| "Where No Man Has Gone Before" | |||
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| Star Trek: The Original Series episode | |||
The Enterprise arrives at the edge of the galaxy |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 3 |
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| Directed by | James Goldstone | ||
| Written by | Samuel A. Peeples | ||
| Original air date | September 22, 1966 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes | |||
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the second pilot episode of the television series Star Trek. It was produced in 1965 after the first pilot, "The Cage," had been rejected by NBC. The episode was eventually broadcast third in sequence on September 22, 1966, and re-aired on April 20, 1967. On July 12, 1969 it was the first episode to be shown in the UK by the BBC.[1]
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was written by Samuel A. Peeples, directed by James Goldstone, and filmed in July 1965. It was the first episode of Star Trek to feature William Shatner as Captain James Kirk, James Doohan as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott ("Scotty"), and George Takei as Hikaru Sulu (the ship's physicist, which character became helmsman in subsequent episodes). The episode title was adopted as the final phrase in the opening voice-over which famously characterizes the series and has since entered popular culture.
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The starship USS Enterprise is on an exploratory mission to leave the galaxy. En route, the damaged ship's recorder of the SS Valiant, an Earth spaceship lost 200 years earlier, is found. The record is incomplete, but it reveals that the Valiant had been swept from its path by a "magnetic space storm," and that the crew had frantically searched for information about extra-sensory perception (ESP) in the ship's library computer. The recording ends with the captain of the Valiant giving a self-destruct order.
Kirk decides that they need to know what happened to the Valiant, and the Enterprise crosses the edge of the galaxy where it encounters a strange barrier which causes serious damage to the ship's systems and the loss of warp drive, forcing a retreat. At the same time, helmsman Mitchell and ship's psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner are both knocked unconscious by the barrier's effect. When he awakens, Mitchell's eyes glow silver, and he begins to display remarkable psionics.
Mitchell becomes increasingly hostile toward the rest of the crew, declaring that he has become godlike, enforcing his desires with fearsome displays of telepathic and telekinetic power. Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) comes to believe that Valiant crew members may have experienced the same phenomenon, and others must have destroyed the ship to keep the power from spreading. He advises Kirk that Mitchell may have to be killed before his powers develop further, but Kirk angrily disagrees.
Alarmed that Mitchell may eventually take over the Enterprise, Kirk decides to maroon him on an unmanned lithium-cracking facility on the remote planet of Delta Vega. Once there, the landing party tries to confine Mitchell, but his powers have become great. He goes on a rampage, kills navigator Lt. Lee Kelso and escapes, taking with him Dr. Dehner, who has now developed similar powers.
Kirk follows and appeals to Dr. Dehner's humanity for help. Before Mitchell can kill Kirk, the doctor attacks and weakens him. Mitchell fatally injures Dehner, but before he can recover from the effort, Kirk uses a phaser rifle to create a rock slide, killing Mitchell.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk makes a log entry that both Dehner and Mitchell gave their lives "in performance of duty," rationalizing that they did not ask for what happened to them. Spock admits to feeling for Mitchell too, and Kirk comments that there is hope for him.
The original pilot of Star Trek, "The Cage", was rejected in February 1965 by NBC executives. The show had been sold to them as a "Wagon Train to the stars", and they thought the first pilot did not match the adventure format they had been promised and was "too cerebral" for the general audience. However, NBC maintained sufficient interest in the format to order a second pilot episode in March 1965.[2][3]
In a 1988 TV special, series creator Gene Roddenberry said that, as with the first pilot, this one still had a lot of science-fiction elements in it, but at least it ended with Kirk in a bare knuckle fistfight with Mitchell and that's what sold NBC on Star Trek.
Roddenberry wrote two story outlines, "The Omega Glory" and "Mudd's Women." He wrote the teleplay for the former, and gave the latter to Stephen Kandel. Roddenberry asked long-time associate and veteran scriptwriter Samuel Peeples to submit ideas for another. Peeples came up with the premise and episode title for "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and was assigned to write it.
Kandel had fallen ill and his script was not finished in time; the other two were submitted to NBC for consideration. NBC preferred "Where No Man Has Gone Before" as a pilot. "Mudd's Women" was later made as the second episode in regular production, and "The Omega Glory" was made towards the end of the second season.[2]
While "The Cage" has a running time of approximately 63 minutes, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", ran just over 55 minutes with additional footage and formatting later cut to reduce it to the usual series running time of around 50 minutes (excluding commercials).[1]
Casting took place in June 1965. Jeffrey Hunter was unwilling to reprise his role as Captain Christopher Pike. Lloyd Bridges and Jack Lord were considered, but William Shatner was finally cast as Pike's replacement, Captain James Kirk. The character of Number One, the female second-in-command, was dropped on the insistence of the NBC network, and Science Officer Spock was given Number One's unemotional demeanor. NBC was worried about Leonard Nimoy's "satanic" appearance and pressured for his removal, but in the end he was the only actor retained from the first pilot.
Apart from Captain Kirk, the episode introduced two other regular characters to the show: James Doohan, a friend of director James Goldstone, was cast as the Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (the name chosen after Doohan had tried various accents, and had decided that an engineer ought to be Scottish) and George Takei was cast as Ship's Physicist Hikaru Sulu, who would become the helmsman in the regular series. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and Dr. Leonard McCoy do not feature; the ship's doctor is instead Mark Piper (Paul Fix). Piper was intended as a regular; DeForest Kelley, who played McCoy in the series proper, had been considered for the role.
Gary Lockwood, as Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell, had starred in the title role of Roddenberry's earlier series on ABC, The Lieutenant; Sally Kellerman was cast as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. Both actors needed silver eyes, which were produced by an expert contact lens fabricator who sandwiched wrinkled tinfoil between two scleral contact lenses which covered the entire eye. These were outdated even in the 1960s and dangerous to the health of the actors' eyes. Although Kellerman could insert and remove the prosthetics easily with no discomfort, Lockwood found them almost impossible to use. He needed to raise his face and sight along his nose in order to see through tiny holes in the foil. He was able to use this to enhance his performance as the mutating Mitchell, the unusual gaze giving him an arrogant and haughty demeanor.[4]
Other cast members included Paul Carr as Navigator Lee Kelso, Lloyd Haynes as Communications Officer Alden and Andrea Dromm as Yeoman Smith (Alden and Smith were intended to be regulars in the show, but were replaced by Uhura and Janice Rand, respectively).[4] The episode also is the first time long-running background actor Eddie Paskey appeared; his character would later be identified as Lt. Leslie.[5]
The costumes from the first pilot were used in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" but would be changed in the series proper, with the colors altered and black collars introduced. Most of the Enterprise sets were also reused from "The Cage", while Sickbay was the only major set constructed for the episode. Like "The Cage", the episode was shot at Desilu's Culver City studios.[6]
The episode was directed by James Goldstone. Ernest Haller, who had won the 1939 Oscar for Best Color Cinematography on the movie Gone with the Wind, served as director of photography for the show. He had been brought in out of semi-retirement at Goldstone's recommendation at the last minute, after attempts to locate a cameraman had proved problematic. Robert H. Justman was credited as assistant director.
Shooting started on July 19, 1965, several days later than originally scheduled.[2] During the filming of this episode, a wasp's nest high in the rafters of the studio was somehow disturbed, and many cast and crew members suffered stings as a result. As this happened on a Friday, the weekend break allowed time for the swelling to go down; Shatner, however, required additional makeup to hide the stings during shooting the following Monday.[3][4] Filming finished late on July 28, 1965; the final footage filmed was part of the fight between Kirk and Mitchell. While the schedule allowed seven days to shoot the episode, it required nine, which was Justman's original estimate.[3][4][6] The episode cost around $300,000, around half the money spent on making "The Cage."[4]
Post-production on the episode was delayed by Roddenberry's involvement in another pilot, Police Story. Post-production finished in January 1966 and the episode was presented to NBC for approval (which finally came in February 1966); this original version (production number 02a) differed from the later final broadcast cut (production number 02b, airing on September 22, 1966) in that each of the four acts had on-screen titles ("Act I," "Act II," etc.), as well as an epilogue, in the manner of Quinn Martin's television productions. It also featured a much longer opening narration by Shatner. In part, also alternate musical scores were used. In total almost 5 minutes of additional footage was removed to accommodate the original series 50 minute network broadcast format, allowing for commercials.
The studio did not retain a print of this original "alternate" version, and it was officially thought to be lost,[1] though many fans knew that it existed somewhere, having purchased a poor quality VHS tape at a convention.[7] In 2009, a German film collector discovered a print of it and brought it to the attention of CBS/Paramount, which then released it under the title "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" - The Restored, Unaired Alternate Pilot Episode as part of the TOS season 3 box set on Blu-ray;[8][9][10] it has not yet been released on DVD.
The original "alternate" version also remains unaired (in both normal or still undone remastered form), thus still awaiting canon status (both contrary to TOS' earlier other concept-as-pilot episode's version, "The Cage" - later reworked into the two-part "The Menagerie" of the original run of TOS, which was finally broadcast in 1988 during the original run and in the regular time slot of "Star Trek: The Next Generation").
The episode in its original "alternate" version was known to the public before the aired version, having been shown (receiving a standing ovation) at the 24th Worldcon in Cleveland, Ohio on September 3, 1966 — shortly before the premiere broadcast of Star Trek on NBC.
The episode's name is the first usage of the phrase "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in Star Trek. The phrase would be incorporated into the opening credits sequence in following episodes, as part of the famous "Space: The Final Frontier..." speech given by Captain Kirk.[1] The phrase would also be used (with "man" changed to the gender-neutral "one"), in the credits voice-over of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That series also referred to it with the title of one of its episodes, Where No One Has Gone Before. It was also referred to in the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise as part of a voice-over spoken by Kirk, Picard, Archer.
Kirk's middle initial is given as "R." in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and is seen clearly on the gravestone fashioned by Mitchell for Kirk; subsequent episodes use "James T. Kirk", and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country later made official the middle name "Tiberius" (used previously in "Bem", an episode from the animated series). Various suggestions have been made to explain this discrepancy; Michael Jan Friedman's My Brother's Keeper trilogy speculates this results from an in-joke between Mitchell and Kirk.[11] Roddenberry cited human error on Mitchell's part. Peter David's novel, Q-Squared, placed the events of this episode in a parallel universe in which, among other differences, Kirk's middle initial was indeed R.
The episode contains the first stardate (1313.8) and makes the first reference to the Academy, at which Kirk taught Mitchell. The "lithium crystals" mentioned in the episode would later be renamed to the fictional "dilithium crystals." The episode opens with Kirk and Spock playing a game of Three-dimensional chess.[12]
Michael and Denise Okuda's Star Trek Chronology sets the episode in 2265, 300 years after its production.[13] The Galactic Barrier is referenced and revisited in a subsequent episode, "By Any Other Name."[12]
Many changes to the USS Enterprise bridge were made after this episode was produced. Among these were a new forward viewscreen and an updated helm/navigation console. Also, the positions of the helmsman and navigator were swapped (in this episode, the navigator sat on the port side of the console, and the helm officer was to starboard. In the regular series, the opposite was the case). When production of the series proper began, it was also decided to introduce a new uniform design for the Enterprise crew, although in the first regular episode produced, The Corbomite Maneuver, some characters are shown wearing the uniform style of Where No Man Has Gone Before. Adjustments to Spock's make-up were also made, specifically to the angle of his eyebrows, refinement of his haircut and tempering of the overall greenish-yellow cast of his skin.
Spock also makes reference to his ancestor marrying a human when in a later episode, his mother was introduced as a human. He pretends not to understand human emotions — despite being half-human himself.
In this episode the helm and navigation station console was used for the transporter room console. In future episodes a dedicated station would be built with the iconic sliding controls and centrally located, hooded beam-down coordinate selection screen.
The sickbay in this episode uses conventional sheets on the beds; later episodes used the more "futuristic" metallic weave materials. The "bio-probe", located under the medical monitor panel, pointed to and monitored the physiological functions of the patient. It was a simple rod, later replaced with the more detailed, internally-lit acrylic set piece.
Hand weapons are referred to as "lasers" (although the same style would later be used in "The Man Trap", referred to as phasers) and the phaser rifle makes its only appearance in Star Trek: The Original Series.
The episode was adapted into a short story by James Blish for Star Trek 8, published in 1972.[14] It also became the second in Bantam's series of Fotonovels, published in 1977.[15]
The Galactic Barrier is later associated with the Q, in two unrelated and non-canon novels: 1994's Q-Squared by Peter David, and Greg Cox's 1998 Q Continuum novels. In the former book, Q takes refuge in the barrier, while the latter suggests that the Galactic Barrier had been created to exclude the malevolent being 0 from the galaxy.[14]
Gary Mitchell does not appear again in the show. Several books, including Michael Jan Friedman's My Brother's Keeper, Vonda N. McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure, and Margaret Wander Bonanno's Strangers From The Sky feature the Mitchell character in adventures set before the events of the episode. The 2005 Star Trek: Vanguard book Harbinger is set immediately after the events of "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and features a troubled Kirk musing on his friend's death. Friedman's Stargazer book The Valiant features two people who claim to be descended from the Valiant's crew.[14] The fanmade film Star Trek: Of Gods and Men has actor Daamen Krall playing the role. The story is set in a timeline where Kirk had never been born and Mitchell rose to become ruler of the Galactic Order.
The Galactic Barrier depicted in Where No Man Has Gone Before was later explained in the novel The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane published in 1983. It was referenced as an energy barrier that was the result of a hard radiation wave front from a mega-star exploding in a globular cluster just beyond the Milky Way's leading edge.
After James T. Kirk's final onscreen appearance in Star Trek: Generations, William Shatner collaborated with authors Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens on a series of nine novels depicting the "rebirth" of Kirk following his demise in that film. He is brought back to life by a combination of Romulan and Borg technology and continues to have adventures, usually involving Captain Picard and the crew on the Enterprise-D and eventually -E. Over the course of his new adventures, Kirk meets and marries an alien woman, Teilani (a genetically engineered Klingon/Romulan hybrid), and has a child with her. This child, Joseph Samuel T'Kol T'Lan Kirk (called Joseph), proves instrumental in preserving the Galactic Barrier from destruction, protecting all life in our galaxy from invasion by hostile would-be conquerors from the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, known as the Totality, in the ninth novel of the series, Captain's Glory. The Barrier itself is described as an artificial construct, built over four billion years ago when (according to Trek lore) only one species inhabited this galaxy.
In the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, directed by William Shatner, references are made to a "Great Barrier", which lies at the center of the galaxy instead of surrounding it.
The airing version of this episode was remastered and first aired January 20, 2007, as part of the 40th anniversary remastering of the Original Series. It was preceded a week earlier by "Wink of an Eye" and followed a week later by "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky."
Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'B+' rating, describing it as "an awkward episode" but that "it's not without its charms."[17]
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