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Going Where No Man Has Gone Before
My Trek Through Trek (Part II)
Every Trekker owes a debt to Lucy!
When I conceived of this journey through Star Trek I debated for a long time, 3 or four hours which is a long time for a guy like me, in what order I would tackle the episodes and movies. There are three different ways one can travel through Trek, canonically, chronologically by broadcast date and chronologically by production date. Each order poses different problems. If I chose to view canonically, I would have to begin with Enterprise, which would mean I would jump into a fresh series for me as I didn’t watch it when it was on TV. I decided against this because I am not sure if I will like the show and therefore ultimately abandon my project before it has begun. The broadcast order poses its own problems as it confuses the development of the series. Following that order would make this episode the fourth in succession. This position is incorrect as Where No Man Has Gone Before was intended as a second pilot. I ultimately decided to go ahead and view Trekdom in its production order. This order may not be optimal if I want guidance and illumination into the history of the Federation, but it does offer insight into how this world developed. It’s a far more interesting order for a young director in training like myself. This will cause a problem when I enter The Next Generation when the episodes loose canon when watched in production order, but we’ll navigate that Nebulae when and if we cross it.
To understand the monumental importance of Where No Man Has Gone Before, one must first ask Lucille Ball. No kidding here. Fricken Wah Wah Lucy. Without Lucille Ball there would be no Star Trek past the Jeffrey Hunter sweater epic that is The Cage. The story is as follows: after the failure of The Cage, Gene Roddenberry continued to shop around his idea for a Sci-Fi epic. No one was buying, until Lucille Ball, a friend of young Gene, somehow saw the pilot and said in passing to the president of NBC that they should greenlight a second pilot and actually air it to get sample of an audience’s reaction. This testing was not done with The Cage which wasn’t broadcast until 1988. Long story short, NBC did. Gene under NBC guidance overhauled the show, hired a young Canadian actor cutting his teeth on Sci-Fi on shows like The Twilight Zone to replace Jeffrey Hunter who had returned to his career as a matinee idol and the rest is history. Trekkers love Lucy indeed.
All right, boring nerd history aside, let’s talk about pilot deux.
Right at the top one can tell that this is a different beast then the terrible first pilot. It does not overwhelm with the pretension of Jeffrey Hunter and Martian Spock. Instead we are greeted with a comedic battle of wits between the colder more logical Spock and a charismatic Kirk. Snide jokes are being traded back and forth between two friends. Friendship is the core of this episode and indeed every good Star Trek episode hence forth.
From this point forward, the vision of the future is very different. It is cleaner, more sleek and spartan. This is reflected in the redesign or, perhaps, clean of up of the Enterprise set. As the episode progresses it becomes well understood that this is not a cluttered claustrophobic war vessel but a visionary bastion of human exploration.
You may recall, if you read the last entry, that I in my ineloquent manner, made a big storm of the inefficient women on the bridge. I put the blame in no small manner on psychedelic sexualization of every skirt. The women of this episode’s Enterprise are night and day (as far as can be under the moral lens of the 60s). Dr. Elizabeth Dehner is a woman of wry humour, with a constant upturned grin that seems to suggest that she is secure with her womanhood and her life. When Gary Mitchell throws some 60s style degradation at her, she easily makes mince meat of the crass helmsmen. However, you can still see the 60s female role peep through this episode though. When the Enterprise crosses the forcefield, a sleek and suspenseful sequence that evokes thoughts of ancient mariners falling over the edge of the Earth, the young blonde clad Yeoman raises her hand inexplicably to hold onto the strength of a male courageous limb. Even the damsel in distress exists on the bridge of the Enterprise.
The bridge is populated by many other firsts. George Takei makes his first appearance as Sulu, but is curiously in charge of physics, Jimmy Doohan sits at the helm in his Pseudo-Scottish presence as Scotty and there is even an unnamed man of colour sitting there pushing buttons. Spock stands for the first time in his mainstay location just to camera right of the Captain’s chair. His performance bares more similarities to iconic Spock, yet at one point he yells in a very un-Spock-like manner. (Un-Nimoy-Spock-like, for Quinto is all over the place vocally.) It is clear that Nimoy and perhaps Trek itself is still unclear as to the role that this character will play.
What the creatives of Star Trek are sure of is: the role discussion will play in this world. All the characters clearly parse out the issue of sudden powers in a human and this conflict
“You cannot kill me, so, let’s discuss why.”
is not one centered on the destruction of a threat, but rather the ramifications of evolving before our time. Gary Mitchell is a human who is suddenly given the ability to grasp all the information that his brain can handle and then some. This occurrence demonstrates what may happen if humans were suddenly offered a surplus of information. Can we handle too much information? A timely question for us now that we have all the thoughts of human kind at the touch of our finger tips. It’s obvious Gary cannot handle this as his mind explodes in a myriad of godlike powers conveyed in some cheesy yet surprisingly effective effects sequences, most noticeably in the really good and probably simple telekinetic sequences.
Where No Man Has Gone Before is not without its flaws. The final act is hampered by self important dialogue that seems to slow the conflict between Kirk, Mitchell and Dehner into a staring contest (at least we get great views of the expensive contact lenses). The final standoff plays as a thought experiment of the evils of an imperfect god, a debate upon the illogic of praying to deities that ask for obedience for no reason and are perhaps political allegories of deflection of human inadequacy on their creations. A common anti-religious theme that pops up many times later, even in the feature films. This “climax” takes the teeth out of an otherwise fascinating episode, but manages to satisfyingly convey a timely criticism of human development.
Flaws in an unfocused climax aside, Where No Man Has Gone Before is a grand episode that makes it obvious why this show was able to greenlight a full first season. What can be said is the greatest element that adds to the future success of Star Trek, is the addition of William Shatner’s Kirk. Say what you will about the man but he is willing to go for it. Throwing himself convulsing when he wishes and essentially oozing charisma, where Jeffry Hunter oozed nothing but an eel like aura. Certainly Hunter would not throw himself to the floor in flailing turmoil. The Trek trek is on!
“I don’t get, green blooded humour.”
<— To Part I – “The Cage“
—>To Part III- “The Corbomite Maneuver”
Related articles
- Where No Man Has Gone Before (uncommongeek.com)
- Kirk, Old Friend – A Character Study of Khan (comparativegeeks.wordpress.com)
- Star Trek Continues… on the Web (sqwabb.wordpress.com)
Escaping the Cage
Martian Spock and Surly Pike molest some Talosian vibrating flowers. Notice Pike seems ticked these flowers aren’t women.
My Trek Trough Trek (Part I)
What we’re watching: The Cage – Pilot of the Original Series (1964)
My Rating out of 5 Tribbles: 2 Very Small and Sickly Tribbles
A Snapshot of my after episode thoughts: “Roger Sterling commands the Enterprise and proves that sexism and surliness make for a boring journey.”
Pro: Talosians are cool. Yeoman is stunning actress is perhaps one of the most beutifful woment to stand on the bridge. Majel Barrett has more then three lines and doesn’t hit on Picard once.
Cons: Jeffrey Hunter. Emotional Spock. Creepy rapist Doctor.
Recently I saw Star Trek: Into the Darkness. This experience caused me great distress. Not only was it a shoddy film, it also did not resemble a Star Trek movie beyond having the same characters (and vaguely at that). I resolved then, in the cacophony of explosions and Cumberbatch diphthongs, to rewatch all of Star Trek from the beginning to the end. I intend to watch from the Pilot, right through the films, Next Gen, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Enterprise will be most interesting as much to this Trekker’s shame, I never watched it when it was on the air. I intend to put my finger on what the soul of Trek is. Tonight, I began my journey into the rich galaxy of the Federation with a review of The Cage. I also remembered that I had a blog (that I rarely use because of some unpleasantness) and I thought I’d keep a journal record of this trek. (Ok. I’ll attempt to cut down on my usage of the word Trek. Trek. Trek.)
It is alienating to go back and look at The Cage knowing all that we do now about the Federation universe. Not only is the Enterprise populated by strangers, Spock, perhaps the protagonist of Star Trek as a whole, is unlike himself. Aside from the Vulcan pointy ears, he’s is petty much unfamiliar. He even cracks a smile at one point. It is amazing how uninteresting Nimoy is in the pilot. He seems like a young school boy actor whose energy is flying all over the screen.
What Spock became in the later episodes is embodied by Majel Barett’s Number One. She instead is the cold logical advisor. Alas, there also something disjointed in her character. The soul of the Enterprise is missing. That soul is the Captain.
The role of “the Captain” has always been integral to Star Trek. Much like Doctor Who’s Companion, the Captain is the human character the audience can draw in on to help them navigate through the dense fantasy that is often high Sci-Fi. Hunter’s Christopher Pike fails in almost every regard to do this. He lacks any form of humor; the one joke he cracks at the end to the Doctor, is frighteningly disgusting. As a commander he seems lost and more interested in selfish pursuits of pleasure then running his ship properly. The first thing he declares is that he wants to quit! The majesty of the universe is to be guided by a man who has lost his passion for adventure. When he first descends to the Talosian surface it seems like this is a job requirement, not an expedition for knowledge and after all that is happening in this episode he begrudgingly returns to the bridge.
Pike and his harem of women.
Ok. I am sure you are saying “Julian you are wasting your breath harping on about characters.” You are right, but I found myself feeling disconnected to the plot as frankly I did not care if Pike made it back to the Enterprise or not.
The most striking thing I take away from the episode is the inherent sexism. I forgot that at the beginning of this widely ahead of its time show, it was a bastion of orchestrated 60s moralism in space. Yes, there are at least two women in the main crew, and this is ahead of its time. But the yeoman character is largely the classic airhead women of sixties television. Number One, a women of power, does not make a single decision for herself as commander, which would not make her a women of much power. All decisions are made for by the smiling Mr. Spock or the nameless male yeoman is the blondest guy I have ever seen and I am pretty blonde. It is amazing how timid The Cage is compared to the episodes that followed. It’s a miracle the show ever made it past the Pilot.
I have knowingly not delved into the themes and philosophies of this episode because I will engage with those again when I reach The Menagerie episodes later in the first the season. These episodes present the same ideas with far more thought and investigation then The Cage ever throws a blue Talosian flower at.
Sports Fans what can we say about The Cage? It is a good thing Jeffrey Hunter thought Trek was beneath him and returned to a very short film career. He is unlikable and a dinosaur. His leering at the female characters would have stunted any of the political commentary of the later episodes. It is a great thing that Roddenberry was able to creep out of the overbearing fists of network executives and produce the genius that is only episodes away. The Cage should remain where it is, at the beginning and stuck behind a forcefield under the Talosian surface.
The Brains of the Organization. (See what I did there?)
To Part II – “Where No Man Has Gone Before“
Related articles
- New Star Trek Series Could Be In The Works (thelazygeeks.com)
- Giveaway and Review: Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years (universetoday.com)
- A Tree Full of Spocks. (bloodstonescifi.com)
- Movie Review: STAR TREK (2009) (unclenecro.wordpress.com)
Julian R. Munds 
