Star Trek: 10 MORE Greatest Time Travel Episodes
Please report any paradoxes to the Temporal Integrity Commission.
Star Trek is, by its very nature, a time travel story. From 8 September 1966 onwards, the franchise has transported its viewers to a possible future, one in which humanity had learned to do things a little differently. To watch, you didn't need a time machine, but a television, now a screen of any sort.
Within that optimistic future, Star Trek has done plenty of notable peeking at its own relative past, present, and future. Some of Star Trek's best and most beloved episodes are time travel episodes, and this is already our second list on the subject. We invite you to take a trip to TrekCulture history for the first. To hell with the temporal prime directive!
Since that first list, there have also been several additions to the time travel canon. In fact, there have been three seasons and a new show predicated on skipping 900 years or so. That's not to forget the animated addition that schooled us in 'Temporal Mechanics'. Of course, with recent news — one more in a raft of cancellations — 'time' is equally something we're going to miss.
Now, let's get on with it before my headache gets any worse.
10. Shockwave, Shockwave, Part II
Time could still be a lot kinder to (Star Trek:) Enterprise. Its first two seasons remain largely underappreciated. And yet, bridging the gap, is a history-hopping romp for the ages. Shockwave starts with a bang, cue the theme song. Even that gets better with time.
Naturally, the defence to the charge of 3,600 counts of negligent homicide on Paraagan II comes from Daniels in the past. It wasn't the NX-01, but the Suliban Cabal under orders from the most mysterious of future guys. The Temporal Cold War itself garnered sceptics at first, including co-creator/executive producer Brannon Braga, but few could argue it hasn't paid dividends. The pay-off in Shockwave is an ominous cliffhanger over a devastated 31st-century Earth.
In Part II, the time travel points go to Daniels and Captain Archer for MacGyvering a temporal comm call out of the quietest library in history. No need for that bicycle after all! Silik's pride would also surely beg to differ with the dictates of the Vulcan Science Directorate, exactly as Archer arrives back to his present via drop-kick. On that, Shockwave puts the 'travel' most definitively in 'time travel'.