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

Beat back the Vietnam protestors with a giant donut.

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.)