Critic Marc Bernardin described the episode as "Star Trek"s "smartest time-travel experiment" and a fan favorite. Time Magazine rated "Yesterday's Enterprise" as one of the top ten moments of "Star Trek", including television series and films up to that time. They note the work of multiple writers on this episode, which they remark "polished the episode into a taut, unpredictable thriller with an exhilarating complement of phasers and photon torpedoes." The "Toronto Star" listed "The Next Generation"s time-shifting episodes, including "Yesterday's Enterprise", as one of the twenty best elements of the show, with Comic Book Resources ranking the episode the second-best time-travel episode in all of "Star Trek". Fans attending the "Star Trek" 50th Anniversary convention in 2015 voted "Yesterday's Enterprise" the fifth-best episode of the franchise. The episode ranked as one of "The Next Generation"s top episodes in lists by "Entertainment Weekly", "The Hollywood Reporter", and "Nerdist", and as one of the best episodes of all of "Star Trek" by "Empire", IGN, and "TV Guide". The episode is a favorite and influence to John Logan and Roberto Orci, writers for the film "" (2002) and the reboot "Star Trek" (2009), respectively.