TNG – Where No One Has Gone Before

Plot – The idea of accelerating humanity’s journey into the future and giving a peak into what is to come when they have risen to a higher plane of existence is a wonderful idea. Truly boundary pushing. Ultimately it appears to be realised as a series of stylish effects, which is perfectly fine (this is a feast for the eyes) but I would have loved some temporal jiggery-pokery too. 

The idea that the Traveller and his kind haven’t visited humanity before because they were ‘uninteresting’ is a real kick in the ego and quite hilarious.

The tone here is optimism and it’s something that TNG promotes very well (and DS9 refutes very well) and throughout the majority of the first two seasons it is twee and unforgivable but they get the tone just right here. There’s hope for the future of the show and hope for the future of humanity.

Character – I’m not sure at this point in TNG if anybody talks like a real person or behaves like a real person. They all talk like ciphers, like children pretending to be adults. The dialogue is awkward and stilted, like nobody is quite sure who anybody is or what distinguishes them. In other Trek shows – DS9 and Voyager in particular – they had the central characters defined very early but with TNG it took a good two seasons. When they got there it had one of the most robust casts on television but the journey was a long, hard struggle.

Troi mentions that Kosinski is overbearing, arrogant and sure of his abilities. No shit Sherlock. She’s an appalling example of the character that provides no function but to state the obvious. ‘I feel an abundance of love…’ I desperately want somebody to tell her to shut up. She mars what is otherwise a beautifully judged climax.

Kosinski is intolerably written and played, pure arrogance and then pure simpering fear. He’s not the sort of character that would appear on Trek at any other point because the characterisation was never this simplistic or insulting. He’s a cipher of extremes and none of them are particularly interesting, just infuriating. ‘This is a moment in history, right here, right now, and your names will forever be linked to mine.’ The actor has had an impressive career with a manifest of roles and it’s a shame that his foray into Trek should be so unforgiving.

The Traveller is intriguing because he is unknowable but I understand why that would annoy some people. I rather enjoy the obscurity. Erik Menyuk gives a subtle performance, that is highlighted even moreso because Stanley Kamel hams his way through the whole piece by his side. I can see why the creators of this show were keen to bring him back.

Performance – Wil Wheaton gives a sweet performance here and gets to develop Wesley from precocious brat to only mildly precocious brat. But they go down the route of making him the smartest person on the Ship far too often, which makes the silly adults around him look foolish and him a child mastermind, which is never an appealing notion no matter how many times I have seen it done. Why does everybody call him ‘the boy?’ It’s surely the most condescending way the adult characters could speak to him. Wesley tries to let them know his name – but is cut down by Picard.

It is strange that French born Picard has an English accent and his mother is played by an American actress (Herta Ware) putting on a (seriously) cod French accent (my fiancé is from Belgium so I know how it is supposed to sound). Seeing his mother should be an enlightening moment but we don’t learn anything at all about their relationship so the whole purpose of this sequence is just to throw Picard off balance.

Patrick Stewart is possibly the finest actor to have embraced Star Trek (he doesn’t give my favourite performance but in terms of formidable acting talent he’s streets ahead) and yet he is painfully awkward in this first season. It’s almost as if Stewart was embarrassed to be there and is getting through it was as little humiliation as he can muster. He gives an accomplished turn here but at the climax where he hands Wesley a commission and gives him Command, he’s really wooden.

Production – It’s easy to see why as a child I was drawn to the colour and the simple morality of early TNG. As a child.

What’s worse, Wesley’s huge jumpers or his embarrassing jumpsuits?

The Enterprise literally gets thrown across the universe like a rag doll across a kid’s room in some visually stunning sequences.

The dream sequences that the crew experience offer some visual refreshment and some unusual scenes. The Motzart concert and the ballerina performance are a far cry from what you are used to seeing on this show at this point.

Best moment – Picard stepping through the turbolift into space. TNG’s first effective shock moment?

Worst moment – Worf’s Targ is possibly the funniest example of a dressed up animal attempting to look exotic that I have ever seen. Even TOS did a better job than this. ‘You’re telling me it’s a kitty kat.’

It’s not ‘do you want to join Starfleet?’, Picard tells Wesley ‘you will join Starfleet.’ Fortunately, that marries up with his own desires but the singular lack of choice here worries me. Do you mean to say we have to suffer that little brat on the Bridge from now on? What was that I was saying about optimism for the future?

I wish they hadn’t done that – Didn’t they go through several Chief Engineers in the first season? It’s great when Geordi takes up the mantle and provides a little continuity because we seem to tour the world with these stand in Chief Engineers, their only distinctive feature is where in the world they come from. Such are the array of outrageous accents.

A reason to watch this episode again – This has a genuine sense of wonder that the show had been lacking at this point. It was the first time it stepped into the unknown in a truly imaginative way and thus opened up possibilities. There’s nothing on a character level that thrilled me here – that’s all pretty Mickey Mouse clubhouse – but the push into the unknown, the visuals, and the weirdness this episode explores are all worthy of merit. I think this is the first signs of true promise for TNG and that is definitely something of an ice breaker.

***1/2 out of *****

Clue to tomorrow's episode: 

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