Where No Man Has Gone Before (TOS)

Welcome to the first official Original Series review. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is the second pilot, although it wasn't aired until third or fourth. (Those of you watching along on Netflix, take note. Netflix sticks to the airdate order, so it will deviate from this blog here and there.)

Although much closer to the cast we know and love than “The Cage,” we're still fussing with the formula here. No sign of Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura, another “old country doctor” type standing in for McCoy, and Scotty and Spock in somewhat off-putting yellow tunics. George Takei, presumably as Hikaru Sulu, makes an appearance, but he's not the helmsman and he doesn't get a name.

So who's the guy in this pilot we're focused on? The new Captain of the Enterprise, James T. Kirk. Kirk's name will become synonomous with Star Trek, with command, and with testosterone. This isn't the washed-up Priceline-selling Shatner of 2012. This is a hot young Canadian with a sparkle in his eye. This is the Captain that the girls want and the boys want to be. And although this pilot is still fussing with the formula for almost the whole rest of the cast, James T. Kirk (or James R. Kirk, as his fake headstone mysteriously reads) is on from Day 1.

We're starting to notice a pattern of Star Trek pilots dealing with God-Like Beings testing humanity. This one is no different. The premise here is that the Enterprise is hanging around the edge of the galaxy for no particular reason when they detect the little black box of the last starship to hang around the edge of the galaxy for no real reason. After determining that a trip across the galactic barrier caused the Valiant's destruction, Kirk naturally orders the ship to do exactly the same thing, with predictable results.

I'm not saying the crew of the Enterprise is being incredibly stupid here, but they kind of are. We'll see a lot of this in Star Trek episodes – the plots are great once we get into them, but the set-ups strain credibility. Who cares? I'm trying hard to watch this in the shoes of a person who has never seen or heard of Star Trek before, just as the people in my father's generation first watched it. And from that perspective, it's a good showing!

It helps a lot that Shatner and Nimoy have settled into the characters incredibly well for a first episode. (Well, second for Nimoy.) The opening of them playing 3D chess together (another Trek cliché in the making) establishes the logic vs. emotion conflict, but also their mutual respect and even love for one another. That relationship is the emotional heart of the show, and it's the heart that seperates Star Trek from the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon space fantasies that came before. Yes, spaceships and aliens! But also, humans.

And speaking of humans and the God-Like Being we mentioned before, we have a few guest stars among the crew, Gary Mitchell and Dr. Dehner, who are regular humans with higher than usual ESP-scores (this is a thing in the Star Trek universe, apparently. We'll just forget about the fact that it will never be picked up on again in the 40-some year history of the franchise.) Something about the galactic barrier amplifies that ESP-potential and turns Mitchell (and later Dehner) into glowy-eyed god-people.

With a speed that strains credibility, Mitchell's absolute power corrupts him absolutely and he starts messing with ship's functions and muttering about crushing his friends and shipmates like insects. Spock wants Kirk to kill him before it becomes impossible. Kirk would rather maroon him. The first payoff of the Spock-Kirk conflict.

There's a lot of Trek-style speechifying about the next step of human evolution and the relationship between power and morality, but ultimately we're headed for a showdown. It's the kind of showdown James T. Kirk eats for breakfast, mano a mano with a being vastly more powerful than himself.

Mitchell is beyond being talked down, but Kirk is able to talk Dehner into using her power to sap Mitchell of his, and while he's down Kirk does what he does best: He gets his shirt ripped somehow. And then he punches Mitchell in the face.

This is probably a good time to talk about my relationship with the original Star Trek, referred to by fans as The Original Series, or TOS. Nathan and I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). That's the Star Trek we got used to and acclimated to. We watched the TOS movies first, and then whichever odd episodes could be found at Blockbuster.

I guess it's pretty silly to call TOS cheesy compared to TNG, now that TNG screams 80s as loudly as TOS screams 60s. But at the time, my Star Trek was cool, and this other one was … weird. The universe was less consistent, the plots and costumes were often much sillier, and, most of all, the Captain was not the same kind of role model.

Star Trek was encouraged in my house because Captain Picard would never resort to violence unless he had exhausted all the diplomatic options, and because phasers were always set on stun and fists rarely came out. And that was part of it's heart for me. So, while I realize how cool it is that Kirk basically always punches evil in the face, it still sort of makes me yearn for a different Enterprise.

But part of this project for me is fostering an appreciation for the parts of the canon I've neglected, and for the next 2 ½ years, that's going to mean TOS immersion.

Back to the plot. Kirk saves the day by having moral integrity and being clever AND being good at the punching (and looking good with a ripped shirt, I guess). The Enterprise sets its course for adventure and exploration, and we're off and running! I'm really looking forward to taking this journey with all of you. Stay tuned Thursday for 100-odd year jump to “Encounter at Farpoint” with Nathan, where, awkwardly, you'll encounter Dr. McCoy before you've actually met him here. Well, the format is a compromise.

Random observations:

- Apparently, Kirk was a bookworm at Starfleet Academy until Mitchell set him up with a little blonde lab tech he almost married. Here's the ways that's interesting: (1) This draws a clear distinction between the alpha timeline and the one we see in J.J. Abrams 2009 film, where Kirk is anything but a bookworm. It makes me wonder how else the chip on Chris Pine's Kirk's shoulder will change his character in the upcoming films. (2) A lot of fans have speculated that the little blonde lab tech is Carol Marcus, the mother of Kirk's child in the TOS films. Why not?

- Speaking of the 2009 film, the planet of Delta Vega, where Kirk tried to maroon Mitchell, shares a name with the planet where Zachary Quinto's Spock tries to maroon Kirk. Fans have decided that unless the planet somehow got towed across the galaxy and underwent a dramatic climate change, it's probably just a different planet of the same name. Abrams admits he did it on purpose as an homage.