Synopsis: On the edge of our galaxy an unknown entity gives two members of the crew of the Enterprise powerful ESP abilities.
This episode had been intended by Gene Roddenberry to be the second pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series, created after the first pilot was deemed unacceptable – however, the earlier attempt was incorporated into a two-part episode, “The Menagerie,” aired later in the first season. As mentioned in my earlier post on “The Man Trap,” “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was considered too cerebral to be the introduction of the series to the public. It is the cerebral content of this episode that also makes it a psychological story rather than a visionary one.
When it comes to discussing art, Carl (C. G.) Jung defines the difference between a psychological piece and a visionary one in his essay, “Psychology and Literature” found in Volume 15 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Defining psychological works Jung writes: “whatever artistic form they may take, their contents always derive from the sphere of conscious human experience” (1950/1978, p. 89). As for non-psychological, or visionary art, where there is no psychological intent, “it leaves room for analysis and interpretation” (1950/1978, p. 88). Defined as such, I understand Jung to be telling us here that when a work of art is intended as psychological, sometimes it is not as psychically available for interpretation as one that is created without such a conscious intent. If that is the case, then maybe NBC was correct in thinking that this episode was too “cerebral” and that a “monster” episode would be a better way to grab an audience. “The Man Trap” appeals to our unconscious, while “Where No Man Has Gone Before” fascinates our intellect. The television executives just used different words to express the same thing that Jung was writing about.
That this is a psychological episode is made clear in several ways: the plot’s subject matter, ESP; the guest star, Sally Kellerman as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, a psychiatrist; and most notably by a scene toward the end of the episode between Kirk and Dehner. In this exchange Kirk says to Dehner: “You were a psychiatrist. You know the ugly savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose, but he’ll dare.” Here, it seems that Kirk is talking about what Jung would call our unconscious shadow, those parts of our personality that we have been socialized to keep hidden from society. Another interesting tip of the hat to depth psychology is that when Kirk goes to visit his friend and crewmember Gary Mitchell in Sick Bay, Mitchell tells Kirk he is reading the “long-hair stuff” that Kirk used to read at the academy. Kirk glances at what Mitchell is reading, it is by Spinoza. While it is difficult to see exactly what Mitchell is reading, Benedict Spinoza wrote in 1677 Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, in which he defines God as being “identical with the universe and all the mind and matter in it” (Hunt, 2007, p. 75). An interesting choice indeed.
References:
Hunt, M. M. (2007). The story of psychology. Anchor Books.
Jung, C. G. (1978). Psychology and literature (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Series Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 15, 2nd ed.). 84-105. Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1950)
Original post created 6 January 2021
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