Much of the action in the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday is set in a US Air Force base in 1969. As the episode was filmed in the US in 1966, it presented relatively few challenges for Art Director Matt Jefferies. But he still had some work to do, including designing and crafting (or commissioning) a small sculpture of three Lockheed F-104 fighter jets. Here is Jefferies’ design sketch.

You can glimpse the sculpture a couple of times. At 23 minutes into the episode, a guard strolls past a cabinet in a hallway, and a half minute later Kirk and Sulu walk through the same area. The sculpture sits among a number of trophies near the middle.

The odd thing about this is the piece is on screen for only a few seconds. For a series that was always strained for both dollars and time, why expend resources on such a small detail? It is not like an early draft of the script had Captain Kirk pick up the sculpture and say “Ah, here is the answer to our time-travel dilemma.”

It seems to me that this is an example of what made Star Trek great at the time and explains its ongoing popularity: the people who made it all valued quality. Desilu paid de Forest Research to vet every script. Leonard Nimoy cared about the verisimilitude of his character. Roddenberry pursued heavy hitters to write for the series. And Jefferies put effort into even small elements that our characters would just stroll past.

About that boomerang

The on-screen sculpture looks a lot like Jefferies’ design, except that the back piece became more elaborate between drafting table and set. It took on the boomerang shape that we often see in other episodes, as in this screencap from Court Martial. Again, this attention to detail adds a richness to the universe that was rarely, if ever, seen in other TV programs of the time.