‘WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE’ (TOS)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This should have been the first episode of ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’, but it was transmitted third in the TV series. It was the second pilot episode made for ‘Star Trek’ after ‘The Cage’ proved unsuccessful.
‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ is a really good ‘Star Trek’ episode that does well in the set-up of the characters. There are some continuity errors to be found in this episode, which I will explain later.
In the episode, Kirk’s best friend Gary Mitchell becomes a god-like being after the Enterprise goes through a cosmic forcefield called ‘the barrier’ at the edge of the galaxy. Soon, Elizabeth Dehner gets to be god-like too.
Aspects of this episode make it clear that this should have been the first episode shown in the original TV series. But creator Gene Roddenberry was undecided and made so many changes to the TV series.
There’s a sense of elements of ‘The Cage’ still found in this episode. The uniforms are different, the set designs directly come from ‘The Cage’ and originally, there wasn’t a voice-over by Captain Kirk in the opening credits.
Also, Leonard Nimoy as Spock wears a yellow uniform similar to William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Usually, Spock wears a blue uniform to signify his science officer’s role as well as being second-in-command.
This episode also features the first appearance of James Doohan as Mr. Scotty (Scotty as Kirk calls him), the ship’s chief engineer. His uniform is also different and drab in this ‘Star Trek’ pilot episode.
George Takei also appears as Mr. Sulu in this episode, but he’s wearing a blue uniform instead of a yellow one. He also seems to be in the capacity of science officer before he became the helmsman.
Dr. McCoy doesn’t feature at all in this episode, as the Enterprise’s chief medical officer is Paul Fix as Dr. Mark Piper in the episode. I’m glad that Dr. Piper only made one appearance in the pilot episode.
Gary Lockwood guest stars as Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s best friend. Gary starts off really well before he gets hit by the cosmic barrier and becomes very god-like with very scary-looking eyes.
During the episode, Kirk becomes worried for his friend, as Gary increasingly becomes smug and arrogant in his god-like powers. Very soon, Kirk has to maroon Gary on a planet and perhaps kill him.
Sally Kellerman guest stars as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, the psychiatrist aboard the Enterprise who watches over Gary when he’s ill in sick bay. She becomes increasingly fascinated by Gary’s condition.
Eventually, Elizabeth has god-like powers and scary-looking eyes just like Gary does. When searching for Gary and Elizabeth with a phaser rifle, Kirk tries to persuade Elizabeth to help him and stop Gary.
The atmosphere in this episode is pretty tense, especially when Gary became rather blasphemous and righteous in his god-like powers. I did wonder if Gary ever survived following this dramatic episode.
The climatic fight scene between Kirk and Gary is very exciting to watch. I became anxious for Kirk when Gary was getting too strong for him. I wondered how Kirk was going to defeat Gary in the end.
‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ is a great ‘Star Trek’ episode to watch on DVD. It should have been the first episode shown in the TV series, but I enjoyed the tense atmosphere and the story throughout.
The DVD special features for this episode are as follows. On Disc 1 of both the original and remastered DVDs of ‘Star Trek: The Original Series – Season 1’, there’s a preview trailer for this episode. On Disc 1 of the original DVD of ‘Star Trek: The Original Series – Season 1’, there’s a text commentary on this episode by Michael and Denise Okuda.
‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ (TOS) rating – 10/10
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