The City on the Edge of Forever
Doctor McCoy accidentally injects himself with a heavy dose of cordrazine. The effects of the drug drive him a little crazy. He starts screaming, accusing those around him of being killers and assassins. He escapes from the bridge of the Enterprise and makes his way to the transporter room. He knocks out the transporter chief and beams himself down to the surface of the planet around which the Enterprise is orbiting.
Kirk, Spock, Scottie, Uhura, and a two man security detail beam down. They find a roundish gateway that calls itself the Guardian of Forever. It shows them scenes from Earth's past. Kirk and Spock's conversation with the Guardian is interrupted by McCoy who is located by a couple members of the landing team. He still has yet to recover from the madness that has gripped him. He continues to scream about killers and assassins and then jumps through the gateway and vanishes.
zMcCoy's disappearance into the past affects the present. The Enterprise is no longer above the planet. Kirk and Spock follow McCoy into the past in the hopes of setting things right. They wind up in New York City, in 1930, during the Great Depression. Spock estimates that they have arrived about a week before McCoy. They struggle to fit in. They wind up in the 21st Street Mission run by Edith Keeler who finds them very intriguing and wants to know more about them and from where they came.
Spock cobbles together a very primitive computer which shows them a couple glimpses of the future. Edith Keeler is killed in a traffic accident in one of them. She isn't killed in the other but becomes the leader of a pacifist movement that delays the entry of the United States into Second World War. Germany wins the war. Spock speculates that it is McCoy's interference that prevents Edith Keeler's death in 1930.
Doctor McCoy arrives in 1930. He is still crazy but eventually the cordrazine wears off. He stumbles into the 21st Street Mission and is cared for by Edith Keeler, who knows nothing about his connection to Jim Kirk and Spock. She and Jim are going to the movies one night when she mentions McCoy's name. Within moments he and Spock are reunited with McCoy and Edith Keeler is dead, killed by an automobile, while crossing the street.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy return to the past. They were only gone for a moment as far as the others are concerned. Everything has been set right and the Enterprise is once again orbiting the planet.
Thoughts
In the credits Edith Keeler is identified as Sister Edith Keeler which seems to imply that she is a nun. There are no indications that's the case in the episode itself. There's definitely something romantically going on between her and Captain Kirk. They share a kiss at one point. How very naughty of Edith Keeler to let that happen if she really was a nun.
It was kind of silly how fast things moved in this episode but that isn't unusual for this show or many others like it.
This might be my favorite episode from this season. I've seen it numerous times before. I bought a copy of it on iTunes in 2008. It doesn't have the updated special effects but that's how I chose to watch it this time around.
Notes
Joan Collins played the part of Edith Keeler. This is the only episode of this show in which she appeared. I saw her most recently in an episode of Tales of the Unexpected, 1.06 Neck.
This episode was directed by Joseph Pevney. This is the fifth of 14 episodes of this show that he directed. The previous episode he directed was 1.25 Devil in the Dark.
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