This week I watched an Original Series episode that something tells me might be popular among Trek fans: "Where No Man has Gone Before." This one involves the Enterprise encountering some electromagnetic force that damages the ship and shocks crew members Gary Mitchell, a long-time friend of Kirk, and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, a psychiatrist. As a result of the shock, Gary begins evolving into a godlike being. He soon exhibits mischievous and even insidious behavior, so Kirk has to do something to neutralize the situation before Gary gets to the point at which he'll kill them all simply because they're a nuisance – a point that Spock explains Gary will inevitably reach. Spock also explains that the only possible solution to the problem seems to be to kill Gary before he becomes too powerful to handle. Kirk naturally rejects the idea of preeminently killing a friend.

To my knowledge, this was the first Star Trek episode to be filmed (except for the original rejected pilot with a different cast). With that in mind, the actors appear to be surprisingly comfortable in their roles. Spock and Kirk – the only characters that have major roles in the story and survive to see future episodes – are basically just as I remember seeing them in other episodes. William Shatner demonstrates authority when rebutting Dehner's admonition of his actions toward Gary, and Spock is as straightforward and objective as ever.

Gary Lockwood does a great job in the role of Gary Mitchell, too. He's both casual and menacing, calm and authoritative. His glare at Kirk through the bridge monitor is effectively unsettling. It was definitely the right move for his character to die in the end of this episode, but, based purely on his acting ability, I wish we could have seen more of what Lockwood was capable of in future episodes.

One strange character-related problem I noticed – and this isn’t related to the acting – is that Spock has a yellowish tint to his skin. I guess this was meant to make it more obvious that he's of an alien race, but it just makes him look jaundiced. It's not so yellow as to be continually distracting, though, so it's not a significant problem. Another thing that slightly annoyed me was Spock's explanation that Kirk beat him in chess because he played illogically. There's nothing wrong with this on its own, but we already saw a similar Kirk-versus-Spock chess scenario in one of the previous episodes. So, we've had essentially the same thing happen twice, and we're only three episodes into the series. Seems redundant to me, but maybe I'm being picky.

Story-wise, I thought "Where No Man has Gone Before" started off okay. It presents a difficult situation and offers two difficult options: kill a so-far innocent man before he kills you, or let him live and try to deal with his malevolence after it arises – at which point he will be an impossible foe. Naturally, Spock and Kirk represent these opposing options.

Kirk, your hair's messed up and your shirt's torn, but you pull off the look.

However, my problem with the story is that instead of having a real resolution, it sort of cheats to let its characters off the hook. The crew manages to get Gary down onto the planet they are orbiting before he's too powerful to resist them, but Gary does become too powerful for them, kills one crew member, and runs off with Dr. Dehner, who is beginning to exhibit the same powers. So, Kirk chases after them. When Kirk confronts them, he convinces Dehner to help him out. Dehner eventually accedes to Kirk's request, attacks Gary, and is killed, but she was able to distract him long enough for Kirk to shoot some giant rocks that come crashing down on Gary, killing him. This was too much of a cop-out for me. The only reason Kirk came out of this situation triumphant is that Dehner just so happened to acquire her powers at exactly the right time at which she can 1) still be won over by an earnest appeal and 2) put up some resistance to Gary. It seems to me that Kirk by all means should have been killed in such a scenario.

Also, none of the characters ended up having to make a tough decision. Sure, Kirk risks his life to go after Gary, but since he's the brave and bold hero of the show, this comes as no surprise at all. It would have been much more rewarding if Kirk had heeded Spock's advice from the beginning, killed Gary while he could, and then had to cope with making such a decision. Instead, he does hardly anything and survives by luck.

I'm still not feeling much for the characters at this point in the series. So far the episodes have been based almost entirely on them overcoming physical threats and very little on their personal feelings about the situations they are facing. I don't feel like they're being challenged on a personal level enough, and when they are challenged on a personal level (e.g. Kirk having to potentially kill a friend who's transforming into something else), they haven't had to make any tough decisions. Kirk just plays hero, and everything turns out okay. The argument could be made that Bones had a personal dilemma in episode 1, in which he was confronted with a creature that had taken the form of a woman he loved, but nothing comes out of it. Sure, there's that moment where he can't bring himself to kill the creature even though it's attacking Kirk, but there are no consequences to his inaction. It's not something he later has to deal with.

This was another episode that didn't do much to actually bother me, but it didn't draw me in, either. Like "Charlie X," it started off strong and devolved into a harrowing situation in which luck becomes the hero.

Next up: The Next Generation episode 1.3 - "Code of Honor."