The City On The Edge Of Forever
As fantastic as many of TOS‘ episodes are, there’s one that rises above the pack to be the most critically-acclaimed installment of the original show. The penultimate episode of the first season, “The City on the Edge of Forever” not only introduces time travel into Trek lore, but also tells a moving story that puts the very existence of the Federation at stake.
When the Enterprise crew discover a time portal that takes them back to 1930s New York, they accidentally set in motion a chain of events that stops Starfleet from ever having formed. Obviously, Kirk and Spock need to fix this – but the tragic thing is that the lovely, kindly young woman Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) needs to die in order for their timeline to play out.
Sporting one of Willam Shatner’s finest performances as Kirk, “The City on the Edge of Forever” is an emotional doomed love story that proves that, as imaginative and as intelligent as its science fiction storytelling is, it’s the human heart of Star Trek: The Original Series that made it successful enough to spawn an undying franchise.