Stardate: 3113.2
Quick Summary: After being lured into the gravitational pull of a black star, the Enterprise is slung back through time to Earth in the late 1960s. After a U.S. Air Force pilot takes photos of the ship as a UFO, Kirk beams its pilot, Captain Christopher, aboard the Enterprise, potentially disrupting the space-time continuum. Things get further complicated when a reconnaissance mission to steal the photos from a military base goes awry and even more people become aware of the Enterprise and related suspicious activity. In the end, Kirk gets the photos and gets everyone back on board the ship, and Christopher and his hapless companion are returned to Earth safely, with no memory of the event, as the Enterprise hurtles back forward to the 23rd century.
Review: This is the first time we're introduced to time travel and not just encountering societies that resembles Earth at some point or another in its history. This is the real deal, slingshotting around the sun, back through time, ala the eventual fourth movie.
Captain Christopher is a solid character even before the twist at the end where, after having been seemingly cooperative, he suddenly holds Kirk at phaser-point threatening to tell the military everything. But he's authentic throughout and it's a shame they never reprised his role somehow in later episodes.
The space-time dilemma Kirk faces is deciding which is more disruptive to the timeline of history: Christopher returning with knowledge of the future or hundreds of Enterprise crew members living out the rest of their lives marooned in Earth's past. But isn't this the basic dilemma of every time travel story ever invented? This episode is well produced, and the time paradox is cool as always, but there's nothing more overly original going on here.
Review: 3 stars
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