Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 78: All Our Yesterdays [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

"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.

This is one of the better "Star Trek" episodes, with an interesting story and fine guest stars. This was the next to last episode of the original series. At the time, the budget was reduced, cancellation was certain, and morale was low among the actors and production staff. Despite all that, "All Our Yesterdays" turned out to be a really good episode.

Star Trek, even this late in the game, was still full of pizazz. This episode is very interesting and very original. Some people have complained that no religious civilization would have prevented their own existence by changing their past. My response to that is well maybe they weren't religious and therefore did not have to worry about an afterlife. If you think about it, the planet lives on forever because its history is constantly being changed. Brilliant! I wish I had thought of that great idea.

Excuse the use of contemporary jargon, but I felt this episode deserved it because Spock almost sacrifices everything to remain in a frozen wasteland with a lonely lady. And, boy, is that lady worth it! Mariette Hartley never looked more stunning as the object of Spock's desires. Dr.McCoy almosts opens his sarcastic mouth once too often.

Like the setting, this one is COOL!

The first season of Star Trek was great, but the series became less interesting, with only occasional outstanding episodes. This is the only episode I know of that does not take place at all on the Enterprise, and has the crew land on a planet that is highly civilized and Earthlike, but nevertheless, has no concept of space travel. Kirk, McCoy, and Spock land inside a building that has a vast collection of CD's (yes, they look like it!) from the planets past history and have the one sole citizen of the planet choose a time in history to go back to. He is not aware that they are not citizens, even with Spock's ears an obvious sign as an alien, and tells them they must evacuate to the past before the planet blows up. Kirk accidentally ends up in a Salem-type society and McCoy and Spock end up in the Ice Age with a beautiful woman who was banished there. The three must find their way back to the library before the planet is destroyed

"All Our Yesterdays" might have earned a higher rating had its storyline not been slowed down by the sub-plot which takes Kirk to a medieval time-period in the history of the planet Sarpeidon. That story element just was not interesting at all.

What made this episode enjoyable was the relationship between Spock and Zarabeth (played by the dazzlingly beautiful Mariette Hartley) as well as the usual mutual animosity mixed with repsect between Spock and McCoy.

This was one of the better Star Trek shows. Did Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley) in the quiet warm security of the cave with the Ice Age storm raging outside possibly conceive a child with Spock? Spock didn't seem to consider that possibility when he mentioned later to McCoy that his nooner with Zarabeth happened 5,000 years ago and Maribeth was long dead and the past is the past. So much for love them and leave them. Nice guy this Spock. Well whatever intimacy Spock had with Zarabeth certainly caused McCoy to flip out in the cave after Spock and Zarabeth finished their hanky panky. Mariette Hartley as Zarabeth was a hottie in her skimpy toga. Spock and Zarabeth shared the limelight in this episode through much of the show along with the Librarian Atoz and his replicas.

There was a cliff hanger at the end with Kirk, McCoy and Spock only escaping at "maximum warp" from the exploding planet by a few seconds. This was caused by the fact that Spock with his raging hormones for Zarabeth wouldn't leave the ice age as demanded by Kirk and McCoy.

Yes, I am a movie, music scholar, but I am ordering this because a dear person and actress in Encino California, by the name of Anna Karen who played one of the "Sarpeidon Morts". I haven't seen or heard from Anna since 1992! Anna if you are out there, give me a shout.

I heard William Shatner on a radio interview recently- pushing his new autobiography and he stayed away from the Star Trek thing because he has to PR new material but he does let acute observations slip if you listen. A classic one was him musing (06/08) "...yes and did I really have that jawline when I was 25...?"

These old VHS are great to own without commercials. They still look good in a world of digital smears of computer graphics. Back in 1966, when Special Effects meant Model making of spacecraft.

Thanks, Amazon.