Product Details

• Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan
• Writers: Gene Roddenberry
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: CBS Paramount International Television
• DVD Release Date: June 19, 2001
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005BCK7
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,498 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  #24 in	Movies & TV > Television > Classic TV > Star Trek: The Original Series
  #90 in	Movies & TV > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Star Trek

• For more information about "Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 26, Episodes 51 & 52: Return to Tomorrow/ Patterns of Force" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 26 in The Star Trek: The Original Series Series.

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"Return to Tomorrow," Ep. 51 - Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Ann Marshall allow noncorporeal beings to inhabit their bodies so that these aliens can prepare androids for themselves. But one entity secretly plans to remain in Spock's body. "Patterns of Force," Ep. 52 - On a routine check of planet Ekos, nuclear missles are fired at the U.S.S. Enterprise. Kirk and Spock investigate and find the planet is controlled by latter-day Nazis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great with one possible problem, June 20, 2001

By	C. B. Curtis (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This DVD is very good. Picture quality is excellent, but I did notice one possible problem with the sound in the episode "Patterns of Force". About 43 minutes in, when Kirk is trying to get Gill to respond, Kirk slaps Gill, but no slap sound can be heard. I also have this episode on VHS, so I know that there should be a slap sound. There is one other sound problem I noticed 2 minutes later when one of the Nazi guards is banging on the door to the booth where Kirk and Gill are. You don't hear the cound of the banging on the door. That sound is also on the VHS tape, but not the DVD. I have e-mailed Paramount Home Video about this but haven't heard back from them. I would be interested in knowing if anyone else had this same experience.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TWO MORE EXCELLENT SECOND SEASON EPISODES!!!, October 27, 2002

By	Jared Insell "hitman_37" (Canada) - See all my reviews

Volume 26 of the Star Trek DVD collection contains two more excellent episodes from the second season. Both the episodes here are very well written and are classics!

RETURN TO TOMORROW has some wonderful acting performances by the cast which tends to overshadow the story. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Dr.Ann Mulhall (played by Diana Muldaur) discover a lost race of beings on a distant planet. The only surivivors left of this race are Sargon, his wife and Henoch (an old enemy of Sargon's). The aliens ask for the use of Kirk, Spock, and Mulhall's bodies to construct robot structures for themsleves to live in. In return the beings will give the Enterprise crew all the advanced knowledge they possess. Things work at first but Henoch decides he likes Spock's body and turns against Sargon in order to keep the vulcan's body. Now it's up to Kirk and Sargon to try and get Spock back into his own body! RETURN TO TOMORROW has some memorable performances particularily by Diana Muldaur whose character was excellent and I thought she should have been a regular on the show. With all do respect to Nichelle Nichols and Majel Baret but I don't know if they could have pulled this performance off. This episode really brought out the fact that Star Trek lacked a strong female role indeed, and perhaps Dr. Ann Mulhall was the character the series needed. Unfortunetly her character was never used again and Muldaur only returned in the third season as a different character. RETURN TO TOMORROW is a very good Star Trek episode and it's priceless to see Kirk's bonding with Sargon because we get to see Wiliam Shatner overreacting at his best.

PATTERNS OF FORCE is one of my favourite Star Trek episodes and I am amazed at how many reviewers have lamb-basted this episode. I always thought this episode was one of Star Trek's finest. It dealt with a real life Nazis and the fear of a Holocaust. It was well written and well acted and in my opinion it may be on of the best Star Trek episodes ever. The Enterprise crew arrives at Ekos where Federation cultural observer John Gill was working to find a planet run by a Nazi government and John Gill being The Furor. The Zeon people, from a neigbouring planet of the same name, are considered to be a plague to the Ekosians and the Nazi government will stop at nothing to wiped this race of people off the galaxy. Kirk and Spock beam down to find themselves sneaking around in Nazi uniforms trying to figure out what caused this madness and how to correct it. PATTERNS OF FORCE tackles the holocaust issue head on and that may be the reason why some reviewers were offended by this episode. However PATTERNS OF FORCE is an excellent episode of Star Trek. The hatred that Ekosians have for Zeons is simliar to that of the hatred the Nazis had for Jewish peope. Keep in mind that this was the 1960's and it's amazing that PATTERNS OF FORCE was even excepted passed first script reading, being as offensive as it was (especially to Shatner and Nimoy who are both Jewish and being asked to run around in Gestapo outifits). To this day it remains the only Trek episode banned in Germany but PATTERNS OF FORCE is still one of Star Trek's gutsiest scripts written. This episode's message comes on strong and clear and the story is quite compelling. This makes PATTERNS OF FORCE one of the finest Star Trek episodes ever in my opinion.

Overall Volume 26 is wonderful. Both episodes are some of the best and PATTERNS OF FORCE must definetly be seen. I found that episode fascinating and it brought out the sad truth of how absolute power corrupts even with the best intentions. A few sounds problems in the episode apparently but other than that this one is a keeper! Highly recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Revival!, December 9, 2006

By	Frederick Baptist (Singapore) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

After a major slump in episode quality which lasted the previous few episodes, we get a major quality improvement here with this volume which for those of you who are picking which volumes to collect, this would fall under the "nice-to-have but not essential" category. In "Return To Tomorrow", we get an alternative take on the origin of humanoid life in the galaxy. Now the "founding fathers" require human hosts temporarily while they produce android hosts for their "spiritual essences". What's bewildering is why these guys didn't think of this idea while they still had corporeal bodies but they had to wait half a million years for the Enterprise but I guess this is one of the reasons why this is the weaker of the two episodes here and is overall an average episode at best.

The second episode, "Patterns of Force" is the stronger episode here and shows why the Prime Directive is so emphatically expounded by the Federation when yet again well intentioned but misguided members of Starfleet institute plans that go horribly awry. We already know that the cell phone was inspired by the communicators but I also noticed in this episode at the beginning what appeared very much like a plasma tv set! I wonder if that was inspired by Trek as well!

To conclude, one good episode combined with an average one makes this a 4-star volume which is nice to have but not essential if you are picking volumes to collect.