Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 39, Episodes 77 & 78: The Savage Curtain / All Our Yesterdays

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

 

 

We must be reaching the end, because Volume 39 of The Star Trek DVD series contians two of the last great episodes producedin the series three season run.

At first look THE SAVAGE CURTAIN may be considered a ridiculously silly episode. This is the infamous episode where 'Abraham Lincoln' makes an appearance. True that this episodes plot is way too far out to ever actually occur but still you have to give the writers credit for their creativity even if this is too cheesy. Basically the story goes that the Enterprise crew are abducted by a friendly alien entity who takes the form of Lincoln. Lincoln insists he is who he actually is and requests that Kirk and Spock accompany him to the molten planet where (unbeknowst to our heroes) the rock like aliens, the Excalbians have organized a battle between good and evil. Pitting (good) Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and the greatest Vulcan philosopher Surak against (evil) Genghis Khan, Kahless the Unforgettable (founder of the Klingon Empire), Col.Green (someone who supposedly is a Tyrant in our future) and Zora (some fairly forgettable experimental witch tyrant here). The story has essentially an anti-war message. Some people consider this to be one of the worst episodes. I actually greatly disagee with that thought on this show. Of course it's nowhere near the best but it's effective and creative, especially considering that (by this time) the Star Trek series was on life support. Not the best but good for third season standards. Hey, at least they didn't credit Abraham Lincoln played by himself!

ALL OF OUR YESTERDAYS was the last great Star Trek episode to ever make it into production. Being only an episode away from the end of the series' three year run, in retrospect they should have ended with this one. The story essentially deals with time travel. The Enterprise journeys to Sarpeidon and Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet a peculiar old librarian (played by Ian Wolfe). It's a really effective time travle episode since this story has three settings: Present day Sarpeidon, Kirk in Sarpeidon's Victorian age, Spock and McCoy in Sarpeidon's ice age. The last setting really steals this episode. Partly because we see Spock's barbaric nature take him over. There is no doubt why Nimoy is on the front of the DVD case. He even gets an effective love interest in this story (played by Mariette Hartley). An interesting plot, great acting and a somewhat tragic ending make tihs episode one of the more memrable episodes from the tail end of the Star Trek series.

Overall this is another must. One of the better pair of episodes from the end Star Trek's wildly uneven third season. Highly recommended.

I suppose you could get sillier and more childishly simplistic than to find an unbelievable lava-rock monster pitting Abraham Lincoln against Genghis Khan on an arena planet (with Kirk and Spock aiding the centuries-dead ex-president) to see whether good is stronger than evil, but - come to think of it, no you couldn't.

That's "The Savage Curtain," probably the worst-ever episode of the series.

"All Our Yesterdays" is one of the best-ever.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy try to evacuate the inhabitants of a planet about to be devastated by a supernova, only to find that they've already found their own way out via the Atavachron, a time-machine that sends people back into the past, out of harm's way. Kindly Mr. Atoz (Ian Wolfe) and his numerous clones mistake the Enterprise personnel for people needing to be evacuated - so, Kirk soon finds himself accused of being a witch in a 17th century setting to which he is sent against his will, and Spock and McCoy are sent back to the planet's Ice Age. The sole human resident in that Ice Age is the fetching Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley), a sad and tragic forgotten prisoner who falls madly in love with Spock (and he with her) and will do anything to keep him with her - even if it's possible to send the misplaced pair back to the place from whence they came.

This is a great episode, owing largely to Hartley's moving performance as the doomed beauty, Zarabeth. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley really shine in this story, McCoy going crazy and Spock succumbing to his atavistically violent Vulcan lusts. Shatner does pretty well too, but this is really Nimoy and Kelley's time to show what they've got.

As TOS finally comes to an end we get a volume worthy of Trek lore. A mediocre 3rd season had me praying for someone to put this puppy out of its misery but at least we get two episodes, the second of which even more so, that are worthy of inclusion among the very best episodes across all 3 seasons here.

The first episode is a little silly at times but the huge redeeming factor for me is the introduction and explanation of very key characters that are pivotal to future Trek series like DS9 e.g. Kahless and the Founding Father of the Vulcans. Also, the moral that the pursuit of science and knowledge are noble and worthy causes in and of themselves but not at the cost of misery and suffering to innocent others I found to be very relevant even today.

The second episode is one of my all-time favourites and I even liked it better than "City On...Forever." Just as in that episode, there are a number of inconsistencies and strange events here like how can a completely different planet have a similar history as ours with musketeers to boot! Ignoring this though, the side-story with Spock and McCoy is simply brilliant. Nimoy does a very good acting job here as he shows emotions of jealousy and anger and then reverts to his usual self at the end. A very good time-travel episode and very easily the best episode of the final season.

If you are deciding which volumes to keep, this one falls under the "Must Have" category.

Recommended.

"The Savage Curtain" was a mediocre episode and not one I enjoyed. It was most illogical. "All Our Yesterdays" on the other hand is a remarkably great episode. When else do you see Kirk not getting the girl and ending up being accused of being a witch? The best part though is seeing Spock revert to the savage past of his home world. If you want to continue this episode in book form, get copies of Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday by the phenomenal author A. C. Crispin. Yes, Spock mating with the lovely Zarabeth superbly portrayed by Mariette Hartley had results, namely a son called Zar. Spock finds out to his shock that he has a son. He and Kirk travel to Vulcan to tell T'Pau about Zar and how family must not be abandoned. T'Pau agrees and uses her influence with the Federation and Starfleet to authorize Spock and Kirk going to the Guardian of Forever and traveling back to Sarpeidon to rescue Spock's son. The sequel Time for Yesterday is another time travel trip to the past to see Zar and that's all I will say because anything more could spoil the book. A. C. Crispin has seamlessly woven both novels with "All Our Yesterdays" to make a very believable story. Spock is shocked to find that his son Zar is a grown man when he had been expecting an infant or very young child. Even more dismaying from Spock's perspective, is that Zar has a mind of his own and is not especially interested in being obedient. Dr. McCoy is also really great in both books. His compassion and humor and even stern parental attitude contribute to Spock and Zar making peace with each other. There are many scenes that simply require laughing out loud as Spock tries to come to terms with being a father.

The DVD came in good shape and wasn't scratched or anything. For someone who doesn't feel like buying every Star Trek episode these are a great way to go

"Savage Curtain" An alien decides to test Kirk & Spock on their concepts of "good" & "evil" by creating duplicates of Abraham Lincoln & Surak.

"All Our Yesterdays" Kirk, Spock & McCoy are lost somewhere in the past. How will they get back? NOTE: Shatner, Nimoy, & De Kelley are the only 3 people from the original cast to be in this story! There are no shots of the inside of the Enterprise whatsoever!

These DVD's normally pair episodes with some deep shared meaning - in this one, the idea is that peoples of past eras are largely ignorant and prone to find superstitious answers to solve life's msyteries (In "Trek" lore, the inhabitants of the future are the technologically and ethically advanced descendants of savage and greedy fools - us).

In "All Our Yesterdays", the Enterprise comes across the planet Sarpeidon - home to an advanced civilization that appears to have disappeared. Their planet about to be destroyed by a supernova, the Sarpeidons left no hint of their escape. Instead, Kirk, McCoy and Spock find a huge library cataloguing thousands of generations of the planet's existence (the best of times, the worst of times). Perusing, though not entirely understanding the significance of the library and its strange librarian, Mr. Atoz, all three learn too late that the library is actually the navigation center of a huge time machine through which the Sarpeidons have escaped to the past. Unwittingly leaping into one such portal, Kirk finds himself trapped in a pre-industrial era in which he is branded a witch by typically ignorant natives of the time. Spock and McCoy have it worse - vanishing into the planet's ice age (an era kept on catalog for prisoners) where they meet the lovely Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley - later to return as a sexy Terranian in Roddenberry's short-lived "Earth2" series, and also immortalized in a generation of Polaroid commercials). In Spock's case, the metaphor for time travel is reversed - Zarabeth is a caring and loving person, but Spock's journey to a time before his ancestors cast out their emotions and their meat-eating diet has caused him to become a passionate savage. (McCoy, however, does not revert to the primitive state of pre-20th century country doctors). Falling in love with Zarabeth - also a future Sarpeidon sent to the past as a prisoner - he is willing to do anything to remain in the past with her (a special safeguard ensures her death should she try to return to the present). The episode was later sequelized in the novel "Yesterday's Son" in which Spock returns to Sarpeidon for the son born of his union with Zarabeth, and confronts another sign of his wild days - Sub Commander Tal from "The Enterprise Incident".

"The Savage Curtain" was a more overt jab at those foolish primitives of our past - pitting the crew not only against simulacra of the evil past (barbarian warlord Genghis Khan, the warmongering Kahless who set the Klingon race into their bellicose ways, and Colonel Green, guilty of more recent crimes against humanity) but also against the naivete of our more noble ancestors - Abe Lincoln and the vulcan Surak. Trapped on the world of Excalbia, the crew are subjects for that world's inhabitants to test the strength of good over evil. Unsurprisingly, Lincoln and Surak aren't big on fighting at all, and are good's biggest liabilities. The message of this episode is vague - is goodness stronger than evil because it does not measure itself according to strength? Or perhaps the moral is that the lines between good and evil aren't so clear -but that was handled better in the episode "Errand of Mercy" in which both Humans and Klingons are kept from warring against each other by godlike Organians who play no favorites. (Unsurprisingly, the Organians and Excalbians would meet years later in DC Comics's "Star Trek" monthly, in an issue titled "Errand of War".) Either way, these episodes are Classic Trek at its weakest.

"All Our Yesterdays (1966)"
Getting a chance to check out a sun getting ready to go nova, the Enterprise goes to a planet called Sarpeidon. There is no one there to receive them. So they naturally go to the library to find out why the people seem to be missing. The librarian of course mistakes them for locals. Everyone was evacuated to the past (pre-nova). You know Kirk; he hears a woman in distress and rushes to the rescue, not realizing that he went though the Atavacron that sends you back in time. Then there are his crewmates; they goof up trying to rescue Kirk and end up in the ice age. Spock eats meat and gets the hots for Zarabeth (Mariette Hartley.) You will have to watch the film to see how they get out of this one.

If you like going back into history, one of the best "way-back" episodes is Episode 28, "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1967). But be sure to read the book first. ISBN: 1565049640

The Savage Curtain is one of the strangest and most absurd episodes of the 3rd seaon. While providing some more background on Vulcan it parades through a lengthy battle scene that is sure to put the most dovish people to sleep. I'm not advocating violence for violence sake but it wouldn't have hurt here.

All Our Yesterdays has its share of stupidity as well. Kirk and Spock haven't learned anything from all their previous voyages by they way they act in this story. 'Leap before you Look' is the theme here. Maybe Spock's behavior is poorly explained but this story led to one of my favorite Trek novels Yesterday's Son and its follow up Time For Yesterday. 4 stars on that alone.