Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Original Airdate: 9/22/1966

Synopsis (from the official Star Trek website):

The U.S.S. Enterprise finds the Valiant's disaster record-marker, which reveals that just prior to its destruction the crew had been searching library tapes for any information on psionics. The Enterprise arrives at the edge of the galaxy and the same force affects the ship's drives that must have affected those of the Valiant. Kirk notices a strong personality change in his good friend, Lieutenant Gary Mitchell, whose latent psionic abilities are heightened by the force field.

Where No Man Has Gone Before was essentially the second Star Trek pilot, introducing James T. Kirk and many of the other main characters we would grow to know and love over the last 40 years. The story itself is a fairly interesting take on how society might react to "super-humans", or humans with extra-sensory perception, super strength, intelligence, and other traits. The basic premise of the story surprisingly stays away from the typical, staid "the human race isn't read for a race of super-humans" angle and instead examines how super-humans would react to their more evolutionary deficient counter-parts.

In Where No Man Has Gone Before, the super-human essentially becomes evil, although it is never clear if his evil is fueled by any genuine desire to cause harm, or rather whether he believes that his new powers simply elevate him to a position where societal norms and morals simply do not apply. It is an interesting concept and Kirk and Spock spend much of the episode trying to reconcile the man Mitchell was with the man he has become.

One particularly interesting thing to note about this episode is that it frequently mentions extra sensory perception, "espers", and the "esper" rating for each crewmember in their medical files, almost as if the concept of ESP is widely accepted and common in the 23rd century. For whatever reason, this concept (at least in relation to humans) almost completely ended with this episode, and rarely returned for the next 40 years. I like the choice of allowing ESP and telepathy to be the realm of aliens on Star Trek-it allows us to more closely identify with our future counterparts. It also eliminates a very common science fiction theme from humanity in the Star Trex lexicon early on, which likely helped separate it from the works that inspired it.

Also of note is that this episode lays the groundwork for one of Kirk's most admirable personality traits: his loyalty to his friends. Gary Mitchell was one of Kirk's best friends. They had served together prior to Kirk's command and he came to the Enterprise at Kirk's request. Kirk spends nearly the entire episode reconciling that his head is telling him that he must give up his friend before it is too late, while his heart is telling him that he cannot possibly harm a man who had nearly died to save his life. It makes the end of the episode just that much more poignant, and demonstrates Kirk's unwavering loyalty to his friends.

Continuity:
- As this was the second pilot, there were a number of inconsistencies between this episode and The Cage as well as the ohter Season 1 episodes.

- Perhaps the most obvious continuity issue is the uniforms, which not only look different but are different shades of color than they would be in Season 1 proper. The cast is also not wearing the appropriate colors. While gold is still the color for command, Spock and Scotty wear that color, Sulu wears blue, and red is rarely seen.

- The ship's chief medical officer is not Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), but instead Mark Piper, a rather boring and uninspired character that fortunately was recast in favor of the salty country doctor that we all know and love.

- ESP and "espers" are the mentioned frequently throughout this episode, with mention of an "esper" rating in each crew members medical history, but no such mention of "espers" or ESP in this manner is ever made in future Star Trek series.

Fun Facts:

- Spock's uniform collar is visibly different from everyon elses, to allow him to remove the shirt in a different fashion so as not to damage his ears.

- Spock's eyebrows are noticably different, and are pointed much more sharply upwards on his forehead.

- This is the first time we see three-dimeonsial chess in a Star Trek episode, a game we will see many times over the next 40 year.

- The attitude towards women is again rather alarmingly chauvanistic.