Some television episodes eventually become bigger than the shows they’re a part of. There's also a timely reason to revisit it. On Oct. 13, IDW Publishing will release Star Trek: The Edges of the Final Frontier: IDW Classic Collection, which includes a reprint of a 2015 comic adaptation of Harlan Ellison's original screenplay.
That version differed considerably from the episode that ultimately made it to television. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) leaping through the mysterious Guardian of Forever and changing Earth's history. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) follow him into Depression-era New York, hoping to figure out exactly what McCoy changed and how they can fix it.
There, Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), only for Spock to discover that she was supposed to die in a traffic accident. If she survives, history changes and the future Kirk and Spock know disappears. Restoring it requires Kirk to do something much harder than defeating an alien or saving the Enterprise: He has to let Edith die.
It's a devastating choice that gave Star Trek one of Kirk's most memorable relationships while helping establish a time-travel formula the franchise would return to for decades. Pop culture hasn't always been particularly kind to Captain Kirk's love life. Decades of jokes and parodies have reduced him to a swaggering space bachelor who spent his five-year mission seducing his way across the galaxy.
Kirk certainly had plenty of romantic interests during the original series, but the actual character was far more complicated. His relationships could be surprisingly serious, whether it was the life he briefly built with Miramanee (Sabrina Scharf) in “The Paradise Syndrome” or the old feelings stirred up by former loves like Ruth (Shirley Bonne) in “Shore Leave.” But Edith Keeler may be the clearest example of how different Kirk's actual love life was from the reputation he developed. Kirk never even tells Edith that he loves her.
He tells Spock, shortly after learning that the woman he's fallen for has to die. That makes the episode's climax especially cruel. When Edith steps in front of an oncoming truck, McCoy instinctively moves to save her, and Kirk physically holds him back.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
