star trek pilot episode – Trekking with Dennis

Star Trek: The Road Not Taken

As part of my ongoing series of articles to celebrate Star Trek’s big sixtieth anniversary year, I want to take you to an alternate reality! No, not the Kelvin timeline, the Mirror Universe, nor any of the other parallel worlds glimpsed in various Star Trek productions over the past six decades. What I want to examine is what our world – the real world – might look like if Star Trek had never aired.

Because… we came closer to that than you might think.

I daresay most Trekkies know this, but I’ll very briefly recap for anyone new or who doesn’t remember. In 1964, Gene Roddenberry penned Star Trek Is…, the first pitch for what would become The Original Series. In late 1964 and into 1965, The Cage was produced by Desilu for NBC… who shot it down. However, convinced that Star Trek could still be made to work – subject to some revisions – NBC approved the production of a second pilot. That episode would become Where No Man Has Gone Before, which I re-watched here on the website a few weeks back.

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing Kirk and Spock — Kirk and Spock in *Where No Man Has Gone Before*, the second pilot.

But for our purposes today… we’re gonna say that the second pilot didn’t happen, and then examine the alternate timeline created by Star Trek’s absence.

In this timeline, NBC took a look at The Cage and rejected it even more strongly, refusing to pick up Star Trek or greenlight that second pilot, let alone commission a full season. Gene Roddenberry and Desilu might’ve tried to shop the project to CBS and others, but they also refused to pick it up. Star Trek would never be made, and The Cage would remain in Desilu and NBC’s vaults for decades without being broadcast.

What’s the point of this exercise? Good question!

Promo poster for Star Trek SNW S4 (cropped) showing the USS Enterprise — The USS Enterprise on a recent promotional poster.

I think it’s an interesting thought experiment. What might the sci-fi landscape look like, six decades on, without Star Trek? Would other shows of the mid-60s have stepped up to take its place? Would some shows that, in the real world, only lasted one or two seasons, have taken the audience that TOS got, and gone on to become enduring, popular franchises? And what of Star Trek’s legacy beyond the world of entertainment? The franchise has inspired people all over the world to get into fields like engineering, medicine, and, of course, astronomy and space sciences.

In short… what might the world look like without Star Trek, and how big can we really argue the franchise’s influence has been? Those are the questions I want to consider as we step “through the looking-glass” to this strange parallel universe!

So let’s get back to our alt-history story. It’s early 1965, and the word from NBC and Desilu is “no.” Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi pitch hasn’t been picked up and won’t be going ahead.

Photo of Gene Roddenberry wearing a hat — Gene Roddenberry.
*Photo Credit: Majel Barrett Roddenberry/The Roddenberry Estate*

Gene Roddenberry, by the mid-1960s, had already been working in TV for a decade. He had credits as a writer and as a producer on dozens of productions in genres like police procedurals and westerns, and was the creator of The Lieutenant, a drama series set in the US Marine Corps. I daresay that, if Star Trek hadn’t been picked up, Rodenberry’s career would have continued in a similar vein – writing a few episodes here and there for various different shows, working as a producer where he could, and perhaps continuing to pitch new ideas to the networks. Whether anything else would’ve been on Star Trek’s level, though… well, I doubt it.

Here in the real world, after The Original Series had aired, but before the Star Trek films and The Next Generation were created, Roddenberry put together a few more pitches and ideas for new TV shows. Four of these became TV movies: Genesis II, Planet Earth, The Questor Tapes, and Spectre. I daresay none of these would’ve been made without Roddenberry’s status having been inflated by Star Trek’s success – and there’d almost certainly be no Earth: Final Conflict or Andromeda, either – the two ’90s/’00s sci-fi shows produced after Roddenberry’s death based on his work and ideas.

Title card for Andromeda — No Star Trek almost certainly means no *Andromeda*…

The Original Series, despite its prominence to us Trekkies, wasn’t the only sci-fi series on American TV in the mid-1960s. Science fiction was still a relatively new genre, especially on television, but there were successful sci-fi and sci-fi-adjacent shows on the air. The Twilight Zone is one of the most famous, of course, and predates Star Trek by more than seven years. The first Batman TV series – the one starring Adam West – was also on the air from 1966 to 1968. Then there’s the likes of Lost in Space, which aired for three seasons from 1965, The Time Tunnel, which only managed a single season in 1966-67, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which ran for four seasons from 1964, and The Invaders, which ran for one season.

In a world without Star Trek, might some of these have been more successful?

We already know the legacy of Batman – new films with the titular character are still being created today, and Batman was a pretty big hit at the time. The same is true for The Twilight Zone. But I want to zoom in on The Time Tunnel, The Invaders, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea this time – I think, in a world without Star Trek, they’re exactly the kinds of niche, nerdy, “cult classic” TV shows that could have hoovered up the Trekkie community that never was!

End card for The Time Tunnel S01E01 — *The Time Tunnel* was one of *Star Trek: The Original Series’* sci-fi contemporaries.

Picture this: The Time Tunnel doesn’t get canned in 1967, but runs for two more seasons. It gets re-broadcast in syndication in the early ’70s, growing in popularity, and before you know it… fans are clamouring for more. Perhaps an animated series would be created to satiate fans, or maybe the show would be picked up for some kind of second phase.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea could be in a similar boat (if you’ll excuse the pun). It has a lot in common with Star Trek, with aliens, monsters, and a lot of themes that tie into real-world events and issues. In a world without Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea – which was already on the air – could’ve been primed to pick up the baton for sci-fi with a message, and the fan community could’ve latched onto that. Again, after the series went off the air, re-runs could’ve grown its audience, leading to calls for a sequel series or movie.

Still frame from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea showing the Seaview — The Seaview from *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*.

The Invaders only lasted for a single season, but I can absolutely see a pathway for a show like that to succeed in a world without Star Trek. After defeating the initial alien invasion, perhaps the characters would’ve discovered that it was only the first part of a larger plan, or that other alien races also have designs on Earth. The Invaders, being set on Earth, is different to Star Trek – but still has that “cult classic” potential.

I haven’t mentioned another ’60s classic, yet – but there’s a reason for that.

Doctor Who started airing here in the UK in 1963, and it quickly became a family favourite with us Brits! But Doctor Who didn’t cross the Atlantic until well into the 1970s, and I think its legacy is still very much a British thing. That isn’t to say Doctor Who couldn’t have gotten even bigger, if there were a big Star Trek-shaped void in the sci-fi realm. But in terms of what we’re talking about today… I consider it kind of off to one side in its own, very British niche.

Still frame from the first episode of Dr Who showing the Tardis — *Doctor Who* didn’t hit American screens until the 1970s.

So that’s our alt-history ’60s! With no Star Trek, a show like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Invaders, or The Time Tunnel manages to pick up some of the would-be Trekkies, and blows up to become much bigger than it ever did in our world.

If I had to pick just one – based on my admittedly incomplete knowledge of these programmes – I’m going to say, for the sake of argument, that it’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that makes the leap. Lost in Space might seem superficially more similar to Star Trek, and I like The Time Tunnel for its visual style and timeline-hopping shenanigans! But if we’re picking just one of these, for the purposes of building out our alt-history of televised sci-fi, I’m gonna say that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has the right mix of sci-fi, classic adventures, and a comparable kind of moral messaging to The Original Series, so it’s going to be the winner!

Promo photo for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea — In our alt-timeline, the void left by Star Trek’s absence is filled by *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*…

But what does that mean for the next chapter of our alternate timeline?

In the real world, the success of Star Trek – especially in the early 1970s after being rebroadcast – directly led to an expansion of the sci-fi genre. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, has said on the record that Star Trek paved the way for Star Wars, literally saying that Star Wars stood “on the shoulders” of Star Trek and the sci-fi-friendly audience that it helped to create. So, without Star Trek… do we get Star Wars?

There are other sci-fi films and series in our alt-timeline, so I’m not going to suggest that an expansion of the science fiction genre “never happens.” 2001: A Space Odyssey was in pre-production before Star Trek came along, and that film is still hugely influential over the genre, just as one example.

Still frame from 2001: A Space Odyssey showing Space Station V — Other sci-fi titles, like *2001: A Space Odyssey*, would still be made.

However, I do believe that, in a world without Star Trek, the timings of some of these things changes. Perhaps 2001: A Space Odyssey is still a success, or maybe it’s slightly less successful without Star Trek giving its audience a bit of a boost. But without Star Trek, and especially without the resurgence of space-based sci-fi that Star Trek led in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I’m going to say that there’s no Star Wars in 1977 – and no Alien in 1979, either.

There’s still a place, in our alt-timeline, for both an epic space fantasy like Star Wars and a gritty sci-fi horror picture like Alien. But because Star Trek looms so large over both films (and their subsequent franchises), and because in this alt-timeline, sci-fi has gone in a different direction, I’m going to posit that neither of these hugely influential pictures gets made. There will be epic sci-fi and sci-fi horror… but it won’t come along in the second half of the ’70s, it’ll come much later.

Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas — Gene Roddenberry (left) and George Lucas.
*Photo: Dan Madsen*

Now we have to talk even more speculatively!

I’ve suggested that, without Star Trek, and with the sci-fi genre looking very different in the ’70s, we don’t see Star Wars in 1977 or Alien in 1979. Star Wars, according to George Lucas, was only able to come along when it did because Star Trek had “softened the ground” for sci-fi and brought new eyes to the genre. And Alien almost feels like the antithesis of Star Trek in many ways – a working-class crew of “space truckers,” a corporate dystopia, and a film that presents space not as “the final frontier” for peaceful exploration, but as a dark, dangerous place. Neither film gets to exist without Star Trek.

But what does the absence of *those* titles mean? Arguably, the Star Wars franchise is even more important for sci-fi going into the ’80s than Star Trek, and Alien is not only a landmark science fiction film, but a seminal work of the horror genre, too. If Star Trek means neither of those films get made… well, now we have to look at the snowball effect and the ramifications of that!

Still frame from Star Wars 1977 showing Luke in the Falcon — No Star Trek means no Star Wars, and no Star Wars means…

I maintain that, somehow, sci-fi would have a resurgence on both the big and small screens in our alt-timeline. But if it doesn’t happen in the ’70s, then do we get films like E.T., The Terminator, Blade Runner, Flight of the Navigator, or The Last Starfighter in the ’80s? And without Alien, what becomes of films like The Thing or The Fly? None of this is to say that Star Trek, Star Wars, and Alien are directly responsible for these films’ existence, but if you hack away at the foundations of sci-fi on the small and big screens, it’s at least conceivable to me that these stories never get greenlit; that studio executives and producers aren’t willing to fund “experimental” films or “unproven” genres like sci-fi and sci-fi/horror in such a big way. The entire landscape of ’80s cinema would be completely changed as a result.

With less space-based sci-fi, we come back to my idea about shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel proving popular. Perhaps sci-fi goes in more of a terrestrial direction, with films inspired by those shows doing more with sci-fi concepts on Earth, in the deep sea, and going backwards and forwards through time. That might bode well for Back to the Future, The Abyss, RoboCop, and similar titles in this era!

Still frame from The Abyss showing a submersible — Our alt-timeline could see more Earth-based sci-fi stories, like *The Abyss*.

I also think that, in lieu of sci-fi, we could see more films in the fantasy or superhero genres in the ’70s and continuing into the ’80s. There are landmark fantasy films in this era – The NeverEnding Story, for instance, which was a favourite of mine when I was a kid. You could also point to Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn, Highlander, and even The Princess Bride as films that would likely still exist. Some of these titles might grow in popularity in a world without Star Trek and Star Wars, with fantasy becoming a much bigger genre in this era.

Without Star Trek and Star Wars leading the way for sci-fi, films like Superman could have led to the superhero genre becoming much bigger, much earlier. It’s hard to remember nowadays – almost twenty years into the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s dominance at the box office – but the superhero/comic book adaptation genre wasn’t always a guaranteed box office draw. The end of the ’80s saw Tim Burton’s Batman, but in our alt-timeline, I wonder if superheroes like Iron Man, the X-Men, and others might’ve stepped into the void left by fewer sci-fi titles. Superheroes and sci-fi have a lot of things in common, and comic book adaptations could easily be this timeline’s biggest blockbusters.

Promo for Superman 1978 showing the superhero — There might be a lot more superheroes and comic book adaptations in our alt-timeline.

Having rolled the snowball into the ’80s, I think changes from here become harder to predict. If we have more fantasy films, for instance, could an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings be produced years earlier? And if so… would it be as well-received? That’s very much an open question. If superheroes dominate the ’80s box office, how long does that last? And what does it mean for blockbuster titles in the ’90s and towards the millennium? Again, stacking change atop change makes things harder to predict!

I will posit, though, that sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s, someone, somehow, cracks the sci-fi genre open again. Films set in space, be they horror titles, pure sci-fi, or epic adventures will – eventually and, from our point of view, belatedly – hit the big and small screens. But in our alt-timeline, I doubt we’d recognise any of them, or any of their names. Some might draw inspiration from the same sources as Star Trek and Star Wars, whereas others may be inspired by the dominant fantasy and superhero genres, or even the terrestrial sci-fi shows that replaced Star Trek. But somehow, some way, we don’t see space stories completely disappear. And going into the millennium and beyond, there may be fewer films and TV shows like that… but there are still going to be *some*.

The galaxy Centaurus A — Films set in space wouldn’t be entirely absent.
*Photo: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)*

Star Trek’s influence, though, doesn’t merely extend to the world of entertainment. So let’s also consider what the franchise’s absence could mean outside of the realm of film and TV.

There are countless individual stories of people who were inspired to become engineers because of Scotty, doctors because of Dr McCoy, or astronomers because of Star Trek’s focus on science. We can’t possibly account for all of those individually, but there are some trends we can point to.

First of all, I think a world without Star Trek would gradually see less interest in space and space exploration. It wouldn’t be obvious at first; the moon landing, the Space Shuttle, and so on would still happen on schedule and would still attract interest and attention. But gradually, over time, without the inspirational aspect that Star Trek brought to the table, there’d be fewer people getting interested in astronomy and related scientific fields, and – as above – that would have a kind of snowball effect.

Gene Roddenberry and several members of The Original Series cast at the dedication ceremony for the Space Shuttle Enterprise — Gene Roddenberry and several members of *The Original Series* cast at the dedication ceremony for the Space Shuttle Enterprise, 1976.
*Photo: NASA*

There are some specific areas where Star Trek had more of a direct influence. For example, the first Space Shuttle was only named “Enterprise” because of a campaign by Trekkies! So I think, in our alt-timeline, that Shuttle would almost certainly have a different name (most likely “Constitution,” for America’s bicentennial) – and that could have knock-on effects for the rest of the fleet. Then there’s Nichelle Nichols’ role in helping to recruit female astronauts, as detailed in Women In Motion, a great documentary film.

NASA would still want to recruit women astronauts to go into space, but it’s conceivable that this would be slower, and perhaps the first American woman to go into space (which, in the real world, was Sally Ride in 1983) wouldn’t happen until later.

I don’t think we’re talking about major discoveries or missions not going ahead; the space shuttle was already in early development by the late ’60s, and I can’t really point to any specific mission to space that wouldn’t have been able to go ahead without Star Trek and its legacy. But I think it’s fair to say that some missions might’ve launched later, that fewer people might’ve felt called to work in space-related scientific fields, and that there would be knock-on effects of that. By the time our alt-timeline reaches 2026, the snowball effect could put it several years behind the real world in terms of certain missions and discoveries.

Photo of Nichelle Nichols at NASA — Nichelle Nichols leveraged her fame and role on Star Trek to help NASA recruit women astronauts.

As we can see, Star Trek’s absence doesn’t mean there’s *no* sci-fi, no space adventures on TV, or massive, earth-shattering impacts on space exploration. But the entertainment landscape – and the world at large – would be undeniably different without it. Science fiction could easily have gone in a very different, more terrestrial direction, focusing for years not on outer space, but on the deep oceans, time travel, and the future of Earth. If aliens appeared at all, they’d appear as visitors – or invaders – rather than being encountered out in space, on their own home worlds.

Star Trek’s vision of humanity’s future is more optimistic, uplifting, and aspirational than practically any other sci-fi setting, and its writers have almost always found ways to tell interesting and dramatic stories despite the denizens of Earth living in a tech-driven post-scarcity “utopia.” I’m not sure any other franchise – real or imagined – could pull that off quite so successfully in our alt-timeline, and that means that sci-fi almost certainly looks darker and more dystopian than it does in the real world.

Crop from the Star Trek Stargazers webtoon showing DS9 — Sci-fi (and entertainment in general) would be bleaker and less hopeful without Star Trek.

I would like to add one addendum; an epilogue to our alt-timeline. After passing through various different corporate owners, and with its sole tape remaining locked in a vault… I think The Cage would eventually be cleaned up, remastered, and turned into a TV movie. It would take decades before it would ever see the light of day, and the chance to launch Star Trek as a real show would have long since slipped away. But a version of The Cage would eventually be broadcast – and audiences would see it as a fun little curiosity; a relic of a bygone era of television production. There might even be articles like this one, wondering “what might have been” if this weird little mid-60s sci-fi series had been picked up for a full season!

So that’s all for today. I hope this little thought experiment has been of some interest.

I was inspired by Star Trek’s 60th anniversary, and I’ve actually had a piece in my writing pile for several years, tentatively titled “Star Trek’s Contemporaries”, in which I planned to look a bit more deeply at shows like The Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which I referenced in this piece. Stay tuned, because I daresay I’ll get around to that one day!

Still frame from Star Trek's pilot, The Cage, showing a close-up of Captain Pike. — Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike in *The Cage*.

The point was to take a look at a world without Star Trek… not because that’s a world I’d ever want to live in, but as a way to highlight the very real, tangible impacts that Star Trek has had and continues to have on sci-fi, the wider entertainment industry, and even beyond. If Star Trek had never got past the pilot stage – as very nearly happened – I think we can make a case for sci-fi being in a radically different place, the entertainment industry looking quite different, and perhaps even some real-world space missions not happening on schedule. As we celebrate the franchise’s landmark sixtieth anniversary, I think it’s worth taking time to acknowledge how important Star Trek has been and continues to be.

If you want to check out more pieces celebrating Star Trek’s 60th, I’ve recently written up re-watches of The Original Series’ second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the very first episode of Star Trek that I can ever remember watching: The Next Generation Season 2 episode The Royale. Earlier in the year, I reviewed Star Trek’s newest series, Starfleet Academy, and the video game Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown. I also took a look at the franchise’s uncertain future amidst a corporate merger, and wrote about my encounter with William Shatner – Captain Kirk himself – who I met at Comic-Con. Click or tap any of those links to check out those articles, and stay tuned! There’s more to come here on the website as the sixtieth anniversary year continues.

Thank you for coming along with me on this alt-timeline adventure! And, as always… Live Long and Prosper, friends.

All TV programmes and films discussed above are the copyrights of their respective studios, production companies, distributors, and/or broadcasters. The Star Trek franchise – including The Original Series and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of the Skydance Paramount Corporation. Star Trek: The Original Series is available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available, and is also available on DVD/Blu-ray. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: The Original Series Episode Re-Watch – Season 1, Episode 3: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Fri 05.06.26Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: The Original Series.

2026 marks Star Trek’s landmark 60th anniversary – and six decades later, we’re still getting brand-new episodes and stories! That’s something incredibly special; a milestone few other franchises have ever reached or will ever reach. Today, as part of my ongoing celebrations of the 60th anniversary, I thought we could step back in time, not only to the first season of The Original Series, but to a particularly special – and rather unusual – episode. Today, we’re watching Where No Man Has Gone Before – Star Trek’s second pilot.

After The Cage wasn’t picked up by NBC in 1965, Gene Roddenberry and his team were given a rare and unusual second chance to salvage Star Trek. The resulting script was Where No Man Has Gone Before, and after almost the entire cast – sans Leonard Nimoy as Spock – was changed, the new episode entered production. Recycling the sets which had been built for The Cage, but which were subsequently dismantled and rebuilt ahead of filming the rest of what we now know of as The Original Series, the episode has a completely distinct look, one which simply doesn’t appear anywhere else in the franchise.

Promo photos for Star Trek TOS showing Nimoy and Takei (l) and Shatner (r) — Black-and-white promotional photos showing Leonard Nimoy with George Takei (left) and William Shatner (right).

The uniforms may be the most obvious, with Star Trek’s (in)famous red shirts nowhere to be seen! Instead, the entire crew wears either blue, a different shade of “gold” that almost looks green or khaki, or beige. And, with the exception of Kirk, the remaining characters we’d come to know – Spock, Scotty, and Sulu – are all wearing a different colour than we’d expect. Spock gets a uniform similar to Kirk’s in command gold, Sulu – who isn’t the helmsman this time, but some kind of mathematical aide – wears medical blue, and Scotty is in one of the beige uniforms that seem to have taken the place of engineering/security’s red.

The uniforms are also different in the way they appear: visual zippers on the shoulders, a softer, ribbed crew-neck collar that evokes World War II-era naval uniforms, and smaller, slightly different Starfleet delta patches, too. These uniforms are similar to those seen in The Cage, which is another quirk of production. But for the main crew and characters we’d come to know, this was the only time we’d ever see them in these particular uniforms.

Two still frames from Star Trek TOS showing early uniform variants — The uniforms are different in this episode.

Then there are the sets. The bridge is different – albeit in ways that may not be obvious at first. Kirk’s chair has a large communicator on one side, which I think I’m right in saying wasn’t seen again. The main viewscreen, though, is the most clear and obvious point of difference; its corners are far more rounded than they would be in the rest of the show, again evoking more of that World War II naval style in some ways. The set was moved to a different sound stage when The Original Series entered full production, which is why it looks different here.

Sickbay, which is one of the only other Enterprise rooms where the episode spends much time, is also quite different, with different coloured walls and simpler upholstery than we’d see in the rest of the show. Some doors in Where No Man Has Gone Before are grey or silver instead of the more familiar red, chairs are a different colour and have shorter backs, and the Enterprise as a whole just feels a little… different. You weren’t making that up, if you felt something was “off” upon watching this episode! Things really are different.

Two still frames from Star Trek TOS showing the viewscreen and sickbay — The main viewscreen on the bridge (left) and sickbay (right) aren’t quite the same as they are in the rest of the series.

Unusually for a pilot episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before wasn’t the first to be broadcast. That honour fell to The Man Trap, which executives at NBC apparently felt was a simpler, more straightforward story. This episode was pushed back and aired as the third of Season 1 in the United States… but interestingly, when Star Trek came to the UK in 1969, it actually was the first episode that the BBC chose to broadcast. I wonder why that happened?

Here’s a fun question: how many times, across The Original Series, do we see Captain Kirk wielding his phaser rifle? This iconic, legendary prop, which is well-known to all of us Trekkies and instantly recognisable, must’ve been used a lot… right? Well, no! The phaser rifle *only* appears here, in Where No Man Has Gone Before, and despite being seen in publicity photos of William Shatner in his role as Kirk, it never appears again in the entire series. According to Star Trek legend Bjo Trimble, Gene Roddenberry disliked the design, feeling that it looked “too lethal” for his calmer, more rational vision of humankind’s future.

Still frame from a YouTube video showing the Star Trek phaser rifle prop with its designer — Prop designer Reuben Klamer (pictured in 2013 with the original prop) designed the phaser rifle for *Where No Man Has Gone Before*.

In addition to Chekov, who wouldn’t be seen until Season 2, Where No Man Has Gone Before is also noteworthy insofar as it was produced before Nichelle Nichols was cast as Uhura, and before DeForest Kelley was cast as the ship’s doctor. The role of communications officer is instead taken by Lieutenant Alden, played by Lloyd Haynes, and standing in for DeForest Kelley is Paul Fix, who plays the character of Dr Mark Piper.

I’ve always felt that Dr Piper – in his limited on-screen moments – is a bit of a half-step between The Cage’s Dr Boyce and the main show’s Dr McCoy. He’s similar to both characters in as much as he’s older than Kirk, but he comes across as being a bit less serious than Dr Boyce, slouching during a conference meeting, but also less lighthearted or quippy than Dr McCoy would be. The archetype that Gene Rodenberry wanted to create – the older, slightly wiser ship’s doctor, who could be a guide to the captain both in medical matters and beyond – was clearly present in Dr Piper and Dr Boyce, but these versions feel… less refined, if that makes sense. Like, I can see where Dr McCoy is going to materialise, but the full personality of the character isn’t there yet.

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing Kirk and Dr Piper — Dr Piper with Captain Kirk.

As an interesting aside, Gene Roddenberry had his heart set on casting DeForest Kelley for both The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before, but was overruled by others involved in the production. It was only when Star Trek was fully greenlit that Rodenberry got his man – and I think we can all agree that it was the right call! Still… it’s interesting to see what might have been.

I usually prefer to watch Star Trek on streaming nowadays… or at least I do during the months where I pay for Paramount+! But on this occasion, I actually went back to my old DVDs; the streaming versions are the remastered ones, complete with new special effects and CGI shots of the Enterprise. And while the remastered version of The Original Series does look, by every objective measure going, “better,” I wanted the classic look this time. There are differences in the way the episode looks – the Galactic Barrier, for instance, looks very different, as do a few other VFX shots. The Enterprise itself is also a fully CGI model in establishing shots.

Side-by-side comparison of Star Trek TOS original and remastered shots — The original versions (left) and remastered versions (right) of two moments in the story.

As a Trekkie, there are a lot of things that seem “wrong” about Where No Man Has Gone Before. What I mean by that is… with the hindsight that six decades and almost 1,000 subsequent stories can provide, there are things in the story that just don’t seem to fit. Spock being so quick to advocate for Mitchell’s extrajudicial execution, the Enterprise being on a mission to scout outside of the galaxy, some confusion about warp drive and impulse engines, and how fast impulse actually is when trying to get between star systems… all of these things feel a little “off.” To what extent that will bother you, or whether you can set it all aside and enjoy the story for what it is will be a matter of personal taste!

For me… I kind of place Where No Man Has Gone Before along with The Cage in almost their own category. These are fun Star Trek stories, of course, but they’re also unique oddities within the broader franchise; episodes which almost seem to take place apart from the rest of The Original Series. I think I can fall victim to being overly nitpicky sometimes (check out some of my other episode write-ups and reviews for that!) and the temptation is there with Where No Man Has Gone Before to say that things like the uniforms, the attitudes of some of the characters, and the Enterprise’s strange mission all seem to be, for want of a better word, “wrong.” But placing the episode in context, and understanding it for what it is, helps me set a lot of that aside. Even though it’s not an episode I re-watch all that often, I still had a good time when I revisited it, and I found myself getting swept along for the ride.

Promo photos for Star Trek TOS showing Doohan and Nimoy — Black-and-white promotional photos of James Doohan (left) and Leonard Nimoy (right).

That’s testament to the power that Star Trek still has some six decades later! There are undeniably outdated things in Where No Man Has Gone Before: papier-mache rocks, for instance, or Kirk and Mitchell’s attitude towards women. But the story itself is timeless; a classic morality fable about the dangers of granting a mere mortal the powers of a god. Given where we are today with conversations about artificial intelligence and its potential to far exceed us in terms of its capabilities, and the so-called “alignment problem,” stories like Where No Man Has Gone Before actually seem *more* relevant, not less.

So I like that we catch a glimpse of a kind of “alternate reality” for both Star Trek the show and the USS Enterprise in-universe. We see Kirk, presumably at a slightly earlier moment in his command, with different crewmates, wearing different uniforms, and even with a slightly different design to parts of the ship. It makes for a fun “what if;” what might The Original Series have looked like if *this* series – the one we catch a glimpse of for just one episode – had been continued with zero changes? Would these uniforms have been as iconic, with their toned-down colours and no red? Would the phaser rifle have become a standard part of the Federation’s arsenal? Would Dr Piper have been as well-received and well-remembered as Dr McCoy? And would some of the characters we don’t spend as much time with in the episode – like Alden or Yeoman Smith – have gone on to fill the absent roles of Uhura, Rand, or Chapel? I guess we’ll never know, eh?

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing Alden — Lieutenant Alden, the Enterprise’s communications officer in this episode.

I think I’m right in saying that extra-sensory perception, or ESP, wasn’t mentioned again after Where No Man Has Gone Before. Obviously, we’ve seen similar abilities in races like the Talosians, Betazoids, Q Continuum, and more – and humans would occasionally gain similar powers in some stories. But it was never again expressed in quite this way, with Starfleet apparently keeping track of humans who possessed these seemingly magical powers.

It’s interesting that this vision of the future sees almost a blend of magic and science. ESP, even in the 1960s, was a fringe idea at best, but Where No Man Has Gone Before wraps it up in the language of science, presenting it as something to be merely noted and catalogued, the way we might expect Starfleet to make note of someone’s height or allergies. Because ESP is this kind of pseudoscientific, paranormal thing – which, if we think sceptically, has never been proven to exist – it feels odd to see it included in a Star Trek episode in this manner. I don’t hate it, and when you look at other stories in The Original Series, The Animated Series, and even early Next Generation episodes, it doesn’t feel that out-of-place. But once you get past, say, Season 2 of TNG, it’s not the kind of storyline I’d expect to see. Star Trek could make a comparable episode today, but if one were commissioned, I don’t think the ESP angle would be included at all – at least, not in this straightforward, scientific way.

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing Kirk, Spock, and Dehner — Kirk, Spock, and Dr Dehner discuss extra-sensory perception.

So we’ve talked a lot about what makes Where No Man Has Gone Before stand apart, different from the rest of Star Trek. Let’s move on to ways in which the episode *does* feel familiar!

I recently had the opportunity to meet William Shatner – Captain Kirk himself – at an event here in the UK. Click or tap here to check out my thoughts on that, by the way; it’s a big part of why I wanted to write up another TOS episode re-watch! Shatner’s Captain Kirk arrives in Where No Man Has Gone Before basically fully-formed as the character we know and love: friendly with his crew, especially close to Spock, flirty with women, and with a strong sense of duty and protectiveness for his ship. Those traits would go on to define the character, and they’re all present here, in what was the first time Kirk was conceived and brought to the screen.

Spock has changed from The Cage, but in terms of the character we’re most familiar with, he’s also more or less fully-formed. Where No Man Has Gone Before was the first time (in production order, I mean) that the Vulcans were established as being a logical, unemotional people, and Spock embodies that here in a way he didn’t in The Cage.

The barest bones of Scotty can be glimpsed; James Doohan is already doing the accent, and while we don’t exactly see Scotty as a miracle-worker (major repair tasks and the retrofitting of Delta Vega’s station fall to other characters this time), he’s at least established as the Enterprise’s senior engineer. Sulu is a bit of an oddity; as I said above, he’s not a helmsman, nor even a bridge officer, and if uniform colours mean *anything* in this particular story, he might well be supposed to be affiliated with the science or even medical divisions. But nevertheless, we have George Takei in his familiar role, and Sulu gets a few lines.

Dr Piper is a Dr McCoy prototype, as discussed above, and although he doesn’t get a ton of screen time or a lot of lines, you can see the outline for that kind of character in Paul Fix’s performance. So, once again, we have the bare bones of a familiar character – albeit that this one isn’t played by the actor we’d expect to see!

The Enterprise, despite some key differences that we’ve already discussed, still feels familiar. The bridge is set up the same, despite the different main viewscreen, and the captain’s chair, Spock’s science station, the red turbolift doors, and the helm console are all exactly as we’d remember them. Minor differences may be a result of the set being dismantled and rebuilt at a different location, but by and large, the internal areas of the Enterprise that we see are still familiar enough not to feel totally “wrong.”

The exterior of the ship is also exactly the same. Where No Man Has Gone Before re-uses the filming model that had been built for The Cage, and some establishing shots of the ship would go on to be mainstays of The Original Series. The remastered Blu-ray version has different CGI shots; the Enterprise moves in ways we didn’t really see in the show’s original run. But, like I said, that’s partly why I wanted to watch my old DVD copy on this occasion!

For a one-off character, Gary Mitchell is surprisingly well-written. He fits seamlessly into The Original Series at this very early stage, and if Where No Man Has Gone Before was the first episode you ever watched, I could see what happens to him being genuinely shocking – especially to an audience some sixty years ago. I genuinely buy into Kirk and Mitchell’s friendship. Some one-off characters who are introduced as supposed besties of someone on the main cast don’t always stick the landing – their inclusions can, sometimes, feel a little *too* forced. But Mitchell and Kirk have chemistry together, thanks to William Shatner’s performance playing well with guest star Gary Lockwood.

Opinions on Mitchell himself may vary, I suspect, due to the passage of time. Writing in 2026, some six decades on from the character’s debut, I view Mitchell as being kind of arrogant and unlikable from the get-go; his dismissive attitude to the Enterprise’s helm officer and his unpleasant interaction with Dr Dehner being examples of this. But to an audience back then, I think Mitchell was meant to come across as kind of similar to Kirk; a ladies’ man with a sense of humour, perhaps even a happy-go-lucky attitude that would contrast with his later god-like powers.

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing Mitchell — Gary Mitchell, prior to his transformation.

I would argue, though, that Mitchell’s early scenes with Kirk on the bridge and in the turbolift are at least meant to inform us of a selfish or arrogant side – something that would make his developing powers even harder to handle. Because Mitchell starts out as arguably a flawed person, there’s room for him to abuse the powers he develops later on in a way that feels plausible. If a character like Kirk had been given such powers, it would be harder, perhaps, to imagine that he’d want to misuse them; Kirk has a stronger moral core – or at least, I feel he does with the benefit of more than a hundred other episodes and films! But Mitchell has that arrogant streak from the get-go; a flaw that makes him susceptible to being corrupted by power.

But is that the moral of the story? That *only* a flawed person would abuse power?

I suspect the real intention was to show that a normal guy – as Mitchell is supposed to be, for the era in which Where No Man Has Gone Before was produced – is always going to be too tempted to abuse power. He’s an example of, to quote Kirk in the episode itself: “absolute power corrupting absolutely.” Mitchell was intended to be just an “everyman,” a regular Starfleet officer who couldn’t handle that kind of power. None of us can… and that’s supposed to be the point.

Gene Roddenberry saw Star Trek, in part, as a vehicle for conveying these kinds of morality fables. Yes, there’s a vision of the future where humankind has overcome all kinds of obstacles, and there’s an incredibly positive outlook which, at the height of the Cold War, seemed impossible to a lot of folks. That inspirational side, that optimism, and that sense of hope are still part of the franchise to this day. But there’s also storytelling by metaphor – Gary Mitchell receives god-like powers, but those powers can be read as a metaphor for political power. Mitchell’s transformation, seen through that lens, is a warning against granting *anyone* – even a likeable guy or an “average Joe” like Gary Mitchell – too much power. I wonder if you can think of a contemporary example of someone like that… a politician, perhaps?

Then there’s Dr Dehner. Her powers take longer to manifest, and seem to be a little behind Mitchell’s – whether that’s because she’s supposed to be weaker, or because powers grow and improve over time isn’t 100% clear in the story itself, but it’s still an interesting question. It’s fascinating that Dr Dehner, not Mitchell, is the character able to be reasoned out of her power-mad state. If we take what I was saying before about storytelling by fable and metaphor, I think we can argue that Where No Man Has Gone Before wants to present intelligence, and perhaps education, as being virtues; that Dr Dehner, as a psychiatrist and a more intelligent and thoughtful person than Mitchell – was able to snap out of it and resist the temptation of unlimited power.

Kirk was able to remind Dr Dehner of her humanity in a way he couldn’t with Mitchell.

So I hope this has been interesting.

Where No Man Has Gone Before is, in many ways, an odd little curiosity; produced more than a year before the rest of The Original Series’ first season, it doesn’t integrate with it perfectly. But the outline of what Star Trek would become is present here – some characters aren’t fully fleshed-out yet, and others would be added, removed, or changed entirely. It makes the episode feel… unique. A distinct offering, and a rare glimpse at a vision for the series that’s both similar and different. Compared to The Cage, the episode is a lot closer to the rest of The Original Series. But compare it to any story produced later and it stands apart.

My encounter with William Shatner last month, and Star Trek’s big 60th anniversary year, were the catalysts for returning to Where No Man Has Gone Before. And you know what? I had fun with it! It’s an episode I haven’t actually re-watched in a few years, at this point, and it’s been even longer since I went back to my TOS DVD collection and watched the show in its un-remastered form. It was a lot of fun.

Still frame from Star Trek TOS showing the bridge and smoke — Fire on the bridge!

As the 60th anniversary nears, I have a few other ideas for episode re-watches, essays, discussion pieces, and more. Some of those may eventually make their way onto the website – so please stay tuned for that! And just next month we’ll be graced with Strange New Worlds’ fourth season. I plan to write individual episode reviews, so if that’s something you’re interested in, I hope you’ll join me for that.

Thanks for checking out my thoughts on this unique episode. If you’re interested in more of my take on TOS, I have write-ups of The Original Series episode Arena and The Animated Series episode How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth, which you can find by following those links. And I’ve got pieces about The Motion Picture and The Search For Spock, too. Click or tap those links to check them out.

As always… Live Long and Prosper, friends!

Star Trek: The Original Series (a.k.a. Star Trek) is available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available. The series is also available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including The Original Series, Strange New Worlds, and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of the Skydance-Paramount corporation. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.