Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-06: Where No One Has Gone Before

Episode:

6

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Writer:

Diane Duane and Michael Reaves

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Director:

Rob Bowman

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Air Date:

26-Oct-1987

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm jumping ahead to Star Trek: The Next Generation's sixth episode, Where No One Has Gone Before! They've gotten a bit clever with its title, as it's a callback to the classic Original Series episode Where No Man Has Gone Before, with the name updated to match the iconic line in Next Gen's politically corrected opening narration. The earlier episode was about going beyond human experience, now this time they're going beyond anyone's experience. Presumably.

The episode's credited to writers Diane Duane and Michael Reaves, though it ended up being heavily rewritten by producer Maurice Hurley, to the point where there wasn't much of their story left. This was their only script for the series, though Duane had written a number of Trek novels, including The Wounded Sky, which was actually the inspiration for this episode. It's not often that you come across a Trek episode that was based on a novel.

It's the first episode to be directed by Rob Bowman, who ended up directing 13 episodes over the first four seasons. He's probably better known for his work on The X-Files and Castle though, and was chosen to direct the first X-Files movie.

Alright I'm going to go through the whole episode scene by scene so there'll be all kinds of SPOILERS here. I might talk about events from other episodes as well, though if I mention anything from a later story/series I'll keep it extremely vague and harmless. There'll be no Star Trek: Discovery/Picard/etc. spoilers here. 

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The story begins with a captain's log voice over, but that's nothing unusual for Next Gen. You have to wait until episode 12 before they finally try something different... and open with the first officer's log instead. That's harmless spoiler #1.

This looks like reused model footage shot for Encounter at Farpoint, but this time there's no planet in the background and the Enterprise has rendezvoused with the Fearless instead of the Hood. Model shots are expensive, so the plan was to create library of stock footage during the pilot that they could keep reusing. Which means whenever the Enterprise flies alongside another ship like this in the show it's likely to be an Excelsior-class.

Here's some pointless trivia for you: we didn't get to see the Excelsior herself finished and in service until Star Trek VI came out in 1991, so most of the Excelsior-class ships you see in the show are the NX prototype version of the model with the ugly silver bridge. They did update the movie miniature slightly for the series however, as they changed the name from "USS Excelsior to "USS Hood".

That's some crazy attention to detail.

Fans had to wait 25 years for the release of the HD remaster to finally see the name show up on screen... and even in HD you can't see it! This text along the side disappears into the red stripe and the writing across the saucer is just a blurry indistinct smudge. But the name is there, so at least the effects team knew that it really was the Hood. Even when it was supposed to be the Fearless.

Wow, it's like the characters haven't moved an inch since the last image of my Encounter at Farpoint review. Actually that's not true, as Data and Geordi have switched chairs, Troi has changed out of her cheerleader uniform, and Tasha and Worf have just gone off somewhere else.

The Fearless will be beaming over a Starfleet propulsion expert and his assistant so they can run some tests with the goal of increasing performance. Riker's not happy about it though, because they've already run the tests themselves and nothing happened. In fact he's so paranoid about the two of them that he wants to bring Troi down to the transporter room with him to scan them.

Turns out he needn't have bothered, as you don't need to be an empath to tell that Kosinski is a rude, arrogant dick. He doesn't even wait for Riker to finish the introductions before asking where the captain is. It's making the whole scene weirdly tense. He's also got a unique rank marker and no combadge, so that's weird too.

His friend just wants to be called 'Kosinski's assistant', as his name's unpronounceable by humans. (We never find out of Betazoids can pronounce it, as he doesn't give Troi a chance). He's from Tau Alpha C, which sounds like it might be a real star, but apparently isn't. Maybe I'm thinking of Tau Ceti.

These camera angles are making the scene a bit tense as well.

That's Chief Argyle by the way, one of the Enterprise's many chief engineers. The series was making an effort to avoid being a clone of the Original Series, so a lot of the characters were given different jobs. A security officer handles communications, navigation has been replaced by ops, a counsellor sits by the captain etc. This meant that they didn't have a regular in the role of the chief engineer at this point, though there was a possibility that actor Biff Yeager was going to stick around. This possibility apparently evaporated when letters came in from fans saying they wanted more Argyle... before his first episode aired. Oops. Fortunately he left the beard behind for Riker.

Anyway Troi did scan Kosinski and her assessment is that he's a rude, arrogant dick. She can't get any reading at all from his assistant though and that bothers her in a way she can't pin down. (I've seen later episodes so I expect it's because people she can't read feel like fake holodeck characters to her).

And that's the end of the teaser! A couple of guest stars have beamed over to do tests on the engines and one of them's asking for a punch... not really the most gripping hook.

ACT ONE

Act one introduces us to the new and improved main engineering, which has spilled out into the corridor outside. In earlier episodes engineering ended where Chief Argyle's standing, but now the hallway has been taken over by a big 'pool table' (inherited from the Starfleet Command set in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and there are screens all over the walls. Well okay to be honest the extended set was first glimpsed in the previous aired episode, The Last Outpost, but this was filmed first. The moral of the story: if you want an excuse to upgrade your engineering set, write an episode all about engineering upgrades.

The first thing Kosinski does when he enters engineering is to ask Riker and Argyle why the child is there, which is a fair question. It turns out that Wesley's here working on a school project, so he gets to stay. Kosinski gets back to talking about the tests, but decides to handle both sides of the conversation himself to save time. He assumes that they've tried the upgrade themselves already, it didn't work, and now they're wondering if he's a fraud. But he doesn't have the inclination to explain it to them.

All he's doing here is changing some formulas, no changes to the hardware, so he has his assistant type them in super fast. Like how people used to type in their own video games by hand from code printed in the back of magazines! The Original Series had little square 'tapes' you could copy data onto to move it between computers without a network connection, and the formulas should already be in the computer from when Riker tried it anyway, but Kosinski's got his way of doing things I guess.

The assistant notices Wesley's interest in the simulation and starts asking for his input. So Wesley suggests a couple of changes and the assistant goes along with them! We already know that Wesley's smart from The Naked Now, but now he's immediately fixing formulas that no one else can even understand... except for maybe the assistant. It's an interesting twist to the scene. No one notices though, as Kosinski is the centre of attention. Maybe purposely so.

Riker asks Argyle if anything that Kosinski proposes could damage the engines, and Argyle has the best answer, saying "How could it, it's meaningless." I dunno though, I bet if I inputted meaningless formulas into the system I could do some damage.

They start the process and the warp core starts pulsing like crazy, which seems kind of bad. I mean it'll use up all their fuel really quick!

Also bad is the fact that Kosinski's assistant is kind of disappearing a bit, though Wesley's the only one who notices.

Actor Eric Menyuk almost had a much more tangible role in the series, as he was a finalist to play Data. I'm sure everyone knows this already, but I've got this gap underneath the picture to fill.

We get a side view of the ship picking up more speed, and the elastic band warp effect doesn't look so great from this angle unfortunately. Though hey, we do get a glimpse of what the ship would've looked like if it was designed in the widescreen era. Starships aren't allowed to be tall anymore.

They're doing some interesting camera angles in this episode.

Geordi says that they're going past warp 10, but that can't be right. They were doing the 'warp 9.93' thing in the pilot, so they're already using the new warp scale with an exponential curve and '10' being infinite. Data says that their velocity is "off the scale", which makes me think the ship just doesn't know what to do with the information it's getting.

Picard knows what to do though: he orders them to reverse engines. Data's a little concerned about that because no one's ever tried to switch to reverse gear while going ludicrous speed before. But Picard sensibly points out that the only reason it's never been done is because no one's ever gone this fast.

The ship comes to a stop in galaxy M33, two galaxies away. Which is probably the furthest any ship has ever gone in live action Star Trek, at least up to this point. They've travelled almost 3 million light years, which is approximately 3 million light years further away than the far end of the Delta Quadrant. Geordi figures that it'll take 300 years to get back at regular speeds, but he doesn't know that Starfleet vessels will get retconned to be much slower by the time Voyager airs and the real number is more like 3000 years.

ACT TWO

M33's not a bad looking galaxy really. I'm sure they could do a few seasons of Star Trekking here if they can't figure out a way to get back.

Act two also begins with a captain's log explaining what's happened so far, though Picard's not 100% confident Starfleet will ever receive it. They do send a message back home but it'll take around 52 years to get back, assuming it even makes it back without any com relays. So now we know that subspace messages travel 6 times as fast as the ship's maximum speed.

Kosinski's brought up to the bridge but he can't explain what he did, at least not in a way that makes any sense to Picard or Riker. They're assuming it can't all be nonsense however, considering where they are.

The assistant isn't feeling so great right now, but he doesn't think Dr Crusher will be much good for him. He's been "away too long", apparently, though we don't learn from where. His homeworld? The pub? The internet? It's a mystery.

He promises Wesley that he doesn't mean the crew any harm and that Kosinski isn't a joke, and I believe him. About the first part anyway. Kosinski hasn't come close to realising what Wesley has though... that space and time and thought aren't the separate things they appear to be.

The assistant's reaction to this is about the same as Picard's reaction would be to realising he's accidentally taught a 21st century physicist how a warp drive works. He basically tells him to keep his mouth shut about that.

Back on the bridge, everyone's lined up nicely as they pose for the camera. Works for me, it means I get better screencaps.

Kosinski is incredibly hyped right now, thinking about how they can replace the warp scale with the Kosinski scale, but he isn't completely self-absorbed. He's also considers Picard's point of view, and mentions how awesome it must be for an explorer like him to be able to go where no one has gone before (he doesn't really say that). They've apparently charted just 11% of their galaxy in 3 centuries of space flight. 3 centuries huh? I'm going to quickly check Memory Alpha because I'm curious if that still lines up with all the dates and backstory we've gotten since this episode.

Okay the episode takes place in 2364 and Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight took place in 2063, so that's... 301 years. Damn, that's almost exactly three centuries! Of human warp travel anyway. (Incidentally, Where No Man Has Gone Before is set 99 years before this, and mentions a ship that went missing 200 years ago.)

Once Kosinski's gone the bridge crew has a proper Star Trek scene, with Picard asking everyone in the room to comment. Data says what I was thinking, that they should use the opportunity to do a quick bit of exploration, but Picard sensibly points out that if they can repeat the mistake that got them here and get back home, Starfleet can send another ship to explore afterwards. And if they can't, then who would they be exploring for?

The episode's still doing these weird sinister looking shots!

Wesley tries to give Riker useful information about the assistant but Riker's absolutely resistant to hearing anything he has to say right now. There may have been a way they could've written this so that Riker didn't come off like a dick, maybe Wesley could've been bugging him about other things already, or maybe the crew had a very limited amount of time to do something, but what we got is a scene about an adult ignoring a kid who knows more than he does.

So Wesley tries a different approach, telling Kosinski that his assistant's too tired and he should do it by himself, but the assistant ruins that by saying he's up for it. I think Wesley should've told Argyle, I bet he would've listened.

At least this time Riker notices the assistant fading out, and he gets up and stares at him for a bit. Wait, what are they even doing? I thought they'd entered the formulas already for the first trip. Do they need new formulas now? 

The plan is for the ship to make the same trip back to their own galaxy, but they don't make it past warp 1.5.

They do end up here though, in a weird dimension where shoals of lights swim by. It's definitely a practical effect, but other than that it's really hard to figure just what I'm looking at here. I don't know how they did this! Hang on, I'll look it up.

Okay the background is water reflections shot through dissolved Mylar, and the glowing things are Christmas tree lights. Visual effects shots always require creativity and ingenuity whether they're practical or CGI, but the way they came up with stuff like this was just clever.

Data is unable to determine their precise location, but he does say that they've gone "Where none have gone before." He came so close to dropping the title!

ACT THREE

The best they can tell is that they've travelled over a billion light years, and now there's spiky boar on the bridge. You can't have a first season of Star Trek without an animal in a furry unicorn costume, and you apparently can't have a first season Next Gen episode without the music getting incredibly synthy all of a sudden. 

It's actually Worf's pet Targ from when he was a kid, and not an attempt to create the Klingon dog creature from Star Trek III. Tasha Yar finally gets something to do in the episode, asking Worf if it's a kittycat. Yes Tasha, it's a kittycat... is basically what Worf says.

But then it disappears and a cat appears on the tactical console! It's now a catical console.

This sucks, because Worf's sad now.

Meanwhile Picard has problems of his own, as he steps out of the turbolift to discover that main engineering has been replaced by the infinite void of space.

That's a great looking shot. They must have put the turbolift set on top of something, covered it with a green screen, and then tilted the camera upwards.

This isn't what's going on outside though. The ship's stationary and they're still in the blue weirdness zone. Either way Picard's suitable freaked out for a moment and when he has an opportunity to step out into a corridor he does so cautiously.

We've been given a lot of things to wonder about this episode. What is the assistant's deal? How did they travel so fast? Why do animals keep appearing? Why did Picard nearly step outside into the warp speed dimension?

Personally though I'm mostly curious about that gap in the wall next to Picard's head. Why is there a bit obvious hole in the set and what is it that we can glimpse on the other side? Is that the last remnant of the old Star Trek: Phase 2 corridor set behind there? Speaking of sets, this episode has taken place entirely on the Enterprise so far. If it wasn't for all the expensive visual effects it'd tick all the boxes for being a bottle show.

And then we're suddenly in cave set! It's pretty elaborate for a 15 second shot.

It's also our first glimpse at the failed colony world that Tasha grew up on. It's a horrible place where people lurk at the other end of pipes, waving their flashlights around and laughing.

Suddenly a hand touches Tasha's shoulder... and she's back on the bridge with Geordi. So this means that everyone could see the Targ but no one could see the nightmare planet.

This random officer seems a lot more keen to go along with his fantasy, because how often do you get a chance to play in a string quartet when you're serving on the Enterprise?

By the way, this is apparently a dining room set built for the episode Haven, so it's a part of the ship we don't see often.

Meanwhile Picard still hasn't made it to main engineering yet, though he does run into a couple of crew members running the other way. Fortunately whatever's chasing them is apparently a 'them' problem, as it's not something he can see, so he just leaves them to run for their lives.

Next he encounters a crew member fantasising about being a ballerina in a cargo bay. She's a pretty good dancer, but Picard soon puts a stop to it. Meanwhile the guy playing his violin finds that his fantasy has disappeared all on its own, sadly. So there are definitely two kinds of reactions to the impossible things people are seeing. If it's scary, they're freaked out, if it's not then they instantly abandon their posts and get into the music.

Anyway, with the ballet crisis taken care of, Picard gets back to hiking over to main engineering. This time however he's stopped by a mysterious woman who's set up a table in the middle of the hallway.

They've gone to a bit of extra effort here with the lighting and the smoke to make this shot look particularly dramatic and the music's gone extra twinkly.

We learn that this is Picard's dead mother and she may have brought answers as well as tea. Unfortunately it turns out to be the kind of fantasy that other people can't see, and when Riker innocently interrupts she vanishes entirely, along with any revelations she might have shared.

Picard's obviously a bit emotionally affected by this and he snaps at Riker before composing himself. We get a bit more about Picard's mother in later stories, but they happen later so I won't talk about them. I'll just say that I have seen them, this scene doesn't really contradict them, but I didn't feel that my extra knowledge made it feel any more dramatic. In fact right now I'm mostly pondering whether Data can imagine things up like this as well. Or the Enterprise computer even.

I'm also wondering if an imaginary person could've actually told them anything they didn't already know. Another series might have implied that she was his actual mother, speaking to him from beyond the veil, but Trek prefers to live in an incredibly exaggerated world of science fact where ghosts don't exist. Imagination dimensions, yes. Noncorporeal ghostlike beings, totally. The supernatural, absolutely not.

Anyway, Picard orders a red alert and then resumes his mission to reach main engineering.

Alright, it's taken him the whole of act three, but Picard has finally made it to main engineering! Which is also doubling as sickbay for the moment as Kosinski's assistant is lying unconscious on a bed in front of the warp core.

It turns out that Picard called the red alert just so people pay attention when he gets on the PA and tells them all to stop daydreaming.

"This is the captain. This is not a drill. It seems that in this place, the world of the physical universe and the world of ideas is somehow intermixed. What we think also becomes a reality. We must, therefore, I repeat, must begin controlling our thoughts."

Okay, first question: do they actually have drills to prepare for the possibility that the ship has been trapped in a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind? Because that does happen sometimes, clearly. Second question: how does Picard know what they're thinking is becoming reality? He hasn't seen anyone else's fantasies, just people reacting to invisible things, so as far as he knows they're just hallucinating.

Riker and Argyle are currently beating themselves up for missing the fact that Kosinski wasn't the one controlling the experiments. Especially because Wesley spotted it and tried to tell them. At least now they all know that they need the assistant to get them back home. Trouble is he's dying, for some reason.

ACT FOUR

I mentioned in my Encounter at Farpoint review that the observation lounge and sickbay were both filmed in the same set in early episodes, but I still can't believe I didn't notice until someone pointed it out. I mean that's blatantly the wall with the windows behind them! Though it'd be more blatant if sickbay wasn't incredibly dark right now for some reason. It can't be for the patient's benefit, he's under a bright spotlight.

Dr Crusher's best guess at what's wrong with him is exhaustion and fatigue, but Picard demands that she wakes him immediately! She has no idea about his biology, her equipment won't even measure his life signs, but she tries injecting him with a drug and... he wakes up! 

This scene has a "the boy" count of 3 by the way, the highest in the episode so far, as they keep calling Wesley that right in front of his mother.

Picard has a chat with Kosinski's assistant alone, who explains that he's a Traveller. He's been hitchhiking around the galaxy by conning Starfleet ships into thinking Kosinski was upgrading their engines, when really he was just giving them a bit of a boost with his powers. He doesn't have anywhere in particular to Travel to, he's Travelling to experience our reality and find people like the boy. I mean Wesley.

The Traveller has no problem with letting Picard know that thought is the basis of reality, so it turns out it's only Wesley that's not allowed to know. Or, to be more precise, he believes that Wesley should be encouraged without interfering. Wesley, it turns out, is the Mozart of propulsion. He's a genius with an understanding of time and energy beyond the understanding of others. Basically he's way more special than anyone else in all of Star Trek, so if fans didn't already hate him before, they've got a reason to now. And only Picard can be told about this, not his own mother.

He believes that humanity will reach this place again in the future, once they've learned control. So the episode's actually getting close to the themes of Where No Man has Gone Before here, with humanity not being ready for godlike power until they've first developed the wisdom to use it.
 

That's not a particularly dramatic scene to end an act on, especially as it seems like the Traveller's just stopped dying for the time being, so Picard's long journey back to the bridge is interrupted by a wall of fire. You can tell it's just imaginary though, as it's not being reflected in the wall. Why an Enterprise officer is daydreaming about fire isn't explained, but he's obviously too terrified to deal with it. They never would've had this problem on the Fearless.

Picard can see this particular fantasy and yells at the officer to put the flames out with his mind. Which he does. The guy's drenched in sweat, but Picard tells him to get to his station and he says "Yes sir!" while a heroic fanfare plays. Side quest complete!

This is the first appearance of stuntman Dennis "Danger" Madalone, who was credited as a stunt coordinator for almost 300 episodes of Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager. He also wrote and performed the absurdly patriotic 9/11 rock anthem America We Stand As One (YouTube link), with the video created by the director of this episode, Rob Bowman.

ACT FIVE

Act five begins with another log entry, stardate: time is currently meaningless.

Then we get this shot of a bloke wearing a skant that I've seen a hundred times on the internet as Picard addresses his crew and tells them that they need to think happy thoughts. They're going to return to their time and space with the power of positive thinking channelled through the Traveller. Everyone who believes in fairies needs to clap their hands.

Even Kosinski gets to join in again, which he's very happy about. It makes sense that he'd be useful here, as if the Traveller's powers work based on belief, then someone with an absolute belief in himself would supercharge him.

The trouble with this plan is that the climax of the episode is all about the character staring at monitors and tapping buttons while Wesley looks concerned. He doesn't do anything to save the day though, just acts supportive, which surprised me a little.

We get some more nice effects and the ship finally returns to the exact point they started from. They won't be sending any more ships to galaxy M33 however, as the Traveller fades away entirely.

Picard orders the boy to the bridge so that he and Riker can do a bit on him and pretend he's not allowed on the bridge... before revealing that he's being commissioned as an acting ensign! Now he'll actually have a reason to be involved in storylines and he doesn't have to wear those sweaters anymore.

It seems that Picard has really taken the Traveller's advice to heart, as he's found a way to encourage Wesley and teach him about the ship without making him feel like he's getting special treatment. Wesley is getting special treatment though, as he's got an actual arc this season! Tasha's lucky if she gets a line.

The episode ends with another joke from Picard. Riker asks if they should bring Dr Crusher here and he replies "Why, is someone sick?" At least I hope it was a joke.


CONCLUSION

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Okay, now I know that Where No One Has Gone Before is the one where the USS Enterprise travels beyond the galaxy, causing crewmembers to develop the ability to manipulate reality with their thoughts, and it ends with the captain having to make a decision about the fate of a character who is evolving beyond the rest of humanity. So there's no danger of me getting this mixed up with Where No Man Has Gone Before then. Though to be honest the two episodes are very different. For instance, in this one they actually manage to go somewhere that no one's gone before. Twice in fact.

There's only really one plot in this story and it's all about the Enterprise pulling a Star Trek: Voyager, then going one step further than that and pulling a Star Trek: The Animated Series. At least that's what the episode felt like for me, with its mysterious realm where thought becomes reality. I'm really not keen on the 'thought is the basis of all reality' stuff, to be honest. The idea of thought having power over space and time is as dated and New Age as the jingly soundtrack, and doesn't mesh well with what 90s Trek became. But it does kind of explain what Charlie Evans and Gary Mitchell were capable of to be fair. Plus there's always the chance that the Traveller is an unreliable source who doesn't entirely know what's going on. I mean the dude got them stuck in the imagination dimension when he was just trying to give them a small boost in engine efficiency and his continual mistakes are the source of all the drama in this episode. He's the closest thing the story has to an antagonist, well except for Kosinski I suppose.

Deanna Troi spells out Kosinski's character for us early on, and it seems that the actor did his best to embody the terrible person she described in the script. It's not clear whether or not he's even in Starfleet (he's got a shiny unique rank pip) but it's hard to imagine anyone there putting up with him for long. He's definitely not a shining example of Gene Roddenberry's future where no one argues with each other and everyone gets along. In fact he's a dipshit to almost comical levels, until pulling a 180 at the end to become incredibly humble, and a lot more helpful. The episode is very Star Trek in how arrogance and ignorance are the true threats, and the solution is to get everyone on the same page and think positive thoughts. Though saying that, it's pretty different to Where No Man Has Gone Before's ending where Kirk has to beat the crap out of his friend and then drop a rock on him. I suppose Star Trek is a franchise with many kinds of endings.

There's also another episode this reminds me of. Well, two actually, but I don't want to talk too much about Deep Space Nine's If Wishes Were Horses as it aired much later.

Star Trek: The Original Series 1-15 - Shore Leave

The episode I'm thinking of is the Original Series' Shore Leave, where the crew encounter figments of their imagination on an alien world. It's mostly just a series of warriors, fictional characters out of copyright, and stock footage, but it's fun enough. It also fills in a bit of Kirk's backstory though as he meets his Starfleet Academy bully and the love he left behind. We learn that they're still on his mind and he eventually gets the opportunity for a bit of closure.

Where No One Has Gone Before's figments are a bit less fun and insightful, with the crew generally terrified by something or imagining themselves doing something very cultured. Tasha's visit home is the most interesting fantasy, giving us a glimpse of where she grew up, but it's really just a moment. Meanwhile half the crew are basically just daydreaming that they're in the holodeck and they're really good at ballet or violin.

The trouble with the 'the crew's imagination becomes real' is that the concept has a ridiculous amount of potential. It's basically limited by two things: money and the writer's own imagination, and it seems like they must have been running short of one or the other. We're literally getting to see what's on the characters' minds, their idle thoughts and secret desires, and it's... this. We don't learn a whole lot about anyone here. Well, except for Wesley, despite the fact that he doesn't even imagine or do anything.

By the end this becomes a story about how Wesley Crusher is a special genius and needs encouragement (or at least fewer people calling him 'The Boy') and he becomes acting ensign by the end! Purely because an alien told Picard that he's special and deserves special treatment. The poor kid hasn't done anything wrong in this story and I'm still bothered by him! The alien also just tells Picard what's going on and what to do do about it, meaning that the crew doesn't actually do much here either.

So no one's doing anything in this story and not a whole lot happens, but at least it happens with enthusiasm and the actors sell it. The episode lets the characters be intelligent and competent as they deal with the inexplicable weirdness happening around them and this helps raise it a little higher than most season 1 stories. Not much higher, but I'd rank this in the top 10 for the series' first year.

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NEXT EPISODE

Thanks for dropping by and reading all those words. If you want to share your own thoughts about Where No One Has Gone Before, positive or otherwise, you're welcome to leave a comment. The internet was basically invented to discuss Star Trek; it'd be weird to stop now.

It'll be a while before I cover Next Gen again however. Next on Sci-Fi Adventures its Babylon 5's Movements of Fire and Shadow! For real this time.