Where No Fan Has Gone Before

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Season 4 episode
Where No Fan Has Gone Before
Where No Fan Has Gone Before.jpg
No.65
Production number4ACV11
Written by[[David A. Goodman]][[Category:Episodes written by David A. Goodman|Where No Fan Has Gone Before]]
Directed by[[Pat Shinagawa]][[Category:Episodes directed by Pat Shinagawa|Where No Fan Has Gone Before]]
Title captionWhere No Fan Has Gone Before
First air date2 April, 2002
Broadcast numberS04E12
Title referenceReference to the recurring phrase in Star Trek, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
Special guest(s)William Shatner
Leonard Nimoy
Walter Koenig
George Takei
Nichelle Nichols
Jonathan Frakes
Nomination(s)Nebula Award
Best Script, 2004, David A. Goodman
Additional
Commentary
(Transcript)
Transcript

Pictures

Season 4
  1. Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
  2. Leela's Homeworld
  3. Love and Rocket
  4. Less than Hero
  5. A Taste of Freedom
  6. Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television
  7. Jurassic Bark
  8. Crimes of the Hot
  9. Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles
  10. The Why of Fry
  11. Where No Fan Has Gone Before
  12. The Sting
  13. Bend Her
  14. Obsoletely Fabulous
  15. The Farnsworth Parabox
  16. Three Hundred Big Boys
  17. Spanish Fry
  18. The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
← Season 3Season 5 →

"Where No Fan Has Gone Before" is the sixty-fifth episode of Futurama, the eleventh of the fourth production season and the twelfth and last of the fourth broadcast season. It aired 2 April, 2002 on FOX. It guest stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols as themselves, as well as Jonathan Frakes as himself in a jar. Fry is a vivid Star Trek fan, but when he discovers that it has been banned, Fry seeks out the forgotten tapes.

The Story

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 cast of the original Star Trek: 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. Farnsworth explains that it was once a major religion, but was 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 randomly murdering 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 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 only one - Fry.

In the meantime, 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, who really are a motley crew of spacefaring adventurers. 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. The Trek cast install their own ship's drive on the Planet Express Ship, but find they are slightly too heavy and leave the actors' bodies behind - they are once more reduced to heads-in-jars. Fortunately for Fry, they are still light enough to carry all the episodes.

Melllvar is pursueing them in a mint-condition spaceship when they encounter the Nimbus, and Zapp Brannigan installs his court martial. When he asks what happened to Melllvar, Leela notes out that nothing happened to him, and they are still under attack. Melllvar decides that if he can't have the original Star Trek crew, he won't let anyone else have them either, and continues to try to destroy the ship. Fry persuades him to let them go and get a life instead of letting a TV show be the center of his existence.

Additional Info

Promo pic of this episode
The second promo pic of this episode

Trivia

  • When discussing the "Star Trek wars", Zapp asks, "You mean the vast migration of Star Wars fans?" and then Nichelle Nichols answers, "No, that was the Star Wars trek."
  • 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 the "captain's log" that opens nearly every episode of every Star Trek series.
  • In the Church of Trek, worshippers are shown wearing Starfleet uniforms, and two have the appearance of the black-and-white aliens from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
  • One of the Trekkies that is thrown into the volcano wears a shirt reading, "Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life on this planet," a popular bumper sticker slogan.
  • In the Head Museum, one of the heads appears to be that of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from The Simpsons.
  • 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 estabishing shot of Omega 3 shows props from the Star Trek episodes "The Gamesters of Triskelion," "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "Spectre of the Gun" and "A Piece of the Action."
  • 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, a frequent occurrence on the show that was joked about by the cast. During the fight scene with Leela, he also uses the "clasped fist punch" used many times by Kirk which would be startingly ineffective in a real fight.
  • 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.
  • Melllvar's ship looks like a Romulan Bird of Prey.
"Balok's puppet", the image which was parodied by Kif Kroker at the end of the credits.
  • 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 episode "The Menagerie".
  • 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.
  • Movies at the Rent-a-Wreck Video include:
"Human Cop"
"Pippi Longtentacles"
"Moon Men From Mars"
"Galaxy Wars"
"Planet of the Clams"
"The Bellyachers"
"The Yawning'
"Werewolf Dog"
6 unnamed Jim Carrey movies

Goofs

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...
  • Fry: (Melllvar has just killed Welshie) WELLLLSHIEEEEEEEEE!

Characters

(In alphabetic order)

Episode Credits