If you’re not in the know, Steven Moffat (@steven_moffat), one of my favorite writers, is currently head writer/executive producer/god emperor of one of my favorite shows, Doctor Who so you can imagine there must be all sorts of questions I would want to ask him. Do any old time Doctor Who villains like the Master or the Valeyard or Omega have anything to do with the current Silence storyline? Are there any female Oods? How do Oods have sex? Would they mind if I watched? Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior? Boxers or briefs? Of course, he probably wouldn’t answer any of those and would probably be well within his rights to punch me in the stomach if I asked them but there is one question he might answer. The question that must never be asked. The question hiding in plain sight.
Have you ever read Harlan Ellison’s original script for the classic Star Trek episode City On The Edge of Forever?
Yep, that’s it. If I ever meet Steven Moffat and can only ask him one question, that’s what it will be and he would probably say, “A Question.Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.” You probably know the episode. McCoy gets drugged, goes nuts and beams himself down to a planet with an ancient being/machine/whatever called the Guardian of Forever that is, among other things, a time machine that send him back to the American 1930s where he saves a woman who was supposed to die, thus changing everything. Kirk and Spock go back a month before McCoy and Kirk meets Edith Keeler who looks a lot like Joan Collins before she got all slutty and evil. Spock discovers that Edith must die because, if she doesn’t she’ll start a pacifist movement that delays America’s entrance into World War II but Kirk and Edith dry humped or something and now he wants her to live. However, in the end, Kirk makes the sacrifice, prevents McCoy from pushing her out of the way of a moving car and sets history right.
Except that it didn’t happen like that.
The episode’s author, the great Harlan Ellison, wrote that episode and, in his original version, Kirk told the whole universe to go screw itself. He decided that his love for Edith Keeler meant more to him than anything else he’d ever known. If Edith Keeler didn’t die, his whole future would never happen. There would be no Federation, no Enterprise, and no human race. He knew all that but he didn’t care. He wanted whatever time he and Edith could have together even if the price to be paid for that time was…everything. However, Spock was there. Spock, with his cold Vulcan logic, was the check and balance to Kirk and his deep, abiding love. Kirk was his friend but he couldn’t let him have what he wanted most so he prevented Kirk from saving Edith Keeler and she died and the universe was set right. They went home and the two men managed to make peace with each other since they each understood why the other one did what he did. It’s a hell of a story and it’s a shame we never got to see that.
Except we did.
We just saw it in Doctor Who’s 13th episode of its sixth season called, “The Wedding of River Song.” River Song is destined to kill the Doctor. It’s a fixed point in history and cannot be changed. If it doesn’t happen, there will be disastrous consequences. She knows it must happen and the Doctor tells her to do it because she must and it’s the right thing to do. But she doesn’t. All of time and space collapses around her and its very existence is threatened but she doesn’t care. She can’t kill the man she loves.
And that’s why I want to ask Steven Moffat if he ever read City on the Edge of Forever. Mind you, this isn’t a criticism. If that story inspired this one, it’s hardly plagiarism. No, I just want to know if my Grand Unified Field Theory of Science Fiction Television Written By my Favorite Writers is true. So, if you know Steven Moffat, ask him to stop by my place sometime and explain all this to me.
