to get back to the library so they can beam back to the Enterprise.

"All Our Yesterdays" features one of Spock's greatest performances. He and Dr. McCoy experience some conflict and Spock falls for a lady that was also sent to the Ice Age. This is a 5 star episode and I recommend any fan of the original series to get it.