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: December 11, 2001
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005QTAR
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,130 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Television > Classic TV > Star Trek: The Original Series

• For more information about "Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 39, Episodes 77 & 78: The Savage Curtain / All Our Yesterdays" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 39 in The Star Trek: The Original Series Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"The Savage Curtain"
Perhaps best known as the episode in which Abraham Lincoln is seen, rather absurdly, floating through space in a big ol' presidential chair, "The Savage Curtain" is one of those death-match shows in which a busybody alien wants to witness true human(oid) mettle in an arranged battle. Lincoln asks Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to accompany him to a planet where Excalbians have organized a fight between good (Kirk's party plus a Vulcan icon) and evil (Genghis Khan, Kahless the founder of the Klingon Empire, and two guys you never heard of). The derivative, obvious story was half-written by Gene Roddenberry and dumped on another writer, Arthur Heinemann, after Roddenberry pulled back from Star Trek in its third season. Heinemann added some interesting moral underpinnings, but this is one of those instances in which a good television show seems to be mimicking itself. On the plus side, the show gives Sulu (George Takei) a rare opportunity to command the Enterprise bridge--experience that surely served him well later as a Starfleet captain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. --Tom Keogh

"All Our Yesterdays"
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

Product Description

"The Savage Curtain," Ep.77 - Kirk, Spock, Abraham Lincoln and Surak must fight four of history's greatest tyrants in a battle of good and evil staged by the Excalbians. "All Our Yesterdays," Ep.78 - 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES' LAST GASPING BREATH!, March 21, 2003

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

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "It Was the Best of Treks, It Was the Worst of Treks...", August 4, 2002

By	Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! A Volume Worthy of Keeping From the 3rd Season!, March 12, 2007

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

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.