ST:TNG 1.6 Where No One Has Gone Before

Riker is getting younger by the episode.

This episode is about tests and tuning on the Enterprise's warp engines.  EXCITEMENT.

BUT, I suspect that those testing fellows from the USS Fearless might be werewolves, or something.  Yeah, that's a reasonable direction for this episode.  LET'S FIND OUT.

Geordi not being the chief engineer is a little disorienting.  Perhaps he's off filming Reading Rainbow?  Oh, no.  He's just on the bridge.  Hrm.

Apparently Wesley has screwed up something and the Enterprise has passed Warp 10?  What does Picard do?  Jams it into reverse.  BAM.  2.7 million light years in minutes.  Over 300 years to get home at normal warp.  Is this Voyager?

If this were X-Files they would be investigating what supernatural sources this Kosinski guy's douchebagginess come from.

Oh, this must be that Traveller guy that eventually removes Wesley from the series as the assistant to Commander Douchebag..

Interesting aging of the special effects in the show.  Kinda neat that this ep is where that picture of Picard falling out of a turbolift into space comes from.  Ah, then everything goes totally haywire.  Lovely.  They must be about to all assume their pure energy forms, being at the end of the universe as the hallucination of Picard's mom claims.

Oh, obviously.  They're in a place where mind, time, and space are one.  Why would I ever have suspected werewolves?

This guy is actually the Traveler and foreshadows Wesley becoming some kind of fancy lad.

This episode could have ended so well with somebody thinking of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and having epic battle with the Enterprise.

Instead it turns out the Traveler manages to somehow convert Kosinski's douchebaggery directly into motive force behind the Enterprise.  Douchebaggery strong enough to throw the Enterprise hundreds of millions of miles.  That, or channeling the hideousness of Wesley's sweater.  I don't know.  This is all new territory for me..

Picard decides to nurture Wesley on the Traveler's advice by making Wesley an ensign.  Hooray.