'Star Trek: The Next Generation - Yesterday's Enterprise' episode review
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One of the neat things about channel surfing on a hot, hazy and unusually lazy weekend afternoon is that sometimes infrequent TV watchers such as me can sometimes find new channels which have been added to the Expanded Basic lineup.
Such was the case when, a few years ago I – purely by chance, mind you – was flipping through the channels on my family room television set when I noticed that Comcast (my cable provider) had added BBC America to the channel package I subscribe to. This was a surprise to me – I don’t often scrutinize my bill for any lineup changes, and I don’t have the time to watch as much TV as I used to – and I was kind of pleased even though at first I didn’t think it’d be too relevant to my TV-viewing tastes.
That is, until I perused the then-current issue of TV Guide and noticed that BBC America supplanted Spike TV (the former TNN channel) as the go-to place to watch reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the made-for-syndication sequel series to what is now known as Star Trek: The Original Series.
Created in the late 1980s by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry nearly 18 years after NBC canceled the original show which starred William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig, Star Trek: The Next Generation had a seven season run (1987-1994) for a total of 179 episodes and spun off not just four feature films (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis), but also helped launch two TV shows which shared its 24th Century setting, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. (The show also shared some continuity with the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise, with two cast members – Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis – reprising their TNG roles in Enterprise’s series finale.)
Although Star Trek: The Next Generation took nearly three seasons to find its stride and earn a place of honor in many Trek fans’ hearts, the show proved that Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a “hopeful future” could still be shared in science fiction/dramatic terms, even with a new cast led by Patrick Stewart and an updated version of the Starship Enterprise.
Even though Tne Next Generation’s Season Three would feature many solid episodes (The Bonding, Who Watches the Watchers, The Most Toys, Sarek and the season’s cliffhanging finale The Best of Both Worlds, Part I), most fans would argue that the best show of the 1989-90 season was Yesterday’s Enterprise.
I had not seen this particular episode – which is one of my favorites – in quite a few years since I last ran across it on TNN/Spike when that cable network carried Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I made myself comfortable in front of my television set and watched.
Yesterday’s Enterprise
Stardate 43625.2 (Earth Calendar Year 2366)
Original Air Date: February 19, 1990
Teleplay by Ira Steven Behr & Richard Manning & Hans Beimler & Ronald D. Moore
Story by Trent Christopher Ganino & Eric A. Stillwell
Directed by David Carson
During the third year of its ongoing mission to “explore strange new worlds” and “seek out new life and new civilizations,” the Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise (Starfleet registry NCC-1701-D) is cruising through Federation space en route to Emila II.
In the Enterprise’s Ten-Forward lounge, Security chief Lieut. Worf (Michael Dorn) is enjoying some off-duty time with bartender Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who introduces the Klingon officer to an exotic beverage from Earth – prune juice. (Worf likes it, proclaiming it as a “warrior’s drink.”)
Guinan: You know, you always drink alone. It wouldn't hurt you to seek out a little... companionship.
Lieutenant Worf: I would require a Klingon woman for... companionship. Earth females are too fragile.
Guinan: Not all of them. There are a few on this ship that... would find you... tame.
[Worf laughs out loud]
Lieutenant Worf: Impossible.
Guinan: You never know till you try.
Lieutenant Worf: Then I will never know.
Guinan: Coward.
While Worf and Guinan are bantering about how some of the women on the ship might find their Klingon shipmate sexually compatible, an unusual phenomenon manifests itself outside in the vast vacuum of space. As per standard operating procedure, Lieut. Worf is ordered to report to the bridge; as he leaves, Guinan stares out at the strange portent and, with great unease, utters the word “no.”
At his station on the bridge, Worf is briefed; the Enterprise has encountered what appears to be a temporal rift (essentially, a rip in the space-time continuum). However, neither the ship’s powerful sensors nor such experienced crew members as Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) can identify the strange occurrence with any degree of accuracy.
Suddenly, the astonished crew sees what appears to be a Federation starship emerging from the space anomaly.
As the mysterious starship – its name and registry still unknown – emerges from the spatial anomaly, the Enterprise-D undergoes a strange transformation: the ship’s corridors and bridge lighting are less illuminated and more forbidding, the crew’s uniforms take on a more militaristic aspect and, on the bridge, Lt. Worf is no longer at his station at tactical.
In his place: Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), the ship’s security officer who has been aboard since the Enterprise-D’s commissioning as a Galaxy-class battleship nearly three years earlier.
First Officer William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Tasha both try to ID the ship once it has fully emerged from the weird space phenomenon, and it’s Tasha who makes the stunning revelation to the rest of the astonished bridge crew:
"NCC, one-seven-oh-one...C. USS...Enterprise."- Tasha Yar in the alternate timeline
Apparently, the strange occurrence in space which the Enterprise-D has encountered is a temporal rift, and the very battered Starfleet vessel which has emerged is the Ambassador-class Enterprise-C, which was recorded lost in the year 2344 while responding to a Romulan attack on the Klingon outpost on Narenda III.
"Military log, combat date 43625.2. While investigating an unusual radiation anomaly, the Enterprise has encountered what could almost be called a ghost from its own past - the Enterprise-C, the immediate predecessor to this battleship."
The reappearance of the NCC-1701-C in the year 2366, unbeknownst to everyone on the Enterprise-D except for Guinan, has unwittingly changed history, and not for the better. Instead of being allies in the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation and the Klingon Empire are bitter rivals who have been at war for over two decades. The Enterprise-D is no longer on a mission of exploration and diplomacy; it’s a warship where no children are present. And Lt. Yar, who in the “real” timeline had died on Vagra II two years earlier, is alive and well in a universe where Lt. Worf has never been aboard the Enterprise.
The paradoxes created by the emergence of the older Enterprise in Picard’s time pose various problems for both startships’ crews. Does Picard focus his attention on the here-and-now and enlist Capt. Rachel Garrett (Tricia O’Neill) to join her ship to Starfleet’s war-decimated roster to fight against the Klingons? Can Guinan convince the captain that this war with the Klingons should never have happened and that Enterprise-C must somehow return to its own time (during the battle with the Romulans) to restore history to its “proper” state? Should Tasha Yar be told that she died nearly two years early in a meaningless fashion?
My Take: In Michael and Denise Okuda’s Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future’s Appendix B: Alternate Timelines, the authors describe Yesterday’s Enterprise thusly:
This is one of the strangest and most complicated alternate timeline stories in Star Trek history.
Time travel and alternate timeline stories have been used in the Star Trek canon quite a few times, from Star Trek: The Original Series (The City on the Edge of Forever, Tomorrow is Yesterday and Assignment Earth) all the way to the spin-offs Voyager and Enterprise. The 1986 feature film, which starred the cast of the Original Series, used time travel to save 23rd Century Earth from the excesses of 20th Century humanity, and 2009’s Star Trek reboot created an alternate timeline so a new cast could take on the roles of William Shatner and Co. without necessarily having to redo everything depicted in the 1966-1969 show.
As the Okudas point out, though, in most of Star Trek’s time travel stories, the plots often focus on “our heroes’ efforts to repair the damage that caused the alternate (and presumably improper) timelines, thus restoring the flow of history to “normality.”
At first glance, Yesterday’s Enterprise follows this formula faithfully; Guinan does convince Picard that the Enterprise-as-battleship scenario Is all wrong, Picard – albeit with some difficulty – gets his predecessor Garrett to return to 2344 and face the Romulans at Narenda III, and Tasha is told about her fate in the “normal” unaltered timeline.
"[...] at least with someone at Tactical, they will have a chance to defend themselves well. It may be a matter of seconds or minutes, but those could be the minutes that change history. Guinan says I died a senseless death in the other time line. I didn't like the sound of that, Captain. I've always known the risks that come with a Starfleet uniform. If I'm to die in one, I'd like my death to count for something."- Yar to Picard in the alternate timeline
Tasha’s decision to transfer to the Enterprise-C seems to have no immediate effects on the The Next Generation’s restored timeline other than the return of Worf to his station and the galaxy’s political status quo ante. However, as fans of The Next Generation know all too well, Tasha’s jaunt back to 2344 did have serious side effects which were revealed a year later in the fourth season’s The Mind’s Eye and Redemption, Part I.
Though predictable to some degree – Star Trek: The Next Generation’s third season was not yet over on when it originally aired on February 19, 1990 and the show’s format could not be irrevocably changed by its timeline twists – Yesterday’s Enterprise is one of the best series’ best episodes.
Part of the credit, of course, goes to actor Denise Crosby’s strong and compelling performance as Tasha. Of the three major female characters introduced in The Next Generation’s first season, she was my favorite; I was disappointed by her decision to leave the series but understood that she (like Gates McFadden) believed the writers really didn’t know what to do with her character. Her willingness to reprise her original role, as well as her taking on a guest recurring role in several later episodes, is a testament to her professionalism and her love for Star Trek.
"Who is to say that this history is any less proper than the other?"
"I suppose I am."
"Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough! I will not ask them to die!"
"Forty billion people have already died! This war's not supposed to be happening! You've got to send those people back to correct this!"
"And what is to guarantee that if they go back they will succeed? Every instinct is telling me this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is futile!"
"We've known each other a long time. You have never known me to impose myself on anyone or take a stance based on trivial or whimsical perceptions. This timeline must not be allowed to continue. Now, I've told you what you must do. You have only your trust in me to help you decide to do it." –Picard and Guinan in the alternate timeline
Whoopi Goldberg also turns in a nice bit of acting as Guinan, whose status as an El-Aurian gives her a certain perceptiveness to the vagaries of time-space phenomena and thus allows her to be the only person serving aboard the Enterprise-D who is aware that history has been altered.
Of course, the series’ regular cast also does its excellent work as a now-comfortable ensemble, and all the characters have at least one good “showcase scene,” including Patrick Stewart, which is given one of the best lines ever written for Capt. Picard:
"Attention all hands. As you know, we could outrun the Klingon vessels. But we must protect the Enterprise-C at all costs until she enters the temporal rift. And we must succeed! And to make sure that history never forgets... the name... Enterprise. Picard out."
Because it has many strong elements – a solid storyline, exciting battle sequences, a plethora of great characterizations by both regular and guest cast members and some unexpected twists – Yesterday’s Enterprise is considered to be one of the best Star Trek: The Next Generation’s finest episodes and constantly appears on many Top Favorite lists compiled by fans and critics alike.
Such was the case when, a few years ago I – purely by chance, mind you – was flipping through the channels on my family room television set when I noticed that Comcast (my cable provider) had added BBC America to the channel package I subscribe to. This was a surprise to me – I don’t often scrutinize my bill for any lineup changes, and I don’t have the time to watch as much TV as I used to – and I was kind of pleased even though at first I didn’t think it’d be too relevant to my TV-viewing tastes.
That is, until I perused the then-current issue of TV Guide and noticed that BBC America supplanted Spike TV (the former TNN channel) as the go-to place to watch reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the made-for-syndication sequel series to what is now known as Star Trek: The Original Series.
Created in the late 1980s by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry nearly 18 years after NBC canceled the original show which starred William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig, Star Trek: The Next Generation had a seven season run (1987-1994) for a total of 179 episodes and spun off not just four feature films (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis), but also helped launch two TV shows which shared its 24th Century setting, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. (The show also shared some continuity with the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise, with two cast members – Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis – reprising their TNG roles in Enterprise’s series finale.)
Although Star Trek: The Next Generation took nearly three seasons to find its stride and earn a place of honor in many Trek fans’ hearts, the show proved that Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a “hopeful future” could still be shared in science fiction/dramatic terms, even with a new cast led by Patrick Stewart and an updated version of the Starship Enterprise.
Even though Tne Next Generation’s Season Three would feature many solid episodes (The Bonding, Who Watches the Watchers, The Most Toys, Sarek and the season’s cliffhanging finale The Best of Both Worlds, Part I), most fans would argue that the best show of the 1989-90 season was Yesterday’s Enterprise.
I had not seen this particular episode – which is one of my favorites – in quite a few years since I last ran across it on TNN/Spike when that cable network carried Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I made myself comfortable in front of my television set and watched.
Yesterday’s Enterprise
Stardate 43625.2 (Earth Calendar Year 2366)
Original Air Date: February 19, 1990
Teleplay by Ira Steven Behr & Richard Manning & Hans Beimler & Ronald D. Moore
Story by Trent Christopher Ganino & Eric A. Stillwell
Directed by David Carson
During the third year of its ongoing mission to “explore strange new worlds” and “seek out new life and new civilizations,” the Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise (Starfleet registry NCC-1701-D) is cruising through Federation space en route to Emila II.
In the Enterprise’s Ten-Forward lounge, Security chief Lieut. Worf (Michael Dorn) is enjoying some off-duty time with bartender Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who introduces the Klingon officer to an exotic beverage from Earth – prune juice. (Worf likes it, proclaiming it as a “warrior’s drink.”)
Guinan: You know, you always drink alone. It wouldn't hurt you to seek out a little... companionship.
Lieutenant Worf: I would require a Klingon woman for... companionship. Earth females are too fragile.
Guinan: Not all of them. There are a few on this ship that... would find you... tame.
[Worf laughs out loud]
Lieutenant Worf: Impossible.
Guinan: You never know till you try.
Lieutenant Worf: Then I will never know.
Guinan: Coward.
While Worf and Guinan are bantering about how some of the women on the ship might find their Klingon shipmate sexually compatible, an unusual phenomenon manifests itself outside in the vast vacuum of space. As per standard operating procedure, Lieut. Worf is ordered to report to the bridge; as he leaves, Guinan stares out at the strange portent and, with great unease, utters the word “no.”
At his station on the bridge, Worf is briefed; the Enterprise has encountered what appears to be a temporal rift (essentially, a rip in the space-time continuum). However, neither the ship’s powerful sensors nor such experienced crew members as Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) can identify the strange occurrence with any degree of accuracy.
Suddenly, the astonished crew sees what appears to be a Federation starship emerging from the space anomaly.
As the mysterious starship – its name and registry still unknown – emerges from the spatial anomaly, the Enterprise-D undergoes a strange transformation: the ship’s corridors and bridge lighting are less illuminated and more forbidding, the crew’s uniforms take on a more militaristic aspect and, on the bridge, Lt. Worf is no longer at his station at tactical.
In his place: Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), the ship’s security officer who has been aboard since the Enterprise-D’s commissioning as a Galaxy-class battleship nearly three years earlier.
First Officer William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Tasha both try to ID the ship once it has fully emerged from the weird space phenomenon, and it’s Tasha who makes the stunning revelation to the rest of the astonished bridge crew:
"NCC, one-seven-oh-one...C. USS...Enterprise."- Tasha Yar in the alternate timeline
Apparently, the strange occurrence in space which the Enterprise-D has encountered is a temporal rift, and the very battered Starfleet vessel which has emerged is the Ambassador-class Enterprise-C, which was recorded lost in the year 2344 while responding to a Romulan attack on the Klingon outpost on Narenda III.
"Military log, combat date 43625.2. While investigating an unusual radiation anomaly, the Enterprise has encountered what could almost be called a ghost from its own past - the Enterprise-C, the immediate predecessor to this battleship."
The reappearance of the NCC-1701-C in the year 2366, unbeknownst to everyone on the Enterprise-D except for Guinan, has unwittingly changed history, and not for the better. Instead of being allies in the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation and the Klingon Empire are bitter rivals who have been at war for over two decades. The Enterprise-D is no longer on a mission of exploration and diplomacy; it’s a warship where no children are present. And Lt. Yar, who in the “real” timeline had died on Vagra II two years earlier, is alive and well in a universe where Lt. Worf has never been aboard the Enterprise.
The paradoxes created by the emergence of the older Enterprise in Picard’s time pose various problems for both startships’ crews. Does Picard focus his attention on the here-and-now and enlist Capt. Rachel Garrett (Tricia O’Neill) to join her ship to Starfleet’s war-decimated roster to fight against the Klingons? Can Guinan convince the captain that this war with the Klingons should never have happened and that Enterprise-C must somehow return to its own time (during the battle with the Romulans) to restore history to its “proper” state? Should Tasha Yar be told that she died nearly two years early in a meaningless fashion?
My Take: In Michael and Denise Okuda’s Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future’s Appendix B: Alternate Timelines, the authors describe Yesterday’s Enterprise thusly:
This is one of the strangest and most complicated alternate timeline stories in Star Trek history.
Time travel and alternate timeline stories have been used in the Star Trek canon quite a few times, from Star Trek: The Original Series (The City on the Edge of Forever, Tomorrow is Yesterday and Assignment Earth) all the way to the spin-offs Voyager and Enterprise. The 1986 feature film, which starred the cast of the Original Series, used time travel to save 23rd Century Earth from the excesses of 20th Century humanity, and 2009’s Star Trek reboot created an alternate timeline so a new cast could take on the roles of William Shatner and Co. without necessarily having to redo everything depicted in the 1966-1969 show.
As the Okudas point out, though, in most of Star Trek’s time travel stories, the plots often focus on “our heroes’ efforts to repair the damage that caused the alternate (and presumably improper) timelines, thus restoring the flow of history to “normality.”
At first glance, Yesterday’s Enterprise follows this formula faithfully; Guinan does convince Picard that the Enterprise-as-battleship scenario Is all wrong, Picard – albeit with some difficulty – gets his predecessor Garrett to return to 2344 and face the Romulans at Narenda III, and Tasha is told about her fate in the “normal” unaltered timeline.
"[...] at least with someone at Tactical, they will have a chance to defend themselves well. It may be a matter of seconds or minutes, but those could be the minutes that change history. Guinan says I died a senseless death in the other time line. I didn't like the sound of that, Captain. I've always known the risks that come with a Starfleet uniform. If I'm to die in one, I'd like my death to count for something."- Yar to Picard in the alternate timeline
Tasha’s decision to transfer to the Enterprise-C seems to have no immediate effects on the The Next Generation’s restored timeline other than the return of Worf to his station and the galaxy’s political status quo ante. However, as fans of The Next Generation know all too well, Tasha’s jaunt back to 2344 did have serious side effects which were revealed a year later in the fourth season’s The Mind’s Eye and Redemption, Part I.
Though predictable to some degree – Star Trek: The Next Generation’s third season was not yet over on when it originally aired on February 19, 1990 and the show’s format could not be irrevocably changed by its timeline twists – Yesterday’s Enterprise is one of the best series’ best episodes.
Part of the credit, of course, goes to actor Denise Crosby’s strong and compelling performance as Tasha. Of the three major female characters introduced in The Next Generation’s first season, she was my favorite; I was disappointed by her decision to leave the series but understood that she (like Gates McFadden) believed the writers really didn’t know what to do with her character. Her willingness to reprise her original role, as well as her taking on a guest recurring role in several later episodes, is a testament to her professionalism and her love for Star Trek.
"Who is to say that this history is any less proper than the other?"
"I suppose I am."
"Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough! I will not ask them to die!"
"Forty billion people have already died! This war's not supposed to be happening! You've got to send those people back to correct this!"
"And what is to guarantee that if they go back they will succeed? Every instinct is telling me this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is futile!"
"We've known each other a long time. You have never known me to impose myself on anyone or take a stance based on trivial or whimsical perceptions. This timeline must not be allowed to continue. Now, I've told you what you must do. You have only your trust in me to help you decide to do it." –Picard and Guinan in the alternate timeline
Whoopi Goldberg also turns in a nice bit of acting as Guinan, whose status as an El-Aurian gives her a certain perceptiveness to the vagaries of time-space phenomena and thus allows her to be the only person serving aboard the Enterprise-D who is aware that history has been altered.
Of course, the series’ regular cast also does its excellent work as a now-comfortable ensemble, and all the characters have at least one good “showcase scene,” including Patrick Stewart, which is given one of the best lines ever written for Capt. Picard:
"Attention all hands. As you know, we could outrun the Klingon vessels. But we must protect the Enterprise-C at all costs until she enters the temporal rift. And we must succeed! And to make sure that history never forgets... the name... Enterprise. Picard out."
Because it has many strong elements – a solid storyline, exciting battle sequences, a plethora of great characterizations by both regular and guest cast members and some unexpected twists – Yesterday’s Enterprise is considered to be one of the best Star Trek: The Next Generation’s finest episodes and constantly appears on many Top Favorite lists compiled by fans and critics alike.
- Get link
- Other Apps
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