Where No One Has Gone Before

This episode of TNG has visiting scientist Stanley Kamel better known as Dr. Kroeger from Monk aboard the Enterprise. He's a scientist who's quite full of himself even though both Commander Riker and Data question the validity of his claims that he can increase the travel capabilities of the Enterprise exponentially. But his assistant Eric Menyuk has everyone's curiosity aroused. All but Wil Wheaton who accepts Menyuk at face value and becomes his friend.

The experiment does succeed, but it flings the Enterprise millions of light years from earth to a galaxy where strange thing are happening. It's all to do with the Traveler as Menyuk is called. What can he do to reverse the situation?

A favorite TNG episode of mine. And it has a lot to do with the further adventures and maturing of callow youth Wesley Crusher.

'Where No One Has Gone Before' isn't perfect, but it makes for pretty good first season fair. Unfortunately, it involves a lot of Wesley and sort of fizzles out late in the game, but it does lure you in with some solid science fiction. The pompous engineering guy, Kosinski (onboard to push the ship's engine past its limits with a new formula) drives a lot of this, and I did like Riker politely-but-firmly keeping him in his place (Frakes' presence is surprising me in these early episodes). And the warp sequence was pretty cool.

But trippy effects aside, what surpassing Warp 10 does is give this a distinct sense of adventure; barriers are broken, a new galaxy is breached and we're truly sailing into the unknown. It's the kind of nervous excitement they tried to build "Voyager" on, but . . . eh, that didn't go so well.

Not bad.

7/10

The Next Generation had a very bad start. This episode marks the first glimmer of what this series would become and why I love it: a great mix of fantastic storytelling, sciencefiction and philosophy.

This is the best episode so far. What makes it so is that the laws of physics become accessible to the broad array of characters. The Enterprise and its ilk have the greatest potential but they are limited by their very structures and the forces of time and space. So we need to have a force of some kind enter the picture. This is what happens with the Traveller. We also come to realize that while raw and impulsive, Wesley Crusher is a key figure. I know he is an annoying kid, but he is the focal point here. Something must be done as the crew fly across the universe, arriving at galaxies that could only be dreamed of. The Traveller is the embodiment of an x-factor to go beyond and yet integrate the physics they are dealing with. There are some marvelous twists and turns here. Characters and objects fade in and out during warping. At some point, one has to admit some sense of defeat and draw in the forces that are not understandable to the mere mortal. I found this episode really interesting.

This is a personal highlight from a season with little to have a song and dance about. The Enterprise is thrown many lightyears from home by a mistake made by two guests called Kosinski and the Traveller. Interestingly, the actor who plays the Traveller was in the running to play Data. It's a superb episode which shows the strength of the main cast as well as displaying some great guest performances from the wonderfully arrogant Kosinski and the mysterious Traveller. There are also some rather splendid graphics here and there. However, the corniness of this first season as a whole shines through when Picard is forced to encourage his crew to "believe" their way out of it, but it is a forgivable little cringe.