Nearly 60 years after its original television broadcast, the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” continues to be recognized as a defining installment in the franchise’s history. IDW Publishing is releasing Star Trek: The Edges of the Final Frontier: IDW Classic Collection on October 13, which features a reprint of a 2015 comic adaptation based on Harlan Ellison’s original screenplay. Ellison’s initial script differed notably from the version that eventually aired on television.
The personal stakes of time travel
The episode begins when Dr. McCoy, accidentally administered drugs, travels through the Guardian of Forever and alters Earth’s history. Captain Kirk and Spock pursue him into Depression-era New York to locate McCoy and restore the timeline. During this time, Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler, played by Joan Collins. Spock discovers that Keeler was originally meant to die in a traffic accident, and her survival would erase the future known to Kirk and Spock.
To restore history, Kirk must prevent McCoy from saving Keeler from an oncoming truck, allowing her to die. The narrative established a template for subsequent Star Trek time-travel stories, prioritizing personal and emotional stakes over mechanical paradoxes. Later entries in the franchise, such as The Voyage Home, Deep Space Nine’s “Past Tense,” and First Contact, followed a similar framework.
Joan Collins and television history
Before her role as Edith Keeler, Joan Collins had worked as a contract player at 20th Century Fox during the 1950s and appeared in various 1960s television programs, including Mission: Impossible and Batman. Decades later, her career expanded further with roles in The Stud, The Bitch, and as Alexis Carrington on Dynasty. Her performance as Keeler presented her as an earnest idealist, contrasting with the schemer archetype she later became associated with on television.
