Yesteryear (Star Trek: The Animated Series)

Template:ST episode "Yesteryear" is an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series.

Plot outline

Mr. Spock returns from a time-traveling research project he has been conducting with the use of the Guardian of Forever. When he emerges from the portal, he discovers no one onboard the Enterprise remembers him and that an Andorian officer, Commander Thelin has essentially replaced him.

History has recorded that Spock died at age 7 undergoing the Kahs-wan ordeal on Vulcan. Now he must go back through the time gate to his Vulcan childhood, and save the life of the child he was.

Trivia

• When CBS/Paramount redid the TOS episode "Amok Time", the producers looked to the rendering of Spock's home city of Shi'Khar as the background in the digitaly-rendered background of the site of koon-ut-kal-if-fee in the extended shots in the episode.
• This episode is a sequel to "The City on the Edge of Forever".
• According to the DVD text commentary for this episode, Los Angeles-area stations aired this episode first, instead of "Beyond the Farthest Star" (the actual premiere episode elsewhere) because of favortism allegations lodged by political opponents of George Takei, who was running for public office at the time. Instead of having to offer "equal time" to Takei's challengers, NBC stations in the L.A. area decided to air "Yesteryear" first, since it did not have any scenes with Hikaru Sulu (Takei's character) in it..

See also

• List of Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes

Canonicity

Some elements of this particular episode have made it into the canon over time. In fact, due perhaps to its solid storyline and the considerable information it gives about Spock's youth and Vulcan, "Yesteryear" has been considered canon by some of the production staff of Star Trek, and as such, information from this episode is more prevalent in later series than other animated episodes. Some specifics:

• In the TNG episode "Unification", a dying Sarek describes details of Spock's childhood to Captain Picard. These details come directly from story elements of the animated episode.
• The city of Shi'Kahr is referenced on a panel in "The Emissary" which read "Shi-Kar Desert Survival, Vulcan". The city was mentioned in "Fusion" in a reference to the Shi'Kahr Academy, and is apparently the origin of the name of the USS ShirKahr, which was mentioned in "Tears of the Prophets".
• A display featured in "Eye of the Beholder" listed the Sepek Academic Scholarship; Sepek was the name of a Vulcan child in "Yesteryear".
• Vulcan's Forge was referred to in "Change of Heart" and would be the focus of the Enterprise story arc in "The Forge", "Awakening", and "Kir'Shara".
• Both the Lunaport and the kahs-wan ordeal are mentioned in "The Catwalk".
• A wild sehlat was recreated with computer generated images CGI in "The Forge". T'Pol referred to the fact that Vulcan children often keep them as pets.
• The nearby planet or moon seen briefly behind Shi'Kahr was shown in the original version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
• The city backgrounds from this episode were used as visual reference for the backgrounds added in the digitally-remastered "Amok Time".

External links

• Yesteryear at Memory Alpha
• Template:StarTrek.com link