Where No Man Has Gone Before
Episode Overview: Enterprise recovers the pitted and burned emergency buoy from the wreckage of Valiant which penetrated the odd energy barrier that surrounds the galaxy. Garbled recordings suggest odd consequences of that journey, and even that Valiant’s own captain ordered her destruction. Enterprise also visits the barrier, and it has odd effects on certain members of the crew with high esper ratings. One in particular, Kirk’s friend Gary Mitchell, appears to have developed nearly godlike mental and physical abilities, and lost his moral compass as well. Now Kirk must discover how to stop – and maybe kill – his old friend before that becomes impossible, and Mitchell goes on to conquer the Federation!
Air date: 9/22/1966
Directed by: James Goldstone
Guest Stars: James Doohan as Lt Cmdr Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, George Takei as Lt Hikaru Sulu, Sally Kellerman as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, Paul Fix as Dr. Piper, Paul Carr as Lt Lee Kelso, Gary Lockwood as Lt Cmdr Gary Mitchell, LLoyd Haynes as Lt Lloyd Alden, Andrea Dromm as Yeom an Smith.
When I saw the title Where No Man Has Gone Before, I immediately thought this episode had to be something special. After all, that phrase is so strongly connected to Star Trek that it feels like an episode carrying that title should be off the charts.
The episode follows the crew of the Enterprise after they discover a scorched recorder marker from a ship that disappeared years earlier. What they find raises more questions than answers, and as the Enterprise continues searching for the truth, the crew encounters a mysterious barrier at the edge of the galaxy.
Not long after crossing that barrier, some very strange things begin to happen.
Those events eventually put Captain Kirk in an extremely difficult position. He has to balance his responsibility to protect the Enterprise and its crew with his loyalty to a friend. That conflict gives the episode some of its strongest moments and offers an early glimpse at the kind of decisions Kirk will repeatedly be forced to make throughout the series.
Unfortunately, despite the iconic title and an interesting premise, I didn’t find Where No Man Has Gone Before all that exciting.
Part of that comes down to pacing. I understand that television was filmed very differently during this era, and stories generally moved at a slower pace than they do today. This episode definitely reflects that. There are stretches where the story feels like it takes a long time to get where it is going.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything here for a Star Trek fan to enjoy.
There are several classic Star Trek ideas already beginning to take shape, including exploration of the unknown, strange forces beyond humanity’s understanding, and a captain being forced to make an incredibly difficult decision for the good of his crew.
Overall, Where No Man Has Gone Before is an interesting early Star Trek episode with an iconic title and some important character moments, but the slower pacing kept it from being as exciting as I expected.
Considering how closely the phrase “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is associated with Star Trek, I was expecting something unforgettable. Instead, I found an episode that has some classic Star Trek moments but ultimately feels more historically important than thrilling.