star trek episode where no man has gone before

Star Trek: The Original Series

Where No Man Has Gone Before

Cast & crew.

Gary Lockwood

Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell

Sally Kellerman

Dr. Elizabeth Dehner

Eddie Paskey

Lloyd Haynes

Andrea Dromm

Yeoman Smith

Information

© 2006 CBS Corp.

Accessibility

Copyright © 2024 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

Internet Service Terms Apple TV & Privacy Cookie Policy Support

Search this site

Star Trek: The Original Series

“Where No Man Has Gone Before”

Air date: 9/22/1966 Written by Samuel A. Peeples Directed by James Goldstone

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

When zapped by a mysterious energy field, Kirk's longtime friend and fellow shipmate, Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood), begins developing telekinesis and other astounding superhuman powers. Power corrupts, however, and Mitchell soon sees the Enterprise and its crew as being as far beneath him as any insect. With no choice but to attempt marooning Mitchell on a nearby planet, Kirk finds that he must battle one-on-one with a former friend who is now a powerful being.

The famous second pilot for NBC features an admirable mix of action scenes, choices for the captain, and a contemplation on what an individual may do if given powers beyond what he was meant to have. Interestingly, Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman) offers the sole voice of initial curiosity in embracing this superbeing when everyone else harbors fear. All in all it's not a great hour of Trek , but it's a good one.

Previous episode: Charlie X Next episode: The Naked Time

Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee .

◄ Season Index

Comment Section

67 comments on this post, jeffrey bedard.

So TOS was given a second chance with mostly new characters and it really works. A bit more action packed than "The Cage" but there is still room for philosophical debate regarding the nature of a "god-like" man. Considering the differences in make-up, costuming and set design it seems odd to this day that NBC chose to air this episode 3rd in the running order. But we have some great dynamics here. At this point Kirk and Spock clearly are not friends and there is a more straight on professional relationship between them. We get to see Kirk beat Spock at chess for the first time (or second seeing as this aired after "Charlie X). You get the sense of long friendship between Kirk and Mitchell, but it's unfortunate that Mitchell couldn't have been established in a few episodes to make his transformation and death a little more tragic. We get to see the cold unfeeling logic from Spock when he tells Kirk to kill Mitchell NOW. And Sally Kellerman gives a wonderful guest performance as Dr. Dehner. Her scenes with Mitchell have spark. Include some nice visuals such as the Enterprise crossing the barrier and the planet sets for Delta Vega and we have a wonderful reintroduction to TREK.

This was on last night and I'm amazed every time I watch it. It really holds up. There are a few things that the creators hadn't figured out, like when Sulu talks about pennies and millionaires. And the technology is a little goofy -- like the records Spock reviews that clearly look like microfilm and the wires on Delta Vega. But Kirk is essentially the Kirk we get to know over the years and while Spock is a little off, he's clearly coming together as a character. It's also interesting -- in a series often noted for red-shirt deaths -- that the second pilot kills off two members of the bridge crew, presumably two major characters in the missions we never saw. Scotty and Sulu are also pretty well defined (even if Sulu isn't yet at the helm). I do think this episode and 'Space Seed' best show an optimism about man's ability to get to space quickly that turned out to be misplaced and had to be corrected as Star Trek continued through the '80s and '90s. The Valiant apparently was a full-fledged space vessel 200 years before Kirk's 5-year mission, according to this episode. With chronology established later, we know that would put the Valiant's launch around 2064. I think, at some point, the creators of Star Trek pushed back just exactly when things were taking place during Kirk's 5-year mission, probably to accommodate the lack of forward momentum of human space exploration after the 1960s. At a couple points -- including in this episode -- it appears that only 200 years have passed since the late 20th century, and not the 300 established later (the first year mentioned in Star Trek is in "The Neutral Zone" when Data tells the 20th-century humans that the current year is 2364). Mitchell says that a poem written in 1996 was one of the most passionate "in the past couple of centuries." Kirk, in "Space Seed", tells Khan that two centuries had passed since the late 1990s. Kirk also jokes in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" that if he were locked up for 200 years in 1960s Earth, that that would "be just about right." Other than that, there aren't a lot of clues to exactly when TOS is taking place. But those details would put TOS somewhere in the latter half of the 22nd century -- not the latter half of the 23rd, as is now understood -- meaning the Valiant would have launched in the late 1990s or thereabouts. BTW, 'Enterprise' had to deal with this in the Augments trilogy, effectively moving Khan's rule on Earth into the 21st century, even though 'Space Seed' clearly puts all of that in the 1990s. I think the creators made this decision before Star Trek II, which begins "In the 23rd century ... " and dealt with a storyline in 1982 where Khan's rule would have been around the corner. Kirk kind of confirms this in Star Trek IV when he tells Gillian that he's from the late 23rd century. Whenever it happened, it was a fundamental change in Star Trek, and it kind of went unnoticed. The only thing that's comparable is the decision in early-VOY/mid-DS9 to change the nature of time travel, where effect no longer needs cause (this is most notable in 'Visonary' and 'Time and Again' -- but it pops up in 'First Contact'). Anyway, I've always wondered if the ST creators had discussions about this kind of stuff -- where they knew they were fundamentally altering an unspoken premise.

Interesting that this episode again emphasises the vulnerability of humans intrepid enough to undertake space travel. Members of the crew are clearly frightened when negotiating the force field that causes the change in Mitchell. There is a lot of insight into Kirk, his role as an educator at Starfleet Academy is briefly mentioned as well as his loyalty and great capacity for enduring friendships. The conflict between his professional and personal selves is neatly portrayed with Spock seemingly suffering none of the human 'frailties' that act to prevent Mitchell from coping with the enormous changes that take place within him. It is intriguing that we never discover what the nature of the phenomenon that effected him was and therefore whether there was an intent or if the area remained a threat to future shipping. The programme contains a lot of mystery and rather than consider that a limitation of the writing, as most teleplays now leave no uncertainty as to any aspect of their content, I find it refreshingly realistic.

This is the second pilot, and so the first produced episode featuring James Kirk (Gary Mitchell creates a gravestone which says “James R. Kirk,” which we can say out-of-universe is a character detail that is currently not settled, and in-universe evidence that Mitchell is not a great friend anyway) as well as the first (production) appearances of Scotty and Sulu. This is also where Spock’s character is more clearly established as the logical, rational sort, which wasn’t as clear in “The Cage” (where he seemed a little hotheaded). Probably its greatest contribution, though, is in setting the tone for the series’ take on exploration. It’s there in the title: this is the episode about “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” where physically/geographically the ship leaves the galaxy. But really it’s about where no man has gone before morally and ethically. Part of “exploring the unknown” means leaving behind civilization, and this is part of why Roddenberry could sell the show as a space western—one of the most common western themes is what happens at the edge of, or outside of, civilization. (This is also a huge part of what makes the even more explicit space-western Firefly so appealing, in spite of its short running time.) It’s also a main theme in works like Heart of Darkness, also about people going mad with power outside “civilization” (though in HoD’s case of course Kurtz has not left humanity behind, just his own people.) And what happens there is that people have powers they didn’t have before, which can lead eventually to the iconic western hero and villain—lone gunslingers with power over life and death. I think philosophically it makes sense to tackle this as one of the very first stories (and they tackle it again even very early on, in “Charlie X”), because one of the biggest dangers of going out into the unknown is discovering one is no longer bound by a large, bustling society, and that this brings with it a kind of power. It’s not literal power, the way Mitchell starts being able to control the world with his mind, but it is something like it, and I think that’s the metaphor behind Mitchell and Dehner (and a few high-ESP people on the previous human ship which passed by here) gaining all kinds of power the moment the ship leaves the galaxy. While establishing how power corrupts, the episode emphasizes that human vulnerability is the key thing to maintain in order to remain sane and non-destructive. Mitchell regards Kyle with contempt because he is a “fool,” too stupid or incompetent to notice that he had put the ship in danger. He eventually regards Kirk as a fool, too, for not dispensing of Mitchell when he had the chance, because he can see, already, that Kirk’s compassion is a weakness. But when Mitchell is hurt, and his eyes go back to normal, he is able to have compassion again. On some level, definitely, it seems as if the powers are “affecting” him, and feeling pain makes the power lose its grip on him, or whatever; my feeling is that the way it works is that feeling pain reminds Mitchell of what it is like to be human, and allows him to feel a kinship with and compassion for the other humans that surround him, that fades once he is back to his godlike status. Being human means being susceptible to pain, and needing other humans somehow, and that is part of what allows us to connect to others. Along similar lines, while hyper-rational Spock berates Kirk for wasting so much time before putting an end to Mitchell, Kirk’s willingness to take a big risk on letting Mitchell live is part of what keeps Kirk admirable and compassionate. He goes to kill Mitchell only after it’s clear that there are no other options and Mitchell has already become a murderer, but he still hesitates—which hurts him, yes, but which is part of what gets through to Dehner that Mitchell needs to be stopped. This is a really good episode for Kirk, as a result, balancing the needs of his ship, his curiosity, and his compassion, while having him deal with a transformation of his close friend. But I like that the episode does make clear that Mitchell is right about one thing. I think Mitchell would probably have gone mad with the power no matter what, but the fact that Spock is already talking about killing him before he’s done anything wrong is part of what pushes Mitchell into himself, makes him take up offense as the best defense. Mitchell goes off the deep end rather quickly, but it’s not like he’s wrong that he is in danger by the Enterprise crew. In a lot of ways, what happens to Mitchell is a failure on the part of both him and the Enterprise crew, especially Spock’s. (For a TNG comparison, is much closer to Worf than to Data here, though his pure rationality is driving it rather than any actual aggression.) And in a bigger sense it’s really nobody’s “fault,” because the kind of power that is given to Mitchell is a little beyond anything humans are able to deal with, which is part of why Kirk’s eventually recommending a commendation for Mitchell makes sense to me, as does the final exchange between him and Spock, where Spock himself admits to feeling for Mitchell. The message seems to me to be: it is dangerous out there, and the power that comes from freedom is going to be too much for some people to handle, but still, have compassion for them. This is all done in extreme SF exaggerations (Mitchell goes mad because he has absolute power and invulnerability dumped on him, which is not really the actual experience of anyone leaving civilization), but it’s a recognizably human story, well told. I'd say 3.5 stars for me.

It begins. (I'm re-watching, in production order) I'd forgotten how "Pilot"-y this was, albeit closer to the long term show than The Cage was. I definitely preferred The Cage, but babes and topless fist fights were what sold shows to NBC in those days, and so it's a necessary part of the show's history. I've seen worse show pilots, I think.

Jamie Stearns

The confrontation between Kirk and Mitchell at the end of this episode is so similar to the final Dukat/Sisko scene in "What You Leave Behind" that I can't help but think the latter was a deliberate parallel. Even the roles of Dehner and Winn in the final conflict were similar.

Always loved the "cage-like" look of this ep. Both pilots have that look of 50s scifi that I always found to have a certain mystique. Also enjoyed how gary was portrayed as essentially turning into a Q but in a much more human and believable way. 3+ for me as well.

This episode isn't perfect. But the continuity problems -- like Sulu talking about pennies -- can be shrugged off considering that this was the second pilot. That said, it's amazing how much the characterization of Kirk, Sulu and Scotty match what we'd see for the next 30 years. Kirk, in particular, works well here. None of the other captains was as on target so early in a series. Picard, in particular, changed a lot after the first few episodes of TNG and Sisko's evolution -- while written into the story -- was pretty striking. But if you watched Kirk in this episode compared with something in the second or third season, he's pretty much the same guy. Spock, of course, doesn't really hit his mark until the ninth or 10th episode.

Pilots are, by their very nature, clunky beasts. They have to introduce the primary characters, establish the feel of a world, and lay the groundwork for what a series will be going forward. They are almost always exposition heavy, and the stories they tell are often perfunctory table-setters, with more complicated and interesting storytelling left for the series to come. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” doesn’t exactly rise above these limitations but, taking them into account, it does a pretty good job of setting up the “Star Trek” series. The review is spot on in that, while this isn’t a great episode, it’s a good one. The visual aesthetic of the ship is clear and builds the world of the Enterprise almost immediately, the special effects (such as the transporter) get a work-out to show off what they can do, and Captain Kirk and Spock come to life perfectly right from the start. There are several touches here that I’m sorry didn’t survive into the series proper. Doctor Dehner is a stronger female character with a larger role in the plot than we’d see again for some time, if ever. The female crew members in general are costumed in slacks rather than short skirts, suggesting an atmosphere that actually had made some strides toward gender neutrality. The idea of the evolution of the human mind via ESP is intriguing, but is never really followed up on. The decision to air this third in the series run rather than first is baffling, given all the changes that took place (most notably swapping out the ship MD for Doctor McCoy). It would’ve made a made better start than “Man Trap.” It may not be great Star Trek but, as a way to begin the voyage, it’s a strong push forward and very promising for what’s to come.

Regarding the airing of pilots and the order of stories: I don't think the same kind of care and thought went into those decisions as they do today. These days, almost every dramatic show has some time of "soap opera" element where each new show builds on previous ones -- some do it more overtly than others. With self-contained shows, it doesn't matter nearly as much. All that said, I find the decision baffling too. I don't see a good reason not to show the pilot first.

Difficult for me to expand significantly on any of the excellent comments, particularly those of Paul's and William's. I enjoyed William's isolation of "compassion" as the significant quality that became inversely proportional to the growth of Gary Mitchell's god-like persona. The only aspect I would add is to give an enthusiastic nod to the direction of Gary and Elizabeth as portraying their evolving characters with a pronounced physical stiffness. Such is often the case in real psychological armor (review historical records of totalitarian dictators or any extremist today, Left or Right). It's often most prevalent in their "frozen" faces. I didn't know about this as a boy in the 1960's, of course, but I do now, having studied these phenomena in depth. When Gary briefly transforms back to human in the holding cell on the planet, his softness returns and he utters, "Jim," before losing the empathy and compassion of his humanity again, in effect, re-armoring. A similar scene can be studied in Spielberg's "Schindler's List" when Amon Goeth has pardoned a few prisoners, then looks in his bedroom mirror and says to himself, "I pardon you." The outstanding acting by Fiennes shows clearly the armor returning and, a few seconds later, he goes to his balcony and shoots a prisoner dead. The portrayal was also perfect in hooking into the kinesiology of another well-known monster: Frankenstein's. I mean, c'mon, they can create beautiful gardens out of nothing, destroy force fields, move cups of water, strangle unsuspecting Kelso's with a cable, and on and on... but they can't lubricate their knee joints? So yeah, while I thought it was just creepy as a boy, I find this peculiarity brilliant today.

I must say I thought than on the whole this was a very good episode. Despite it suffering from the exposition necessary of any pilot Shatner nailed Kirk right from the outset. And while Nimoy didn't quite have Spock nailed down he had already evolved from the shouting smiling Vulcan that was shown(later) in The Cage. Everyone knows the premise here so no need to mention it. But I will say it is quite thought provoking. And I think while Mitchell was at first portrayed as a sympathetic character by the end of the episode most of that had evaporated due to his actions. But the actor that really handed in the best performance was Kellerman. Despite being initially insulted by Mitchell she quickly forgave him and was the most vocal in his defense. She even went so far as to tell Kirk that she planned to stay with him on the planet(this was before her change)so presumably he wouldn't be alone. This one act demonstrates the compassion inherent in women. And then finally when she herself was undergoing the change she realizes that Mitchell had indeed become a monster and used her lesser powers to help Kirk kill him, at the cost of her own life. Wow! After seeing a sympathetic performance like that I couldn't help but wish that her character had somehow survived and gone on to be the Doctor on the Enterprise. I mean talk about a strong female character in sci-fi Dr. Dehner was it. And while I loved McCoy you would think that a starship would have to have more than one Doctor just to be on the safe side. But I guess it was just too much to ask of mid sixties tv. The were already pushing the envelope with a black woman on the bridge and a sympathetic Japanese character in Sulu. I guess a female Doctor would have been to much. Perhaps Kellerman's only fault was that she wasn't Roddenberry's mistress. I know that the sets from the mid sixties are a bit cheesy compared to today. But I just want to say the matte painting used to show Delta Vega was just stunning. It was so good that it was kept unchanged when it was re-released with updated effects. That is certainly a testament to the artist that worked on Star Trek. I would also like to say that this concept was also explored in one of the early TNG episodes when Q gave his power to Riker. Fortunately Riker realized the danger to himself and his crew mates thereby averting disaster. On a more personal note many years ago as a college freshman in a philosophy class our teacher posed a question to the class. He told us to imagine that we had a ring that we could wear that would make us invisible. Then he asked us to imagine what sort of person we would become. In hind sight I think it's worth noting that he didn't ask us what is the first thing we would do but rather what sort of a person we would become. A question of this sort is asked here and it pretty much lets you know that no matter how enlightened the human subject disaster is sure to follow.

"He told us to imagine that we had a ring that we could wear that would make us invisible." You speaks of the precious...

Robert, my teacher might indeed have been a Tolkien fan. But this was in the seventies, years before the big budget movies.

^ a hardcore Tolkien fan, then. hah! The announcement of a new Trek series in 2017 put me into a Trek mood and I didn't feel like continuing TNG just yet...so I just started watching TOS instead :D This is all new to me, unlike TNG, I barely watched TOS episodes as a child. In fact, I think I've mostly seen some movies. About "The Cage": I liked this more than I was expecting, even when the only regular character I recognized was Spock. And his characterization was waaaaay off. "Where no Man* has gone before" is even better, imo. Finally we get to see almost all the traditional cast. As you guys said, Spock needs a bit of work, but that's to be expected. *(I like how they changed that line to "Where no ONE" in TNG, subtle social progress) And I was a bit worried about my enjoyment of Kirk, after watching 3 and a half seasons of TNG, THE Captain for me was Picard. But I really liked Kirk's personality and charisma, nice acting from Shatner there. The rest, well, you guys said most of it already. I read somewhere that "Mitchell" couldn't see all that well with those lenses. So, that's why he seems to be watching everything with a smug look on his face. It worked wonders for his character. So far, two episodes in with TOS and I'm impressed how much stuff and plotlines were created during TOS time instead of TNG. I hope the other 70 or so episodes are somewhat good and enjoyable.

Good: Kirk shirt rip! I've always liked that matte painting of the planet surface 'A god needs compassion' is a nice Star Trek philosophy; I wish they'd explored it more, actually. Bad: The gender politics are as irritating as ever. Angry Spock is angry. Ugly: They made no attempt to hide Kirk's stunt double. I assume it was harder to see on old televisions. Overall: I'm torn between two and half stars and three. I'll say three, since it was the pilot.

John, You quite correctly answered your own objection about the fact that no attempt was made to hide Kirk's stunt double. The low resolution 525x333 analog tv of the sixties made it very difficult to tell that a stunt double was being used. Of course when you see it at 1920x1080 digital it is quite obvious. As well as Spock's ears and the paint strokes in the cheap bridge sets. But I can hardly bring myself to see this as a flaw since is was only intended for the medium of the time.

@Jeffrey Bedard "You get the sense of long friendship between Kirk and Mitchell, but it's unfortunate that Mitchell couldn't have been established in a few episodes to make his transformation and death a little more tragic." Yes. I'm reminded of the character of Peter Durst (Brian Markinson) in the V'ger episode "Cathexis," who was introduced just so he could be bumped off by the Vidiians in the next episode, "Faces."

I'm not going to complain about putting the pilot as the third episode of the season, even if it is obvious that the feel of the episode is different than the two before it. But why place it right by Charlie X? We're three episodes in, and this is now the second where a human has mighty powers and behaves badly. Fortunately, I think this one is a bit better. I know that the relationship between Kirk and Mitchell was supposed to be the big emotional impact of the show, but it's really bringing Dehner into the mix that makes it work. She is able to act like a middle man between the two, giving her power too in order to give her a reason to be tempted to joining Mitchell's side but retaining enough of her humanity long enough to see Mitchell's destructiveness. There's a bit of some mixed religious symbolism in the scene where Mitchell and Dehner escape on the planet. Mitchell produces a garden for her to live in, playing the part of God giving Eden to Adam and Eve, but then immediately offers her an exotic apple, playing the role of the serpent. I don't think this symbolism was unintentional. Mitchell is both God and Satan here, and it is the latter part that Dehner rejects. "Above all else, a god needs compassion!" Kirk flat out says it. He may have been Mitchell's friend, but what we see of Mitchell isn't enough to declare him a good person. He's a womanizer, a bit arrogant, and not above playing tricks and manipulating others. There's no reason to believe he started with compassion and morals, and so there's no reason that he would gain them when he gains his powers. But when he does gain his powers, he is still thinking of himself. He is, rightly so, well beyond the mental and physical prowess of humans, like a god. But that shouldn't automatically mean he is free to dismiss humans. That's what Kirk recognizes when he shouts that phrase. That's why there's the symbolism of Gary being the serpent with the apple. Mitchell sees humans as tools, as creatures he can manipulate, as pawns to be cast off when inconvenient. "Morals are for men, not gods" he says. And it is what separated Dehner from Mitchell; she may very well have been a god, but she still saw Kirk as an equal. She still felt compassion and empathy for others, and thus still had her morality. And thus, she was able to judge both Kirk and Mitchell equally, and found Mitchell lacking. Yes, thematically they needed to have Kirk have the final fight with Mitchell and be the one to kill him because he's the star of the show, but Dehner is the real hero of the episode. And I think that does show in the final product. A few other thoughts: - "I'm contemplating the death of an old friend" is a great line. Some of the 60s style of TV is a bit tough to watch, but moments like that make it worthwhile. - Speaking of old TV style, some "sci-fi" aspects of this episode really date it. A barrier surrounding the galaxy to prevent man from crossing it? People having natural psychic ability? These were common ideas in the 50s and early 60s, but I think were even dated in the literature of the time when this episode aired. Oh well, I won't hold it against them. - So Kirk checkmates Spock, and Spock says Kirk played illogically? Um, I don't think you know what the word logical means... Also, regardless of Kirk's unique playing style, surely Spock can see one move ahead and see that he is looking at checkmate. Even novice players can do that... - Given the long shadow that TNG and its ethos has on the modern Trek era, it is downright bizarre to see the casual lack of mercy being shown in these first three episodes. Kirk and company make no effort to save the salt creature, barely plead for Charlie's life to the alien, talk casually of killing Mitchell long before he starts to become seriously dangerous. I know, different era, and it is somewhat refreshing to see self-interest and a grim realism for the unknown, but in all three cases an argument can be made for a more Picard-like approach. Would Mitchell have turned violent so quickly if he didn't know about the arguments Spock was making? I have no idea.

"Speaking of old TV style, some "sci-fi" aspects of this episode really date it. A barrier surrounding the galaxy to prevent man from crossing it? People having natural psychic ability? These were common ideas in the 50s and early 60s, but I think were even dated in the literature of the time when this episode aired. Oh well, I won't hold it against them." Were there ever any references in the TNG/DS9/VOY era to Starfleet exploring outside the galaxy? Maybe we can assume they didn't because of the barrier that Kirk's crew discovered, but that does seem like the kind of concept that the New-Trek series would prefer to ignore. Then again, maybe it's just not a high priority given that three quadrants within the Milky Way still aren't that well known.

@ Kevin- Though I can't think of any specific examples I kind of remember Q saying something about exploring the galaxies, and that one day humanity might be ready for it.

Andy's Friend

@Kevin "Were there ever any references in the TNG/DS9/VOY era to Starfleet exploring outside the galaxy?" TNG, Season 1, Episode 6: "Where No One Has Gone Before." One of my favourite episodes. And the title is almost the same as this one ;)

Very cool seeing the 2nd pilot episode without the usual crew in action - which must have made things seem odd when it aired after "The Man Trap" and "Charlie X". In any case, it's a strong episode with Mitchell and Dehner's characters adding a lot of depth, good acting. Kirk's character is already right where it needs to be - as if Shatner had already acted in a number of episodes as Kirk. Spock's character is a bit excitable still. Scotty/Sulu appear in secondary roles and McCoy isn't the chief medical officer yet. Some things are a bit hard to believe even from the standpoint of sci-fi. Thought-provoking episode on a number of levels from Dehner's fascination with Mitchell after his transformation, how absolute power corrupts, and positing strange phenomena at the edge of the galaxy. Definitely good enough for a pilot episode. For me, I'd rate this episode 3/4.

3 years later another rewatch. Not as good a pilot as The Cage, but not bad. Mitchell just has one of those "if I started hitting it, I'd not want to stop" kind of smug faces :) Interesting in that it's very much fantasy rather than sci-fi, with the magical powers and such, laying the foundations for what would be a show that mixed the two quite a lot. Hard to say how I'd rate it.. it does seem to hold up decently.

Skeptical, Very astute analysis of the episode. I too noticed the religious overtones of Mitchel creating the garden, and then completely missed the significance of him being the one that hands the apple to Dehner. And no, I, like you, can't believe for a minute that is was unintentional. I also find it interesting that you postulate that Mitchell may not have been a really good person from the beginning and that Dehner was, and this might have been the thing that allowed her to hold onto her humanity long enough to realize that Mitchell had to die. I had always assumed that it was simply because she was not as far along in the process as Mitchell and that eventually she would also succumb to the temptation to be amoral. We do apparently both agree that Kellerman turned in a great performance as Dehner. In any event you had some great insights about the episode that I had never considered.

@ Cloudane, "Interesting in that it's very much fantasy rather than sci-fi, with the magical powers and such, laying the foundations for what would be a show that mixed the two quite a lot." I would call this episode unequivocally a sci-fi outing. It's stated early on that the onset of powers is correlated to the ESP rating of the person struck (a matter of scientific interest to many in the 60's, both Soviet and American), and additionally, it explores a theme roughly in line with what the series would late say about the Eugenics Wars, where men who become "superior" to others run the risk of beginning to believe they're gods. Of side interest to the setting of this ep is the barrier at the edge of the galaxy, which both here and, ironically, in ST: V, involves what seems like the suggestion that the barrier is not merely a natural phenomenon but has an intelligence behind it. Whether this means the barrier is, itself, some kind of intelligence, or maybe has properties 'like' intelligence, I don't know. Maybe it was put there by an advanced being and has traces of their energy patterns inside. Who knows. Overall I would class this in with the Arthur C. Clarke principle of sci-fi, where things appear to be magical only because they're too advanced for us to understand. TOS, as you imply, does involve many encounters that are meant to show how primitive man still is in the 23rd century. TNG hold back on this for the most part, only occasionally presenting characters like Q and Kevin Uxbridge.

Peter wasn't STV about a journey to the centre of the galaxy, not to its edge? I presumed it was a different energy barrier.

I think Jammer's rating is a little low - I'd go 3.5 stars. Normally, I would say 3.0 stars since they are so many changed premises between this episode and all the other episodes of Star Trek TOS. However, this is a pilot, so a certain amount of inconsistency is be expected and allowed. I find it interesting that among the very 1st words spoken on Star Trek is Captain Kirk's statement "The impossible has happened". This is a recurring theme - the "impossible" keeps happening over and over again. I know this is dramatic, but it would make more sense to say "the seemingly impossible" of the "supposedly impossible has happened". The reason I don't give this episode 4 stars is because no effort is made to explain how the ship from 2 centuries ago got this far out. One thing I found amusing is when Captain Kirk refers to "normal ESP". Isn't normal ESP a contradiction in terms?

Three episodes in, and two of them prominently feature malevolent Q-like beings.

Just another fan

I saw this episode as a child, and it has stayed with me all my life. I relate to Kirk's philosophy of man, which he declares to Dr. Dehner as he warns her about Mitchell: "Let's talk about humans, about our frailties...You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose. But he'll dare. Who's to stop him? He doesn't need to care." It stands in sharp contrast to later philosophy on Star Trek, that by the time of Picard, famine, war, poverty have all been wiped out on earth. The little story that Mitchell tells when he is first recuperating on the Enterprise is key foreshadowing of what's to come. Mitchell tells Kirk he wasn't going to be able to do well in Kirk's class, so Mitchell "aimed" a blonde at Kirk to distract him, scripted the entire encounter. Did it so well that Kirk almost married the woman and was unaware that he had been manipulated until Mitchell told him. So we have a clue there of the kind of person that Mitchell is. And when he later acquires his godlike powers they serve to amplify this aspect of his character. But I agree with others who said Sally Kellerman's character really makes this episode work. If the episode had been just a fight between Kirk and Mitchell, it would not have been as rich. The doctor's character tells us that there is more than one way to view/respond to what has happened to Mitchell. We also get a clue on how she thinks when she advocates for the compassionate treatment of Mitchell. She keeps her own counsel. She trusts in her own knowledge and abilities to make decisions and act on them--she doesn't tell the captain when she first observes Mitchell's unusual abilities. Her tendency is toward hope and giving people the benefit of the doubt. She sees the promise of a grand future in Mitchell's abilities and she wants to support him, rather than stifle him. When she, too, develops godlike powers, these aspects of her character are also magnified. I wish I had seen more characters like hers throughout the years on Star Trek, an intelligent, compassionate, moral, brave and, yes, beautiful woman. Note that her uniform is not a short skirt, but pants like the men, which doesn't make her less feminine, just more practical imho. (If you're going to run around on planets with less than hospitable environments, it makes more sense to wear pants than skirts.) But the scene at the end, where Mitchell finally falls into the grave that he dug for Kirk and is sealed in with a huge stone Kirk knocks down on him, is the stuff of childhood nightmares. That's twice in two episodes that we have the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few philosophy. Perhaps that's why the episode remained etched in my brain for 40 years. 3.5 stars from me.

Probably my favorite of all the Star Trek pilots including "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before" provides a sharp introduction to the series and its two leads even with some unpolished bits in it. It has a surprisingly confident sensibility that sets it apart from TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and Discovery pilots. I give it 3 1/2 stars. I love the opening the scene of Kirk and Spock playing 3D chess, establishing some major iconography and introducing us to the two major personalities of the show with some clever verbal sparring. This one is full of great lines throughout, including the debate over what to do with Mitchell and Spock's "because she feels, I don't" monologue. Shatner is utterly awesome: It's like he's been playing Kirk for years, especially in the climactic showdown that shows off his physical acting, even though some of his backstory as a stick in the mud feels a bit off-character. Spock is more a work in progress, but Nimoy establishes his detached logic right from the start here, and his logic wins out over compassion in the end. Also some great guest stars here in Gary Lockwood and Oscar-caliber Sally Kellerman, always a delightful quirky presence with her throaty vocal delivery. The debate over a human being who gets powers he's not ready to handle is on point. But one reason I don't give this episode a flawless rating is that it doesn't really introduce us to the ensemble we'll grow to know and love: McCoy won't appear until the second episode (Dr. Piper here is a cipher) and Uhura, Scotty, and Sulu aren't quite themselves yet. Finally, the scientific logistics about the edge of the galaxy are a little bit off from reality, presenting a less populated and more extreme vision of the Trek universe that we'll get in the rest of the show. Kudos for killing off both the navigator and helmsman, as well as the ship's psychologist (shades of Troi on TNG) who all initially seem to be regulars, but I would have liked to see a little more from the others who will return next episode. However, that's a minor quibble, and WNMHGB remains a classic and iconic introduction to the series. I especially love the climax of the whole thing. Shatner is fun in big pulp hero moments like his confrontation with his friend-turned-god.

The big difference I see in season 1 is the somber, reflecting ending by the characters, rather than the laughing lighthearted mood seconds after a traumatic event, such as what occurred in the later seasons.

90 degree head turn: “I want you to hit that button!” Dun-dun!

Watching and commenting: --Scotty makes a first appearance --ESP? Really? Ah, so very, very 60s. I feel 10 yrs old again. I'm thinking of my older sister, because I'd be arguing with her about now. I always wanted to change the channel and watch Gomer Pyle. Ah, if she could see me now. --The sexist stuff is kinda cringy, but I know this show was ahead of its time, even showing someone like Sally K's Dr Dehner at all. --Spock getting real: "Kill Gary while you can." Huh. This also makes me think of my older sister, because her husband's name is Gary. But we missed our window years ago. --Yeeee. Gary's become a murderer. The worst thing my BIL's ever done is way-undercook the scalloped potatoes for Christmas dinner one year. We were all disappointed, but no one died. --Adam, Eve, God, and Lucifer all condensed into two beings, Gary and Dehner. --Kirk gives his first, long, inspirational speech. Doc and Gary die to make it all end. The Enterprise goes on its way. Engaging, with good performances. Next, please.

Spock:Im shouting and I dont know why.

"Whenever it happened, it was a fundamental change in Star Trek, and it kind of went unnoticed. The only thing that's comparable is the decision in early-VOY/mid-DS9 to change the nature of time travel, where effect no longer needs cause (this is most notable in 'Visonary' and 'Time and Again' -- but it pops up in 'First Contact'). Anyway, I've always wondered if the ST creators had discussions about this kind of stuff -- where they knew they were fundamentally altering an unspoken premise." Oddly enough, there was another even bigger changed premise, that impacts stories much more, from this episode (and really all of TOS including the movies, even some made after TNG had clearly changed the premise drastically: Here and elsewhere in TOS the assumption is that nearly the entire Milky Way galaxy has been explored, that warp-capable ships can get anywhere in the galaxy in a matter of days or weeks, but that travel outside the local galaxy is next to impossible.

How are you calling this and the Cage pilots? The pilot is The Menagerie, with a different captain. Later made into episodes featuring the old captain in flashbacks.

@ MaraCass, You've got the names mixed up. The Cage was the pilot with Captain Pike, and The Menagerie is the mid-1st season episode with Kirk, showing flashbacks of The Cage.

Never understood why people give this episode such a high rating. Interesting from the standpoint that it is the first episode with Kirk and the other crew but the plot is basically one that we will see again and again. Man has superpowers which must be overcome. Not that exciting. The cage was so much more interesting although NBC rejected it for their own reasons. Glad they did since I like Shatner over Hunter.

The problems with stars, If made today , considering the acting only and general screenplay, few stars. Considering the nostalgic value, more stars. Trying to travel back in time and watch it with those eyes. Probably, wow this is great. I guess I watched first when I was 17. (It took some years before it was aired in my country, Impuls speed for distribution in those day, compared with warp possibilities today). I must have watched it with relative adult eyes. As a sci fi reader I am sure that I was amused. Of course I like to view it again.

Ben said: "the other crew but the plot is basically one that we will see again and again. Man has superpowers which must be overcome." Yeah, it's a good episode, but ran too close to the similar "Charlie X". If you merge the best traits of "Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", you probably have the perfect Trek pilot. The former has a more dispassionate, intellectual tone, and stronger female characters, the second has better crew camaraderie, central characters, and a willingness to embrace adventure. In a way, the producers' demand for a second pilot saved the show from some of Roddenberry's colder instincts; it turned something a bit too niche and esoteric into something more pulpy. Or it could simply be the lucky casting of Shatner and later Kelley (who doesnt appear in this episode), the latter's homespun take on the Doctor lending the show a very frontier/western feel. Nimoy's great, but he couldn't elevate "Cage". You sense he needs Kirk and Bones to bounce off of. Another thing I like about this episode, like a lot of early TNG, was how much busier and nautical the ship feels. Before the show got lazy, you had lots of background extras rummaging about, walking about and doing odd things, and the camera often lingered on little procedural details that get dropped later on. The ship seemed more livelyand real than it would eventually get. Most Trek series fall prey to the same problem IMO, the ships or stations seemingly more alive before the respective shows telescope down to a narrow central cast. (IMO Discovery never had this verisimilitude; while the various Enterprises feel like real vessels, Disco feels like a glossy set rather than a space-faring ship) This episode also epitomizes that TOS distrust of gods and superpowers, and its hatred of those who seek "personal perfection", "social perfection", or even eugenics, all of which it associations with dangerous "order". And so man must struggle to better himself, TOS argues, struggle breeds character, but don't get too better, because perfection is bad, and requires powers that will corrupt your soul and lead you to flip out, rip off your shirt and kill everyone! It's a funny blend of the zeitgeist, a little bit Eisenhower, a little bit Franklin Roosevelt. Modern Trek seems to alter this a bit. Q's not quite a villainous God (he seems to help Picard at times), Riker resists going mental when he gets Q powers, "Nth Degree" has a positive portrayal of Barclay's godhood (or am I remembering the episode?), that Space Jesus guy in "Transfigurations" didnt go rogue, Wesley didn't use his Harry Potter powers for evil etc. You also sense TOS would resist things alike augmentations, or even the holodeck - "The Conscience of a King" questions whether machines have led to the Federation men "losing their masculinity" - while decades later Picard outright becomes a robot. If TOS had a fear of a certain type of tyrannical power (a mad cocktail of authoritarianism, ego and religion), understandable given the formative years of its creators, in TNG the overriding fear seems to be things a bit more lowkey; Data (and his brother) going rogue, the machinic Borg, bad apples in the Federation, the "resurgence" of an unhinged Klingon Empire, the seemingly liquid malevolence of the Romulans etc. Kirk and his gang, with respect to their hatreds, seem to have more conviction. You sense Picard has a bigger kaleidoscope of problems, perspectives and moods to juggle.

Thoughts on Star Trek Continues: To Boldly Go Part I -- really liked this mainly plot-driven show that makes use of a number of good details and also provides a logical follow-up to "The Enterprise Incident" with a reasonable cliff-hanger ending. I liked the continuity with TOS but also building on earlier STC episodes (loss of the Hood). The theme of humans trying to advance themselves with enhanced ESP (for what nefarious purpose?) isn't anything special but it would seem that Lana and the Vulcan may not have the capabilities to the extent Gary Mitchell developed or they are being more subtle in not showing all their cards. It's really the deception that, to me, gave this episode a bit more depth. We'll see if they turn out to be cardboard villains, but so far they're not. So Spock gets the Romulans involved -- nice to see he still has a connection with the Romulan commander and was involved in getting her released. Should she be in charge of a warbird again? I don't think so but it adds a good element to this story. The Romulans and Federation are uniting against a bunch of ESPers which makes sense given the treat to both their unions. It was a bit farfetched to have the warbird and the Enterprise combine their warp capabilities to get to the barrier faster, however. Who knows what lesson is going to come out of this -- as it seems STC likes to push Trekkian ideals. There is the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" being tweaked to selective corruption -- maybe there's a peaceful resolution upcoming in the 2nd part? There's also the element that the 5-year mission is coming to an end and there is a sense of finality/nostalgia (Spock teaching McKenna meditation and talking about how he's been serving on the Enterprise for 16 years under 2 captains and appreciating humans). Interesting sci-fi that the Preservers were said to have erected a barrier around the galaxy and these Federation ESP people think its their calling to evolve by breaking the barrier -- certainly creative. Just barely 3.5 stars for "To Boldly Go Part I". Another classical tale in the TOS style -- interesting to see how this one wraps up as STC has really remained true to TOS. The threat to the Federation (and Romulans) has come full circle back to the 2nd pilot and I don't think the threat to the Federation as nearly as hokey as in "Conspiracy" or some of the nonsense from DSC or PIC, but it's obviously not as well-developed and enthralling as BoBW or the Dominion War. But I do believe this episode is a winner and the best STC hour thus far.

Thoughts on Star Trek Continues: To Boldly Go Part II -- gives TOS the appropriate series finale it never got and hits the right notes with Kirk's promotion to admiral and a good final ending wrap-up. That was what all TOS fans wanted to see the original cast do and the STC cast does it well here after a mostly plot-driven wrap-up to the ESPers taking over the Kongo and being stopped on their way to taking over the Federation. The episode sees some important crew members getting killed -- the counselor McKenna and Smith who develops ESP and disables the Kongo in what was probably the weakest and least credible part of the episode. McKenna's death and being held in the transporter was meant to be a somewhat moving moment for Kirk and Spock. It sort of worked. But Kirk and Spock get plenty of time to reflect and beat themselves up over lost lives on the 5-year mission and bad emotion-driven decisions respectively. I think these aspects were reasonably well acted and believable and it nicely segues to that interim period before the movie franchise kicked in. Not much needs to be said about the plot mechanics, but the saucer separation looked pretty cool. I didn't think it was necessary for Tal on the Romulan ship to try to destroy the Enterprise after the Kongo self-destructed and then the female commander inputs some code to disable the weapon and relieve him of duty -- just a needless little event that came out of nowhere and went nowhere. As for the ESPers abilities, it seemed to mainly be using Talosian-style illusions to confuse Kirk's crew but, of course, they found a quick solution to counter those. Uhura was especially put to good use here. So there may be some inconsistencies between what Gary Mitchell was able to do compared to Lana/Sentek and the Kongo crew. It could just come down to weaker forms of ESP, but really if Lana/Sentek & co. were as powerful as Mitchell, there's no stopping them. Thought it was overly idealistic for McKenna, when on the Kongo, to spew the Star Fleet mantra that they will accept the ESPers with dignity etc. Sometimes I think STC reached too far on the Trekian ideals. Also just barely 3.5 stars for "To Boldly Go Part II" -- I think this 2-parter is a must-watch, especially for TOS fans. It's a good action-adventure TOS style once again and it should be considered part of official canon. The Big 3 are totally burned out and are set to go their separate directions. I think it's outstanding what STC accomplished and the nu-Trek showrunners should follow their lead when creating the next PIC and Strange New Worlds episodes instead of departing from what made classic Trek so enduring. I hope there is a Vic Mignogna out there somewhere for TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT!

Proud Capitalist Pig

I know that it was made in the 60's, so I won't insult this episode's comically goofy eye effects, ridiculous music or dreadful "exterior" shots made on a painfully low budget (you could probably slam every Star Trek episode for that). This was actually quite good. With no salt-sucking psychopaths or whiny teenage brats in sight, it had at least one or two interesting--albeit obvious--things to say about people becoming too powerful before they're even slightly ready for it. Kirk has a pointed line at the end where he tells Dr. Dehner that even though Mitchell has become a completely advanced being, he's still an ugly human below the surface. ("A god but still driven by human frailty." Satan, basically! Bwahahah!) The direction, writing and acting in this episode were often, pardon the pun, stellar. There's a somewhat intense scene in the conference room where Kirk berates Dr. Dehner for neglecting to mention the full extent of Mitchell's newfound superhuman abilities, and she then argues that this could be a good thing for humanity--a better, superior person. And then the entire room goes uncomfortably and tellingly SILENT for a good long beat. At the end of the scene, Spock and Sulu lay out the ugly truths about how such a "superior" man would eventually come to regard other people--"white mice." I think it's a proud, probing moment for Star Trek, and it's only the third episode. I even liked William Shatner's hammy performance on the planet during the showdown with Mitchell and Dehner. It was goofy and hysterical, sure, but pretty damned entertaining. My only complaint was that the whole scene was drawn out for too long, and the psychic wrestling match between Mitchell and Dehner was atrocious. (At least it was necessary in order to take Mitchell down a peg for his inevitable fisticuffs with Kirk). And did I miss something? Why couldn't the Enterprise just beam up Mitchell and Dehner right after they got loose on the planet, and then beam them out into space? Asking for a friend. Best line -- Mitchell: "Command and compassion is a fool's mixture." My Grade: B+

Where no Man has Gone Before Star Trek Season 1 episode 3 3 stars (out of 4) "I've been contemplating the death of an old friend.” - Gary Mitchell. It is fascinating to see what they were going for with this second pilot. But first I must say it is so good to see Scotty in his first appearance. I can’t help thinking that Roddenberry must have wanted to see a little of himself in the show. Kirk, Spock, the others, are larger than life. Scotty is a working joe. And of course James Montgomery and Roddenberry both fought in World War II. It made sense to have at least someone on a show about a uniformed service who had actually worn a uniform into battle before. Star Trek used to have a good contingent of veterans in the cast. In later episodes, Roddenberry will add DeForest Kelley (Bones), who also fought in WWII. Nimoy had been in the Army Reserves. After TOS, the closest Star Trek ever came again to having anyone with any sort of military background was Patrick Stewart - though he himself never served, his father and brothers did. That, and the writer Ronald D. Moore spent a few years in ROTC. But Moore left Star Trek with DS9, and that was really the last time the franchise felt like a true depiction of uniformed service. But back to this second pilot. Kirk runs a really chill ship in this one. A few key scenes flesh that out. When Gary Mitchell, Spock and Kirk are riding the turbo lift up to the bridge, Spock moves between them to the door, and is the first out of the lift - before the Captain. Then Gary shoulders Kirk out of the way, and also manages to get out of the lift before Kirk. Kirk is the Captain and he is still the last to make it out. Not very typical. It is subtle, but telling. A few minutes later, when Kirk is taking readiness updates from all department heads, Scotty says almost sarcastically: SCOTT: Engineering division ready, as always. And Kirk smiles again. A really, really chill ship. You can also see where they are going with Spock. His devil ears are a physical reminder that Spock will be Kirk’s devil’s advocate. Kirk needs him to be an absolute asshole. And Kirk puts up with a lot to get that level of honesty. Again there is a scene on the bridge where Kirk is addressing the entire ship, and Spock just randomly interrupts to yell, SPOCK: The tapes are burnt out. Trying the memory banks. Like what the fuck, dude??? The look that Kirk and this young blond girl, Smith, give Spock out of the corner of their eyes, is hilarious! Spock was clearly intended to be on the spectrum. At the opposite end of the EQ scale, since the show didn’t have Bones yet, they had Gary Mitchell. Good with the ladies, and "Gary Mitchell has the highest esper rating of all.” Yes, Gary Mitchell was the Dianna Troi of TOS. Oh man, the more you know… Seems to me that Roddenberry combined Gary, the old crotchety Doc, and also a bit of beautiful-hipped Dehner, into one character, and in later episodes we get the unified combo known as Bones. But that’s a story I already wrote about in The Man Trap. Finally, @William B, loved reading your review. @Bill, I see what you mean about reading Gary face. Very true. @Skeptical, you’re blowing my mind. The quality of comments for TOS episodes seems ridiculously high. I will do my best to correct that ;)

@Jamie Stearns, What You Leader Behind, Dukat/Kirk similarities. I noticed that too, particularly because of the Big Ass Gun Sisko brought to the party. One Cage-esque thing I like here is that the ship and uniforms aren’t quite so over saturated with bright colors, as the series would become. This looks a bit more realistic, and wouldn’t be revisited until Star Trek: The Motion Picture. You just know they went with the super saturated colors because of the dawning of color TV. At the time, I’m sure the studios, TV makers and audience were in agreement that they wanted to see COLOR. IIRC, Norman Lear wanted to film All in the Family in black and white, but was not allowed. So he dressed the sets and costumes in very bland unsaturated colors.

Fairly entertaining hour in which Kirk's friend, Mitchell receives superpowers like telekinesis. Will Mitchell turn on them now he's a God like being? (or becoming one) Can we get along with an advanced human? Holds up well. As Jammer said, 3 stars.

Neo the Beagle

Where No Actor Has Gone Before...as i write this, William Shatner is about to be launched into space. He should have been given a Starfleet uniform to wear. My brother thinks he should just keep going into the sun. I think he should take over the controls and head for the Neutral Zone. Wind delays: I suspect a Romulan plot. 3 minutes till he leaves Launch Point Earth!

There was a photo circulating on social media of Shatner in a gold uniform with his 3 co-travellers all wearing red...

I am going to be the party pooper and say humbug to this publicity stunt. An 11 minute flight? I guess it is "space" flight in technical sense but to me it seems like just some glorified carnival ride for rich people. The Apollo mission it is not.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

RIP Sally. We'll miss you. Best "Freezer Unit" we ever knew.

The barrier appeared to be a flat line, couldn't they just go around it? Wait I keep forgetting, in Star Trek space is 2-dimensional.

Watched this one again after quite some years, and I'd have to say it's pretty epic. I'd have to give this four stars. 3.5 on its merits, with the slight bump only because how early it was.

Good episode. Keeps the excitement going all the way through. Its cool to notice the things that changed from the pilot to the series, including Kirks name. The grave said James R Kirk

I love this episode, warts and all. I've seen it a hundred times. But the galactic barrier makes no sense. Like Khan, its pattern suggests two-dimensional thinking. For one thing, IRL the galaxy is wide but relatively thin and flat. If you want to leave it just to say you did it, why not just fly perpendicular to the galactic plane instead of to the disc edge (which, as depicted, seems to be the idea)? The depiction seems to be of a ring encircling the spiral arms, not a whole-galaxy shrink wrap. Why not just fly around it? Also, once you've left the galaxy, it's a million seasons of Star Trek Voyager to get to just about anything else, unless all your stories are about weird things in the intergalatic void. There have been ST novels that deal with the barrier but from what I've read none of the explanations are satisfying. OTOH it's interesting to me that ST has mostly limited itself to only a FRACTION of the Milky Way and has always stuck to that.

Michael Miller

1st criticism is that barrier. Looks like it's only at the circumferential edge and not the entire surface area, otherwise it would take up the whole screen. 2nd, the rest of the episode being based on energy zaps turning people into gods is laughable. They could have done better than that. And at the end, very nice job cherrypicking. So a phaser rifle couldn't damage him but a giant falling rock can? Started out good, ended bad.

Dehner talks about new and better kind of human. She is so enamored with Mitchell that one would think he's what she's referring to. But what if she's thinking of herself? The scene in sickbay seems to point toward Mitchell "sensing" that she's experiencing the same effects as he has. It's just taking longer. I am also wondering how discharging lightning bolts from the hands doesn't somehow cause severe burns.

He's a fool. A fool. He'd seen those points and he hadn't noticed their condition.

Black Oatmeal

Great episode. It would have been interesting if, after they found out that the series had been picked up, they had filmed one or more episodes featuring the Gary Mitchell character and aired them before this one so that his death would have even more impact. @Saburac In the Trek novels the barrier is often times mentioned as existing above and below the galaxy. Which explains how Federation ships were able to reach it. I think that one of the earliest novels said that it was a localized phenomenon; an area near the edge of the galaxy that was impassable. A galactic barrier, not THE Galactic Barrier.

Others may have pointed this out but isn't it a bit plot-holeley that the "ESPer" hungry energy barrier didnt zap Spock who is basically a moderate telepath. But it is possible that aspect of his character had not been developed at thr pilot stage.

There’s really very little legitimate criticism to levy against this episode, and considering that it’s a pilot which is a particularly difficult and precarious endeavor, is saying a lot. The worst part about this episode is that it was aired right on the heals of another “god-like being” show(Charlie X), this paired with The Man Trap as the first broadcast episode gave TOS an odd hitch in its initial step. But that has more to do with network business decisions than with the episode itself. As it stands, “Where No Man..” is a pretty fun, engaging, and thoughtful piece of television. A few random thoughts: - Was Gary supposed to have been essentially driven mad by his new powers, or was he just a jerk? At one point he sort of snapped out of it and seemed to recognize Kirk in a way that almost implied he was trapped or possessed or something. I really wasn’t sure to what extent his actual personality played in his becoming corrupted by power, or if another power was sort of taking control of him. This isn’t really a criticism per se, so much as it’s just a lingering question, which I don’t mind. A little ambiguity is sometimes a good thing. - I’m not one to complain about attractive women in mini-skirts, but I wish TOS had kept female crew members in trousers. Or at least had a mix of skirts and pants, implying a choice in uniform. The show would be a little less dated upon future viewings without the obvious, and in my opinion unnecessary, dude pandering. - For a pilot episode, this is a remarkably confident outing. I think Shatner is a big part of that. For whatever reason he had Kirk locked in right from the jump. Anyway, jammer nailed it. Solid if unspectacular episode.

It was interesting that an unconscious Gary Mitchell somehow stood up on his own on the transporter pad.

This stupid episode was on again last night, and I still don't understand how they got to the edge of the galaxy so fast...at WARP 1! I'll assume they didn't mean the literal horizontal edge of the disk but instead the surface of the "bulge" vertically, which is only about 1,000 light years thick, but that's still hard to believe. The whole premise of turning into a God from getting zapped by a negative energy barrier was ridiculous.

"Command and compassion is a fool's mixture." Yup, Gary would definitely fit right in with the deities we have had on Earth over the years. I do wonder if there was anything to the fact he was reading Spinoza's Ethics. In that book, according to Wikipedia, Spinoza defines God as the universe itself and not some sort of external force. Anyway, great episode.

Randomizer: I really like this one and think it makes a good pilot for TOS. It's more muscular than "The Cage" and more befitting Kirk's role, but it's still got some intellectual meat. Dehner's role as wildcard in the story is well done, and complicates the obvious "there are things humans are not meant to know" message by suggesting that it may require a more positive form of Mitchell's dark enlightenment to combat what happens to Mitchell. We get an early taste of the cold brutality of Spock's outlook as well as his compassion, and Kirk's willingness to go to bat for his friend when he has not yet crossed a line and then put his life on his line to fight him is a defining character moment for him. One question is: was Mitchell always bad, to a degree, but always restrained by his human form? I think there are hints of that, the indication that Mitchell by "aiming that lab technician" at Kirk was already engaged in some form of deceit and manipulation of people, including his friends, for personal gain. Mitchell was zapped because he had high ESP, but one could also read the story as being less that power corrupts as that power attracts the corruptible, and that Dehner is tempted by power but ultimately draws a line in the sand shows that humans have options of how they react. That said, I think personally I prefer to think of it that Mitchell had some ugly traits that were unleashed by his power and the way it created a barrier to compassion with others, rather than that it was he, and only he, who would have reacted badly to it, and so the message is a little more universal. The difference between Mitchell and Dehner seems to me not that Mitchell started bad and Dehner started good (or okay) as that Dehner was earlier on her transformation and was able to see in Mitchell how far one could fall. Maybe Mitchell would be corrupted faster than others, but I think his flaws are not meant to be uniquely heinous to start out.

This is one of my favorite episodes. And to skeptical--great post. You really gave me a deeper appreciation of the episode than I originally had.

Submit a comment

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published Sep 22, 2016

50 Years Later: Where No Man Has Gone Before

“ Where No Man Has Gone Before ” was the second pilot made for Star Trek , and it came about because “The Cage,” the first pilot, failed to sell the series to the NBC network. As we mentioned in last month’s article, the executives at the network realized after viewing “The Cage” that Gene Roddenberry and Desilu Studios could produce mature science fiction, but that the story they told in that first adventure wasn’t what NBC was looking for. Thus, the network took an unusual step and requested another pilot for the series. This time, however, they made it clear to Roddenberry that they wanted a simpler, less erotic action-adventure story and a somewhat different cast.

So, with those marching orders, Roddenberry went to work retooling Star Trek . He fleshed out not only his ideas for a new story concept, but he also invited other writers to pitch theirs. Finally, out of three possibilities (“Where No Man Has Gone Before” by Samuel A. Peeples, “ Mudd’s Women ” by Stephen Kandel and “ The Omega Glory ” by Gene Roddenberry), “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was selected by the network to put into production. This story was on the mark, as far as NBC was concerned, because it gave them almost everything they asked for. And, after the network viewed the finished film, they were sold… and so was Star Trek . The Original Series was officially green lit, and that started its historic trek to television.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the television premiere of “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” we thought we’d explore the galactic barrier and present two behind-the-scenes snippets about it.

Mr. Mitchell, we’re leaving the galaxy. Ahead, warp factor one.

Most of the viewing displays in “The Cage” – for example the one in the briefing room and the monitors above the bridge stations – were frosted screens that had slides and motion pictures rear projected onto them. Although this approach was tedious and noisy (and expensive, as they had to pay the projector operators), rear projection allowed the actors to see and react in real time to what was displayed. This wasn’t the case, however, for the viewing screens in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and the rest of the episodes, more or less. For the most part, the active graphics on the viewing screens from the second pilot onwards were separate optical elements that were inserted into them in post-production. This meant, of course, that the actors had to use their craft to imagine what they were not seeing.

As an example of the optical effects work that was used to insert images on the main viewing screen (MVS), here’s a photo sequence from “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that shows how the galactic barrier was placed on it.

The large photo on the left in the above collage is from a frame of film showing William Shatner watching the MVS as the scene is slated by John Eckert. The black area in the interior of the screen is the “hole” that’s been added to it in post-production and will be the place where the footage of the barrier display will be added. The upper photo on the right shows a frame from galactic barrier footage that will be inserted into the MVS. According to the script, the galactic barrier was to resemble an aurora borealis, so it was created, in part, by flooding a brightly-lit cloud tank with colored ink/paint and photographing the results. Using the optical printer, the completed footage of the barrier was then matted (masked) to the size of the MVS. Finally, the matted galactic barrier film was rephotographed together with the footage of the MVS with the “hole” in it to complete the effect as shown in the bottom right photo. Rejected Barrier Effects

When the Enterprise encountered the galactic barrier in the first act, it wreaked havoc on the ship and its crew. On the bridge, we saw electronic panels exploding and Elizabeth Dehner and Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) turning negative as they got shocked with thick, sparking lines. (An example of this latter effect, done in post-production via mattes and animation techniques, is shown below.)

Interestingly, though, this entire sequence originally had different effects that, for unknown reasons, were left on the cutting room floor. Presented below are photos from frames of black and white daily footage that show them, and please note that the captions for the letters in the bottom corners of the pictures can be found after the collage.

Photo A: This first frame comes from before the scene began and shows the cast relaxing before the action started. The technicians in front of the navigation console and on the far right are preparing flash pots (containers holding special pyrotechnic powder) for the soon-to-be-happening explosion and related shower effects.

Photo B: After the director called for action, the bridge was filled with smoke to create the illusion of off-stage fire and a scissor arc lamp was fired to simulate the flash of light for the static electric “lightning bolt” from the barrier. Of course, the lightning bolt striking the bridge panel (denoted by the yellow arrow) was added in post-production and was not seen in the completed and broadcast episode.

Photo C: After being zapped by the barrier lightening, the bridge panel then erupted in a shower of sparks courtesy of a flash pot.

Photo D: Later in this scene, the flash pot on the navigation console was ignited and, simultaneously, Gary Mitchell got hit with several bolts of static electricity that amplified his “Esper” ability (courtesy of optical effects and denoted by the yellow arrows). It’s interesting that the animation effects in this discarded sequence are different from those used in the finished episode (shown earlier) but similar to the ones that were later used in sickbay when Mitchell attacked Kirk and Spock.

And with that, we’ve ordered Mr. Kelso to get us out of here. Lateral power!

Biographical Information

David Tilotta is a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC and works in the areas of chemistry and sustainable materials technology. You can email David at [email protected]. Curt McAloney is an accomplished graphic artist with extensive experience in multimedia, Internet and print design. He resides in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and can be contacted at [email protected]. Together, Curt and David work on startrekhistory.com. Their Star Trek work has appeared in the Star Trek Magazine and Star Trek: The Original Series 365 by Paula M. Block with Terry J. Erdmann.

Get Updates By Email

Navigation menu

• Mission Logs
• Chronologies
• Library Computer

Where No Man Has Gone Before (Episode)

Stardate 1312.4 : Kirk's friend, Gary Mitchell, is transformed into a god-like entity.

While patrolling near the outer boundary of the galaxy , the Enterprise beams aboard the flight recorder of the S.S. Valiant, a galactic survey vessel that had visited the area nearly two centuries earlier. Upon attempting to leave the galaxy, the survey vessel had come in contact with an energy barrier , which disabled the ship and killed some of the crew. One crewman, however, recovered from serious injuries sustained within the barrier. From this point, the information is garbled; there are repeated requests for data on extrasensory perception , or ESP, and a self-destruct order is apparently given by the Valiant's captain.

Puzzled yet determined, Captain Kirk decides to move forward, only to contact the same energy barrier that had disabled the Valiant. Unknown radiation penetrates the ship, and Kirk orders the Enterprise back out of the energy field. Several crewmen are dead and two have been rendered unconscious: Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell , a friend of Kirk's from Starfleet Academy , and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner , a psychiatrist. Both recover and seem unharmed—though Mitchell's eyes now glow a bright silver. The ship's warp engines are also severely damaged.

In sickbay, Kirk learns that Mitchell is feeling completely well. He is also reading material he never understood before with complete comprehension, and his reading speed is incredible. Showing off to Dr. Dehner, Mitchell "plays dead" by stopping all his body functions for almost a full minute. He is mutating into something beyond Human .

Kirk and Spock discover Gary Mitchell's ESP quotient is extremely high, as is Dr. Dehner's. At a meeting of the Enterprise department heads, Sulu states that Mitchell's powers are developing at an astounding rate. Spock suggests that Kirk kill Mitchell now, while he still can; he cautions him not to wait too long, as the captain of the Valiant obviously did.

Unwilling to murder a man who was once one of his closest friends, Kirk sets course for Delta Vega , an uninhabited planet with an automated lithium -cracking station that can aid in repairing their damaged warp drive engines. He intends to maroon Mitchell there. Mitchell is sedated and transported to the planet, where he's confined within a hastily built brig. But Gary has grown too strong to be held by a forcefield . Declaring that he has become a god, he escapes, taking along Dehner, who has also begun to mutate. Kirk follows with a phaser rifle , and Mitchell attempts to kill him with his new powers. Dehner, realizing what Michell has become, helps Kirk overpower the mad superman, and is killed in the attempt. Aboard the Enterprise, Kirk records that Mitchell and Dehner died in the line of duty. (Summary from The Star Trek Compendium )

Image Gallery

Delta Vega lithium -cracking station

Delta Vega surface

Delta Vega surface (altered)

Galactic Barrier

Milky Way galaxy

The Ethics by Benedict de Spinoza

Kaferian apple

science officer

Dr . Elizabeth Dehner

Elizabeth Dehner (altered)

Lieutenant Lee Kelso

Captain James T. Kirk

Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell

Gary Mitchell (altered)

Dr . Mark Piper

Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott

Yeoman Smith

Lieutenant Commander Spock

Lieutenant Sulu

biobed sensor monitor

impulse circuit

Type 2 phaser

phaser rifle

recorder-marker buoy

telekinesis

Kaferian apple tree

briefing room

Elizabeth Dehner 's record

Galactic Mining Company sign

Gary Mitchell 's record

Starfleet Uniforms (2254)

Starfleet delta , Command Division

Starfleet delta , Operations Division

Starfleet delta , Science Division

Related Data

Starring William Shatner

Also Starring Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Directed by James Goldstone

Written by Samuel A. Peeples

Created and Produced by Gene Roddenberry

Associate Producer Robert Justman

Music Composed by Alexander Courage

Director of Photography Ernest Haller , A.S.C.

Production Designer Walter M. Jefferies

Guest Stars Gary Lockwood , Sally Kellerman

Paul Carr as Lt. Lee Kelso

Paul Fix as Doctor Piper

Art Director Rolland M. Brooks

Film Editor John Foley , A.C.E.

Assistant Director Robert H. Justman

Set Decorator Ross Dowd

Costumes Created by William Theiss

Sound Mixer Cam McCulloch

Post Production Executive Bill Heath

Music Editor Jack Hunsaker

Sound Editor Joseph G. Sorokin

Production Supervisor James Paisely

Wardrobe Paul McCardle

Special Effects Bob Overbeck

Music Consultant Wilbur Hatch

Music Coordinator Julian Davidson

Makeup Robert Dawn

Hair Styles Hazel Keats

Sound Glen Glenn Sound Co.

Photographic Effects Howard Anderson Co.

A Desilu Production

In association with Norway Corporation

Executive in Charge of Production Herbert F. Solow

• Prime Timeline
• 23rd Century
• Privacy policy
• About Trekipedia
• Disclaimers
• Login / Create Account

• Real-world articles
• Series pilots

Where No Man Has Gone Before

• Edit source

For the similarly titled Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, please see " Where No One Has Gone Before ". An old comrade of Captain Kirk's begins to transform after he is imbued with incredible power during an encounter at the edge of the galaxy, threatening the Enterprise - and Humanity.

" Where No Man Has Gone Before " is the third episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series . The second pilot of the series produced and the first one accepted by the network, it first aired on NBC on September 22, 1966.

Where No Man Has Gone Before Stardate: 1312.4 Original Airdate: 22 Sep, 1966

<Back to the episode listing

Star Trek ® is copyright of CBS Studios Inc . Copyright © 1966, Present. The Star Trek web pages on this site are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

Where No One Has Gone Before (episode)

When an experimental engine modification throws the Enterprise to the edge of the known universe, the crew must rely on a mysterious alien to guide the ship home.

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 1.7 Log entry
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Story and script
• 3.3 Production
• 3.4 Cast and characters
• 3.6 Sets, props, and costumes
• 3.7 Special and visual effects
• 3.8 Continuity
• 3.9 Reception
• 3.10 Awards
• 3.11 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest stars
• 4.4 Guest star
• 4.5 Featuring
• 4.6 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.7 Stand-ins
• 4.8 References
• 4.9 External links

Summary [ ]

" Where is the captain, please? "

The USS Enterprise -D has rendezvoused with the Excelsior -class starship USS Fearless in order to take on a Starfleet propulsion specialist who will perform an upgrade on the ship's warp drive . He has already performed the upgrade on the Fearless , as well as the USS Ajax . Both these ships reported a notable increase in engine efficiency. Riker , however, is not convinced. He and Data have run a controlled test of the formulae that the engineer, Kosinski , has sent over, and found them to have no effect. Picard reasons that there's no harm in letting him come over and attempt the upgrade, especially since it doesn't change the hardware.

Riker is still skeptical, so Picard sends him to meet Kosinski when he beams aboard, along with his assistant . Riker, Troi , and Chief Engineer Argyle go to meet him in the transporter room . Kosinski is pompous and arrogant. He asks why the captain isn't there to meet him and demands to be taken to engineering . As he leaves, Troi comments to Riker that Kosinski is as he appears – loud and arrogant – but she can sense nothing from his assistant, not even his presence. Riker tells Troi to stay concerned, as the safety of the Enterprise may be entrusted to the two of them.

Act One [ ]

The Traveler "phases" out of reality

In engineering, Riker questions Kosinski about what he is going to do and asks him to explain his formulae. At first Kosinski resists, but eventually agrees to explain himself to Riker and Argyle. Meanwhile Wesley , who is also in engineering working on a school project, watches the assistant enter the formulae on a screen and suggests various changes to the inputs. When Kosinski is ready, Picard orders La Forge to take the Enterprise to warp 1.5.

As the ship accelerates, both Kosinski and his assistant enter various information. Suddenly a console alarm goes off and Kosinski shouts at the assistant, who has made an error. Outside the ship, the Enterprise 's engines suddenly engage with a massive burst of speed. The assistant grabs his console and starts to "phase" in and out of view, noticed only by Wesley.

The Enterprise in M-33

On the bridge , La Forge tells the captain they are passing warp 10, and Data later says that their velocity is currently off the scale. The Enterprise hurtles through space, with phenomena whizzing past on the viewscreen at extremely high speed. Picard orders that they reverse engines (which Data comments on as having never been done at their current speed), and the Enterprise flashes out of warp. When asked for the ship's position, La Forge replies incredulously that they have traveled 2,700,000 light years .

They are now in the galaxy known as M-33 , and La Forge reports that at maximum warp it will take them over three hundred years to get home .

Act Two [ ]

Kosinski, Riker, and Argyle arrive on the bridge. Picard asks them what happened and Kosinski replies that he made "a mistake, a wonderful, incredible mistake". He is highly excited, claiming he has broken the warp barrier and that his name will go down in history. However, hearing the procedure that Kosinski used, Commander Riker isn't too convinced.

Down in engineering, Wesley is talking to the assistant in the chief engineer's office. He realizes that the assistant has been performing the "upgrades" all along, and that Kosinski is just a joke. The assistant tells him he means no harm to the ship or the crew – he simply made a mistake. He is exhausted now, and Wes offers to get his mother, but the assistant declines. Wes then says that from looking at the warp equations he thinks time and space and thought are all one thing. This surprises the assistant, who tells him never to say such a thing again "in a world that's not ready for it."

Kosinski prepares to take the Enterprise back

Picard orders Kosinski to bring them home, and they return to engineering. Wes tries to tell Riker about the assistant, but he won't listen. Kosinski sets up to return them home, and the Enterprise shoots into warp with another tremendous burst of speed. As they input the equations, it becomes obvious to Kosinski that it is not working. Then Riker sees the assistant as he starts to "phase" again and then collapses across the console.

" This isn't working! "

Meanwhile, the Enterprise picks up incredible speed moving into untold measurements. On the viewscreen , spatial phenomena streak past faster and faster into indistinguishable light blurs. Picard orders full stop, and the Enterprise blasts out of warp once more, but they are certainly not back in their own galaxy. Outside the ship, clouds of cosmic dust and energy beings swim in a never-ending blue abyss. Data concludes that they must be at the edge of the known universe , " where none have gone before. "

Act Three [ ]

The Enterprise is now a billion light years from the Milky Way Galaxy in the other direction. Kosinski, Commander Riker, and the chief engineer come to the bridge to explain what has happened to the captain. Kosinski is struggling to explain everything and seems nervous yet persistently arrogant. In an effort to lighten the situation Kosinski decides to take a positive approach and says the Captain should be thrilled as an explorer because " in three centuries of space travel we've charted just 11 percent of our galaxy… and then we accomplish this! " But Captain Picard is more interested in getting home and Kosinski assures Picard that he can get them back. Picard asks his crew for suggestions and the crew goes back and forth about whether it's smart to continue to trust Kosinski. In frustration, Picard leaves for engineering.

The crew now starts to see things that cannot be there. Worf is at his station when he suddenly sees a Klingon targ in front of him, his childhood pet. Yar also sees it but it disappears just as quickly. Then she sees her pet cat and is back on the colony where she grew up, trying to avoid a rape gang . La Forge touches her, and she snaps out of it. When the turbolift doors open, Picard almost steps out into open space before throwing himself back inside. The doors open again, and he goes into a corridor. He meets two crewmen running away from some unseen pursuer. Further down the corridor, he sees an ensign in a cargo bay dancing ballet while elsewhere, another crewman is performing the first movement of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with a baroque-looking string quartet.

Picard speaks to his mother

The visions of thought seeming to become visual reality soon become more evident to the captain when he then sees his dead mother drinking tea in a corridor and starts to talk to her before he is interrupted by Riker. When he looks back, she's gone. Picard realizes he must get the crew's attention quickly to prevent their thoughts from causing a catastrophe. He immediately orders general quarters and goes to engineering. He tells the crew that they are in a region of space where thoughts become reality, and that they must try to subdue their thoughts.

In engineering, Dr. Crusher is examining the now unconscious assistant. Riker informs Picard that it was the assistant the whole time, not Kosinski. Crusher says the assistant is dying. Picard says he cannot, as he is their only way to get back home.

Act Four [ ]

The assistant is brought to sickbay , where Picard tells Crusher to wake him. They must leave this place before their own thoughts cause the ship to be destroyed. The assistant wakes and tells Picard that he is a Traveler from another plane of existence. He is traveling through their galaxy , observing them, using his knowledge of propulsion to get passage on Starfleet ships. Kosinski is just his cover. He meant no harm to the Enterprise . He tells them Humans shouldn't be here until their "far, far, distant future ," until they have learned to control their thoughts. Picard asks him if he can get them home. He tells him he will try.

" He is just a boy… for now. "

He then asks for a private word with Picard. The others leave and the Traveler tells Picard that people like Wesley are the reason that he travels. He compares him to Mozart , only instead of music , Wes has, or will have, the ability to manipulate time, space, and thought. He urges Picard to encourage Wes, but not to tell him or Beverly any of this. He weakens, and Picard helps him up to Riker to go to engineering.

Picard hurries to the bridge, helping a crewman on the way to put out a fire he has created in a corridor.

Act Five [ ]

The Traveler sits at engineering's master systems display table starting to enter the necessary formula and Picard makes a ship-wide announcement, telling everyone to concentrate on getting back home and on the Traveler's wellbeing. They follow the same procedure as before: the ship jumps to warp 1.5 and the Traveler uses his powers to attempt to send them back. He starts to "phase" as before and the ship hurtles through space. Then the Traveler disappears altogether, and the Enterprise finds itself right back where it started.

" If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to sit here for awhile. "

Mindful of the Traveler's advice, Picard calls Wesley to the bridge and thanks him for his part in their successful return. He then makes him an acting ensign , "for conduct in the true spirit and traditions of Starfleet." He instructs Riker to make out a duty roster for him and tells him to learn the ship and its operations from top to bottom. Then Wesley takes a seat on the bridge as the Enterprise resumes course.

Log entry [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2364

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Yes, but where is this place? " " Where none have gone before. "

" The safety of the Enterprise may be entrusted to those two. "

" How basic shall I be? "

" Data, what distance have we traveled? " " Two million seven hundred thousand light years, sir. " " I can't accept that. " " You must, sir. Our comparisons show it to be completely accurate. " " And I calculate that at maximum warp sir, it would take over… three hundred years to get home. "

" Perhaps you could call it the Kosinski scale. " " Why not? Yes, of course. Since I'm the one who has made the so-called warp barrier meaningless. "

" Captain, we're here. Why not avail ourselves of this opportunity for study? There is a giant protostar here, in the process of forming. No other vessel has been out this far. " " Spoken like a true Starfleet graduate. It is tempting, eh, Number One? "

" If you knew something, why didn't you tell anybody? " " He tried, twice. I didn't listen. "

" Well yes, this could seem like magic to you. " " No. No, it actually makes sense to me. Only the power of thought could explain what has been happening. "

" Thought is the essence of where you are now. "

" He and a few like him are why I travel. "

" You're not involved in this decision, boy! "

" Please don't interrupt me, Wesley. "

" It's a Klingon Targ, from home, from when I was a child. " " So you're telling me that that thing's a kitty-cat?! " " Yes. I suppose you could call it that. "

" Should I send for Dr. Crusher? " " Why? Is someone ill? "

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• First story premise: 16 December 1986
• Gene Roddenberry greenlights story development: 17 December 1986
• Second draft story outline: 13 February 1987 [1]
• Original story outline: 17 February 1987 ( Creating the Next Generation )
• Second draft outline: 24 March 1987 ( Creating the Next Generation )
• First draft script: 17 April 1987 ( Creating the Next Generation )
• First draft script: 20 May 1987
• Five-page memo of script notes by Gene Roddenberry: 27 May 1987
• Script draft: 22 June 1987
• Revised script draft: 15 July 1987
• Final draft: 27 July 1987
• Revised final draft script: 30 July 1987
• Filmed: 5 August 1987 – 13 August 1987
• Score recorded at Paramount Stage M : 25 September 1987 ( Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project liner notes [2] )
• Premiere airdate: 26 October 1987
• UK premiere airdate on BBC2 : 17 October 1990

Story and script [ ]

• This story was loosely based on the Pocket TOS novel The Wounded Sky , also written by one of this episode's writers – Diane Duane . Producer Maurice Hurley did numerous uncredited rewrites on Duane and Michael Reaves ' original script. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 36)
• Diane Duane has published the second draft versions of the episodes original pitch (X) and outline (X) on her website. Of the production process, she writes: " We turned in the first-draft script and waited a couple of weeks for the notes – heard nothing, called the TNG office, and discovered that we had been "cut off" at first draft, and the script given to someone else for rewrite. (…) We were unclear about the reasons for this particular cutoff for a long, long time – nearly ten years. (…) (W)e'd unwittingly become caught up in interoffice politics. One member of production staff got up another one's nose, and as a result was chucked out – and (though they weren't told what was going on) so were all the writers associated with that production staffer. (…) At any rate, after the rewrite, in the shooting script for the episode, only two elements of our original (besides the general idea) remain: the scene with Picard and his mother (which was Michael's), and the shot of Picard almost falling out of the turbolift into open space (which was mine)." Notably, the characterization of Kosinki and the addition of The Traveler were entirely products of the rewrite. ( "Out of Ambit" at DianeDuane.com , October 8, 2006)
• In the original teleplay, Kosinski was responsible for both the warp effect and the accident. He also had a son, who felt his father was more interested in his work than in him. The hallucinations were much more bizarre than in the final episode: Jack R. Crusher appeared to Picard and Beverly, and the Enterprise appeared inside a "cosmological egg". When the starship escaped, it exploded and caused the birth of a new universe. As a sort of " Biblical pun", the Enterprise spends six days "missing", and Picard orders the next day to be a day of rest. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 36)

Production [ ]

Michael Dorn on set with wild boar Emmy-Lou

• This episode marks the debut of Rob Bowman as a Trek director. He later went on to direct twelve more episodes of The Next Generation . Daniel Petrie was originally hired to direct the episode, but quit when he was approached to direct the film Cocoon: The Return . Producer Robert H. Justman said that hiring twenty-seven-year-old Bowman to direct this segment was one of his proudest achievements on the show. Bowman was terrified, trying to make a good impression on his first assignment, and overcome any doubts of his youth. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 36) Concerning how he prepared to film the installment, he recalled, " I spent about twenty days before my first episode walking through those sets, and on Saturdays and Sundays, eight hours a day, just sitting and looking. " ( The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years , p. 117)
• While shooting the scene in this episode where Riker tells Picard, " It wasn't him, it never was; it was his assistant, " Jonathan Frakes had some difficulty saying the line and eventually could not say it without breaking into a laugh. According to Patrick Stewart , the event soon spread "like a bushfire" throughout the set, to the point where The Next Generation 's sound mixer, Alan Bernard , had to wheel his sound cart off the set as he also could not stop laughing. Stewart later recalled this story to Frakes in 2012 , at the Calgary Comic-Con Expo, where he still couldn't say the phrase very well. ( TNG Season 1 DVD special feature "Memorable Missions"; [3] )
• La Forge's line about the ship passing warp 10 was looped in post-production, and the line as it was originally spoken ("warp 5" instead of "warp 10") is featured in the episode's trailer.
• Worf's targ was played by a Russian wild boar named Emmy-Lou . Robert Justman recalled, " That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it! " ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 36)

Cast and characters [ ]

• This episode marks the first appearance of Eric Menyuk 's The Traveler . Menyuk was a finalist for the role of Data and was given the role here as a consolation prize. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 36) He reappears in " Remember Me " and " Journey's End ".
• This episode marks the first appearance of Dennis Madalone in a Star Trek production. Madalone performed stunts in several more first and second season episodes and started to work as Stunt Coordinator beginning with the third season . He also worked as stunt coordinator on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager .
• The piece of music played by the string quartet in this episode is Mvt. 1, "Allegro", from Mozart 's Eine kleine Nachtmusik , K. 525.
• When Picard meets his mother, there is also an unidentified recurring (until episode 17 " When The Bough Breaks ") melody.
• The episode's score, composed and conducted by Ron Jones , was recorded on 25 September 1987 at Paramount Stage M . ( Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project liner notes [4] ) The complete episode score, totalling 21 minutes 15 seconds, appears on Disc One of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project collection.
• The musical piece to which the ballerina is dancing is titled " Waltz of the Chocolate Donut ".

Sets, props, and costumes [ ]

• The master systems display (nicknamed the "pool table") in main engineering was used for the first time in this episode. However, as " The Last Outpost " was broadcast before this episode, though produced later, the table is first seen in that episode. Main engineering also features many chairs and benches never seen again.
• The two vertical light panels flanking the wall mounted master systems display in main engineering are illuminated green (which is only visible in the color-corrected HD release; the original mistakenly shows them being yellow), an effect only seen in this episode.
• For the last time until Star Trek Generations a corridor leading to main engineering, which is located directly behind the office, is seen. Normally, that opening is closed by a fake wall with LCARS interfaces, which is only removed when main engineering is redressed as a corridor lounge.
• Among the items from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay is a pair of special effects make-up hands for The Traveler . [5]

Special and visual effects [ ]

• Visual effects artist Robert Legato recalled that he had to devise the special effects for the "end of the universe" based on vague directions in the script. He noted, " I did it simply, at home in my basement, with water. I had always noticed water reflections on the wall, so I shot multiple layers of that through dissolved Mylar bits. It was peculiar and bizarre. And I used little suspended moving Christmas tree lights for the little blinkies. " ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion , 2nd ed., p. 37) Legato also described the creation of these effects in the TNG Season 5 DVD special feature "Departmental Briefing Year Five" ("Visual Effects").
• Director Rob Bowman recalls, " The effects in that episode were, at times, extremely frustrating and complex, so I didn't know what they were going to look like. It's tough to have people react to something that even I can't identify. Many special FX are just vaguely discussed during shooting and only finalized during post-production. So at times, that was difficult. " ("Rob Bowman – Director of a Dozen", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 10 , p. 15)

Continuity [ ]

• Wesley Crusher is given a field commission of acting ensign in this episode.
• Footage of the USS Fearless traveling next to the Enterprise -D was previously seen in " Encounter at Farpoint " (sans Deneb IV in the background), where the Excelsior -class vessel represented the USS Hood .
• When the illusory string quartet disappears, the crewman is sitting at a table with a small bottle and a glass on a tray. As both were originally created for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , the bottle features the Federation logo of that time.
• During Picard's speech towards the end of the episode, a crewmember is seen looking at an LCARS interface with directions to Holodeck 4J. This is the same graphic that was seen in " Encounter at Farpoint " when Commander William T. Riker was looking for the holodeck.
• Upon arrival at M-33, it is mentioned that a return trip to the Federation, using normal warp drive, through two galaxies, would take three hundred years. The time given is the same as that of the Kelvan 's trip in TOS : " By Any Other Name " from the Andromeda Galaxy .
• This is the only episode where Picard says "cease red alert" to stand down red alert.
• Despite The Traveler's admonition to Picard never to discuss their conversation regarding Wesley with either him or his mother, in " Journey's End ", both Beverly and Wesley discuss that conversation as if they had full and open knowledge of it.
• In this episode, Kosinski states that in "three centuries of space travel, we've charted just 11% of our galaxy." In " The Dauphin ", set one year later, Wesley notes an increased figure of 19%.
• The scene where Picard's mother appeared and offered him tea and a chat would be brought up in PIC : " Hide and Seek " where it was revealed that Yvette suffered from severe mental illness that she refused to treat, and her struggle with it would eventually lead Yvette to commit suicide in the 2310s , something which Picard blamed himself for as a child. This led him to often imagine what his mother would've been like had she survived to an older age - a thought which here becomes reality for a moment.

Reception [ ]

• Maurice Hurley commented, " Everything about that episode worked. That's when everybody started to hit their stride a little bit. The casting was good, the Traveler was wonderful, the optical effects were excellently outstanding. You could feel things starting to come together. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 158)
• Director Rob Bowman remembers, " It was a very enlightening script, the likes of which you don't very often see on television. I felt very fortunate that it was such a great script, but, personally, I was terrified because it was my first episode and I wanted to make a good impression. I worked on that show every day I had the script, which, including the shooting, was like twenty days for me. " ("Rob Bowman – Director of a Dozen", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 10 , p. 13)
• A mission report titled "Where None Have Gone Before" by Robert Greenberger was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 3 , pp. 22-26.
• This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series in 1988 . The nominees were Sound Mixers Chris Haire , Doug Davey , Jerry Clemans , and Alan Bernard .

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 3 , catalog number VHR 2273, 2 July 1990
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 1.2, catalog number VHR 4643, 4 May 1998
• As part of the TNG Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of Star Trek: The Next Generation 25th Anniversary Event
• As part of the TNG Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge
• Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar
• Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
• Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

Guest stars [ ]

• Stanley Kamel as Kosinski
• Eric Menyuk as The Traveler
• Herta Ware as Yvette Picard

Guest star [ ]

• Biff Yeager as Argyle

Featuring [ ]

• Charles Dayton as Crewmember
• Victoria Dillard as Ballerina

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• James G. Becker as Youngblood
• Byron Berline as command division officer
• Darrell Burris as operations division officer
• Dexter Clay as security officer
• Jeffrey Deacon as command division officer
• Emmy-Lou as Klingon Targ
• Nora Leonhardt as science division ensign
• Dennis Madalone as science division crewman
• Tim McCormack as Bennett
• Lorine Mendell as Diana Giddings
• Natalia Silverwood as civilian
• Command division officer
• Command division officer in a skant
• Eight operations division crewmembers
• Female command division officer
• Female science division crewmember
• Four rape gang members
• Male civilian
• Tasha's cat
• Three string quartet musicians
• Transporter chief (hand)
• Transporter chief (voice)

Stand-ins [ ]

• James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Darrell Burris – stand-in for LeVar Burton
• Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Susan Duchow – stand-in for Denise Crosby
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton

References [ ]

2064 ; 2415 ; 26th century ; ability ; acting ensign ; advice ; age ; Ajax , USS ; alien ; answer ; application ; arrogance ; assignment ; assistant ; astonishment ; attention ; auxiliary panel ; ballet ; battle stations ; Bessel function ; billion ; bridge ; calculation ; candle ; cat (" kittycat "); cello ; century ; chance ; chief engineer ; child ; choice ; commissioned officer ; computer ; concept ; concern ; controlled test ; conversation ; crisis ; cup ; curiosity ; danger ; day ; definition ; destination ; disposition ; distance ; distant future ; doctor ; door ; drill ; duty schedule ; earring ; Eine kleine Nachtmusik ; end of the universe ; energy ; ensign ; entrance application ; error ; exhaustion ; existence ; explanation ; explorer ; explosion ; fact ; fatigue ; Fearless , USS ; flashlight ; fire ; fraud ; friend ; French language ; full alert ; galaxy ; Galaxy -class decks ; general quarters ; genius ; graduate ; harm ; heading ; hearing ; history ; Holodeck 4J ; home ; Human ( mankind ); humanoid ; hundred ; hypospray ; idea ; ignorance ; information ; intermix formula ; joke ; Klingon ; Kosinski scale ; lens ; library ; lifeform ; life sign ; light year ; log entry ; luxury ; magic ; main computer ; malfunction ; maximum warp ; mechanics ; medical problem ; medical tricorder ; Milky Way Galaxy ; million ; minute ; minimalist ; mistake ; month ; Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus ; music ; name ; nature ; navigation sensor ; number one ; observation ; " on the double "; opportunity ; order ; outer rim ; painting ; parameter ; percent ; performance ; pet ; physiology ; place ; power ; pronunciation ; propulsion ; propulsion expert ; protostar ; puzzle ; question ; rank ; rape gang ; rate of speed ; reality ; reason ; reciprocal course ; record ; red alert ; rendezvous ; report ; retroactive course ; risk ; safety ; " scared to death "; school project ; science vessel ; scientific discovery ; screen ; sewer ; sickbay ; sleigh ride ; space ; spaceflight ; specs ; speed ; Starfleet ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Command ; straight line ; strength ; stress ; string quartet ; study ; subspace ; subspace field compensator ; subspace message ; symbol ; symphony ; targ ; target acquisition ; Tau Alpha C ; tea ; teacher ; term ; theory ; thing ; third person ; thought ; thousand ; threat ; time ; toe shoes ; trading ; tradition ; transportation ; Transporter Room 3 ; traveler ; Traveler, The ; Triangulum Galaxy ( M-33 ); truth ; turbolift ; Turkana IV ; tutu ; unconsciousness ; understanding ; universe ; unnamed plants ; velocity ; vessel ; viola ; violin ; visitor ; VISOR ; Waltz of the Chocolate Donut ; warp barrier ; warp drive ; warp drive engine ; warp drive system ; warp field ; warp formula ; warp speed ; warp speed experiment ; week ; wig ; Worf's pet targ ; year

External links [ ]

• " Where No One Has Gone Before " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Where No One Has Gone Before " at Wikipedia
• " Where No One Has Gone Before " at the Internet Movie Database
• " Where No One Has Gone Before " at MissionLogPodcast.com
• "Where No One Has Gone Before" script  at Star Trek Minutiae
• 1 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)
• 2 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Star Trek: Prodigy

Star Trek Best Trek

Where no man has gone before.

Since this episode is Star Trek ’s pilot, a lot of little details are out of whack with other episodes. The most obvious difference is that for this episode only, the ship’s surgeon is Mark Piper and Leonard McCoy is not even mentioned.

But the difference that bothers me most is that this episode is directly opposed to the spirit of Star Trek . Like the two previously - aired episodes, it can be viewed as a monster-of-the-week horror story featuring a tragic villain and a melancholy ending where the problem cannot be resolved with reason and compassion. But worse than that - it is textbook cautionary tale sci-fi .

The episode opens with the crew preparing to explore beyond our own galaxy. That’s a big, bold, exciting idea and a solid choice for the pilot of a forward-looking show about exploration and discovery. But it soon becomes clear that this premise isn’t actually about celebrating humanity’s advances and natural drive to explore: it’s hubris. It’s not just where no man has gone before; it’s where man was not meant to go, and to go there anyway invites disaster.

After encountering the Valiant ’s disaster recorder and the barrier their sensors can’t make sense of, Kirk spends almost no time or effort to understand the risk posed to his ship and crew. He quickly orders the Enterprise to proceed through the barrier with only the flimsy justification that other ships will eventually need to come this way. Entering the barrier causes the immediate death of nine crew members (and this episode sets the series record for number of Enterprise crew deaths).

Nobody calls Kirk out for this terrible decision, but that may be because the plot moves on and completely forgets about the barrier and mission. The new focus is an even greater threat: an expanding of human capability, which apparently inevitably turns humans into monsters.

While I don’t think the episode’s attempts to make Gary Mitchell likable work particularly well for modern audiences, it’s clear that we are supposed to understand that Mitchell is a good guy and has been friends with Kirk for fifteen years. Yet when the barrier causes his latent psychic powers to emerge and grow exponentially, he very quickly turns into a sociopath and an existential threat to not only the Enterprise but humanity at large. A few lines of dialog imply that the problem is that Mitchell has become more powerful while retaining his human flaws, but no dialog implies that Mitchell is any more flawed than any other human or that anyone is surprised by his change in personality. Turning into a monster with no regard for the lives of the less-powerful is presented as an inevitable and immediate outcome of a human becoming more powerful.

Spock is the only member of the crew to see this trend clearly from the beginning. He advocates for removing Mitchell from the ship or outright killing him while this is still possible. This horrifies Dehner and Kirk who accuse him of being heartless, and it probably sounds heartless to most audience members as well. But the episode’s events show that in the world of the show, Spock is completely correct: Mitchell must be dealt with decisively and immediately. Kirk’s delays only give Mitchell time to get stronger before the botched attempt to strand him on Delta Vega–which results in the murder of Kelso. Ultimately, the conflict is only resolved with the death of Mitchell (and Dehner). The crew could have saved themselves a lot of trouble (not to mention Kelso’s life) if they’d done as Spock advised and just killed Mitchell earlier when he was still weak (though it’s unclear what would have happened with Dehner in this scenario).

So what are we meant to take from this? The episode’s events seem to convey the following themes:

• Exploration for its own sake is foolhardy.
• Human flaws mean that expanding our capabilities will only create cruelty.
• Compassion is a weakness.

It’s quite possible to tell compelling stories with these themes, but the result would be the opposite of what people love about Star Trek .

Since this is the pilot, I’m inclined to chalk up the thematic dissonance to the same cause as the episode’s goofy bits (like Piper reviving the unconscious Kirk and Spock by putting pills in their mouths). In short, Star Trek was new and the creators were still figuring out what worked and what didn’t. And while those early steps are interesting from a historical perspective, I can’t recommend “Where No Man Has Gone Before” for new viewers - certainly not as a starting point.

Assorted Observations

This episode is unusual in that it matter-of-factly posits that humans have latent ESP that varies measurably between individuals and which can be triggered and amplified. I assume this is mostly a product of the times, as belief in psychic phenomena was perhaps a bit more widespread in the 1960s than today. Regardless, later installments quietly ignore this premise and (with very few exceptions) it doesn’t apply to the universe of Star Trek .

Another oddity of this episode is what it implies about Earth’s future history. Early on, we learn that the Valiant has been missing for over two centuries. Later we learn that a poem written in 1996 is one of the “most passionate love sonnets of the past couple of centuries,” suggesting that the episode takes place no more than a “couple of centuries” after 1996.

These facts are fine by themselves, but together they imply that Earth had crewed spaceships capable of reaching the edge of the galaxy not much later than 1996. This was a very optimistic prediction to make a few years before we even managed to land on the Moon .

Since these details are not important to the episode’s plot, I don’t know why they were specified the way they were. It seems distracting and wholly avoidable. I think it would have made far more sense to have had the Valiant missing for years or decades instead of centuries and to simply not specify a year for the poem.

But the most frustrating oddity of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is the handling of Spock’s lack of emotions. When Kirk tells Spock that his style of playing chess is irritating, Spock replies, “Irritating? Ah, yes. One of your Earth emotions.” Later on, Dehner says that “those from [his] planet aren’t supposed to have feelings like we do.” Shortly after this, Spock explains why he can see that Mitchell is highly dangerous when “trained psychiatrist” Dehner cannot by saying, “Because she feels. I don’t. All I know is logic.”

Everyone understands that Spock does not have human emotions, but they attack him for it anyway. Even Kirk reacts as though Spock is being cruel rather than pragmatic - he responds to Spock’s suggestion of killing Mitchell by saying, “Will you try for one moment to feel? At least act like you’ve got a heart.”

Once the threat has passed and Mitchell is dead, the episode ends with Spock mentioning that he “felt for [Mitchell], too.” Taken literally, this directly contradicts all the previous dialog that strongly emphasized Spock’s lack of feelings. But I read this as Spock simply using human terminology to say that he recognized that Mitchell’s death was unfortunate. He wasn’t being pointlessly sadistic when he told Kirk they had to kill Mitchell - he simply wasn’t letting emotions get in the way of seeing what needed to be done.

So I find it infuriating that Kirk responds to Spock’s vulnerable admission of sympathy (or the equivalent) with a smug, “I believe there’s some hope for you after all, Mr. Spock.” Especially since every death in this episode is on Kirk’s hands. Ordering the Enterprise into the barrier killed nine crew members and created the situation in which Mitchell’s death was required, and then Kirk’s emotionally-driven reluctance to follow Spock’s advice resulted in Kelso’s murder and Dehner’s death. Not only is Kirk never called out for this, but he has the gall to imply that his emotions make him better than Spock.

There’s hope for Mr. Spock, all right - this episode has shown that he is exactly who you want to be in charge in complex, dangerous situations. But after these events, it’s much harder for me to feel like there’s any hope for Captain Kirk.

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

Where No Man Has Gone Before

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was the second pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , the first episode produced in the show's first season , aired on 22 September 1966 . The episode was written by Samuel A. Peeples , directed by James Goldstone MA and novelized in Star Trek 8 by James Blish . An additional adaptation was published, in the form of the second " Fotonovel " of the Star Trek series, using sequential stills from the episode with word balloons to re-tell the story.

• 1 Description
• 2.1 Additional log entries
• 3.1.1 Episode characters
• 3.1.2 Novelization characters
• 3.2 Starships and vehicles
• 3.3 Locations
• 3.4 Races and cultures
• 3.5 States and organizations
• 3.6 Other references
• 4.1.1 Adaptations
• 4.1.2 Video releases
• 4.2 Background
• 4.3.1 Episode images
• 4.3.2 Adaptation images
• 4.4.1.1 Translations
• 4.5 External link

Description [ ]

Summary [ ].

In the USS Enterprise 's briefing lounge , Captain James T. Kirk plays three-dimensional chess against his Vulcan science officer , Lieutenant Commander Spock . Kirk is preoccupied with the unexplained distress call, and hardly reacts when his opponent warns the captain of a checkmate against him on his next move. The captain notes that Spock played an "irritating" game, prompting Spock to respond with feigned confusion, noting that irritation was an Earth being's emotion . The captain responds by making a move that catches Spock unawares, avoiding the checkmate. Kirk asks if Spock is sure he does not a know what irritation is. Spock mentions that Kirk might be referencing his Vulcan ancestor who married a female of Human descent, but Kirk interrupts and jokes that it must be terrible to have "bad blood ". The captain's anticipated bridge update regarding the Earth vessel signal origin comes over the intercom . Lieutenant Lee Kelso reports the source of the signal is now within tractor beam range, and that it is only about a meter across, too small to be a spacecraft. Kirk orders the bridge to lock on and leaves the lounge with Spock.

In the transporter room , Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott adjusts the transporter , preparing to beam the signal source into the ship. Kirk arrives, and Scotty energizes, rematerializing what is recognizably an older recorder-marker used in emergencies. Spock observes damage he believes sustained during the ship's destruction. Montgomery Scott loads computer tapes to interface, and the ship's library begins to receive computer transmissions from the recorder. Captain Kirk orders the crew go to red alert stations and analyze the data.

During the rush to stations, Kirk and Spock enter a turbolift , followed by Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell . A good friend of Kirk's, Mitchell jokes with his captain, wondering out loud about Kelso 's excitability and Spock's chess skills.

Spock begins to analyze its memory banks. They indicate that the Valiant had encountered an unknown force in this region of space. Spock hears urgent requests for information regarding extrasensory perception ( ESP ), and then, shockingly, what appears to be the Valiant 's captain giving the order to destroy his own ship.

At the galaxy's boundary, the Enterprise also encounters an unusual force field , the galactic barrier . Nine crewmembers die in the encounter, and two others are badly injured—psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner , and Captain Kirk's old friend, Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell .

Under the care of ship's surgeon, Dr. Mark Piper , Mitchell begins to exhibit increasing powers. He is able to levitate objects, read thoughts and control the ship's instruments. Dr. Dehner is also starting to exhibit similar capabilities.

Dehner concludes that Mitchell is mutating into a more advanced kind of human . But Hikaru Sulu cautions that at the rate at which Mitchell's powers are growing, he will not be human for much longer. Realising the threat that Mitchell might pose, Spock suggests marooning him on the planet Delta Vega and one other option, kill Mitchell while Kirk still has time—a coldly logical recommendation that Kirk is reluctant to accept until Mitchell murders Lieutenant Lee Kelso while escaping.

On the planet's surface, Kirk hunts down his friend and warns him that his absolute power will lead to absolute corruption. Mitchell's response is to attempt to kill Kirk. Dehner uses her own powers to stop him, but both she and Mitchell are killed in the resulting battle.

Kirk records that both gave their lives in the performance of their duties—a decision that meets with Spock's approval. Kirk asserts that there is hope for Spock after all.

Additional log entries [ ]

References [ ], characters [ ], episode characters [ ], novelization characters [ ], starships and vehicles [ ], locations [ ], races and cultures [ ], states and organizations [ ], other references [ ], appendices [ ], related media [ ].

• TOS - My Brother's Keeper novels : Republic , Constitution , Enterprise
• VAN novel : Harbinger
• TOS comic : " Star TreX "

Adaptations [ ]

Video releases [ ]

Background [ ]

Where No Man Has Gone Before painting.

Painted artwork was created to advertise this episode, notably in TV Guide . The combination of scenes was used as the cover art for at least three versions of the Star Trek 1 novelization by James Blish . The episode itself was not novelized in that volume, but instead was included in Star Trek 8 .

Episode images [ ]

Adaptation images [ ]

Connections [ ]

Timeline [ ], translations [ ], external link [ ].

• " Where No Man Has Gone Before " article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• 1 Lamarr class
• 2 Wesley Crusher
• 3 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)

TOS: S1 – E3: Where No Man Has Gone Before

STARDATE: 1314.4

We join our ship and her crew in this second pilot episode for the Original Series. This one features the crushed velvet uniforms from The Cage and Spock’s overly angled eyebrows. This was Kirk’s very first appearance as ship’s captain, replacing Captain Christopher Pike (who was portrayed by actor Jeffrey Hunter, who did not return for this second go at a series). While the captain was different from The Cage, the Enterprise set was exactly the same, including the captains “study light” microphone on his seat and other hokie-looking props. That is, except for Gary’s silver eyes.

The Enterprise ’s mission is to intercept a vessel, which was thought to missing for two centuries. When the ship got close enough, they realized that it was not quite a ship, but a smaller device, perhaps a probe of some sort. Scotty beamed it aboard, and it turned out to be an “old style ship recorder.” As soon as it settled onto the solid floor of the transporter room, it started to transmit again.

Kirk and Spock suspend their game of 3-D chess and report to the bridge. As they enter the turbolift, helmsman Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell jumps in as well. As they reach the galaxy’s edge, Kirk addresses the crew, informing them of the discovery of the recorder from the S.S. Valiant and that the ship would remain as they studied the old vessel was destroyed.

Kirk gathered the department heads, he spoke with Montgomery Scott from Engineering, Lt. Hikaru Sulu from “Astro Sciences,” Life Sciences with Dr. Mark Piper, including Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, who had just joined the crew when they stopped at the Alderbaran colony. Dehner’s main job is to study the crew and how they react under stressful circumstances.

Spock found that the Valiant was swept to the galaxy’s edge by a storm, and when the ship then encountered an “unknown force.” According to the logs, at this point, the crew started searching for any information on ESP or “extrasensory perception” in humans.

Dr. Dehner reported that ESP is a real thing and that some of those “espers” can sense future happenings. Spock said that the captain of the Valliant ordered the destruction of the ship, which Spock took to be a mistake.

The Enterprise then pushed on past the edge of the galaxy, where it encountered some sort of force field. Spock ordered the “deflectors” at full intensity as they entered the area. Controls started to spark, and Kirk ordered Mitchell to take the ship out of the field. As soon as that order was given, Dehner was struck by some sort of power, as was Mitchell, who both hit the deck.

The ship emerged from the disturbance, nine crewmen were reported dead, and the Enterprise was operating on backup power. But the strangest item of note was Mitchell’s silver eyes. The ship now was basically adrift without warp power.

Kirk openly wondered if Mitchell’s “esper” ability was why he would be chosen to be shocked and possibly changed. Dr. Dehner pushed back, saying that his skills had nothing to do with why he survived, and some others did not.

“Watch out for Lt. Kirk… in his class you either think or sink,” said Mitchell as Kirk visited him in sickbay. Mitchell told Kirk that he was fine and that the only effects from his accident were that his eyes reflected back at him in the mirror as he shaved. Kirk ordered Dr. Dehner to keep watch over Mitchell.

As Kirk walked out of the room, Mitchell told him that the captain had better be good to him — with a large, echo in his voice. Kirk whirled around, stunned by the change. Mitchell then started reading the ship’s libraries, absorbing pages of data by merely glancing at them.

Dr. Dehner came next to visit Mitchell, who demonstrated his ability to adjust the medical readings and instruments. He also reported that he remembers everything that he reads from the ship’s library instantly. Dr. Dehner asked Mitchell to recite a poem from the logs, and after he did, Mitchell pulled her close and intimately started asking her how she felt — when crewman Lee Kelso walked in and interrupted.

Mitchell shouted at Lee a warning — not to charge the impulse packs, or they would destroy a deck. Kelso left in confusion. Mitchell reported that he could read Lee’s mind.

Kirk called the department heads to give their opinions on what was happening with Mitchell. Dehner admitted that Mitchell could control objects with his thoughts, while Mr. Scott reported that the controls on the bridge began moving uncontrollably. Spock claimed that he saw Mitchell smiling as this disruption took place. Dehner exclaimed that a “mutated, superior man could also be a wonderful thing!” when pressed by Kirk as to why she did not report these new abilities. Spock speculated that eventually, Mitchell’s powers would overwhelm the crew.

He then recommended to the captain that the ship drop Mitchell off at a nearby planet, Delta-Vega, where there is also a chance of recharging the ship’s power. Kirk did not like that idea, but then Spock said that they ought to kill Mitchell — while they still had time. Kirk agreed to go to Delta-Vega.

As Kirk entered sickbay, he observed Mitchell moving a cup across the room with just the power of his thoughts. After a few words, Mitchell admitted that he could read all of their thoughts and that Spock’s plan (to kill) was probably the correct choice. He then smirked and threw bolts of lightning at Kirk and Spock. Dehner pleaded with Mitchell to stop. He then told them that he wasn’t ready for just Delta-Vega, and he said that he would eventually have the powers of a god. At that moment, Kirk and Spock attacked Mitchell while Dehner sedated him. They dragged him to the transporter room and beamed him to the planet’s surface.

Upon arrival, they put Mitchell into a cell, protected by an energy field. Kirk ordered Kelso to determine a way to destroy everything if necessary with explosive charges.

As Kirk spoke to him, Mitchell tested the energy field and was violently throw back into the cell. His silver eyes disappeared for just a moment. Mitchell got back up and told them that he would just continue to get stronger.

Meanwhile, Scotty was on the ship preparing the damage. Mr. Spock ordered a special phaser rifle to be sent to the planet. Kelso rigged up the explosives, and Kirk ordered him to “hit the button” if Mitchell escaped.

As Kirk planned to leave the planet, leaving only Mitchell behind, the “mutant” used his powers to control a power cable… and strangle Kelso to death. Dehner told Kirk that he would be staying behind, and as Kirk disagreed, Mitchell told them that they should have “killed me when you had the chance!”

He then shocked both Kirk and Spock with lightning and disabled the force field. Mitchell then took Dehner into his cell, where her eyes turned to silver as well. Piper revived Kirk — who ordered the doctor not to revive Spock. Kirk picked up the phaser rifle and told Piper that if the Enterprise did not hear from him in 12 hours, they were to leave the system at maximum warp to the nearest “earth base.” He then recommended that the planet be saturated with neutron radiation. He then stalked off with the rifle.

Dehner and Mitchell walked out into the barren planet’s wilderness, full of desert sands and rock outcrops. Mitchell waved his hand and said “Behold” and created an oasis, complete with flowers and a freshwater pond. Mitchell sensed that Kirk was approaching, and he spoke to Kirk through his powers.

Dehner confronted Kirk and attempted to get him to go back to the ship and leave them be. Kirk appealed to her inner psychiatrist to see what Mitchell would eventually become.

Mitchell appeared, and Kirk fired on him… to no effect. Mitchell created a gravestone for Kirk and began to move boulders which he would use to kill Kirk. Mitchell said that “morals are for men, and not gods.” Kirk responded that while Mitchell was a god, he was still “driven by human frailty.” Mitchell ordered Kirk to pray to him, as Kirk foretold that only one jealous god would survive in the end.

Dehner finally saw it Kirk’s way and attacked Mitchell with the lightning bolts. Mitchell responded. And several volleys of lightning, Mitchell’s silver eyes faded. Kirk then struck with his patented chops to the neck and wrestling moves. Kirk overpowered the weakened Mitchell, but just as the captain was about to bask Mitchell’s head in with a rock, Mitchell’s powers came back. The tide turned, and Mitchell started to win the battle. But with luck, Kirk was able to use the rifle to shoot an enormous boulder down from the ridge above the gravesite, which crushed Mitchell and imprisoned him in the hold meant for Kirk.

Kirk went to Dehner, who died as well.

Back aboard the ship, Kirk recorded the deaths of Mitchell and Dehner in the ship’s records.

TREK REPORT SUPPLEMENTAL:

I thought it another strange choice for one of the first Trek episodes. We had Charlie X , a power beyond human comprehension, and now Gary Mitchell who would have evolved to that point if Kirk hadn’t stopped him. Why so many episodes featuring evil “Supermen” ? Unknown.

This was an excellent entry — Trek at its best, featuring the battle between ultimate power and how to be moral. Plenty of action and futuristic gadgets. It is easy to see why NBC ended up signing up for the Five Year Mission after seeing this second pilot.

But I must point out, the extreme similarity to another science fiction franchise, which would explode onto the popular culture scene just 11 years after Star Trek’s debut. If only Gary Mitchell had a red lightsaber, he would have been a perfect Sith Lord.

His powers — mind tricks, moving of objects with his thoughts, quickness and speed, and the ability to shoot lightning from his hands … a bit too familiar. While we may have no proof that a young George Lucas watched that episode and took copious notes, one might speculate that he probably did borrow a few Trek ideas for Wars.

In the end, I wished that Kirk would have just let Gary be. Why? Who cares what Gary would have done. The Enterprise could warp away while Gary and Elizabeth ruled over a dead planet. Gary Mitchell would have made the perfect god to battle within Star Trek V, rather than … whatever it was they actually did fight. Much like The Next Generation episode “The Devil’s Due,” Star Trek would not allow for a god or fake god to terrorize. Unless they are named Trelane or Q .

RATING: 4 out of 5

Did you know that Gary Lockwood also appeared in 2001? Yep, he was one of the astronauts who journeyed to Jupiter to solve the mystery of the signal from the Moon. The guy was on Star Trek and 2001. Not too shabby!

Directed by James Goldstone Written by Samuel Peeples Created and Produced by Gene Roddenberry

Associate Producer: Robert H. Justman Director of Photography: Ernest Haller, A.S.C. Production Designer: Walter M. Jefferies Music composed and conducted by: Alexander Courage

William Shatner as Kirk Leonard Nimoy as Spock

GUEST STAR Gary Lockwood Sally Kellerman

George Takei … as Sulu James Doohan … as Scott Lloyd Haynes … as Alden Andrea Dromm … as Yeoman Smith

Paul Carr … as Lt. Lee Kelso Paul Fix … as Doctor Piper Dallas Mitchell … as Nellis

Art Director … Rolland M. Brooks Film Editor … John Foley, A.C.E. Assistant Director … Robert H. Justman Set Decorator … Rose Dowd Costumes created by … William Theiss Sound Mixer … Cam McCullough Post Production Executive … Bill Heath Music Editor … Jack Hunsaker Sound Editor … Joseph G. Sorokin Production Supervisor … James Paisley Wardrobe … Paul McCardle Special Effects … Bob Overbeck Music Consultant … Wilbur Hatch Music Coordinator … Julian Davidson Makeup Artist … Hazel Keats Hair Styles by … Virginia Darcy, C.H.S. Sound … Glen Glenn Sound Co. Photographic Effects … Howard Anderson Co.

Executive in Charge of Production … Herbert F. Solow

Star Trek Is About to Boldly Go Where It’s Never Gone Before: Netflix

For Trekkies old and new, the highly anticipated Prodigy Season 2 will be worth the wait.

Dan and Kevin Hageman seem relieved.

It makes sense. The brother duo behind the first Lego Movie and Trollhunters scored a big win back in 2021 when their Star Trek series Prodigy got picked up by Paramount+ and Nickelodeon. But despite signing a two-season deal, Star Trek: Prodigy was quietly canceled after Season 1 — until Netflix swooped in. Now, we’re just days away from the Season 2 premiere , so it’s no surprise that the look on the Hageman Brothers’ faces reads as a mix of glee and exhaustion.

“We’re very excited to be able to tell this story,” Kevin Hageman tells Inverse .

Over Zoom, the Hageman Brothers seem less like siblings and more like two friends who’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons with each other for decades. Kevin clearly wants to be the DM, while Dan is the guy who wants the quest to get bonkers. When it comes to crafting epic, animated projects, this geeky dynamic clearly gets he job done. But now, it’s up to the algorithmic streaming gods to decide Prodigy’s fate.

“I think it really all rests on the success of the Netflix platform,” Kevin says.

Star Trek: Prodigy began as a newcomer’s introduction to the massive canon of Star Trek, but Season 2 hits the ground at proto-warp speed with most of the main cast — Dal (Brett Gray), Jankom (Jason Mantzoukas), Rok (Rylee Alazraqui), Murf (Dee Bradley Baker), Zero (Angus Imrie), and Gwyn (Ella Purnell) — all, more or less, assigned to Starfleet duties. However, any cozy status quo is quickly up-ended by even more time-travel shenanigans than in the first season. It’s a big, surprising season-long arc, but the Hagemans were determined to sneak in some classic Star Trek standalone stories, too.

Dan Hageman hopes that’s enough to win over not just Netflix’s massive audience but the hardcore Trekkies. He says he’ll know Season 2 was a success “if it really sticks in the grill of the Star Trek fandom.”

So ahead of this historic drop — the first time that 20 new Star Trek episodes will be available all at once — Inverse caught up with the Hageman Brothers to talk about the flavor of Prodigy Season 2, balancing episodic adventures with an epic serialized arc, how the show fits into Star Trek canon, and their hopes for the future.

Star Trek’s Greatest Hits

Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) is back in Prodigy Season 2. But it’s not only Voyager references this season.

“Going into Season 2, we wanted to continue with that idea of what are the greatest hits [of Star Trek]?” Kevin says. “What are concepts and episode ideas that we can introduce to new fans that make up that Star Trek DNA? But we also we found ourselves it is a little more serialized, so the challenge was how to do that and also wrap up a lot of these bigger stories.”

In addition to introducing a new regular Vulcan character named Ma’jel (Michaela Dietz) — who is clearly inspired by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the late “ First Lady of Star Trek” — Prodigy Season 2 has a slew of Trekkie greatest-hits moments. Without getting into any big-time spoilers, these include parallel universes, some classic aliens for The Original Series , a big shout-out to the 1986 film The Voyage Home , at least one doppelgänger dilemma, and a lot of time travel.

But in addition to creating a diversity of very different stories and completing a bigger arc, Prodigy Season 2 is also a kind of Rosetta Stone for a certain point in the Star Trek timeline. Because Season 2 takes place mostly in 2384, aspects of Lower Decks and Picard canon are fully addressed and integrated. ( Lower Decks occurs between 2380 and 2383, while the earliest Picard Season 1 flashbacks happen in 2385. But the way Starfleet feels in the early days of Picard’s 2380s has seemed a bit incongruous with Lower Decks and Prodigy. In Prodigy Season 2, there’s a very deliberate fix for that.)

“We always wanted Prodigy to embrace the whole canon of Star Trek.”

It’s also worth noting that while Admiral Janeway didn’t appear in Picard Season 3, Prodigy Season 2 elucidates her post- Voyager role a little more clearly. In fact, because Prodigy Season 2 includes recurring roles from Voyager regulars The Doctor (Robert Picardo) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran), it’s tempting to think of the series as a follow-up to that version of Trek, rather than a midquel between Lower Decks and Picard . But for the showrunners, Prodigy’s canonical scope is bigger than either of those options.

“Everyone would say, oh, it’s like a Voyager spinoff, and we were like, no, we’re not a Voyager spinoff,” Dan says. “We are Voyager- adjacent just because Janeway is one of our leads. But we always wanted Prodigy to embrace the whole canon of Star Trek. The things that pop up are things that happen in that timeline.”

Major Trek Twists

Kevin Hageman and Dan Hageman (center), with some of the Prodigy cast including Angus Imrie, Kate Mulgrew, Ella Purnell, and director Ben Hibon in 2022.

The specifics of these events from elsewhere in the Star Trek pantheon range from minor Easter eggs to major events. And some twists and details have been planned since 2021, well before Picard Season 2 or Season 3 aired. The Hagemans reveal that, three years ago, with multiple Trek projects in production, they were in contact with other Star Trek showrunners to make sure Prodigy not only lined up with the rest of canon but also expanded upon a few specific plot points.

“We were all talking and sharing what we were planning and making sure we were all in sync,” Kevin says. “So there was some collaboration.”

By the final episode of Prodigy Season 2, several aspects of Star Trek are fully connected, but there’s also an open-ended notion that the series could continue in some way, shape, or form. But will there be a Prodigy Season 3? The Hageman brothers offer a surprising response.

“Just a lot of dreaming on Season 3,” Kevin says. “Maybe it’s something that happens down the line. I could see something happening in 10 years. Maybe sooner.”

“Maybe there’s a live-action version of it,” Dan adds. “We’re hoping.”

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 hits Netflix on July 1.

• Science Fiction

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Where No One Has Gone Before

• Episode aired Oct 24, 1987

Everyone accurately pegs a visiting propulsion scientist as a charlatan, but only Wesley Crusher recognizes his alien assistant as the real deal. Everyone accurately pegs a visiting propulsion scientist as a charlatan, but only Wesley Crusher recognizes his alien assistant as the real deal. Everyone accurately pegs a visiting propulsion scientist as a charlatan, but only Wesley Crusher recognizes his alien assistant as the real deal.

• Gene Roddenberry
• Diane Duane
• Michael Reaves
• Patrick Stewart
• Jonathan Frakes
• LeVar Burton
• 27 User reviews
• 13 Critic reviews

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard

• Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker

• Lieutenant Geordi La Forge

• Lieutenant Natasha 'Tasha' Yar

• Lieutenant Worf

• Doctor Beverly Crusher

• Counselor Deanna Troi

• Lieutenant Commander Data

• Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher

• The Traveler
• Yvette Picard

• (uncredited)
• Officer playing Violin
• Operations Officer
• Gene Roddenberry (showrunner)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia After the first jump, LaForge says that the Enterprise has traveled a distance of 2.7 million light years, ending up on the far side of the Triangulum galaxy, a.k.a. M-33. The distance to M-33 was very uncertain at the time this episode was made, with estimates varying between 2 and 3 million light years. Interestingly, the best modern estimates are indeed concentrated around 2.7-2.8 million light years.
• Goofs Kosinski never wears a communicator throughout the entire episode, even though he is in a Starfleet uniform. This is highly unusual, since the communicator pin is an integral part of the uniform; however, many details indicate that Kosinski is not a Starfleet officer: his strange single square insignia, him being referred to only as "expert" or "mister" (never by any rank), Commander Riker calling him "sir" in the transporter room, his informal (to say the least) behavior with senior officers, and so on. Apparently he is a civilian working for Starfleet, which entitles him to wear a Starfleet uniform but not an officer's pin.

Lt. Commander Data : Captain, we're here. Why not avail ourselves of this opportunity for study? There is a giant protostar here in the process of forming. No other vessel has been out this far.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Spoken like a true Starfleet graduate.

• Connections Referenced in Star Trek: Voyager: Caretaker (1995)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage

User reviews 27

• snarky-trek-reviews
• Feb 6, 2021
• October 24, 1987 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 45 minutes
• Dolby Digital

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Giant Freakin Robot

Star Trek Episode Named For Guest Actor The Show Couldn't Get

Posted: July 4, 2024 | Last updated: July 4, 2024

Star Trek Episode Named For Guest Actor The Show Couldn’t Get

One dubious honor for Star Trek is that this franchise is responsible for some of the weirdest episode names in television history. This includes inscrutable Latin titles and the occasional reference that audiences would almost certainly not get. A great example of this is The Next Generation episode “The Schizoid Man,” which was named after an episode of The Prisoner because producers tried–and failed–to secure that show’s star for a guest role.

The Schizoid Man

Before we talk about its strange name inspiration, we need to discuss what “The Schizoid Man” was all about. The story revolves around Dr. Graves, a dying scientist who longs to cheat death.

Since he taught Data’s creator everything he knows about cybernetics, he is able to put his mind in Data’s body, but he eventually relinquishes control and shuffles off this mortal coil, but not before depositing all of his extensive knowledge in the ship’s computer.

Part of what makes “The Schizoid Man” so memorable is Dr. Graves, who was brought to life with killer performances by both W. Morgan Sheppard and Brent Spiner.

However, the casting for this guest character was almost very different. The producers originally wanted the role to be played by Patrick McGoohan, and the name of the episode is a reference to this attempted casting.

Patrick McGoohan

While his name might not ring any bells for younger audiences, McGoohan was the star of The Prisoner, a 1967 television series that aired at the same time as Star Trek: The Original Series.

The premise of this show is that McGoohan plays a British intelligence officer whose resignation causes his abduction and relocation.

He wakes up in a strange village on the coast where everyone has numbers instead of names, and he must find a way to escape without getting killed or re-captured by the high-tech enforces who ensure that none of the residents can leave this mysterious village.

Homage To The Prisoner

So, what does The Prisoner have to do with the naming of TNG’s “The Schizoid Man” episode? In short, this was also the name of the eighth episode of this Patrick McGoohan show. 

The writers wanted McGoohan to play Dr. Graves, and the episode title was going to be a winking reference to the actor’s most famous role. Obviously, they couldn’t get McGoohan, but the title homage to The Prisoner remained.

Sean Connery

Weirdly enough, “The Schizoid Man” wasn’t the only occasion where Star Trek named something after an actor that they failed to cast. The most famous example of this is in Star Trek: The Final Frontier, where Kirk and crew encounter a godlike being on the planet Sha Ka Ree. 

They are led by the renegade Vulcan Sybok, and producers wanted him to be played by Sean Connery. That didn’t happen, but the name of the planet stayed as a reference to the actor. Phonetically, “Sha Ka Ree” deliberately sounds like “Sean Connery.”

It’s Too Bad

In retrospect, it’s regrettable that Star Trek: The Next Generation couldn’t get Patrick McGoohan for “The Schizoid Man.” The Prisoner is an amazing show that has had a profound influence on entire generations of showrunners and filmmakers. As huge fans of his show, we can’t help but think it would have been perfectly fitting to have its star help usher in a new generation of Star Trek fans.

More for You

Do I have to pay off my spouse's debts when they die? Here's what you're responsible for after a loved one's death — plus ways to protect your family's finances

18 ‘Normal’ Things From the ’80s and ’90s That Are Considered Luxuries Now

You Should Really Think Twice Before Killing That Earwig

My Grandmother's 3-Ingredient Recipe Is My Favorite Way to Eat Summer Squash

Meet the Ambanis, who live in a $1 billion skyscraper and are hosting another lavish wedding

Social Security Benefits Get a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) in 2025, But the Latest Forecast Is Bad News for Retirees

Netflix's huge sci-fi reboot is imminent – 40 years after its genre-defining debut

The dog breed that has attacked the most people, based on data. Plus, see the rest of the top 20.

These Gas Pickup Trucks That Are a Waste of Money

What Does It Mean When You See “SSSS” on Your Boarding Pass?

Which fruit is best for the heart? Cardiologists share 5 favorites

15 Richest Drummers of All Time, Ranked by Their Net Worths

Suddenly, there's talk of 3 rate cuts this year

18 People Who Seriously Messed Up At Work

Bubonic Plague Strikes Colorado, Health Officials Confirm

Woman demonstrates simple cleaning tip for defogging headlights at home: 'It works so well'

24 Telltale Ways Cats Show That They Love Their Humans

Which Natural Antibiotics Are the Most Effective?

The Biggest Differences Between 392 And 5.7 HEMI Engines

How to make the best homemade popcorn in a microwave with this trick