TOS: The End of Season 3, Episodes 23 and 24 (Feb 8, 2020)

Episode # and Episode Name: 23 – “All Our Yesterdays” and 24 – “Turnabout Intruder”

Setting the Stage: I started around 1:00 pm watching the last two episodes on the season on Netflix, where their order and production order are in perfect harmony. Today was a lazy day because I needed a day to recuperate my energy, so I also finished Season 2 of Zumbo’s Just Desserts and started on The Animated Series, but I’ll start writing about that tomorrow. Tonight’s writing music is the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace soundtrack performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and I’ve apparently put my playlist in artist order, whoops.

As I am now finished with The Original Series, I’ll be updating all of the other pages… so check them out!

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “All Our Yesterdays” has our three leading men beam down to a planet to be sure everyone is gone (due to the impending explosion), but they encounter what I believe to be a librarian. Kirk hears a scream, runs toward it, and he is transported somewhere else in time and space. McCoy and Spock follow, but not to the same place. Kirk lands in a place with a Scottish lass, while Spock and McCoy are in a frozen tundra; but they can hear each other, curious. Kirk gets knocked out and the others go to find shelter. A woman helps McCoy and Spock to find shelter, and there’s soft music in the background because our red-headed female friend has taken a liking to Spock. Zarabeth takes off her coat to reveal a skimpy outfit and Spock is having a crisis over logic and the time crunch of the nova.

It is revealed they may not be able to go back without the risk of dying, which Kirk finds out too from his time but it’s worse since they were not prepared and might die in the past, gasp! Kirk finds his way back, just 17 minutes before the deadline, but he gets shot in the stomach by the librarian. I don’t understand why Spock accepts things so easily and why McCoy is being such a dick to Spock. Spock is apparently a vegetarian, and is so confused by seeing a beautiful woman and the other emotions he is feeling, so much so he initiates a kiss, LEGIT smiles, and then picks her up (which reminds me of a great scene in Moonstruck). WHAT IS GOING ON?!?! Did Spock just get laid? Turns out Spock had adjusted to being 5000 years in the past before the Vulcans embraced logic, fascinating. McCoy is at his most sassy when someone is trying to kill him, and I like this McCoy the best. Spock doesn’t want to leave, but they have to travel through together and all three get back to the ship in not-so-record time.

So this was a twist on time travel that avoided the “don’t change the timeline” device, but brought up a whole host of new questions. If the people from the future went to the past, how did they explain themselves? Did it affect the future in some way? If Spock and Kirk could hear each other, why couldn’t the others? Why was the librarian there until the bitter end, and where did he go to? Despite all of those questions, I thought it was an interesting episode. It was good to see Spock in a different setting, and it was believable that he could give into his human emotions, or maybe even his primal Vulcan ones, because his cells were adapting to the time line he was in. The other “let’s have them fall in love in 50 minutes” plots were usually unsuccessful, unless there was a huge passage of time. Nimoy was the breakout actor of this episode, and McCoy was the voice of reason while Spock was reverting to his ancestral roots. This was as good of an episode as Season 3 could muster, and I think that allows for 7.5 Twizzlers (a little past the recommended serving size).

“Turnabout Intruder” is the season and series finale, but since we’re at the end of the 1960’s, it doesn’t feel like those of today do. We begin with another lady love from Kirk’s past, Dr. Lester, and what – women aren’t allowed to be star ship captains? What the actual fuck is this bullshit? Well this one is apparently loaded with a stun gun and we’ve got a Freaky Friday situation on our hands as they swap bodies.

Dr. Coleman looks like he knows something is up (he’s totally in on it), and they all beam back to the Enterprise. Dr. Lester (in Kirk’s body) tries to be Kirk beyond suspicion, but she is apparently crazy (because that’s the only thing women can be – right kids? /s) and manages to antagonize both McCoy and Spock. On the bridge I notice something is different, WHERE IS UHURA? It’s never a good episode when she is not there. Kirk, in Lester’s body, wakes up and is absolutely pissed. He escapes but is attacked by Kirk (well Lester in Kirk’s body still) and put in isolation, but Spock knows something is going on. McCoy does some medical tests on “Kirk”, and finds him to be physically and mentally fit, but it’s obvious something is off and McCoy wants the medicine to back up his suspicions. Spock finally believes that Kirk is in Lester’s body and tries to help. Looks like Spock has been charged with mutiny, again, but this time Scotty and McCoy are also brought up on charges. Once “Kirk” orders execution, everyone realizes what’s happening and then somehow they are flipped back and we end the episode.

Shatner does some fabulous acting here but that’s really the only highlight of the episode, well that and the body swapping. The rest of the episode is just an awful misogynistic mess. Women can’t captain a ship because they’re inferior and don’t have the temperament, so let’s back up that claim with a clearly psychotic woman who has had her heart broken by James T. Kirk. It was nice to see all of the crew coming to the realization that Kirk might not be Kirk, especially since that’s happened before (I’m looking at you Mirror, Mirror), but that’s all overshadowed by showing that Dr. Lester would simply go crazy and be hysterical, rather than become a captain some other way or challenge Starfleet in some way. I was disappointed this was the last episode and wish we would have ended on the previous episode instead. This one earns 2 milk chocolate stars that have been left in the back of a black car, in the middle of the summer, from dawn until dusk, in Georgia.

Overall, this was my least favorite season of the 3 Original Series seasons. But don’t take my word for it, go check out the Rankings page! Tomorrow, I begin to discuss The Animated Series. TAS is the only one my husband has never seen, well that and all the new Trek stuff, so I’m making him watch all of the episodes with me. Good thing they are 30 minutes or less!

TA Out!