Where No Fan Has Gone Before

Production Number: 4ACV11

Title Caption: WHERE NO FAN HAS GONE BEFORE

First Aired: April 2, 2002

Act I: These words are forbidden!
The opening scene puts us right into court martial held by Zapp Brannigan in the hold of the Planet Express Ship. Accused of setting foot on the forbidden planet Omega 3 are: Fry, Bender and Leela, wittnesses are the heads of the original Star Trek crew: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei. The accused recount the events of the last few days: while renting some videos, Fry finds out that Star Trek is banned in the 31st century. It once was a major religion, but got banished. The tapes of the episodes and movies were deposited on the forbidden planet Omega 3. Fry visits Leonard Nimoy's head in the Head Museum and convinces him to join the search for the rest of the cast, whose heads-in-jars have been lost for 300 years. The Planet Express Ship heads toward Omega 3 to retrieve the tapes, with Leela, Fry, Bender and Nimoy's head on board, and crash-lands on the planet. The surface is littered with set pieces from the original Star Trek series, and among them, the rest of the cast is assembled - no longer heads-in-jars, but complete. It is revealed that behind all this is a gaseous energy being named Melllvar (looking susipciously like a bad special effect from the original series), who demonstrates his power by frying Welshie, the replacement for James Doohan.

Act II: I am Melllvar, Seer of the Tapes! Knower of the Episodes!
Now that Melllvar, the self-declared ultimate Star Trek fan, has the entire original cast complete (Nimoy is provided with a fresh body), he can open the eternal Star Trek Convention, complete with everything: quiz show, autographs, singing contest, fan fiction - all for Melllvar. It turns out that his encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek is second to one only - Fry. In the mean time, the Planet Express crew leave the planet, but decide to return and rescue the actors by trying to destroy Melllvar in a way truly worthy of Star Trek. However, they fail and are dragged to the planet and the Planet Express Ship's drives are disabled. Now Melllvar is not sure who is worthy of his fanatical devotion: the actors or the Planet Express crew. He chooses the traditional method of all energy beings in Star Trek: a fight to the death.

Act III: You can't let a TV show be your whole life!
Just as things are heating up however, Melllvar is called to dinner by his mother and the two crews cooperate to escape. They install their own ship's drive on the Planet Express Ship, but find they are too heavy and leave the actor's bodies behind - they are once more reduced to heads-in-jars. Melllvar pursues them in a mint-condition spaceship when they encounter the Nimbus and Zapp Brannigan installs his court martial. Meanwhile Melllvar is still attacking the Planet Express Ship and is close to destroying it, because if he can't have the original Star Trek crew, no one shall have them. Fry persuades him to let them go and get a life instead of letting a TV show be the center of his existence.

Trivia

 * The opening sequence begins with a flyby of the Planet Express Ship fitted with Enterprise nacelles, and a William Shatner Shatner's Log, a play on captain's log.
 * In the Church of Trek, all people are wearing Star Trek uniforms, and two have the appearance of the black-and-white aliens from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
 * All the tapes of Star Trek are fired out of a ship on a torpedo, and land on a nearby planet, just as Spock's body was at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
 * The Planet Express Ship fires down on Melllvar, and as in the original series, the beams are shown leaving the ship in diverging directions, but somewhere in between they converge so that both strike the target at the same time, in the same spot - plus they look like the bad special effect in the original series.
 * Shatner rips his shirt.
 * Nichelle Nichols distracts Fry, Leela, and Bender with her famous fan dance as seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
 * Nimoy attempts to nerve-pinch Bender.
 * Melllvars ship looks like a Romulan Bird of Prey.
 * The ending credits feature the Star Trek Fanfare, and play back images from the episode, as well as a picture of Kif in a parody of the famous "Balok's puppet" alien seen on some of the Original Series ending credits.
 * The wheelchair equipped with the morse lamp in which the witnesses are placed is a spoof of the wheelchair used by the disabled ex-Enterprise captain Christopher Pike in the original Star Trek series.
 * Nichelle Nichols had her second appearance on the show here, as did Leonard Nimoy.
 * An ongoing joke in the Star Trek series, if someone was to die on an away mission it was a non-permanent character in a red uniform, or a Redshirt. Thus Welshie, the non-permanent character in a red uniform, was killed and re-killed by Melllvar.

Quotes

 * Fry: All this time we thought he was a powerful superbeing! Yet he was just a child... Melllvar's Mom: He's not a child, he's thirty-four!


 * Walter Koenig: When we woke up, we had these bodies. Fry: Say it in Russian! Walter Koenig: (groans) Vhen ve voke up, ve had these wodies. Fry: Eeee! Now say "nuclear wessels"! Walter Koenig: No!


 * Leonard Nimoy: Melllvar, you have to respect your actors. When I directed "Star Trek IV", I got a magnificent performance out of Bill because I respected him so much. William Shatner: And when I directed "Star Trek V", I got a magnificent performance out of me because I respected me so much!


 * Leonard Nimoy: Hey, we've done heroic things too! Nichelle Nichols: Yeah. In the third season, I kissed Shatner.


 * Fry: Look at Walter Koenig. After "Star Trek", he became an actor. Walter Koenig: Not just an actor, but a well-rounded person. With my own friends and credit cards and keys.


 * Nichelle Nichols: What if I distract them with my famous fan dance? William Shatner: Oh, that's good, good, good. And then, George, you hit them with a karate chop. George Takei: I find that offensive! Just because I'm of Japanese ancestry, you assume I know karate. Have I ever led you to believe that I've studied karate? William Shatner: Well, no. But, you never talk about yourself. George Takei: (sadly) Maybe if you showed a little interest...

Characters

 * Fry
 * Leela
 * Bender
 * Zapp Brannigan
 * Zoidberg
 * Kif
 * Nichelle Nichols
 * Leonard Nimoy
 * Smitty and Url
 * Debut: Melllvar
 * Debut: Melllvar's Mom
 * Debut: William Shatner
 * Debut: DeForest Kelley
 * Debut: Walter Koenig
 * Debut: George Takei
 * Debut: Jonathan Frakes
 * Debut: Welshie

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * David A. Goodman
 * Director
 * Pat Shinagawa
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * David Goodman
 * Pat Shinagawa
 * Billy West
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Special Guests
 * William Shatner
 * Leonard Nimoy
 * Walter Koenig
 * George Takei
 * Nichelle Nichols
 * Jonathan Frakes