The original theme music by Alexander Courage is undoubtedly one of the most well known themes ever penned. Despite Jerry Goldsmith's almost omnipresent march theme featuring in several of the films and in The Next Generation, it is Courage's theme that is always the one people remember. The ironic thing is that it couldn't perhaps be more inappropriate if it tried. The solo soprano and bongo drum thing is really quite hysterical and it's hardly a surprise that so much mileage has been got in spoofing it. It's almost a shame since a 'cello led version and several other, slower and more imposing orchestral renditions (most notably the brief snippet that Goldsmith worked into his Motion Picture score) seem much more appropriate and are quite stirring.
The Cage was a fairly typical original series episode, but Courage's eerie score is considerably more subtle than the norm; lots of plucked guitar, flutes and vaguely mysterious musical effects designed to musically mirror the rather comical looking (intelligent aliens = big bulging head syndrome) Talosians and their mind control. A few moments of real drama such as the finale of Bottled and Monster Fight work well to disappate the hypnotic, but samey effect of the rest of the score. Vena's Dance sounds like it could have appeared in a Roman Epic for one of those dancing sequences they always seem to have, but is a nice diversion.
Where No Man Has Gone Before was the first featuring William Shatner as Captain Kirk and is usually cited as the first episode. I don't understand the contempt many people hold for Shatner, he might not be a great actor, but can you imagine anyone else as Kirk? The more theatrical acting of the series was rather tempered for the films, which is just as well, but the chemistry between Kirk, Spock and Dr McCoy was still stronger than the leads in any of the subsequent series. Where No Man Has Gone Before is almost a reverse of Star Trek V, but instead of the interior of the galaxy, here the crew venture to the edge. Not a classic episode by any means and neither is Courage's score, although it is more typical, with plenty of brass and melodrama.
The sound isn't bad considering the age of the recordings plus the fact they were done for television, although they aren't as good as the later episode albums. Courage's music is more typical of television music of the time, with much plinking and melodramatic interludes, but really isn't nearly as interesting as some of the later scores by Sol Kaplan, Jerry Fielding or Gerald Fried. The back of the cover features some notes from Trek writer David Gerrold, but unfortunately the track listing appears only on the album itself and doesn't seem to be entirely accurate. No doubt hardened Trekkers could name each cue without titles, but for everyone else the album stands as an important archive, but not quite the best that Trek has to offer.
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Where No Man Has Gone Before