Pilot 02/Episode 03: Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Alright, so despite this airing as episode 3, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" served as the second pilot for NBC, and according to the internet, canonically comes before the rest of the series. So in essence, this episode shows Shatner's first crack at being Captain Kirk which is why I've decided to watch this episode before the rest of the series.

So let’s try this again, pilot #2 is go and right from the bat I feel like I’m watching Star Trek when I’m met with “Captain’s Log, Stardate 1312.4” in an all too familiar voice.

Nice.

It’s amazing how much Shatner brings to this show—and unlike seemingly everything else about the show he comes in swinging as all out Kirk. He doesn’t stumble over the awkward dialogue, his overtly dramatic pauses make an appearance, and the dude hams it up like a mother fucker. That and he can charm the pants off of you.


However, the rest of the cast still isn’t quite up to standard at this point in the show's production. While Scotty and Sulu make their first appearances, the doctor in this episode manages to be even less interesting than the drunken one from the first pilot. Spock’s character remains essentially the same as before except they play up the fact that he’s an alien by giving him hammy lines like “your Earth emotion.” The conversations he has with Kirk feel very much like EXPOSTION CONVERSATION with several awkward lines involving Spock’s half-Vulcan heritage thrown in for good measure. It certainly doesn't come off as natural, as it would be akin to having an Asian friend point out that he’s Asian in the middle of a conversation about the weather or gas prices. To top it off he seems to have a tendency to flatly shout when on the bridge, and even though he's an alien, and aliens tend to look weird, his eyebrows are dumb looking.

The episode begins with Kirk and crew discovering the logs of a destroyed ship (think little black box, except huge and in space. Also, it lights up). After examining the damaged tapes (ha!), they discover that the former captain frantically began to search the ship’s logs on ESP and then orders the ship to self-destruct. Dramatic shit. Then to get things going the ship flies through an energy field that causes the first instance of instrument panels exploding and throwing stunt men around. The instrument panels exploding is something I’ve never been able to understand about Star Trek. You’d think they would put surge protectors on those things or something.

As they fly through the field two crew members, helmsman Lieutenant Gary Mitchell and Dr. Dana, light up quite literally like a fourth of July sparkler before passing out. Lucky for them they survive unharmed—except Mitchell whose eyes begin to glow and becomes an insane telepath with a chronic god complex. He also has this big booming voice that kind of makes him sound like Moses. However, saying that his eyes glow feels like a bit of a stretch, considering that pretty much look like they were turned into balls of aluminum foil. But I guess you do what you can when it's 1965 and you're working on a TV budget.

In any case, after Mitchell starts making cups fly around and shoots Kirk and Spock full of electricity, Kirk (Note: When writing this I unwittingly wrote my own name instead of Kirk’s here. I am deeply bothered.) decides that it might be a good idea to maroon him in a matte painting, where Mitchell and Kirk’s stunt people have their final battle from far away. They flip around a lot though, so it's still pretty rad.

Now from what I understand, NBC turned down the original pilot because it was slow, cerebral, and boring—Roddenbury apparently decided to counter this by making the next pilot involve explosions, telekinesis, and a Captain who isn’t afraid to punch someone in the face. Kirk even carries a huge phaser rifle for no other reason than it being awesome. It should also be said that Kirk has a tendency to be a bit rash with his strategy, considering his secondary solution to killing Mitchell was bombarding the surface of the entire planet.

I agree with NBC. I don’t want to see any more of Captain Pike, I want more of this:

YES!

This is Star Trek:

Kirk and Spock play Space Chess:

BRZZACK:

Behold, ACTING:

He's Dead Jim:
Production Episode #1

Death Count: 12.
9 dead flying through the force field.
Lieutenant Kelso, Telepathically strangled.
Lieutenant Mitchell, Crushed by a huge rock.
Doctor Dana, Killed by Mitchell in telepath duel.

Total Star Trek death toll: 12.

On the next episode...

Something bad probably happens to this guy.