Where No Man Has Gone Before 

The flight recorder of the 200-year-old U.S.S. Valiant relays a tale of terror--a magnetic storm at the edge of the galaxy!

Director:

James Goldstone

Writers:

Samuel A. Peeples, Gene Roddenberry (created by)

Stars:

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gary Lockwood

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
William Shatner	...	Capt. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
Gary Lockwood	...	Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell
Sally Kellerman	...	Dr. Elizabeth Dehner
George Takei	...	Sulu
James Doohan	...	Scott
Lloyd Haynes	...	Alden
Andrea Dromm	...	Yeoman Smith
Paul Carr	...	Lt. Lee Kelso
Paul Fix	...	Doctor Piper

Storyline

When the Enterprise attempts to penetrate a space barrier, it is damaged and creates a potentially worse problem. Two crew members, including Kirk's best friend, gain psionic powers that are growing exponentially. This leaves Captain Kirk with the difficult choice; either marooning them or killing before they get so powerful they lose their humanity and become truly dangerous.

---

Plot Keywords:

hikaru sulu character | montgomery scott character | strange behavior | year 2265 | 2260s | 

---

Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

---

Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Official Sites:

Official site StarTrekContinuum.com: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 September 1966 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Desilu Productions, Norway Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min 55 min (original pilot)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

4:3

Did You Know?

Trivia

The photo images of Dr. Dehner's and Lt. Cmdr. Mitchell's medical records reveal part of their home addresses on Earth. Dehner was born in a town called Delman; Mitchell in Eldman. The town names are simple anagrams of each other.

---

Goofs

As the Enterprise crew prepares to enter the Galactic Barrier, Kirk says to Mitchell to get ready to leave the galaxy. Even at maximum warp speed, the Enterprise would not have made it to the edge of our galaxy in such a short time. Therefore, Kirk's statement would be false. Further, in "By Any Other Name", Kirk tells Rojan that it would take thousands of years to reach Andromeda, the nearest galaxy to ours, at maximum warp. Then, Rojan tells Kirk that their modifications would only take 300 years to reach it. Any way you look at it, leaving the Milky Way galaxy is not possible with the technology afforded.

---

Quotes

Capt. Kirk: Jones?
Yeoman Smith: The name's Smith, sir.

---

Alternate Versions

The original version of the pilot, produced to convince NBC to buy "Star Trek" as a series, runs approximately 5 minutes longer and has a different introduction, several additional lines of dialogue and reaction shots, transitional introductions a la Quinn Martin ("Act I", "Act II", etc.), and different opening and closing credits. This has never been shown on television, but has circulated among "Star Trek" fans worldwide. It has been unofficially released on public domain videos.

---

Connections

Featured in The Big Bang Theory: The Spock Resonance (2015)

---

Soundtracks

Theme from Star Trek
(uncredited)
Written by Alexander Courage

User Reviews

Kirk and Crew About to be Squashed Like Insects

This was actually the 2nd Trek pilot filmed, after "The Cage," and so is the first appearance of Capt. Kirk, not to mention Scotty and Sulu, here a physicist. There's no Dr. McCoy yet, instead a Dr. Piper. I would venture that in the scheme of things Trek, this episode takes place about a year before the earliest episodes of the series - note the slightly different uniforms. So this is Spock's second show; his character is still forming after the rough outline in "The Cage," still raising his voice a bit too much for a Vulcan and almost smiling in one shot (during 3-level chess, also introduced). But then, the concept of Vulcan and even the Federation had not been created yet here - we're viewing the adventures of some Earth-based space fleet here, no more. The episode, like "The Cage," has a bit of an epic feel for a TV show; it was designed to impress the NBC executives, who green-lit an actual series based on this, a miniature science fiction movie when all's said and done.

Exploration is the highlighted theme, as it would be for the remainder of the series. Probing the unknown, Kirk directs the good ship Enterprise towards a mysterious galactic barrier, despite that what they know of this energy barrier makes it seem quite dangerous. Sure enough, the ship is damaged, 9 crew members are killed and 2 others, including old friend Gary, are mutated into superior beings. But, risk, as Kirk would say in a much later episode, is their business - that's what it's all about. Now begin the questions and search of another kind - how dangerous is such an ascendant man? Can he live with so-called normal human beings? The short answers, rather quick in coming, are 'very' and 'no' - Spock's the first one to voice this opinion. Only it doesn't transpire to be just an opinion. Rather than struggling with how to cope with his new powers, Gary shows that the old adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely is essentially a basic truth - it suggests all men have the need to dominate, to rule, buried somewhere inside, no matter how decent they seem. All it takes is a little power to bring it all to the surface.

Heavy and deep concepts for a TV show, eh? It's rather impressive that all these ideas came forth in the middle of an action-oriented show. Roddenberry and his crew wanted to show the NBC execs that such an expensive-looking (for TV) sf show can be filmed in a timely manner, but they also stressed a lot of action scenes, especially in the climactic battle between Kirk and his former friend. Actor Fix played Piper the doctor as a standard crusty older member of the crew; Kelley showed what could be done with the doctor's role in the next filmed episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver." The two actors/doctors were later in the same film, "Night of the Lepus"(72). The two main guest stars went on to stellar careers: Lockwood, who played Gary, soon appeared in "2001:A Space Odyssey"(68) while Kellerman, as the other mutate, is famous for her role in "M*A*S*H"(70).