Time. And Time. And Time Again.

"Time. And Time. And Time Again." was the third of five Star Trek: The Original Series comic strips distributed in Star Trek-themed McDonald's Happy Meals in, coinciding with the release of. The strip was read by inserting it into a toy called the Video Communicator. The story was reprinted in the omnibus The Newspaper Comics, Volume 1.

Summary
Kirk and Spock prepare to beam Nyota Uhura down to the planet Turages. The equipment malfunctions, and she materializes in 172 billion BC, confronted by a gigantic beast. She then appears in a rectangular construct drifting near a star in the year 21,000, using her communicator to send the message that she is "three solar systems ahead." Spock discovers that the transporter has been sabotaged. Uhura appears on home plate in Yankee Stadium in the year 1940, holding a bat, and surmising that the Klingons must be behind her predicament. She is then beamed back to the transporter pad of the Enterprise, along with her bat, with Spock quipping that "it was just a matter of time."

Characters

 * James T. Kirk • Spock • Nyota Uhura

Starships and vehicles

 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) ( heavy cruiser)

Locations

 * Earth (Yankee Stadium)

Turages

Races and cultures

 * Human • Vulcan

Klingon

Science and technology

 * communicator • transporter

Ranks and titles

 * Federation Starfleet ranks (2270s) • lieutenant

Other references

 * 172 billion BC • 1940 • 17,000 AD • animal • assignment patch • baseball • baseball bat • planet • solar system • star • Starfleet uniform (early 2270s) • time • time travel • transporter room • year

Background

 * The Enterprise exterior was not shown, but the transporter room was depicted in its pre-refit configuration, while the crew were depicted in their post-refit uniforms.
 * Sixteen years later, dealt with crewmen traveling through time via transporter accident. Four years after that,  showed that Starfleet had timeships equipped with temporal transporters by the 29th century.
 * The earliest point in Uhura's time travel, cited as 172 billion BC, was significantly prior to the formation of the universe. Given that Uhura appeared near an animal that looked like a dinosaur, this reference might have been intended to be 172 million BC.
 * Nyota Uhura wore the same style of outfit as Ilia in "Star Trek Stars". Votec would also wear it in "Votec's Freedom".

Related stories

 * Star Trek: The Motion Picture McDonald's Happy Meal Comic Adaptations - Additional comics strips provided on the boxes of the Star Trek Meals themselves.