"Yesterday's Enterprise" is the 63rd episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is the 15th episode of the third season, first airing in syndication in the week of February 19, 1990. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet crew of the Federation starship Enterprise-D. In this episode, the ship's crew must decide whether to send the time-travelling Enterprise-C back through a temporal rift to its certain destruction, to prevent damaging changes to their timeline.
The plot for "Yesterday's Enterprise" was based on the merging of two story ideas—one featured the crew of the time-traveling Enterprise-C and the other the return of Denise Crosby, whose character Tasha Yar had been killed in the series' first season. Trent Christopher Ganino and Eric A. Stillwell rewrote the merged story to feature the character of Guinan more prominently. To complete the episode in time for sweeps, the final script was finished by a team of five writers.
Filming of the episode lasted a week, with some elements of the script ultimately not included due to time constraints. In syndication, "Yesterday's Enterprise" outperformed most of the third season's episodes with a 13.1 Nielsen rating, the third-highest number for the series at the time. The episode is cited as a favorite by crew members and reviewers, and is widely regarded as one of the best episodes of the series.
Plot The starship encounters a rift in spacetime. The crippled USS Enterprise-C, a ship believed destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. The Enterprise-D instantly undergoes a radical change from its previous timeline: it is now a warship, and the United Federation of Planets is at war with the Klingons. Neither Worf nor Counselor Troi are present, and Tasha Yar – killed years before in the original timeline – runs the tactical station. Only Guinan senses that reality has shifted, and meets with Captain Picard. She suggests that the Enterprise-C must return to the past to restore the original timeline. Picard, knowing this would be a suicide mission, refuses to give such an order based on Guinan's intuition alone.
Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C and her crew learn they have traveled into the future. Garrett explains that they responded to a distress call from a Klingon outpost on Narendra III, and were attacked by Romulan starships. While his crew repairs the Enterprise-C, Picard and his command staff discuss whether the ship should return to the past. Commander Riker argues that their deaths would be meaningless, but Data suggests that it would be considered an honorable act by the Klingons. Picard discusses the situation with Garrett, revealing to her that the Federation is on the verge of defeat and one more ship will make no difference, but if the Enterprise-C returns to the past they might prevent the war from starting. Garrett agrees and tells her crew that they will return through the anomaly. The two ships are ambushed by a Klingon Bird of Prey; Garrett is killed, and her helmsman, Richard Castillo, takes command.
During the repair efforts, Yar becomes close to Castillo, but is unnerved by tense interactions with Guinan. Guinan reveals that she knows Yar dies a meaningless death in the other timeline. Yar requests a transfer to the Enterprise-C. As the Enterprise-C prepares to return through the anomaly, three Klingon battlecruisers attack. With the anomaly becoming unstable, Picard orders the Enterprise-D to cover the Enterprise-C's withdrawal. The Enterprise-D suffers massive systems damage and major crew losses, including the death of Commander Riker. With the Enterprise-D on the brink of destruction, the Enterprise-C traverses the anomaly, triggering the return of Enterprise-D's previous timeline. Guinan – the only one subtly aware of what has transpired – asks Geordi La Forge to tell her about Yar.
Production Development At the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation third season, Michael Piller became the head writer for the series. Among the changes he implemented was the opening of the story submission process to non-professional and unrepresented writers. Despite Paramount Television's resistance to the change, The Next Generation became the first show produced in Hollywood to allow such writers to submit their scripts. The studio received more than 5,000 scripts in a year.
Among the scripts submitted by freelance or aspiring writers was one by Trent Christopher Ganino. Ganino's speculative script, submitted to the office of pre-production associate Eric A. Stillwell in April 1989, was titled "Yesterday's Enterprise". The story involved the Enterprise-D's response to a crisis in the Golecian sector and an encounter with the Enterprise-C, which had been destroyed 18 years earlier. The crew of the Enterprise-C is in awe of the newer ship's technology, and Picard is confronted with whether to reveal to his guests their ultimate fate. An Enterprise-C ensign accidentally discovers the fate of his vessel and panics, requiring Worf and Riker to capture him after he attempts to escape. When Golecian warships attack, Picard defends the Enterprise-C using the same maneuver that caused the vessel's destruction in the past. The ensign goes back to his ship, which returns to the past and its certain destruction.
Due to the backlog of scripts, the processing of draft submissions could take anywhere from weeks to a year. Ganino's script was "logged" on May 2 and first read later that month by Richard Manning, a co-producer on the writing staff. Manning commented that the draft was "not horrible, not particularly original, but good in spots, lousy in others". This review was enough to keep the script in circulation.
Executive story editor Melinda Snodgrass read Ganino's speculative script for "Yesterday's Enterprise" in June and attached a Post-It note declaring the story an "interesting idea". A "coverage" of the script, which outlined the plot and provided creative feedback, was written in August. This analysis called the script a "good effort by an unrepresented writer", and considered the script's weak characterization and plot issues correctable. The main issue was whether the producers wanted to do a show with time travel.
Meanwhile, Ganino and Stillwell struck up a friendship and began to develop ideas for other episodes. Gene Roddenberry had distributed a memo that said the return of Leonard Nimoy as Spock would be unlikely due to financial considerations, and suggested that a reasonable alternative would be to feature Mark Lenard, who played Spock's father Sarek. During the same period, Stillwell met Denise Crosby – who played Tasha Yar in the series' first season – at a 1989 fan convention in San Jose. Over dinner, Crosby admitted she missed being part of the series and suggested that Stillwell write a script to bring back her character, who was killed off in the episode "Skin of Evil". Ganino and Stillwell began to work on script ideas that would involve both Yar and Sarek.
Ganino and Stillwell were particular fans of two episodes from the original Star Trek series, "Mirror, Mirror" and "The City on the Edge of Forever", and wanted to combine elements from them for a Next Generation episode. They came up with a story involving a team of Vulcans investigating the Guardian of Forever. In the past, the founder of modern Vulcan logic, Surak, is killed, causing massive changes to the timeline. The Romulans and Vulcans joined forces to attack the Federation, Worf is no longer a crewmember on the Enterprise, and Tasha Yar remains alive. Sarek and the Vulcans by the Guardian are the only people not affected by the timeline change and, in the end, Sarek returns to the past to take Surak's place, restoring the timeline.
After Ganino and Stilwell pitched him the new script, Piller suggested to producer Rick Berman that the story, not the script, be purchased. In a meeting, Piller told Ganino that he wanted to make changes to the story, which included the addition of Tasha Yar. Fearing that what they considered a better story would be lost if the changes were made to "Yesterday's Enterprise", Stillwell talked to Piller and pitched their Guardian of Forever story. While intrigued by elements of the story, Piller felt the use of the Guardian was a "gimmick" and wanted The Next Generation to stand on its own. Instead, Piller suggested that they merge the two stories, with Stillwell and Ganino sharing writing credit. Piller suggested that the Enterprise crew would immediately undergo a transformation due to the presence of the older Enterprise, and that Guinan would be integral to the realization that something was wrong. Ganino and Stillwell were given two weeks to complete their new story.
Writing Ganino and Stillwell completed their new combined story in about a week. The writers spent hours each day at Stillwell's apartment working over every detail; they felt pressured to write a story Piller would find acceptable, as they wanted to have the opportunity to write the teleplay. The story treatment was turned in on October 10. Piller immediately decided to purchase the story and distributed the treatment to the writing staff while he discussed changes. Piller felt that Data's romantic feelings for Tasha Yar were over the top, and that an alien probe which served as a central part of the story was a cheat in terms of resolving Picard's dilemma. The writer wanted Ganino and Stillwell to enhance Guinan's role and to find another character arc for Tasha Yar. A revised treatment was submitted on October 29, incorporating Piller's changes. The writers were not involved in development of the teleplay. They were each paid the Writers Guild minimum of $2400.
The production of the episode, originally scheduled for January 1990, was moved to December 1989 to accommodate the filming availability of Crosby and Whoopi Goldberg, who played Guinan. The task of writing and polishing the new treatment in half the time fell upon writer Ronald D. Moore, who submitted his first draft on November 9. Moore's script removed the alien probe and made the alternate universe militaristic, with the Federation and the Klingons at war. Some characters, such as Troi, appeared only briefly at the beginning of the episode to allow more screen time for the guest characters. The beat sheet for the episode, which detailed characters and scenes, was distributed on November 27.
Due to time constraints, a team of writers was assigned to write the teleplay. In addition to the story credit to Ganino and Stillwell, Moore, Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler and Richard Manning would work on the teleplay, and Piller would provide the finishing touches. Because the Writers Guild would not allow more than three staff writers to appear in the credits (four after a special waiver was granted), Piller agreed to not feature his name in the credits. A partial first draft was submitted on November 30 so that preproduction for the episode could commence. The altered timeline provided a chance to show the Enterprise crew in a much more dramatic and human light than would be allowable in a normal episode. Behr explained that since the original timeline was to be restored, the writers had the freedom to include more action. "Even though it was an alternate universe, [Moore] and I got all excited because we realized we were going to kill everyone on screen", he said. Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach submitted technical memos regarding the type of anomaly that might drag the Enterprise-C through time, and suggested interstellar, super-dense strings as a possibility. The first draft teleplay was completed by December 4, and a preproduction meeting was held the same day. Given the scale of the story, various departments argued over costs and what items could be cut to reduce the budget. The final draft was finished and submitted on December 8.
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