Where No One Has Gone Before (TNG)

 In case I haven’t made this clear already, I don’t hate Wesley Crusher. When I was first introduced to him, I actually really liked him – I think he’s definitely the wish-fulfillment character for young Trekkies who are too eager to be grown-ups, and I definitely found myself in that category while TNG was still airing. This time around, I found him annoying in “The Naked Now”, but tolerable the rest of the time, and in “Where No One Has Gone Before” I once again find myself rooting for the guy.

Wesley doesn’t actually save the ship in this episode. He tries to, but Commander Riker does the sensible thing and doesn’t listen to him. Wesley, in Main Engineering working on a school project, is an outsider in the world of Important People like engineering genius Kosinski, and as such no one notices him. But this allows him to notice Kosinski’s mild-mannered assistant, who, like Wesley, is more than he appears.

And that’s at the heart of this episode. The scenes where we see the crew’s fantasies and fears becoming reality are fun and exciting and give the special effects team a chance to show off, but this is ground TOS has tread many times, and TNG doesn’t make more than a token effort to retread it. Instead, it focuses on the enigmatic alien who brought them out so far, and his relationship with the overlooked and misunderstood Wesley.

Just your run-of-the-mill translucent goat man.

We don’t learn much about the Traveler, in this episode or the other two in which he appears. But he is not Q. He can’t snap his fingers and reset everything, and he can’t travel the universe without a ship to take him. He also doesn’t care about Important People – while Kosinski insists on speaking only to the Captain, being offended by being put in Riker and Troi’s hands, the Traveler happily converses with Wesley. And later he tells Captain Picard that Wesley has the potential to be the next phase of human evolution, essentially, and needs to be nurtured in this.

I am sure the Wesley detractors hate this scene, especially given the not-so-secret fact that Wesley is Gene Rodenberry’s author insert character. But Picard’s decision to make Wesley Acting Ensign really only makes sense in light of that conversation But Picard’s decision to make Wesley Acting Ensign really only makes sense in light of that conversation.

Wait, a minute - this isn't waste extraction!

The rest of the episode’s plot, especially the second act, is lackluster, but not cringe-inducing. Picard’s admonishing the crew to control their thoughts is amusing, but there’s no payoff – everything from that point on goes a little too perfectly. The climax fails to build much tension, and not enough time is spent establishing the danger of people’s thoughts running wild – other episodes do this concept much better.             

Most of the character moments in this episode are light-hearted and happen as a result of the thoughts-become-reality premise – a notable exception being Tasha’s poorly-executed flashback to the rape planet. The opening scene of Riker being (it turns out justifiably) nervous about Kazinski toying with the engines helps set up the Picard/ Riker dynamic in a nice way.        

I didn’t hate this episode. But I didn’t like it all that much either. The Wesley/ Traveler plot worked a lot better than anything else that was going on, and the early scenes with Kazinki give us a nice sense of Riker as a character, but the writer’s at this point really have a lot to learn about pacing, action, and structuring a plot to give emotional tension.

Stray Observations:

Kazinski (Stanley Kamel) does an excellent job as the arrogant genius who gets cut down to size, though I would have loved to see a bit more of his downfall.

It’s weird that he doesn’t wear a combadge.

Troi is especially useless in this episode. She basically tells Riker that Kazinski is a dick, which everyone already knows.

Worf remembering his pet Targ totally contradicts the Worf backstory we get later.

Tasha/Geordi shiptease? That didn’t go anywhere.

Scale calculations are all over the place. At one point someone says we’ve only charted 11% of the Galaxy, as opposed to roughly half by the time Voyager comes around. Also Data says it would only take 300 years at Warp Nine to get home from another galaxy – I don’t think that jives with Voyager’s 75 year figure, but I could be wrong.

Geordi is still not Chief Engineer – now it’s someone called “Mr. Argyle” (a sly TOS reference?) but he’s introduced as “one of our chief Engineers.”

The scenes with the minor crewmen ballet dancing and playing in a string quartet are precious.

The remastered visuals are actually quite stunning.