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In the opening titles to Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, the voice-over states that the Enterprise has a continuing mission to

"...boldly go where no one has gone before".

I am currently on Season 1 Episode 17, and only once have they actually gone somewhere new, and that was mostly a mistake (when they travelled to another galaxy).

In which episodes does the Enterprise go somewhere new?

Tim
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    Are you specifically asking about TNG (as per the question tag)? – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Mar 17 '17 at 10:36
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    Sure, true for Voyager but I was especially thinking of TOS - but you are not asking about that, clear. – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Mar 17 '17 at 11:43
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    To boldly go where literally no-one has gone before its just part of their mission. "To explore strange new worlds...To seek out new life; new civilizations...To boldly go where no one has gone before!". So its at most 1/4th of their mission statement and thus its not surprising the do not do it that often. – Polygnome Mar 17 '17 at 13:13
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    @Polygnome - Actually, going boldy represents just 11% of their missions. "Taking stuff to somewhere" represents about 60%. – Valorum Mar 17 '17 at 14:05
  • I'd be interested in a TOS answer. – Francis Davey Mar 17 '17 at 14:32
  • @FrancisDavey - Go for it. – Valorum Mar 17 '17 at 14:37
  • It's been suggested that the Enterprise was originally intended to go out for deep space exploration, but the Borg and the Cardassian wars and the resurfacing of the Romulans with huge ships changed everyone's plans. – Stephen Collings Mar 17 '17 at 21:43
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    @T.E.D. The problem with that is, technically speaking, aliens are someones too, and wherever they go, they have already gone before us, so we can't exactly beat them to going there! –  Mar 18 '17 at 00:00
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    @Michael to keep the spirit of the question, we're assuming by "no one" it means the Federation, or local aliens like Klingons. – Tim Mar 18 '17 at 00:02
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    @Tim TOS series used the term "man" whereas TNG became more inclusive by using the term "one" ... so in the spirit of not discriminating, I'm not excluding any aliens –  Mar 18 '17 at 00:04
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    @Michael - Just to be furtherly anal about this, it was actually changed in the monologue at the end one of the ST movies. You hear (whoever it was ... I'm thinking William Shatner in ST:TMP) say the words "... where no man ... no one has gone before ..." Thereafter it was said as "no one" and was inclusive. It is a great point and worth mentioning. I'm glad you brought it up, because it is pertinent in this discussion. – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Mar 18 '17 at 14:31
  • According to Into Darkness, that's the Starfleet Captain's Oath (citation needed? unsure). – AStopher Mar 19 '17 at 12:17
  • @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 at the same time, IIRC, they also changed it from "Its five year mission" to "Its continuing mission". (Just as a point of interest, no bearing on the question I don't think) – anotherdave Mar 20 '17 at 09:44
  • @Michael - Which leads us to Ivonova's quip: "You are about to go where everyone has gone before". – T.E.D. Mar 20 '17 at 20:02

2 Answers2

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I have counted 20 episodes in which the TNG Enterprise travels to places where there has been no presence from an existing manned Federation ship or colony and no presence from an existing superpower that's known to have shared survey information with the Federation (e.g. Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons, etc). I have also excluded episodes where the Enterprise is trying to find a lost ship or a missing colony.

I have indicated the place, the purpose of the exploration and whether any first contact was made with an alien life-form.

Season 1:

  • Where No One Has Gone Before* (Another galaxy - By accident)
  • Justice (Strnad System - Planetary survey - First contact mission)
  • When The Bough Breaks (Epsilon Mynos System - Planetary survey - First contact mission)
  • Home Soil (Pleiades Cluster - Survey mission)

Season 2:

  • Where Silence Has Lease* (Weird space hole thingy - By accident)
  • Pen Pals (Selcundi Drema System - Planetary survey x 5 - Partial first contact)
  • Q Who* (J two five - Planetary survey - Attempted first contact mission)
  • Samaritan Snare (Epsilon Nine Sector - Stellar survey)

Season 3:

  • The Bonding - (Koinonian System - Archaeological survey - First contact mission)
  • The Offspring (Selebi Asteroid Belt - Asteroidal survey)
  • Tin Man (Beta Stromgren system - Stellar survey - First contact mission)
  • Transfigurations (Zeta Gelis Cluster - Stellar survey/planetary survey - First contact mission)

Season 4

  • Clues (Ngame Cloud - Planetary survey - Partial first contact mission)
  • Nth Degree* (Centre of the galaxy - Planetary survey - First contact mission)
  • In Theory (Mar Oscura - Nebular survey)

Season 5

  • The Game (Phoenix Cluster - Stellar survey)
  • Imaginary Friend (FGC Four Seven system - Nebular survey)
  • The Inner Light* (Kataan system - Planetary survey - Accidental first contact)

Season 6

  • Schisms (Amargosa Diaspora - Nebular survey - Partial first contact)
  • The Chase (Volterra nebula - Nebular survey - Partial first contact)

Season 7

There are no significant explorations in Season 7.

* indicates episodes where there was a distinct lack of boldness, where the Enterprise traveled timidly or under duress.

Valorum
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    First contact? If someone is already there, they haven't gone where NO ONE has gone before, have they? If they'd stuck with "no MAN" they'd be OK because aliens are not men. The revised slogan seems to imply that aliens are nobody. – user14111 Mar 17 '17 at 10:55
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    Essentially no one is not referring to no sentient being, it is referring to nobody from the federation. Perhaps a very western imperial view of the universe. – Jeremy French Mar 17 '17 at 10:59
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    @JeremyFrench - I'm going on Pratchett's definition of discovery - "Of course, lots of dwarfs, trolls, native people, trappers, hunters and the merely badly lost had discovered it on an almost daily basis for thousands of years. But they weren’t explorers and didn’t count.**" – Valorum Mar 17 '17 at 11:19
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Null Mar 17 '17 at 18:36
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    I'm interested as to how you knew all this? – Tim Mar 17 '17 at 18:51
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    @Tim - I went to Chakoteya and went through each episode. Some I could discount instantly without opening, the rest I was able to look at the Captain's Log to see whether the mission was to survey something. – Valorum Mar 17 '17 at 19:17
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    "To boldly(*) go where no one has gone before" (*) or failing that, timidly or under duress. –  Mar 18 '17 at 00:02
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    Valorum - it always seemed very fish for the Enterprise to be charting the Pleiades star cluster in "Home Soil". In the Enterprise Episode "Chosen Realm" the alien home world is 6.3 light years away in the Maradas Star Cluster. In "A Taste of Armageddon" Eminiar 7 was in star cluster NGC 321. In too Short a Season they passed through the Idini a star cluster enroute beteen known and explored worlds. That makes three that should be closer than the Pleiades. This list makes the Plieades the third most distant cluster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_clusters – M. A. Golding Mar 18 '17 at 04:46
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    Valorum - continued. But there is also the Ursa Major cluster or association or moving group, the closest of all. If the Enterprise was the first to boldly go to the Pleiades and chart them that would be cutting it rather close. Thus I suspect that the Enterprise as re charting the Pleiades or something long after they ere first explored. – M. A. Golding Mar 18 '17 at 04:48
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    It seems reasonable to assume that when the Enterprise surveys places with no sentient life at all, where no-one of any species has gone before, generally little drama results, and those surveys don't make TV episodes. – armb Mar 18 '17 at 08:36
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    Don't forget The Nth Degree (S04E19) -- the one where Barclay went into temporary genius mode, while they didn't go to the center of the galaxy intentionally, they stuck around for a bit to trade notes with the Cytherians. – Jason C Mar 19 '17 at 04:28
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    @armb Yeah if I ever do another rewatch now I kinda want to keep an eye out for implications that they went somewhere, e.g. log entries saying "After spending 3 weeks exploring blah blah, the Enterprise is now headed to More Interesting Star System.", things like that. – Jason C Mar 19 '17 at 04:31
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    "Regional superpower" is an oxymoron. "Great Power" is appropriate, though. – Jasper Mar 20 '17 at 04:33
  • @JasonC - You're not wrong. See edit. – Valorum Mar 20 '17 at 11:31
  • @Jasper - A state with unparalleled self-autonomy in a specific area, but limited or no authority outside it would be best characterised as a regional superpower. For example, South Africa is a high degree of influence in the southern African region but his little or no impact on the wider geopolitical sphere. Nonetheless, see edit. – Valorum Mar 20 '17 at 11:48
  • @Valorum: Didn't read all the comments, but it might be worth noting that if most survey missions are routine then we just don't see them because there's nothing interesting enough for an episode. – ThePopMachine Mar 20 '17 at 16:16
  • One can argue that the Enterprise going to a parallel universe in Yesterday's Enterprise was going where no one (in the prime universe) has gone before. – iMerchant Jun 10 '17 at 20:14
  • @iMerchant - Tenuous, very tenuous. – Valorum Jun 10 '17 at 20:31
  • Ha, Voyager went to many places no one has gone before. The Enterprise, instead, was solving consular issues. – Apollo Oct 01 '18 at 09:23
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In The Original Series the mission included "where no man has gone before", which was later explained as a quotation from Zephram Cochrane, human inventor of the warp drive (other intelligent species had independently invented it before, of course). At the time he invented it, humans had not met any other intelligent species (and in fact had not even left their home solar system yet). So when he said it, he meant it literally -- he wanted to go "where no man (i.e. human being) had gone before". By the time of TOS, this would already be out of date -- it really should have been "where no Federation citizen has gone before" or "where nobody we know has gone before." But no man (or no one) would ever phrase it like that. :-)

Mike Ciaraldi
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    It's a pet peeve of mine that TNG changed "where no man" to "where no one". Clearly the intended meaning of the original was "where no member of mankind" had gone before, i.e. no human. The 60's may have been sexist against women, but not so sexist as to say "Women may have gone there before but they don't count." "No one" implies that all the aliens living out there already aren't anybody, which is offensively speciesist. I know that some people got bent out of shape about "man" and took it to imply that women don't count, but IMHO the replacement implies that aliens don't count! – steveha Mar 20 '17 at 03:24
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    It is indeed arguable that the replacement should have been “where no human has gone before,” if the intent was to imply lack of human exploration. – Adamant Mar 20 '17 at 08:25