The City on the Edge of Forever

And, you know, there are obviously going to be episodes where the balance is not like this, right? You know, you think of like a piece of the action or something like that, where, The episode will lean much more into the silly.

And then you get an episode like, of course, City on the Edge of Forever where there's almost zero silliness in that episode.

And so I think that this just shows kind of the range in which we're going to be playing with the series.

And – No, I was – I just completely agree with you because I was re-watching this today, and I was just thinking normally – and we talked about this when we talked about it on The Orb, right? Where they have the episode where – in the first season where everybody kind of goes crazy, and you don't feel like you know the characters well enough to have that happen.

And so they wanted to kind of give a nod to each series with its own saga.

So the one for the original series is The City on the Edge of Forever, which is three white black.

And this saga is just so, so flavorful.

The flavor is dripping out of my mouth.

Sacrifice a token.

If you do, you gain five life.

And so this is a reference to the original series episode City on the Edge of Forever, of course, the most famous episode from that series.

And talking about Kirk and this difficult decision he has to make about whether or not to basically save the future.

The captain was killed, and these other three had to just get by on Earth, um, and live until Vul- more Vulcans came and picked them up.

And so it's very similar, uh, to Guardians of the Galaxy forever, where they're trying to, they're trying to build, like, a communication device using old-timey tech and, you know, they're experiencing bits of, like, Earth culture.

And the one guy, like you said, he goes hard on it.

He wants to watch I Love Lucy.

[whooshing sound] All right.

This is The City on the Edge of Forever, part of our Star Trek time travel series here on the Union Federation Podcast.

This is episode 252 of Union Federation.

And of course, we're in the Star Trek the original series era, and this is the admiral's e- episode log synopsis for The City of Edge Forever.

Uh, Haley, if you could also give us information on IMDb, when it was released, and then, uh, go ahead and give us the log.

Of course.

So The City on the Edge of Forever originally aired April 6th, 1967.

It is season one, episode 28, and it has a 9.2 out of 10 IMDb rating.

Only three other Star Trek episodes have ever won that award.

The same season that this one is, The City on the Edge of Forever, and then two episodes of The Next Generation, The Inner Light, and All Good Things, and that's it.

Now, if you're interested in actually seeing that accident where Captain Pike is put into that chair, then you should check out the episode from the second season of Star Trek Discovery titled Through the Valley of Shadows.

That's the 12th episode of the season that shows those scenes where he actually has the accident.

Uh, not only was Grace Lee Whitney, uh, around the set soaking it up, Harlan Ellison was.

Uh, he was supposed to be writing his first draft of "The City on the Edge of Forever," uh, at an office on the Desilu lot.

Uh, unfortunately, associate producer John D.F. Black, who was the head writer at the time in the first season, uh, in the first half of the first season, I should say.

He couldn't find-

That's right.

I mean, there, there were extra shades of Bones behavior in City on the Edge of Forever.

It was another, uh-

Oh, yeah.

Even though I think people appreciate it, but I don't think people appreciate it enough.

It's like the modern day City on the Edge of Forever.

It's that good.

And she's in every single scene, every moment.

Oh, my God.

There's so many to pick.

I mean, City on the Edge of Forever.

Everybody will.