YOUTUBE - First Time Watching ALL of Star Trek - Episode 170: Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG S3E15)
Comments (51)
Amazing episode and a great reaction from you guys! You have just watched the #2 episode of the season and of the series. Yes, that's right, the #1 episode of the entire TNG series in my ranked list is yet to come here in season 3. Coming up yet in this season for your reactions are the #s 1, 3, 4, and 5 for the season (not in that order) and the next 2 reactions chronologically are part of that group. You are in the midst of amazing television, some of the best made. Non-spoiler heads up: just as an FYI, when you guys get to Deep Space Nine later this year/early next year, I'll be pointing out the fact that the top 2 TNG episodes would rank at about #s 4 and 8 if I ranked DS9 and TNG together. So like I said, it gets even better. Enjoy!
There is one episode of TNG that I rank as the highest of the entire franchise, past and up to 2024. I'm sure you can guess which one I'm thinking of. Heck, perhaps one of the best singular episodes of TV ever made anywhere.
I've been waiting patiently to see your reaction to the Tasha reveal and you guys did not disappoint! One of my favorite of the season and I love that they went back and gave her a proper hero's death. As she said "make it count for something". Emotional.
It's a different episode and certainly a memorable episode, but without Tasha and the special changes to the war-time Enterprise crew and set which made the episode feel more like a movie, is it really a GREAT episode? They should have mixed it up some more. Maybe make Geordi the pilot again, make Data the chief engineer, make Troi a nurse or doctor helping Dr. Crusher, etc. Wesley always seemed better suited for engineering. Maybe make him Data's assistant there and put O'Brien in Data's spot. Since it was just for one episode they really could have stirred everything up just for fun.
16:43 In the early drafts of the episode, it actually was written that more characters were going to die in the final space battle. Apparently, we would've seen Data be electrocuted when his console overloaded and Wesley was going to be decapitated by a big piece of metal shrapnel from an explosion. Brutal stuff.
Ha! That's about a 15-second mouth open moment from Alex.
The drive-a-bus-into-his-mouth look? I remember that day.
When you guys say "quick" i guess you mean pacing, as I'm pretty sure the episodes are all about the same length
lol yes, we mean it felt quick
I actually liked that ultra quick cut at the end. I think it worked better then some "woosh" effect to have it just be, as soon as it was crossed, the events we just saw never happened and were back to our crew and our timeline. I know u guys thought there should have been something, but the clean cut works for me
or rather seeing it again I guess data didn't die, although the implied effect seemed to be the enterprise-d was about to blow up just as the Enterprise C crossed the anomaly.
Originally, the last scene had Data being electrocuted and Wesley being decapitated before Riker dies. I'm guessing they felt that was too much, or it was more then the censors would let them get away with. I don't know if that would have worked better, I feel like just seeing Riker die gets the "impact" they were going for, three gruesome deaths might have broken up the pacing and drama of the moment. Since Picard is the only one left to keep firing, we can assume the rest of the bridge crew were killed.
We can also assume the whole ship exploded from its warp core breach, and that breach caused the time anomaly in the first, err, last place. (Timey-whimey stuff is hard.)
"The pasting we gave them at Archer 4" Hmm, I wonder who that planet is named after. Great when there are happy accidents like that.
ha, good eyes. The extra yellow shirt in the back was wearing a season 1-2 uniform. I wonder if that was an intentional choice or if they didn't have one that fit him so they dusted out one from the old seasons. It makes sense enough with the alternate timeline, perhaps thats the uniform for enlisted men (which in a long war like this would be quite common as you wouldn't have enough officers).
I’ve been waiting for you guys to get to this episode and see your reaction when the timeline switches. And it wasn’t disappointing.
I figured the timeline change would make them stand up and scream. And then the sudden appearance of Tasha... well, I anticipated them to a'splode. Into a fine, bloody mist.
She is so suprised by the Sick bay even though it is the same set used in the last two TOS movies.
She must not have seen the movies
I've been waiting for you to see this one. Holding in the spoiler. You'll love this one. I do.
I love a lot of the trivia behind this episode. The bit I haven't seen mentioned (at least in these comments) is that the special effects folks designed the Enterprise-C to look like an evolution in ship design bridging from an Excelsior-class ship (which Trek nerds in 1990 were assuming the Enterprise-B was) to the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D. (The 1701-C is Ambassador class, for the record.)
Love the Ambassador class!
This episode…oh, this episode… 🫨
Starfleet, never: "Let's not load dynamite into our consoles."
so the canon answer to this- with the massive amount of power required to run a starship, you have charged plasma conduits running everywhere. People would say "why dont they have circuit breakers?" but its not an electrical overload, its a plasma explosion, which is much harder to dampen
I watched TNG as it aired. Up to this point, it was always the show I watched if I was home on Saturday evening and not doing anything else. If I missed some episodes...meh. I always loved Star Trek, mostly TOS and the movies though. It was this episode though that made me 100% buy into TNG. I was BLOWN away by it! Not only TASHA WAS BACK! But...they were wearing the movie uniforms on the C!!! And the C itself in certain parts looked like the movie Enterprise!!! This was when TNG made me completely accept that it was really solidly connected to TOS era. Even with McCoy in the pilot and little crumbs like in "The Naked Now" and a few other things, I still felt like TNG was a separate thing. After this episode I truly felt, TOS era, TNG era... it was ALL Star Trek! After "Yesterday's Enterprise", I HAD to watch every episode. If I wasn't going to be home...got to set the timer on the vcr to record! ...as a matter of fact, I thought, let's just record every episode on VHS, no matter what, for keeps...which is what I eventually ended up doing. All through the rest of TNG, then DS9, and Voyager.* I then went back and picked up the TNG episodes I missed in reruns and the same with all of TOS. I already had all the movies up to that point on VHS. When Sci-fi Channel started airing TAS on Saturday mornings, I even picked up most of those. I was always in to Star Trek...but after this I was IN TO STAR TREK. My family was on the verge of thinking I had been abducted into a cult. *Enterprise? We'll not talk about that. Not yet, at least.
"Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise." We won't, Captain.
To this day that line never fails to give me chills.
I eat pieces of shit like Romulans for breakfast.
This is one of the best episodes of the series but it's maybe the next episode that I would put above this one. As one of the best written episodes and in may top 3, I'm sure you will both love it.
In comments from another episode I referred to myself as a kid waiting on Christmas, anticipating you both watching certain episodes in this season. You just opened one of my favorites…with more to come!
That is a perfect description! Same with me!
2:14 Seriously, your reactions right there never get old.
I grew up in the UK, so didn't get to see TNG as it first aired (we were a good couple of years behind the US for ages), but I remember the buzz that happened after this episode came out. Even without the internet, it was all over the sci-fi magazines of the time. "Best episode ever!" "TNG now better than the original." Stuff like that. This episode is often cited as the moment TNG really came out of the shadow of TOS and from here on out, it just accelerated ahead to become the pinnacle series of the franchise. Its also Quentin Tarantino's favourite episode of Star Trek. There's an interview out there somewhere, where he just gushes about how perfect he thinks it is!
That's sort of the joke of it now, we were two years behind for most of TNG as it was airing, but now we have more digital channels replaying episodes several times daily than most, if not all, other countries (as well as Sky+ and streaming apps)! XD
Old time TOS guy here. This is my single favourite TNG episode. How cool is the Enterprise-C? And how great was it to give alt-Tasha a meaningful death?
Also add in Captain Garrett. All more-than-great!!!
Yes!!! The storyline, the lighting, the score, the acting, the return of Tasha ... My favorite episode for season 3. Glad we're finally here. The discussion is going to be 🔥 Can't wait. Thanks my dudes. 🖖
One of the few we (watching TA since the beginning of TNG) have been waiting year(s) for!
"forehead prosthetic dead" should be a thing
This episode had a very, very long and complicated lineage. Ronald D. Moore does a commentary for this on the BluRay Season 3 set and goes into great depth about it. As memory serves at varying times, Sarek was in a version of the script, a version with the Guardians of Forever existed and the Magnificent Seven ending you all wanted to see where most of the main crew dies was nearly filmed but cut for budgetary reasons.
Due to Whoopi Goldbergs schedule they had to bump the filming up to before Christmas to make sure she could be in it. So a bunch of writers had to write the script over Thanksgiving weekend, Michael Pillar voluntarily had his name left off of it due to rules only allowing four names.
This may have been the first on-screen reference to a character named "Archer." Said character had a couple of planets named after them and one of them is mentioned a couple of times here. In a few years, you may meet this character. Just sayin'.
Easily one of my top episodes of the whole series! Really appreciated them finally giving Tasha a real goodbye after such a nothing death in season 1. Loved seeing the movie era uniforms come back as well, was always a huge fan of them! Always found it weird that Guinean is “attuned” with time while watching through the series first time, but never really took me out of it.
Yes! We like this one!
Top 3 of TNG!
1:07 You know... It's funny. I grew up when TNG was about halfway over. I was 6 or 7 when TNG was over in 94. I knew some Star Trek fans, I went to a couple conventions, later on I was on the boards. There was never really a major animosity between TOS and TNG fans. The odd debate over the better captain, etc... But most of the time that was fairly facetious. It may just be me, but I don't think this divide became a real thing until internet pop culture began to recycle every joke into full blown trends.
I was surprised with how many comments we got from TNG fans of “I tried out TOS but too cheesy for me” and things along those lines. Then I remembered, if you were growing up when TNG was airing it’s not like all of TOS is available at your fingertips to watch like it is now so I get it. They probably saw some random mid-tier episode on TV once with no context, weren’t into it, and never thought about it again lol.
A true classic!
This edit will be fire, so many reaction hits and pops in this episode
I’m a huge fan of all star trek from the 1960s to the late 90s. Watching it in release order is a great idea. It will be interesting to see what your take is once you’re done.