This was a pilot episode and contains a lot of subtle differences from the episodes that followed. Also, a lot of Trek fact hadn't yet been established. This led to a few changed premises. Here are just a few.

Spock at the beginning of the episode attributes his human heritage to the fact that "one of (his) ancestors married a human female." While technically correct, no one uses the term "ancestor" when talking about their immediate parents. The idea that Spock had a human mother obviously hadn't yet been developed, although it would soon be established (in "The Corbomite Manuever.")

The contact with the galactic barrier in this show results in severe damage to the vital systems of the ship and the deaths of several crew members, not to mention the mutation of two of them into superpowerful beings. In two future episodes, "By Any Other Name" and "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" the Enterprise will again cross the galactic barrier, but without such dire results.

The later episode "A Taste of Armageddon" gives a completely different account of the demise of the starship Valiant. Of course, it's possible that there were two different ships, which would make it about the luckiest monniker for a vessel since Titanic.

Gary Mitchell says that the "Nightingale Woman" poem was written in 1996 and that it is one of the great love poems of "the past couple of centuries." Taken literally, this statement would date this episode at no later than 2196, or the twenty-second century, not the twenty-third as the original series is generally conceded to have taken place.

And some more general nits:

After encountering the barrier, the Enterprise loses her capability for warp drive. Kirk even says that planets which one took days to get to are now many years in the distance. But it doesn't seem to take them that long to get to the planet Delta Vega, even though Spock says it's "a few light days away"!

When Kirk addresses the intercraft near the beginning of the show (and later in "The Corbomite Manuever") his voice resonates even on the bridge. Is it really necessary to include the bridge speaker in the intercraft channel when the person talking is already on the bridge?

By Elio Arteaga on Saturday, October 17, 1998 - 08:13 pm:

One of the first references to money in Star Trek: Sulu says Gary�s powers are growing exponentially. He says, �It�s as if he had a penny, and doubled it every day. In a few months, he�d be a millionaire.� If the Federation uses no money, as contended in ST�First Contact, Sulu�s analogy would not mean much to the other officers.

By Charles Cabe on Sunday, October 18, 1998 - 10:21 pm:

Money was still used in "The Trouble with Tribbles". Cyrano Jones, Uhura, and the bartender
negoiate the price of a tribble.

By Murray Leeder on Sunday, October 18, 1998 - 11:19 pm:

What's with Kirk in this episode? Gary Mitchell represented potentially immeasurable advancement to the human race, and Kirk destroys him just because he's being an arrogant jerk?

By Jonathan Raines (Jraines) on Saturday, October 31, 1998 - 03:57 pm:

When Gary says "If i had a penny and doubled it every day. in a few months i'd be a millionaire" he is incorrect(in 28 days he would have 1,342,177.28). shouldn't he know this?

By Chris Franz on Saturday, October 31, 1998 - 06:44 pm:

Actually Sulu said this.

By D Mann on Wednesday, November 04, 1998 - 05:42 pm:

...and I believe the line is "in a month you'd be a millionaire." (source: The Star Trek Reader)

By Scott N on Thursday, November 12, 1998 - 12:05 pm:

The tombstone that Mitchell creates reads "James R. Kirk". They must still use QWERTY keyboards in the 23rd century! Mitchell's brain hit the R instead of the T!

By Johnny Veitch on Saturday, November 14, 1998 - 04:55 pm:

A nit in Phil`s book. At the end of his nit about the Enterprise not flying over the barrier he says "But of course, if they did fly around it..." He should have said "over it", not "around it".

By Hans Thielman on Thursday, December 10, 1998 - 03:12 pm:

Who was higher in rank: Mitchell or Spock?

By Mike Konczewski on Thursday, December 10, 1998 - 03:43 pm:

At the time, they both held the same rank: Lt. Commander. But since Spock was 1st Officer, I guess that gave him a bit of an edge over Mitchell.

By Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Thursday, December 10, 1998 - 08:55 pm:

It was my understanding that Spock was 2nd officer and Michell was 1st officer. This is from the Captain's Table novel.

By Mf on Friday, December 11, 1998 - 10:38 am:

That's right. Mitchell was the exec.

By Johnny Veitch on Saturday, December 26, 1998 - 01:59 pm:

Here are some observations and nits I found:

Differences from the rest of the series-
(1) Spock has a gold shirt, and looks much more alien than usual.
(2) The chairs are very office-like, but if you look one of these chairs and then at the ones used in the rest of the series, and you`ll find that the latter are the same chairs but with modifications.
(3) The turbolift interior is diiferent, with motion indicators going all the way up the side.

Plot Oversights
(1) Spock doesn`t think of the human female (presumably Amanda) as one of his ancestors, but just as the wife of one of his ancestors.
(2) At the beginning of the episode Kirk says the Valiant sent a distress call over 200 years ago. Later he says ALMOST 200 years.

Equipment Oddities
(1) Kirk speaks of the Valiant as only having impulse engines. How could impulse engines take the ship to the edge of the galaxy?
(2) We never see phaser rifles again, at least not until DS9.

By Brian Lombard on Sunday, February 21, 1999 - 03:44 pm:

I'd like to nit Nimoy's intro for this episode.
He stated that NBC's decision to order a
second pilot for the series was an unprecedented move. Actually, one year earlier, CBS set the
precedent, by ordering a second pilot for a
little series called "Gilligan's Island".

By Donald Carlson on Tuesday, February 23, 1999 - 11:43 am:

I've seen this episode dozens of times,
but when I watched the latest Nimoy-hosted
broadcast, one thing just jumped out...

What in BLAZES was Mitchell doing holding
that Yeoman's hand during the encounter
with the barrier? Maybe he should, oh
I don't know, KEEP BOTH HANDS ON THE
HELM DURING AN EMERGENCY!!!

Now, granted, he may have been calming her,
and she may be his current squeeze, but
still, Kirk should have yelled at him or
something.

By Lea Frost on Sunday, February 28, 1999 - 02:30 am:

Johnny -- I'm certain we've seen phaser rifles at least on TNG. Can't recall any other appearances on TOS, though...

LOL on the QWERTY keyboard thing! ("Gods don't make typos!")

By MikeC on Saturday, January 16, 1999 - 09:21 am:

Guest Star Patrol--
Gary Lockwood (Mitchell) played Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Sally Kellerman (Dehner) was "Hot Lips" in the film version of M*A*S*H.

By Johnny Veitch on Saturday, January 16, 1999 - 10:13 am:

Phil mentioned the "James R Kirk" nit in the Classic Guide. But according to the first "My Brother`s Keeper" book, it was an old joke between Kirk and Mitchell.

By Liam Kavanagh on Monday, January 25, 1999 - 03:51 pm:

Thats a case of the author turning a nit into a joke. Peter David does it a lot in his novels.

We first saw a phaser rifle after WNMHGB in season 4 TNG, in 'The Mind's Eye'

And about Mitchell holding the Yoemans hand. Yeah, its not like Kirk would do something like that, say with Rand, during The Corbomite Manouver. No.

Still, I expected him to say. 'Both hands on the console Mitchell! So Yoeman, you doing anything this Saturday?'

And don't forget that the nacelles had vents on the ends, and spikes on the front, causing once the series stated some of the owrst continuity ever.

And an anti-nit, presumably the Valiant could have kept accelerating until it reached near light-spead, and with time dialation taken into account, it could be possible for the Valiant to get there in 200 years.
Of course, unless they were in stasis, everyone would be dead, but what the hey.

By Liam Kavanagh on Monday, January 25, 1999 - 03:52 pm:

One thing I have wondered, was this ep title thought up BEOFER the idea of the opening narration, or after? Kirk doesn't say the narration in this episode, does he?

By D.K. Henderson on Tuesday, January 26, 1999 - 06:29 am:

Regarding the waste of Mitchell's potential--I thought the episode explained why he had to die. All that power wouldn't do the human race any good if Mitchell decided to destroy them in a fit of pique. Remember the Next Gen episode with John Anderson, who abruptly wiped out an entire species?

By Brian Baker on Saturday, April 03, 1999 - 08:22 am:

To ALL:
I'm new. Just started surfing. Consider Mitchell practically hypnotizing Dehner to come into the brig cell as her eyes light up. Insert the line, Mitchell: "Let's start a PTL club" -- a Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker resemblence/analogy [chuckle, chuckle].

By ScottN on Saturday, April 03, 1999 - 02:04 pm:

Brian, that's funny! For more like that, look under Mystery Science Theater 3000:MiSTings

By Brian Baker on Tuesday, April 06, 1999 - 02:57 am:

ScottN - Where can I find MiSTings? Is it in this website?

By D.K. Henderson on Tuesday, April 06, 1999 - 06:16 am:

You're new, Brian? Welcome, welcome! Live long and nitpick!

By ScottN on Tuesday, April 06, 1999 - 11:01 am:

Brian, look on the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 section of the discussion boards.

By Keith Alan Morgan on Monday, April 12, 1999 - 07:45 am:

Scott refers to the Transporter as "the Materializer."

They pulled a clever little trick with the Turbolift. Mitchell ducks into the Turbolift from the hallway, joining Kirk and Spock, they talk for a while then the doors open and there is the Bridge. All in one shot. I rewound my tape and realized that the far wall of the hallway was just a grey flat and after the doors closed, it was pulled away revealing the Bridge and the other actors got into position. The only flaw was the part of the set that didn't change, the wall on the left of the Turbolift, when they switch from the Turbolift camera to the Bridge camera you can see a red light and commissioning plaque, which should have been visible from the turbolift. Also Yeoman Smith is standing by the turbolift and starts to walk away while a blue suited guy crosses just behind her, but when they switch to the bridge camera, Smith again walks away from the wall, and the blue suited guy walks a little slower and crosses further behind her.

A magnetic storm carried the Valiant off course. Did it travel faster than light or did it take years to leave the galaxy?

Apparently the magnetic storm protected the crew from the affects of the energy barrier since they were carried outside the galaxy and only suffered ill affects when they reentered the galaxy.

How is Spock receiving the information from the probe? It sounds out of sequence, like he reports the information he can hear, then replaying what he had trouble hearing.

On their way to the galaxy's edge, you can see stars through the ship.

Dialogue seems to indicate that no one has come out this far and tried to leave the galaxy. The question would seem to be, which edge of the galaxy are they talking about? Most of my reference books indicate that it's about 20,000 light years from Earth if you follow the length of the galaxy. Only one of my books gave an estimate of the thickness of our galaxy, over 1,000 light years. Considering that Captain Pike's Enterprise had been to Rigel, about 900 light years away, it's amazing that Starfleet waited 13 years to send a ship to try to leave the galaxy. It's also amazing that they didn't bother trying to send a probe first.

On page 12 of the Classic Trekkers Guide, Phil wonders about the thin energy barrier and why the Enterprise doesn't fly over it. Apparently he has never seen the rock known as Tigereye? As one tilts the rock a band of reflected light can be seen. So possibly the energy barrier only looks like a band and when one tries to fly over or under it, the band would move with the ship.

Picard and company were not the first to visit the Bandi at Farpoint, Kirk says that Mitchell got in trouble on Deneb IV, the same planet from Encounter At Farpoint.(Although, on a side note there are other stars with Deneb as part of their proper names and as sloppy as Star Trek is about using stellar names, they might have meant one of those.)

They are traveling from the edge of the galaxy at impulse and in less than a month they make it to a mining station. Now that's good luck.

How productive can this station be if the ore ships only arrive every twenty years? (Or does it just take an ore ship twenty years to make the trip? It is near the edge of the galaxy, after all.)

After gaining their godlike powers Mitchell and Dehner hold their heads at unusual angles. I'd like to think that this was affected to emphasize how different they feel from normal people, but the truth is they probably had trouble seeing through those contact lenses.

Every time they show the planet it is light out, but after Kirk awakens from being zapped by Mitchell, he asks Dr. Piper if he saw where Mitchell and Dehner went and Piper says there was some morning light. How long have they been unconscious and why hasn't anyone from the ship beamed down to check on them?

As Mitchell's power increases the hair at his temples turns gray, but during the fight his hair is back to normal, then when he gets his power back, so is the gray, after that I had trouble telling if the gray stays in his hair or not.

Why would those rocks kill Mitchell if a phaser blast couldn't kill him?

BTW in the TNG episode Too Short A Season, look at the wall behind the tyrant. There are what appears to be phasers and phaser rifles.

By D.K. Henderson on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 - 06:23 am:

In the James Blish version, he had Mitchell's hair and skin start to turn silver. The idea was that Mitchell was fully "evolved", he'd be entirely silver, but that might have been too difficult for the make-up department at that time.

By MikeC on Tuesday, May 11, 1999 - 04:10 pm:

The James Blish version of the book has Sulu saying that Mitchell's powers are increasing "geometrically". What the heck?

This is probably why Sulu dropped out of the science business.

By ScottN on Tuesday, May 11, 1999 - 06:11 pm:

Actually, MikeC, that's simply another way of saying that they are increasing exponentially. It's a perfectly legit phrase.

By Mark Bowman on Sunday, December 12, 1999 - 11:38 am:

The turbolift scene in the beginning was
well done. Aside from what was mentioned,
the only other flaw is that you can still hear
the set crew moving the grey panel away from the
doors as the lift was going up (you might
have to turn up the volume to hear it).

This is not really a nit, but the low tech
effects in the old star trek series, as well
as many old 1960's 70s movies old seems to do
a better job at making things more creepy
than most shows with all of the fancy CGI
(well done ones too) effects do now. I can't
really put my finger on it, other than
the music and "softer" film quality sometimes
helps to enhance it, but newer movies just
don't have the same "creepy" factor (shock,
yes, but not "lasting" creepiness) that the
old ones have. Does anyone else have comments
on this?

By Christer Nyberg on Monday, December 13, 1999 - 07:38 am:

About the turbolift, we are given an over head shot of Kirk and Spock walking in, but there is no gap between the corridor floor and the lift floor! They would have to be really tight for them to look like that!

By Benn Allen on Monday, December 13, 1999 - 05:59 pm:

Re: Mark Bowman's post of Sunday, December 12th.

Earlier this year, on "Siskel" & Ebert, they had a
show devoted to animation. While showing some fighting skeleton from Sinbad or Ali Baba and the
original King Kong, Roger opined that the animation in those old movies looked more real than Jar Jar Binks, the creatures in Antz and A
Bug's Life. I agree. There's something about com-
puter art that doesn't look quite right to me. It's cool and clever and all, but it doesn't look natural.

By John A. Lang on Monday, January 31, 2000 - 11:20 am:

Ruminations

This episode & "The Cage" are the only two
episodes that do not begin with...

" Space, the final frontier...."

By John A. Lang on Tuesday, February 01, 2000 - 01:19 am:

I'll bet that "Little blonde lab technician"
that Kirk almost married was Dr. Carol Marcus.

By Richard Davies on Sunday, February 13, 2000 - 05:20 pm:

Gary Lockwood & Sally Kellerman where very brave to wear the all eyeball covering contact lenses with foil sealed in there were used for the eye effect. If they have worn them for too long they would have gone blind.

By Mike Ransom on Tuesday, April 11, 2000 - 01:12 am:

Re the comment: "...the low tech effects in the old star trek series...seem to do a better job at making things more creepy than most shows with all of the fancy CGI effects do now. ...newer movies just don't have the same "creepy" factor that the old ones have. Does anyone else have comments on this?"

Yes, I totally agree.

There are many moments in Trek, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, etc., where the technical limitations force the creators into doing things in a way that is more haunting and memorable.

As naive laymen, we watched the shows not knowing what the technical considerations were. So we weren't hypercritical about how they got the effects...but they did get them.

Sometimes, limitations force you to be more imaginative.

By Padawan Nitpicker on Sunday, April 23, 2000 - 04:34 pm:

Crewmembers still sometimes wear outfits which aren`t Starfleet uniforms, and waht`s more they look like thosef rom The Cage (The female crewmember at the beginning). This won`t reappear until TNG.

There are three consoles on the engineering side of the bridge, but scenes in the Corbomite Manuever and What Are Little Girls Made Of show only two, but there are three again in later episodes.

The walls in the briefing room are transparent to non-existant, and it gives the impression of standing in an area larger than your average Starfleet corridor.

By ScottN on Sunday, April 23, 2000 - 05:31 pm:

Crewmembers still sometimes wear outfits which aren`t Starfleet uniforms, and waht`s more they look like thosef rom The Cage (The female crewmember at the beginning). This won`t reappear until TNG.

See my comments in "The Corbomite Manuver" about the guy in camos.

By Todd Pence on Thursday, June 01, 2000 - 01:52 pm:

If you had a penny and doubled it every day, in a month you would have merely 31 or 32 cents . . . since only the original penny is doubling, you only make a cent a day out of the deal.

By cableface on Thursday, June 08, 2000 - 04:14 pm:

Regarding the silver contacts, they must have been really uncomfortable.One thing I noticed was that Mitchell seems to be trying to keep his eyes kinda half-open most of the time.I suppose it's understandable, as the contacts they had back then can't have been too easy on the eyes.Still, I saw this for the first time in quite a while the other day, and it gave me a renewed appreciation for the original series.

By dc on Tuesday, June 13, 2000 - 12:31 pm:

If we took Todd, and doubled him every day, would we have tuppence?

By Trekker on Monday, June 26, 2000 - 07:58 pm:

Yeah, in a Star Trek book I read (it was one of two, when I figure out which one it was, I'll post it here) it says that the silver contacts were awful uncomfortable, and the only way the actors could make them bearable was to stand at those weird angles.

By John A. Lang on Wednesday, July 26, 2000 - 12:55 pm:

One of the panels at Delta Vega resembles a panel that would later appear in engineering on the Enterprise.

It is now the year 2000...any signs of a poem titled "Nightingale Woman" yet? (aside from "Star Trek") Mitchell said it was written in 1996

By Todd Pence on Wednesday, July 26, 2000 - 03:05 pm:

Yeah, but not on Earth

By TomM on Wednesday, July 26, 2000 - 04:22 pm:

But in a situation like that, one uses either the current common calendar (the Stardate system) or the calendar at use in the time and place in question. One does not usually translate one obscure calendar reference into another. It would be like my dating an important Chinese battle as occuring in "the year 127 of the old Roman Calendar."

By Derf on Wednesday, August 09, 2000 - 07:51 pm:

No one doubts that Khan Noonian Singh was rampaging about in 1996. Then again, he was rampaging about on Earth at the time. However, to defer to TomM's point, Mitchell's statement was not spoken with any reference to Earth, aside from the assumption made by the 1960 something audience. He may well have been speaking about 1996 on Vulcan.

By Todd Pence on Monday, August 28, 2000 - 01:35 am:

William Shatner appeared as a guest star on an episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" whose plot bears a superficial resemblance to this episode. In the "Six Million Dollar Man" episode, Shatner plays an astronaut colleauge of Steve Austin who is exposed to mysterious radiation while in space. When he returns to the earth, it is discovered that is developing mental powers similiar to the ones Gary Mitchell displayed in WNMHGB. This of course sets up a climiactic showdown between Austin and Shatner's character.

By MattS on Wednesday, August 30, 2000 - 10:18 am:

[Re: Todd Pence on Thursday, June 1, 2000 - 02:52 pm:]

[If you had a penny and doubled it every day, in a month you would have
merely 31 or 32 cents . . . since only the original penny is doubling, you only
make a cent a day out of the deal.]

Ah, but if you double the first penny, the next penny will be a duplicate and thus have the same doubling property as the first. Thus all ensuing pennies have the doubling property. Thus on Day 1 we have 1 penny, and on day 31 we have 1,073,741,824 pennies (equals $10,737,418.24)

By Derf on Monday, September 04, 2000 - 09:47 pm:

Kirk comments in his initial log that the impossible has happened. Another Earth ship has probed out of the galaxy as the Enterprise is intending to do. Did the Enterprise REALLY probe outside the Milky Way Galaxy beyond its encounter with the "barrier"? I think this is its only trip outside its own galaxy.

By ScottN on Monday, September 04, 2000 - 10:21 pm:

The Enterprise went outside the galaxy in "Is There in Truth No Beauty". I can't remember if they went outside the galaxy in "By Any Other Name"... I know they were working on sabotaging the warp engines to blow up when they crossed the barrier.

By Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Tuesday, September 05, 2000 - 01:10 am:

WARNING!!! SPOILER FOR "BY ANY OTHER NAME"!!!
ScottN: Kirk vetoed blowing up the engines, and the head Kelvin claimed knew about the plan and it wouldn't have worked. The Enterprise did leave the galaxy.

By SLUGBUG on Tuesday, September 05, 2000 - 01:13 am:

Yeah, they did leave the Galaxy in "By Any Other Name". Kirk had Scotty NOT blow up the Ship as they Crossed the barrier. Interestingly, they didn't have the same problem navigating in the intergalactic void as they did in ' Is There In Truth No Beauty?" I Guess the Kelvans had Practice. *S*

By SLUGBUG on Tuesday, September 05, 2000 - 01:14 am:

LOL, Darn, beat me By THREE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!

By ScottN on Tuesday, September 05, 2000 - 10:34 am:

Thanks KAM. I didn't want to flat out say they left, because I couldn't remember, and didn't want to make a fool of myself.

IIRC, the extragalactic FX for BAAN were different from ITITNB?. BAAN showed a spiral galaxy background. ITITNB? showed us lots of pretty lights.

By Derf on Wednesday, September 06, 2000 - 12:30 pm:

Its interesting to note that Kirk has had plenty of opportunity to get in a fight inside his own galaxy. Janeway is trying to tie his record outside it (as we speak, no less). I wonder how many "other-galaxy" life-forms would harbor feelings for Kirk like the Klingons do if Kirk left the galaxy.

McCoy: If you ask me (and you haven't), I think this is a bad idea. We're bound to bump into the Klingons, and they don't exactly like you.
Kirk: The feeling's mutual.

By Derf on Wednesday, September 13, 2000 - 10:23 pm:

It is also interesting to note that this episode shows there is a "barrier" at the edge of the galaxy. There is also "The Great Barrier" at the center of the galaxy (STV). Should galaxies have such "barriers" to begin with? If so, then I suggest that they each had there own "big bang" (so-to-speak).

By Pedantic Pearl on Wednesday, September 13, 2000 - 10:49 pm:

Couldn't this episode be called "Where no Vulcan Has Gone Before" or "Where Only a Few Humanoid Entities Have Gone Before" with equal satisfaction? "Man" suggests hominids from the planet Earth, period - no Vulcans - Andoreans - Klingons - etc.

By Padawan Nitpicker on Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 10:23 am:

But it's better than saying where no one has gone before. They have. To quote Kirk in the next episode: By our standards alien life, but life nonetheless...

The uniforms are differently orientated from in later episodes, and more puzzling. Kirk, Spock and the captain`s yeoman all wear yellow, while later they will all have different colours. The helmsman and navigator have the same uniforms as engineers (the shirt colour which will later become red) and medical/scientists, security guards and other bridge console officers wear blue. Obviously someone realised how confusing this was and decided to use the system used for later episodes (though Uhura did wear yellow in her first two appearances).

Mitchell is supposedly 23, born stardate 1087.7 and Dehner 21, born stardate 1089.5. The stardates are only 2 units apart, but both are over 200 units before this episode!

Also, if Mitchell is 23, he is only a year or two out of the academy! This can`t be right. So Kirk was a lieutenant teaching there at a maximum of 6 years before! Obviously he went back there after serving in space, but did he really travel through Lieutenant Commander, Commander, and Captain in the space of only 6 or less years? For that matter, did Mitchell go through Ensign, Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander in only one or two years?

Similarly, if Dehner is 21 she can't be in starfleet unless she's just left the academy. But she wears a starfleet uniform. Actually, the Aldeberan colony could be a Starfleet psycologist training facility. That does make sense. But the gold sleeve insignia, I don`t think that`s worn by ensigns. Of course, this is a pilot, and all non-captains might have one band in those.

Mitchell says there are 100 women on board. Does this mean the ratio of male-female is 3:1? Of course, there could still only be 203 people on board meaning that here is an equal number of both. However, wouldn`t one expect there to be more people on board when there are civilans, who won`t be seen in any later episodes?

By Derf on Tuesday, November 28, 2000 - 03:33 pm:

I think this "double-barrier" thing should be re-thought. If there is a barrier at the edge of the galaxy, but it can be breached - and there is a Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy, but it can be breached - then why call them a barrier to begin with? Is the Enterprise the only ship with the guts to test galactic stupidity concerning the barriers? (other than the Valiant wandering beyond it)

By Derf on Thursday, November 30, 2000 - 12:40 pm:

Spock has a terrible time controlling his ever-present human, and ephemeral emotions in this episode. (Since it is the 2nd pilot, we've been admonished to give this ep plenty of lee-way, but almost 35 years should be long enough.) Make up your mind, Spock!! (before it is ripped from you and put into a computer bank)

By John A. Lang on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 12:26 am:

During the briefing room sequence, Kirk asks Scott for a report of what he saw on the Bridge.
He says, "I saw buttons being pushed and levers being pulled" (or something like that.)

"Levers being pulled"?????

Where is there a lever to pull on the Bridge?

There has never been a lever on the Bridge in the TOS era.

And Scotty, being the Engineer, should have known that.

By KAM on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 04:31 am:

Maybe it was Yeoman Levers? ;-)

By Derf on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 11:06 am:

There were toggle switches on some off the control panels. It can be construed as a "lever".

By Derf on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 12:17 pm:

I must admit however, that IF Scotty said "levers being pulled" it would conjer-up visions of Egore pulling the lever (at Dr. Frankenstein's command) to give life to the monster. If that sort of lever is what Scotty was referring to, then John Lang's comment has considerable merit.

By Derf on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 09:51 pm:

Here is the exact quote:

Kirk: Mr. Scott, will you repeat what you just told us?
Scotty: About an hour ago, the Bridge controls started going crazy. Levers shifting by themselves ... buttons being pushed ... instrument readings changing!
Spock: And on my monitor screen, I could see Mitchell smiling each time it happened. As if this ship and crew was almost a toy for his amusement.

Levers shifting by themselves, coming from Scotty, might mean rocker-arm switches or even slide switches like on the transporter controls.

By John A. Lang on Tuesday, February 06, 2001 - 01:03 am:

Hmmm..."Levers shifting by themselves", eh?

Makes it sound like the Enterprise has a stick shift transmission ;)

By Derf on Tuesday, February 06, 2001 - 11:16 am:

I know this lever! It was the one that killed crewman Nate. You see, this lever (when shifted) would destroy the whole ship. It sits right in front of the Captain's chair. Crewman Nate was walking across the bridge and tripped, falling right for the lever. Spock quickly pulled a phaser and disintegrated the crewman. He then said, "Well, Captain ... better Nate than Lever."

By KAM on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 12:23 am:

Spock! Aim for Derf! ;-)

By Adam Bomb on Saturday, February 17, 2001 - 03:12 pm:

Actually, John, the OS Enterprise may have had a stick. In the refit for the movies, however, it was Turbo Hydra Matic all the way. Just check out Sulu's helm console in ST-TMP.

By GCapp on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - 11:14 pm:

Nightingale Woman was written by Phineas Tarbolde (admittedly a very human name) on a "Canopius" (Canopus?) planet. However, one wonders how a human got to Canopus in 1996.

Bjo Trimble's Concordance notes that this "sonnet" doesn't rhyme like one. I observe that it may have been written in a Canopian language, and lost its rhyme when it was translated into English/Standard.

Canopus... hmmm, that's one of the two extraterrestrial destinations of Tony and Doug in episodes of Time Tunnel.

There is a cut of WNMHGB that I once saw in the mid 70s on a Kitchener, Ont, TV station. It was cut completely differently, with opening credit info periodically inserted into the early minutes of the episode. Now, I remember reading that the original cut of the pilot for NBC's perusal was divided into four "acts" like a Quinn Martin TV series (The F.B.I. and The Fugitive). Also, the name Star Trek appeared in pink and silver lettering over frozen action.

Mr. Alden (Lloyd Haynes) was originally going to be the communications officer in the series, but less than six weeks before Corbomite Maneuver shooting began, the character was changed from a black male to a black female and Nichelle Nichols was signed.

Good move. Needed more women on the bridge, and Nichols did a lot for women and blacks and inspired people in our time.

I also dare say Nichols singing was probably more beautiful than Lloyd Haynes, no slam intended.

By Lloyd Haynes on Thursday, February 22, 2001 - 10:59 am:

Hey, you should hear me sing opera in the shower!

By Adam Bomb on Saturday, February 24, 2001 - 08:31 pm:

Lloyd Haynes, I believe, died a few years ago.
"Nightingale Woman" could have been written in 1996 (Old Earth Calendar), but we may not get to Canopius for a while to find it. It could still have been written in our year 1996, however.
What you saw, Mr. Capp, was the original cut of the second pilot, the cut that sold the series. It was edited for time and to fit the format (title cards were changed) of the series. There is also a shot (deleted for broadcast) of Mitchell eyeing Yeoman Smith (Andrea Dromm.) That may explain Mitchell's holding her hand as they approach the barrier.

By tim gueguen on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 - 11:58 pm:

Altho' not a nit, this user quote off the Internet Movie Database might amuse some of you.

"I wonder why Sally Kellerman wasn't in more of the orig. Star Trek episodes, she did great."

Ummm, could it be because she died at the end of the episode? :-)

By Todd Pence on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 07:29 pm:

Let's pay tribute to Paul Carr, the only actor to serve as a crewman on both the Enterprise and the Seaview.

By Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 11:36 pm:

What the heck is the Seaview?

By Anonymous on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 04:07 am:

The Seaview was the submarine on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Interestingly enough, Jimmy Doohan was asked to play the Chief Engineer on both vessels, but it was not possible to meet both schedules, so he had to choose.

By John A. Lang on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 03:05 pm:

GREAT SOUND EFFECTS:

I LOVE the roar of the engines as the Enterprise approaches the barrier.

By Todd Pence on Monday, April 02, 2001 - 10:41 pm:

Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea was the first of Irwin Allen's four sci-fi TV series. In its first (black & white) season, it was a very well-done serious submarine drama. However, it is not until midway through the second (color) season that it began to take on the reputation it has since been remembered for: as an absolute masterpiece of camp.
This series is responsible for the single most unintentionally side-splitting episode of any science fiction series ever done, entitled "The Terrible Toys". In this show, the submarine is attacked and terrorized by (no, I am not making this up) tiny wind-up toys under alien control. This includes a drumming bear whose drumming causes seismic vibrations aboard the Seaview as well as a clown with a tiny toy axe who cuts through one of the main power lines. And this is just one example of the bizarre plots which this series featured, which also included the Seaview having to deal with leprechauns, puppets controlled by Vincent Price, and animated Wax Men controlled by a clown. Throughout it all, co-stars Richard Basehart and David Hedison marvelously deadpanned their way through scripts which only grew more and more ridiculous every week.
Irwin Allen was a genius.

By Brian Fitzgerald on Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 12:42 am:

Also don't forget that the show was a spin-off of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea the movie. For the show's pilot (the only season 1 ep that was in color) they reused most of the key special effects footage from the movie.

By Adam Bomb on Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 04:51 pm:

I think the sets of the movie Seaview were used in the first season, too.
Don't forget, guys-"Lost In Space" took exactly the same route, from b&w and serious, to color and camp.

By Brian Fitzgerald on Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 11:18 pm:

"Lost in Space" and "Voyage..." were both created by Irwan Allen

By GCapp on Wednesday, April 04, 2001 - 09:24 pm:

Land of the Giants and Time Tunnel were also Irwin Allen series.

Land Of the Giants (which I have never seen the premiere episode of) only lasted two years, I think, thus sparing it most of the camp. Perhaps because they could mine the abundance of a "parallel Earth" which was maybe 30-40 years behind in technology, they didn't fall into camp as quickly, and offhand, I can't recall any camp episodes.

I would like someone who knows to tell me: where is the planet of the Giants? Two or three episodes refer to a "time warp", and yet that wouldn't explain where the Giants planet is. In another episode, giants who are planning a space flight talk about planets whose names are familiar to us (and they also intend to visit Earth).

My only working theory is that the Giants planet is Earth's twin planet on the far side of the sun, and if the "time warp" worked on intervals of six months, it would be 50:50 whether you'd stay at your own planet or end up on the other planet.

Time Tunnel was a one-year series, but unfortunately, it did have a campy quality of too many aliens... maybe Irwin wanted to use his Lost In Space costumes and props stock when the budget got too tight. One wonders how the Earth survived conquest and destruction attempts if not for Tony and Doug.

LIS and VTTBOTSea were definitely the champs of camp out of the four series.

Irwin Allen tried to get several other series off the ground: City Beneath the Sea (starring Glenn Corbett, the original Zefrem Cochrane), and Man From the (somethingth) Century, starring James Darren (from Time Tunnel).

By Todd Pence on Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 06:13 am:

>The Giants planet is Earths twin planet on the far side of the sun
Shades of "Journey To The Far Side of the Sun" and "The Stranger/Stranded In Space"!

Time Tunnel was probably the best of the four series while it stayed out of camp territory - most of the early episodes dealing with crucial moments in history are still engaging, and "The Day The Sky Fell In" is excellent - one of the best time travel stories ever done on series sci-fi television. But apparently the network wanted more aliens (they apparently thought this would make the show more appealing to the Voyage and Lost fans who had made those shows ratings winners). So we get treated to plots involving Tony and Doug thwarting alien plots to steal all the Earth's cows (?!??!!?) and all of it's oxygen (!!??!!?).

By D.K. Henderson on Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 06:15 am:

I think having Doctor Smith portraying the Pied Piper in an episode of Land of the Giants qualifies a just a little bit campy.

The "space warp" they went through in the pilot episode consisted of a big fluffy cloud.

One thing that always amused me in LOTG was the way so many giants babbled about "our" superior technology as though it were some kind of magic formula. All the technology in the world won't do much if your opponents are so small that an infant could squash them by accident.

Anyone out there care to set up a board for the Irwin Allen shows?

By Todd Pence on Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 05:33 pm:

I'd be happy to do it, I already have two boards, one of which has required zero policing in two years despite fairly regular traffic, the other of which hardly ever gets posted two. The only issue is, I know we've been having space &memory problems on the server, and there was recently a freeze on new boards, have those problems all been (at least temporarily) solved??

By Todd Pence on Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 05:35 pm:

On a footnote, I think there was a trivia guide to Lost in Space published in recent years which contained nits.

By Todd Pence on Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 05:38 pm:

Footnote two: see my post for 10/14/98 on TOS:Metamorphosis board for a strange circumstance regarding the aforementioned Glenn Corbett's guest star appearence on "Land of the Giants"

By KAM on Friday, April 06, 2001 - 04:40 am:

The space & memory problems were with the old server. Since moving to the new server Phil has added some new topics.

By Todd Pence on Monday, April 16, 2001 - 11:03 am:

Irwin Allen board is on its way!

By KAM on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 03:35 am:

Congratulations.

By ScottN on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 - 10:45 am:

Can anyone read the dates on the tombstone? Are they stardates or calendar dates? It would provide a perfect way of dating the first season.

By Merat on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 - 09:49 pm:

Alas, its stardates....

"James R. Kirk"
"C 1277.4 to 1313.7"

What gets me is the circa before the date...

By Richard Davies on Wednesday, May 30, 2001 - 03:16 am:

The scale of Stardates changes during the course of this episode. (I've never known how stardates are calculated) The Star DOBs of Mitchell & Dehner are mentioned, & are supposed to be 2 years apart, but if the log dates were on the same scale then this episode would be over a year long.

By Todd Pence on Friday, June 01, 2001 - 12:43 am:

If the first stardate on the tombstone is supposed to be Kirk's birth, then the date given for Harry Mudd's loss of his operator's liscence in "Mudd's Women" means that he lost his permit before Kirk was even born!

By Richard Davies on Friday, June 01, 2001 - 03:30 am:

It seems that originally in the date figures that 1 = 1 year (the dates on the tomb suggest that Kirk is 36, which would is about the same as William Shatner's real age at that time), but later this was changed so 1000 = 1 year.

By John A. Lang on Saturday, June 02, 2001 - 09:27 am:

The gooseneck viwers on the Bridge remind me of the heat-ray devices on the Martian war machines from "The War of the Worlds"

You don't suppose....?

By Stuart. on Sunday, July 08, 2001 - 11:28 am:

Dr. Dehner seems to think that its rare for a planet to be uninhabited. She seems amazed that delta vega doesnt have a soul living there. But many times on star trek there have been instances where the crew mention uninhabited planets, so not everywhere must have some population

By RevdKathy on Thursday, August 02, 2001 - 09:27 am:

Can someone please define the ESPer ability? Both Spock and Dr Dehner speak in terms of card reading, flashes of insight, etc. But any definitiion I've ever come across incuded telepathy. Indeed, one of the talents Mitchell goes on to develop is telepathy ("Are you reading all our thoughts?").

So why isn't Spock affected by the barrier? Surely he'd have a higher ESPer rating than any of them, being a touch telepath? Ok... don't tell me: they hadn't decided on that yet .

By KAM on Friday, August 03, 2001 - 04:24 am:

Possibly the energy barrier only increased the ESPer ability of Human brains.

(Although on a non-canonical note. When DC Comics first had the rights to produce Star Trek comics, one of the stories involved the Romulans doing experiments at the Galactic Barrier. Don't remember what results the Romulans had.)

By Mark Swinton on Sunday, August 19, 2001 - 01:45 pm:

This is an attempt to explain a nit using a (strictly speaking) non-canonical source. You are all absolved in this matter - I am prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of this action whereby I may or may not be in violation of the Nitpicker's Guild Prime Directive...

In book one of Michael Jan Friedman's "Thy Brother's Keeper" trilogy, there is a novelisation of scenes from this episode. At the point where Gary creates the tombstone, there is a line of narrative inserted in a deliberate attempt to explain away this nit:

"Kirk got it. After all, his names were James T. Kirk. The 'R' was an old joke between them - one of many."

By John A. Lang on Thursday, October 18, 2001 - 08:38 pm:

This episode marks the first and last time we see the phaser rifle...and that's too bad...it's pretty dang cool.

By John A. Lang on Thursday, February 21, 2002 - 05:04 pm:

This episode marks the first appearance of Mr. Leslie (he's wearing blue). He is seen behind Kirk & Spock on Delta Vega

By KAM on Friday, February 22, 2002 - 05:33 am:

I think you mean the Classic-style phaser rifle as we did see phaser rifles in NextGen, DS9 & Voyager.

By qttroassi on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 01:21 pm:

There are numerous postings here noting the old style uniforms, equipment, Spocks acting style which is similar to "The Cage", Spocks look (created by Robert Dawn) which changed after this episode, and many other things that are inconsistent with the rest of the original series.

According to William Shatners book "Star Trek MEMORIES" this episode was produced more than one full year before it was aired (summer of 1965), that would explain a lot of this ...

By ScottN on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 01:30 pm:

We know that, qttroassi, we know "Where No Man..." was the second pilot. But we're nitpickers! We don't deal in reality!

By Todd Pence on Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 07:12 pm:

On the Space:1999 board we speculated on the idea that the reason for the great differences in sets, uniforms and people between the two seasons of that show were perhaps due to the moon and the base on it passing through a space/time warp which altered their entire timeline and reality. Perhaps something like this happened to the Enterprise between "Where No Man" and the rest of the series.

By Derf on Tuesday, March 19, 2002 - 11:22 am:

Kirk: The fuel bins, Lee, could they be detonated from here, ... a destruct switch?
Kelso: I guess I could wire one up right there.
Kirk: Do it.
.................................................
Kelso: (pointing at jury-rigged switch) Direct to the power bins. From here, you could blow up this whole valley.
Kirk: If Mitchell gets out, at your discretion, Lee, if sitting here, you think you're the last chance ... I want you to hit that button.

Of course, we know that Kelso gets strangled to death by Mitchell ... the episode ends almost immediately after the death of Mitchell and Dehner. The destruct switch Kirk had rigged up might've been left intact. I can see it now ... the next ore-ship that arrives, a crewman turns to another and says, "Say, I wonder what this button does?"

By Sir Rhosis on Friday, March 29, 2002 - 01:22 pm:

I will go and check, and update in a future post, but I recall that several details (on the small viewing screen) in Mitchell's and Dehner's bios, places of birth, etc., are anagrams. Something like saying one was born in Brooklyn, the other was born in Lynbrook. Anybody remember what I'm talking about?

Sir Rhosis

By Sir Rhosis on Friday, March 29, 2002 - 01:27 pm:

^^^Of course, I'm just using Brooklyn as an easy to recognize example, not suggesting this is what the screen info says.

Sir Rhosis

By John A. Lang on Thursday, July 18, 2002 - 09:16 pm:

BIG CONTINUITY ERROR:

When the landing party steps on the transporter platform with Mitchell, take a VERY CLOSE look at his eyes...they are NORMAL COLORED...not silvery. However, after they beam down, Mitchell's eyes are silvery.