The reason “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was used as the third episode of “Star Trek” was because NBC thought it was too talky. This was a problem the network also had with “The Cage.” The first episode of “Star Trek” was, instead, “The Man Trap”, an episode about a scary shape-shifting salt vampire monster that kills people on the Enterprise. It wasn’t a great introduction to the characters, but “The Man Trap” at least promised chaos.
The shorter cut doesn’t suffer from the changes, but the longer version, as mentioned, has a little more room for drama. Plus, Trek fans love a good talky drama, so more dialogue and less action isn’t a bad thing. The longer cut, when it was finally included on the “Star Trek” Season 3 Blu-ray, was titled “Where No Fan Has Gone Before: The Restored, Unaired Alternate Pilot Episode.” It didn’t significantly alter “Star Trek” canon, but purists could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The original pilot was, for the first time, commercially available, and Trek fans had a lot of fun arguing over which version counted as the “official” one.
The differences will be surprising to Trek fans. Montgomery Scott, played by James Doohan, is credited only as “Engineer”, while Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei) is, bafflingly, listed as “Physicist”. Meanwhile, the ship’s doctor was played by veteran actor Paul Fix, who was credited only as “Ship’s Doctor”. The episode also features a completely different theme song, which was previously released on CD. The immutable parts of “Star Trek” lore had not yet been decided.
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