While many science fiction franchises can stake a claim for the best time-travel stories of all time, it’s hard to argue against the huge temporal influence of Star Trek. Yes, various shows and movies are all about exploring the final frontier of space, but more often than not, the best Star Trek episodes are really time treks.
Thirty-five years ago, on February 19, 1990, in the middle of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s pivotal third season, the show dropped one of its best episodes, “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Not only was this a fantastic character piece that brought back Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar, but it also demonstrated what Patrick Stewart could do as a slightly harder-edged, alternate version of Jean-Luc Picard. But, for all of its classic moments, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” has another enduring legacy: It introduced a new kind of sci-fi episode for sci-fi TV, one that suggested that when it came to paradoxes, you could have it both ways. Spoilers ahead.
