According to D.C. Fontana in the introduction for Star Trek: The Classic Episodes 1, when the mistake over the middle initial was discovered, Gene Roddenberry decided that if pressed for an answer on the discrepancy, the response was to be "Gary Mitchell had godlike powers, but at base he was Human. He made a mistake." The text on the tombstone appears to be "JAMES R KIRK", followed by "C 1277.1 to 1818.7"; the second number is probably supposed to be 1313.7, which fits with the stardates in Kirk's log entries.. Assuming the "C" stands for "circa", this could be another indication of Gary's fallibility -- he didn't know when Kirk was born and had to guess. The range is 36.6 stardates, close to Kirk's age of 33 we know he was 34 in The Deadly Years. The idea of 1 stardate = 1 year was obviously thrown out the airlock in later episodes
If you'll notice though, in tv shows & movies they never have the protagonist directly kill the antagonist, it's always indirectly, like shooting below the rock Gary put there that kills him in the grave Gary dug there.
My favorite episode of the entire series!! "Morals are for men not gods." "A god but still driven by human frailty." I was ten years old when the series premiered and watched avidly every week. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life!
This episode really freaked me out as a kid. Was a very new and dark character to witness. As I grew older I came to enjoy more and more. A truly great episode this was.
Yea, seeing those silver eyes and the telekinetic strangulation of kelso along with things like the throughton era dr who cybermen gave the sixties an electrifying edge for me as a kid.
I met Gary Lockwood at Toronto Fan Fest last Thursday. He is 81 now but was at table with Keir Dullea. He was in 2 seminal sci-fi entries: 2001 and initial Star Trek episodes. Nice to chat with both.
Being on Star Trek makes you live a long time. Shatner is 91, Takei is 84, Koenig is 85, Nichelle Nichols is 89, Nimoy lived to 85 and he was a heavy smoker.
@Brian Van Horn In Toronto, did you notice whether any female fans seemed to react emotionally to Gary’s handsomeness? I find him very attractive, even in his middle age.
@@kathrynfauble9053 honestly he was with an attendant and he seemed rather frail. Keir Dullea was much more youthful and vigorous. I was able to chat directly with the both of them as they and I were there out front very early so no crowds or lines. I had a very interesting and enjoyable chat. I thanked Keir for his acting roles but pointed out Gary’s luck to have been in two seminal roles with sci-if: 2001 and initial episode of Star Trek TOS “where no man has gone before”. Puts him in the actors pantheon for critical role placement.
@@williamhaynes4800 Definitely season 1 had the best music. Season 2's music was a laughingstock with the score for "Amok Time." And Season 3 was bad, too, with the fight music in "Spock's Brain."
@@clauderobotham6261 Exactly the same in Batman. 1st season fight music was the best, 2nd season was OK. 3rd season was terrible. They even gave Batgirl her own music for the to fight to.
Those eyes have been freaking me out since I was a child. Really good effect, especially for that time. Lockwood said in interviews that the hard contact lenses they used back then hurt too much to wear for more than a few minutes at a time and that he couldn't really see when shooting his scenes so they had to rehearse and block out where he would walk and look beforehand. And Gary Mitchell was doing the finger lightning thing almost 20 years before the Emperor
verisimilidude1 It seems like there was something written about that by Greek playwrights/philosophers, but I can't remember the quote. I find it amusing enever a fictional character has a great deal of power, he is labeled (or labels himself) a god. From Gary Mitchell to people (in story) worshiping Superman to the Asgardians being worshipped as gods by ancient man and falling for their own hype. The trope says a lot about human nature. I'll bet that if we are ever openly visited by advanced alien life, not only will there be people whose religious beliefs are thrown into chaos, but there will be fools who actually start worshiping them.
I admire how this episode ended, Kirk listed their service records as having died in the line of duty. I always thought that was a fitting & just end for an otherwise tragic story (he lost his best friend).
Right. And he ends that by saying, "He never asked for this to happen to him." Then Spock says, "I felt for him too." Then Kirk says, "I do believe there's hope for you after all Mr. Spock." My fav episode followed by the Gamesters of Triskelion, which deals with slavery. But there's also the Captain Pike episodes, great series.
@@parrsnipps4495 If you promise not to laugh, my favorite episode is The Squire of Gothos. The idea of a young yet extremely powerful alien being scolded by his parents for not properly taking care of the entire crew of the Enterprise as his newfound pets is GREAT writing to me, not to mention the actor was GREAT in his role.
Which is how Kirk defeated him when he gained his power back? Unless he was not FULLY powered up yet, otherwise, Kirk should have lost and that bolder couldn't have held him down.
I think you have a good point that I never thought of. There has always been something very...charismatic and alluring about Gary Lockwood and his portrayal as Mitchell had a hint of danger even before his character changed. He would've created a lot of tension (in a good way) on the show and a lot of UST (unresolved sexual tension) with any female characters.
the very first time i seen this episode somewhere back in the eighties i was instantly impressed the friendship Kirk & Mitchell had before he turned evil the part that really makes me feel bad is Kirk had to kill his own best friend to save themselves from the peril Gary had in mind for the human race however where an old friendship ended started a new one with Kirk & Spock.
@@HerrEllsworth That's what made his performance so good. By angling his head upward, it gave him a haughty, arrogant look, thereby making his character so memorable.
"Gary" is Gary Lockwood best known from Sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey as deputy commander Dr. Frank Poole. Sally Kellerman is the original "Hot Lips" from the film version of MASH.
Gary Lockwood also played a marine in the 1962-1963 TV series, "The Lieutenant" that was created by Gene Rodenberry. Lockwood played Lieutenant William T. Rice. The T for his middle name stood for Tiberius which was also James T. Kirk's middle name. The Lieutenant has several Star Trek actors in. A good show you can purchase on DVD from Amazon. It has a lot of similar story lines from a morality point of view like TOS.
@@PittsburghMarky rhino....a joke..head buried in his books. Kirk is to stubborn to quit. It was a cruel joke from Gary. Corrupted by the power of Q. Though Q had no idea what/who he had been at this point. Was a victim of Trelane corrupted by the Heart of the Universe.
Classic early 1960s hand-to-hand combat for TV (and moves). For television westerns, a 3 minute fistfight was almost mandatory to finish off an episode, especially if your hero's gun ran out of bullets. More modern (and/or futuristic) settings added the fake karate chops and other pseudo martial arts moves.
That was the great fight choreography of the 1960s (and very well played by Shatner, Gary Lockwood, and Sally Kellerman). Gary Mitchell was probably still "weak" from the attack from Elizabeth and Captain Kirk, which is why the large Boulder could kill him. A great pilot episode.
I remember reading a non canon TNG novel many years ago, about Q - & in this story, it was revealed Trelane was a 'Q' & is being mentored by Q & at one point in the story the rebellious Trelane, who is using the power of the Q to mix up different universes, gets into a kind of battle of 'powers' in which Q is apparently destroyed by Trelane, he does however survive, barely, his consciousness drifting through time & space & into the other realities...until he drifts into the barrier & encounters the Enterprise - in _this_ episode - but, it's a slightly different universe, in which Kirk is 'James R. Kirk', hence the tombstone 0:52 Q at this point is just pure energy & is so weak, he can't quite communicate with any of the ships crew or manifest to them, so in desperation, he 'scans' them for anyone with any kind of psychic connection or latent ability that he can possess temporarily in order to build up his strength again & restore himself to full power & so partly takes over both Gary & Dr. Dana causing the god-like side effects with the silver eyes. interestingly, when he's searching the personas of each of the enterprise crew, he briefly reaches out to scan Kirk, but finds his mind unsuitable & just too erratic & *intense!!*
@Beerbottles123, What isn't on that show? That game is pretty much the series' calling card, isn't it? Easter eggs, callbacks, self-referential in-jokes, and the like, ad infinitum, from the first episode.
This episode shows the first time Captain Kirk gets a ripped shirt. ( Star Trek Beyond made fun of it by having kirk's quarters having a walk in closet of new shirts.)
To paraphrase and expand upon a quote by Ann Lamotte, when God automatically approves of everything you do and disapproves of all the same people you do, that's when you ought to realize that you have refashioned God in your own image -- which means, whether you realize it or are willing to admit it or not, what you are truly worshipping is your own ego. After all, if you're convinced that there is nothing you need to change about yourself and that absolutely everything you do is justified...then you're essentially insisting that you're perfect and infallible, therefore by definition superhuman and virtually a god incarnate. The ancient Greeks had a word for this...they called it *hubris* and they regarded it as one of the very worst sins a human could possibly commit. For that matter, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is basically the same exact sin which caused Lucifer's fall from grace as well as being the sin which led to Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Pride is regarded as the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins because it facilitates all the others.
@AAAnderson055 I disagree. the existence of anything is dependent on evidence and what is in the bible does not provide evidence that god exits only that simple minded people didn't understand the world around them and created supreme beings to help them understand/explain it. 1. The world wide flood didn't happen, there is not evidence for it, in fact there is evidence that it didn't happen. 2. There is no evidence that Moses even existed, Hebrew scholars have studied the exodus and have come to the conclusion that it didn't happen and even if it did it couldn't have happened as it is told in the bible. 3. To get striped animals have them mate in front of striped, speckled or spotted branches and you will get striped, speckled or spotted animals. 4. No way could the sun have stopped moving in the sky as the bible says, it would have meant the earth would have had to stop rotating on its axis. Should that have happened then the people on the far side of the earth would have been flung into space and the people on the sun facing side would have been crushed. That would have required the complete negation of all the physical laws of the universe.
@AAAnderson055 I find no evidence that god or God or any god exists, I haven't said that god doesn't exist only no evidence for its existence. If such a god exists than that god punishes people by what they believe/think rather than in actions. Sorry I go by what is done not by what is thought or believed.
Behind the scenes Gary Lockwood had a lot more trouble with the silver contact lenses he was required to wear than Sally Kellerman did, but the man still managed to embed this scene in my head with kick butt acting. Consider this the second pilot.
I heard it was painful. The 70's contact lenses were basically horrible. Apparently, the silver contact lenses they used were essentially tinfoil if you can believe it. Gary Lockwood found them extremely unpleasant.
Are we sure that Gary is truly dead? It was a mere (GIANT) rock that fell on him while he had his powers. Its possible that Gary is still alive but trapped on Delta Vega. Kirk probably recommended to Starfleet to list Delta Vega as a Hostile World similar to Talos IV and prohibit any Ore Ships from flying there every 20 years.
If he were alive I'm sure he would have lifted the rock during his conversation with Dr. Dehner before she died. And Gary had powers but he wasn't immortal. Plus I'm sure the director filmed the grave sequence to show Gary being off balance to suggest that he simply wasn't able to focus on the rock at all to do anything about it. In each demonstrate instance of his power Gary still had to focus his attention on what he was doing. Even when he telekinetically strangled Lee Kelso he's looking off "seeing" Lee's environment and grabbing the wire cable. Now bad writers not focusing on those details could certainly bring him back to life but it would be bad writing for the sake of pushing product and further diluting the finer details of what makes characters, scenes and stories like this so genuine. Finally there's no need as Gary was basically the prototype to Charlie who in turn was the prototype to the Metrons who in turn are the prototype to Q.
I'd like to think that after being Zapped by the Doctor, his full power did not return to him instantly. But rather building like it was originally. Else he could have killed Kirk with a snap of his fingers. He was simply at the "kill me while you still can" stage when Kirk 'rocked' him.
@@marcusanderson9042 Excellent examination pertaining to this scene. I never really gave it as much thought as you did. But your theory makes very good sense. Bravo.
Or, Mitchell died within a few days at most. Notice the greying at his temples? Indicates his powers had massively accelerated his ageing, burning his body out from the inside.
If Mitchell hadn't been in a much-weakened state after fighting Dr. Dehner he likely would've killed Kirk by telekinetically strangling him. Or simply snapping his neck like a dry twig instead of what occurred before his final fate.
Famous Stuntman ( and later director of Smokey & the Bandit and Hooper) Hal Needham doubled Gary Lockwood in this fight. I believe it was Paul Baxley doubling Kirk. One of my favorite fights from Star Trek. Hard hitting, judo throws, Karate chops, bodies flying.... love it!
One of the best Captain Kirk fight scenes in the show's history. I would rate it up there with Kirk vs. Khan in the episode" Space Seed", and Kirk vs. Finnegan in "Shore Leave".
It was really unusual for a series to get a second pilot. Roddenberry pitched "Star Trek" to the executives as a kind of "wagon train to the stars" figuring that since Westerns were really popular at the time, the executives would be able to "get it." But the execs thought the first episode ("The Cage") was "too cerebral." "They thought I had betrayed them" Gene said. "I had written this wonderful story about where the mind went and they had wanted bare knuckles and a fistfight." So when Paramount ordered a second pilot, Gene made sure it ended with bare knuckles and a fistfight. :)
Great episode. One of the best. The fight scene at the end was awesome but I personally enjoyed the torment Kirk went through when he was being advised by Spock that he needed to kill Mitchell to save his ship. He knew Spock was right but he was torn by his friendship with Mitchell. Well acted…!!!!
There were two episodes which were the pinnacle of Star Trek for me as a kid. It wasn't until I was a young adult watching Star Trek reruns that I could finally put names to those episodes. One was "Where no man has gone before" and the other being "Who mourns for adonis". Even as a child beings with godlike powers stirred my imagination like nothing else. So as an adult all my favourite stories have a basis in power. Not the boring political type of our reality but abilities far beyond the norm and the further the better.
The Captain was never worried, because he saw the tombstone and realized who it was really for. Gary really hated the Captain's lesser known evil twin, James Rhinoceros Kirk. The Captain hated his brother too and was happy to help Gary by sparring with him for the purpose of warming up for the real fight. It really was an ingenious idea for Gary to play dead under that rock. Rhino Kirk would never see that coming...
@@LATVERIAN1 Well, perhaps that's true. But Kirk did try to shoot him with a phaser rifle as soon as he appeared. (I don't think those rifles have a stun setting.) It just seemed odd that he would hesitate with the rock. But I hear what your saying. Bashing your former friend in the head up close and personal with a rock probably requires more emotional investment than shooting them from a distance. Plus, I was being sarcastic. ;)
@@DocMicrowave The reason was the eyes. They were brown, not silver. He was fighting Gary Mitchell, his friend. Not Zero, the thing that possessed him. It was Zero he used the rifle.
@@CuteNekoHibiki Fair. But Kirk had to know that there was the possibility of Killing Gary. But yeah, seeing those eyes turn back and hearing his normal voice as he was about the kill him did give him pause before recommitting. I guess he didn't expect that. But initially Kirk was throwing everything he had at him. As soon as he appeared, no talk, no negotiation, just fired full blast.
Those contact lenses, according to the actor himself, caused him considerable discomfort. Towards the end of the shooting schedule (six days), he could only stand them for ten minutes at a time, and they are why he seems to be "looking down" in a lot of the shots. That it gives him a superior body language was just a bonus. Lockwood did the episode as a favor to his friend Gene Roddenberry, whose previous show "The Lieutenant" was a starring role for the actor.
I like the story about why he'd raise his head up to look imperious...it was more he couldn't see thru those damn contact lenses, and had to raise his head up to catch a glimpse of whatever was in front of him.
@@archismanchakrabarty9752 I do believe that you are correct. Omniscient = “all-knowing”; Omnipotent = “all-powerful”. Poor Gary Mitchell was neither, in the end.
This is pilot episode # 2, it became an episode in the series due to the fact that when original Star Trek was on the air during its weekly schedule , there was an episode that wasn't ready to air for that week. So in desperation an NBC executive aired this episode. People watching were confused because the uniforms the crew had on were not the same as usual. Plus the crew women wore pants. The following week however things went back to normal. " Where no man has gone before" pilot No.2 had now became part of the original episodes. Pilot No.1 was "The Cage" with Jeffery Hunter as Capt.Pike.
The first "official" star trek episode that also happens to be the best episode. There was one before this with captain pike but apparently wasnt used and converted into a later episode in bits.
I always thought Star Trek V should have had this story integrated into the movie. Instead of discovering "god" it would have been Gary who managed to come back to life.
The power of Gary Mitchell doubles everyday, omnipotent one day but twice as omnipotent the next day, & the next day & so on. He'd literally be a god in a matter of a month at least able to create life, worlds, stars, cellular/molecular reconstruction & regeneration; unbeatable. I don't think that Thanos with his infinity gems & gauntlet would even have a chance including the Living Tribunal, The Shaper of Worlds, The In-betweener, Galactus, The Stranger, The Collector, The Grandmaster, The Gardener, The Champion, The Anti-Monitor, The Watchers, Master Order, Lord Chaos, the Celestials, maybe even the Beyonder. Given enough time, no one would ever be able to beat him, period!
@@luthermcgee7586 Yes Mr. McGee, it is. The only one that apparently and obviously seems very reminiscent of Gary Mitchell is the X MEN comics storyline is Moira McTaggert's son Kevin a.k.a Mutant X: PROTEUS the mutant who has the ability to alter reality within a certain radius around him and the more he used his powers the more stronger he got but his only weaknesses was a constant and continuous need for fresh bodies to inhabit including metal. Even Phoenix herself said that soon he'd be unbeatable. In fact there's a cross over comic book where Gary Mitchell and PROTEUS merged together and the X-Men and the crew of the Enterprise had to stop him. The interesting thing is that the body of Gary Mitchell is the one body that didn't burn out when PROTEUS possessed it. Now that's very frightening too if you think 🤔 it Mr. McGee.
@@brianpaschal7755 , certainly. I agree. But to inhabit metal, that's powerful. Have you ever heard of " the devil in iron"? It was a short story from the volume " Conan the wanderer" which speaks of a being that takes up it's habitation in iron. Can you imagine a confrontation with something like that? But Gary was far more worse because he could by force of will " make" a person do his bidding. But, the devil in iron so inspired me that I've memorized virtually the whole storyline.
@@luthermcgee7586 No disrespectful intentions or offensive reply sir but I believe that you misunderstood me because one of PROTEUS's weaknesses was metal of any kind and sort. Something else I'd forgotten to mention was that also if he possessed another mutant or superpowered being he could add their abilities to his own as well. Either way, the X Men had to defeat him fast or else it'd be too late because he'd be way too powerful to stop.
