Lets Fix "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

[Shatmandu]

Hiya, folks.

We used to do these on occasion, with the obviously bad episodes, but how's about we just take them one by one and fix the problems.

If you were a TOS producer, what would you have changed about "Where No Man Has Gone Before" before it was filmed? And not just the special effects: everything.

For me, I never cared for the galactic barrier being a thin strip. It should be a wall. The front viewer should show a solid wall of the pink-purple-swirling mass of crap. Throw in shots of the tiny Enterprise on one side of the shot getting closer and closer to the mass of crap on the other, until they enter it and all goes haywire.

Get Yeoman Whitebread off the bridge. At least Rand had a purpose here and there.

Get a doctor who isn't old. And give him a hypospray to he doesn't revive Kirk by putting a couple of pills(?) in his mouth.

Get Sally Kellerman either a better fitting pair of pants or a big box of panty shields, so she can double up.

The rest is fine by me. I never cared about the "R" on the tombstone, chalking it up to just a little bit of Gary's humanity peeking through and creating the error on purpose.

How about you?

Joe, fixer

 

[FatherRob]

I am actually in the process of rewriting WNMHGB as a part of my own reimagining of TOS at http://startrekcoldspace.blogspot.com

Let's just say I am making some major changes based on a few things:
1) More realistic setting (advanced to the 29th century)
2) More scientifically accurate
3) No nonsense galactic barrier that we would have seen... instead, substituting a supernovae bow shock, and then making some significant changes in the mechanisim of how the 'God' plague affects the crew
4) Changing the ending... completely

If you go over to read it, it is in a blog, so the most recent portion is first. There is a link at the top of the Act One post that takes you to the teaser.

Rob+

EDIT TO ADD: You know, I wonder if we aren't asking the wrong question to start with. Perhaps we should ask what changes we would make to the basic premise of Trek, given our knowledge of TOS (and disregarding the new movie).

 

[gastrof]

I am actually in the process of rewriting WNMHGB as a part of my own reimagining of TOS at http://startrekcoldspace.blogspot.com ...

Minor complaints. Quibbling, really.

Inertia dampening fields should do the job of the translation stations. You pretty much describe an IDF anyway. You just don't have it as "easy" as the original does. If you're going to go as far as to depict the translation stations and the field they use, why not allow for the existing IDF concept?

You use the term "hyperspace". I was ready to start eating a pillow or something until you actually used the term warpdrive.

This isn't Babylon 5. It's Trek. "Subspace" has always been and should always be the term.

I also noted the "R" as Kirk's middle initial.

You've cut the Captain's heart right outta him, and should be made to pay for this heinous act!!!!

Dropped in a bucket filled with wet tribbles?

"Complaints" aside, I'll be interested in seeing how you proceed. I've bookmarked the webpage.

EDIT:
I also noticed "UESPA". Love it. Hope you include the emergence of Starfleet in this or a later story, tho'!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeoman Whitebread needs to stay. She's hot

 

[larryman]

Introduce face-less humanoid robots, as on-board ship maintenance workers. Robots should be serious-natured - unlike those of Star Wars. They should assist the human crew members. Their nature should be polite and obedient, like Robby robot of the "Forbidden Planet". They would mostly be working in the background of scenes. But their presence makes them available for occasional plot usage, like other hardware on the Enterprise has been.

 

[Outpost4]

The only thing that ever bothered me was the galactic barrier thing. It was bad science even back in the '60s. Making more than a ribbon would be a start. Making it something real would be a further step.

 

[FatherRob]

I am actually in the process of rewriting WNMHGB as a part of my own reimagining of TOS at http://startrekcoldspace.blogspot.com ...

Inertia dampening fields should do the job of the translation stations. You pretty much describe an IDF anyway. You just don't have it as "easy" as the original does. If you're going to go as far as to depict the translation stations and the field they use, why not allow for the existing IDF concept?

For my purposes I look at Trek as a follow-on from Forbidden Planet.

You use the term "hyperspace". I was ready to start eating a pillow or something until you actually used the term warpdrive. This isn't Babylon 5. It's Trek. "Subspace" has always been and should always be the term.

I'm drawing on "The Cage" here (where hyperdrive was discussed) as opposed to the rest of Trek. I have no problem using subspace and hyperspace interchangably. I am just trying to make it different.

I also noted the "R" as Kirk's middle initial.

Yep. Just a differentiation.

You've cut the Captain's heart right outta him, and should be made to pay for this heinous act!!!!

When did i do that?

Rob+

 

[Warped9]

The only thing that ever bothered me was the galactic barrier thing. It was bad science even back in the '60s. Making more than a ribbon would be a start. Making it something real would be a further step.

Actually if I recall correctly a barrier of some sort was theorized by some around mid century so the Trek writers weren't being totally off the wall about the idea. That said I'd have envisioned it differently.

The only real thing I'd like to have seen would have been set design (particularly the bridge) that was more like that in "The Cage." I like The Cage bridge colour scheme as well as TOS' but the WNMHGB colour scheme leaves me cold. The Cage era ship exterior is nicer than WNMHGB's as well.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

The only thing that ever bothered me was the galactic barrier thing. It was bad science even back in the '60s. Making more than a ribbon would be a start. Making it something real would be a further step.

The interesting thing is what happened next? The Enterprise has discovered a means of turning some humans into all-but gods. Trouble is it might just as easily kill you, but for some people with high esper ratings, it might be rather tempting?

 

[EEE]

For me, I never cared for the galactic barrier being a thin strip. It should be a wall. The front viewer should show a solid wall of the pink-purple-swirling mass of crap. Throw in shots of the tiny Enterprise on one side of the shot getting closer and closer to the mass of crap on the other, until they enter it and all goes haywire.

Being as it was made in an era where TV shows were still occasionally called "teleplays," I give leeway on this one.

Get a doctor who isn't old. And give him a hypospray to he doesn't revive Kirk by putting a couple of pills(?) in his mouth.

He was a rather popular background actor if I recall, and getting him was a bit of a coup at the time. However, I think they agreed with you before getting the okay to do the series. As for the hypospray, I was just thinking about them in general last night while watching the latest Stargate Atlantis... which did come first? Hyposprays or Star Trek? (I know the military had them in widespread use before the late 70's).

Get Sally Kellerman either a better fitting pair of pants or a big box of panty shields, so she can double up.

You must remember that the events of the story are supposed to occur AFTER M*A*S*H. Talk about continuity! (as for the technology you refer to... this was the early 60's. It was a time when that sort of technology was still Top Secret and not shown in commercials.)

The rest is fine by me. I never cared about the "R" on the tombstone, chalking it up to just a little bit of Gary's humanity peeking through and creating the error on purpose.

I just chalked it up to a communications error on the production staff and ignored it myself. *grin*

Actually, I give this one alot of passes for looks and small stuff, as it was really a pilot show (as opposed to those pilots that look and act just like their associated series). One they obviously put to good use in learning what worked, what didn't, and how to improve things before the series proper began filming.

 

[Wingsley]

I do not have any problem with the cast of this ep.

The TOS-R version of this ep pretty much showed that shoehorning in improved CGI FX can have a positive effect, even though I think the Paramount CBS-D crew could've done a much better job.

I think the story needed a little better writing. Don't get me wrong; it was a great episode. But the notion of a frail human developing ESP super-powers should've been handled a little more thoughtfully. Kirk tried to avoid killing Mitchell, then killed him too easily (by himself, with nothing but his bare hands and one shot with his phaser rifle, no less) in the end. And Dehner's last words didn't help. Sally Kellerman was seriously under-utilized throughout this ep.

Another thing that bugs me about the ep is that the ship is disabled, and everyone is worried more about Mitchell and his glowing eyes from the get-go than about how they're marooned without warp drive. I would think the early emphasis after the barrier should've been on how anxious everyone was about whether or not the ship could really be repaired. Kelso's casual oversight of the damaged points may have helped the Mitchell story, but it made the crew overall look dumb and careless.

The music in this ep gets re-used in the rest of TOS, but it is special because it is devoid of the standard TOS theme-based pieces throughout the rest of the series. Still, it could've been toned down a bit in the final confrontation scenes. The teaser and act one music was just about perfect.

As far as the underlying premise and conventions of the show, changing the time and place doesn't do anything for me. Will there be starships in the 23rd century, or not till the 29th, or the 39th, or the 329th? We have no idea, but imagining a galaxy of exploratory possibilities 300 years from now seems as plausible and interesting as 3,000 years from now or 333,000 years from now. The point of TREK is that the characters are far enough removed from our generation that they live in a "strange, new world" but close enough in time that they can more readily trace their family trees back to us, and look upon the Cold War to present day as part of their history and heritage, and not regard us as if we're cave dwellers. 2265 works for me.

The story works as a single-hour episode, but if we could go back in time and do it better, I would think it would work best as a two or three parter, with a little more early mystery and emphasis on the Valiant, more emphasis on the Enterprise's damage and vulnerability, and better drama on Delta Vega involving Mitchell and Dehner. The only other thing I'd retcon would be to make a character clarify that while Valiant was an early Earth ship (and be more specific about when she was lost) the Enterprise is a Federation starship representing many worlds combined. It would also be nice to borrow a little from "Starship Exeter" and put some other non-human faces in the Enterprise crew.

So, I guess I don't have a problem with TOS as others may, despite its occasional continuity goofs and some scenes that could've been written better and FX that could've been better. WNMHGB is a very 1965 kind of story, and I don't think remaking it 40+ years later would make sense. It would be like R Kelly deciding to remake songs by the Beatles or the Dave Clark Five. Why bother? WNMHGB is what it is. Exeter's "The Tressaurian Intersection", thus far, shows me that TOS is not so flawed and outdated as some seem to think.

 

[Michael]

Kirk tried to avoid killing Mitchell, then killed him too easily (by himself, with nothing but his bare hands and one shot with his phaser rifle, no less) in the end.

Well, Dr. Dehner did weaken him.

 

[Stag]

I do not have any problem with the cast of this ep.
..

Meh, I don't think that guy Shatner is going to be around for the long haul.

 

[Wingsley]

There's an idea! Let's hire Sally Kellerman to play Captain Kirk!

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

The rest is fine by me. I never cared about the "R" on the tombstone, chalking it up to just a little bit of Gary's humanity peeking through and creating the error on purpose

How about having Kirk drop to his knees and call out "NOOOOOOOO ITS A T! FOR TIBERIUS! GARY! WHY?" Then Gary can mock him a little before getting on with the fight.

The interesting thing is what happened next? The Enterprise has discovered a means of turning some humans into all-but gods. Trouble is it might just as easily kill you, but for some people with high esper ratings, it might be rather tempting?

Perhaps it's a bit like the Nexus, a lot of people died trying to reach it, or found it and weren't able to make use of the powers.

 

[larryman]

In addition to adding modernized humanoid robot workers to the Enterprise crew... identify and show the 200-year old 'SS Valiant' as being a (Forbidden Planet) 'United Planets C-57-D' hyperspace flying saucer patrol cruiser starship. Identity can be done when Spock reviews the Valiant's recorder-marker, by showing (on Spocks overhead monitors) a recorded bridge scene of the Valient's captain making the 200-year old recording, and showing an original Robby robot in the background of the Valient's command deck. Note: use a replacement crew (including some women, and NO alien species) aboard the C-57-D in the recorded message - new names and faces. And retain original Forbidden Planet uniforms on the Valient's crew members. The recorder-marker message might also show a deteriorated rear-view exterior image of the C-57-D Valient nuclear self-destructing, as the recorder leaves the destruction zone. Eliminate Kirk's dialog line about: "The old impulse engines were not strong enough".

 

[Warped9]

One thing that always kinda bugged me is Kirk knows he has to kill Mitchell. But after Dehner weakens Mitchell, Kirk next tries to beat Mitchell with his fists rather than use the phaser rifle discarded nearby. That always struck me as rather dumb.

Of course Kirk mightn't have been thinking clearly at that moment about how he would actually go about killing his friend. And also the "real world" rationalization is the director needed to get a fist fight in there somewhere. (-:

 

[Maurice]

I don't consider a lot these fixes...reimaginings maybe.

Fixes: I'd address some holes in the the story logic and some technical things. I'd have asked the writer to concoct some other hazard than a giant energy barrier. I'd have questioned the story logic that has the Enterprise be on a mission to try to leave the galaxy...when there's an old and fairly large mining station in the neighborhood, which meant many ships should've been this way before. I'd have asked that the Enterprise be trying to figure out what happened to the Valiant, only, too late, to get damaged and THEN find the recorder with vital clues to what happened to the previous ship. I'd have lost the anachronistic colloquialism about a "penny". I'd have given the Yeoman an actual role or tossed her part out an airlock. I'd have made sure Gary unplugged Spock's HAL 9000 before everything went to... oh, never mind.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Having Delta Vega that far out is indeed a big logic flaw in my view.

Like any generally good story with missteps these are the kind of things that could have been easily fixed with a little more rethinking and rewriting.

Some years ago I recall being challenged by some around here on offering up a different version of TWoK in light of my severe criticism of the film. It took me about a week, but then I posted a reasonably detailed story and plot outline (in the Trek movies forum). My version had all the things people like about TWoK yet minus all the logic flaws and mistakes that I and others were criticizing.

I must say that WNMHGB would be much easier to rewrite than TWoK and still be the good story that it already is.

 

[larryman]

The edge of the galaxy is 15,000 light-years distant from Earth. Given that magnetic space storms can not propel objects F-T-L, and impulse engines can not propel objects F-T-L, and the combination of the two forces can not propel objects F-T-L... how did a 200-year old (pre-warpdrive) Earthship "Valient" cross 15,000 light-years in anything less than 15,000 years, without benefit of a faster-than-light mechanism?