Star Trek TOS S1E28: The City on the Edge of Forever

Beat back the Vietnam protestors with a giant donut.

May 17, 2023

∙ Paid

See the Star Trek TOS Rewatch Index page for links to all the episodes covered so far.

“THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER”: 8.5/10

Scripted by famed science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison and directed by Joseph Pevny, “The City on the Edge of Forever” is often ranked as the greatest episode of the original series. I wouldn’t put it quite that highly—I have a bunch of problems with it, as I’ll discuss.

Still, even if you find the cutesy “kill baby Hitler” time-travel dilemma to be annoying and glib,“City” has a lot to recommend it. Not least among those upsides is a witty script and some of the best performances of the series from Leonard Nimoy (as first officer Spock), DeForest Kelly (as Dr. McCoy) and William Shatner (as Captain Kirk.)

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Everything Is Horrible to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.