#2 (1-03): Where No Man Has Gone Before

Meet the new boss: Captain Kirk (William Shatner),
with the newly emotionless Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy)

Original Air Date: Sept. 22, 1966. Written by: Samuel A. Peeples. Directed by: James Goldstone.


William Shatner beams aboard for the second pilot, which is closer to - but still not quite - what Trek would become.


THE PLOT

As the Enterprise nears the edge of the galaxy, it retrieves a ship recorder from a long-missing vessel, the U. S. S. Valiant. There is no real time to examine it, however, as the ship has now reached the edge of the galaxy. Attempting to cross a galactic barrier, the ship is affected by the strange field, forcing them to turn back... but not before the energy has knocked out two crew members: psychiatrist Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman), and Kirk's old friend, Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood).

Dehner recovers quickly, but Mitchell is noticeably changed. His eyes glow eerily, inhumanly.  He reads at incredible speeds. His intrinsic ESP abilities have been enhanced to such a level that he can see into other men's minds.  As his abilities grow, he becomes ever colder toward his fellow crew members. Spock urges that he either be killed or marooned, a suggestion Capt. Kirk initially resists.

Finally, the captain capitulates to marooning Mitchell on an isolated planet, an unmanned world which also contains supplies needed to repair the ship. Mitchell, however, does not intend to be marooned - and Dr. Dehner has not been left as unaffected as she seems!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Beefcake: Kirk's uniform is nearly identical to Captain Pike's, save that it appears to have a tearaway function which allows the first of what will be many uniform-rips during a scuffle with Mitchell near the end. This, I suspect, would not have been a major feature of the series had Jeffrey Hunter stayed on.

In any case, Kirk in his first episode is more like Pike than like the character he would later become. I suspect the script was originally written with Hunter in mind, with Pike crossed out and "Kirk" written in when Hunter decided not to return. Some warmth does come through, though. Notably, when Kirk hesitates to kill Mitchell, or when Kirk is playing chess with Spock and - after a winning move - teases Spock about being a bit more familiar with "annoyance" than he claims. Shatner's performance is mostly subdued, with only a tiny flash of ham near the end ("Above all a God needs compassion... MITCHELL!!!").

Spock: The lack of emotions in the Vulcan is introduced here, and perhaps a bit too much is made of it. Spock is colder in this episode than he would become, though his urging to "kill Mitchell while you still can" is proved to be genuinely logical by the unfolding of the plot. Nimoy's performance is far better than in The Cage, but still not as confident as it would become. It is clear that both writer and actor are still finding the part.

The Enterprise Crew: Sulu and Scotty appear, though neither has a significant role. Scotty's later role is essentially taken by a character named Lee Kelso, who is perhaps less competent but still has the ability to "make do" with whatever happens to be on-hand. No McCoy yet. The ship's doctor is an older man named Piper. Though far preferable to Dr. Ham from The Cage, Dr. Piper still lacks strong interaction with the other regulars. I guess third time was destined to be the charm for TOS doctors.

Villains or victims? Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) and
Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman) are transformed.

THOUGHTS

Though obviously lower budget than The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before is a solid launch point for the series. The leads are agreeable, the story is well-plotted, and there's a strong undercurrent of horror - which likely appealed to test audiences whose familiarity with television science fiction was basically The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

There are nitpicks. The horror should cut two ways. As the ending notes, Gary Mitchell was a decent man who never asked for what happened to him. We get a postcard glimpse of this, as Mitchell worries to Elizabeth at an early point, "What's happening to me?" But there should be time devoted to a more gradual transformation for Mitchell, to allow him some moments of real fear before he becomes a monster; instead, that single line is about all we see. For that matter, we don't get much sense of Gary Mitchell pre-accident. The only character scene early in the episode is between Kirk and Spock. If the chess scene had been re-written to fit Kirk and Mitchell, to establish a relationship up-front, then it would be easier to sympathize with both men as Mitchell changes.

Effects are spare, particularly compared to The Cage, but they are well-applied. The Galactic Barrier has obviously been retouched by the remastering team (as a simple comparison with the still shot over the end credits shows), but not so much so as to call attention to itself. Meanwhile, the effects in the (rather disturbing) scene in which Mitchell makes his escape, at the cost of one man's life, seem to have been left untouched.

Finally, of course, a quick mention must be made of the name "James R. Kirk" on the tombstone Mitchell conjures at the end.  The real explanation is, of course, that this was still a pilot episode, and the writers hadn't yet settled on "T" for Kirk's middle initial.  Still, this minor discontinuity has provided grist for several fan-pretzel-twists, ranging from the relatively mild ("R" was part of nickname Mitchell had for Kirk) to the hilarious (this episode occurs in an alternate universe in which Kirk's middle name starts with an "R," and which was affected by Mitchell absorbing powers from the "Q" continuum... Aah! My head hurts!).


Rating: 7/10. A step down from the first pilot, but still highly enjoyable.

Previous Episode: The Cage
Next Episode: The Corbomite Maneuver

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads