star trek pilot

The Cage (episode)

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When the Enterprise answers a distress call, Capt. Pike encounters manipulative aliens. ( Original pilot )

• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.2 Story and script
• 3.4 Production
• 3.5 Visual effects
• 3.7 Reception and aftermath
• 3.8 Continuity
• 3.9 Apocrypha
• 3.10 Production timeline
• 3.11 Remastered
• 3.12 Home media format releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Guest star
• 4.3 Co-starring
• 4.4 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.5 Stunt doubles
• 4.6 Stand-ins
• 4.7 References
• 4.8 Library computer references
• 4.9 External links

Summary [ ]

Captain Pike on the bridge

It is 2254 , two weeks after a battle on Rigel VII that left seven crew members injured and took the lives of three USS Enterprise crewmen, including Captain Christopher Pike 's yeoman , the ship encounters a space distortion on a collision course, according to helmsman José Tyler . It turns out to be an old radio distress signal , "keyed to cause interference and attract attention." The crew says it was sent eighteen years earlier from the Talos star group , but first officer Number One notes they have no Earth colonies or vessels that far out. Pike declines to investigate without any indication of survivors but proceeds to the Vega colony to care for the crew's own injuries.

Pike calls the Enterprise 's chief medical officer , Dr. Boyce , to his quarters but Boyce instead fixes Pike a martini to induce Pike to talk about the battle on Rigel VII. Pike has been thinking of resigning , burdened with making lethal decisions, but Boyce counsels against it. The science officer Spock interrupts on the intercom that a follow-up message from Talos IV indicates there are eleven survivors. Pike returns to the bridge and orders the ship to Talos, at "time warp, factor seven." He encounters a comely young woman, J.M. Colt . The ship's first officer, a woman named Number One, says Colt is the captain's replacement yeoman. Pike expresses discomfort with "a woman on the bridge," assuring Number One that she is an exception, as she's " different, of course. "

Pike leads a landing party to the surface of Talos IV and finds the makeshift campsite of a disheveled group of male scientists from the crashed survey ship SS Columbia . The scientists identify themselves as an expedition of the American Continent Institute and Lieutenant Jose Tyler describes technological advances while they have been marooned, particularly in the time barrier being broken. A beautiful young woman approaches them. She is Vina , born almost as the group crash-landed on the planet. Vina strangely tells Pike he is a "prime specimen" – as three aliens with huge, pulsating heads watch the landing party through a viewing screen.

Boyce provides his medical report to Pike and reports that the survivors are in good health, "almost too good." The scientist Theodore Haskins offers to show Pike their "secret," and Vina leads him away from the others. Vina suddenly vanishes, along with the scientists and their camp. Talosians render Pike unconscious and abduct him through a doorway in the rock. The landing party fires laser pistols at the door to no avail and Spock advises the ship via his communicator that this " is all some sort of trap. We've lost the captain. Do you read? "

Pike wakes up without his jacket, communicator, and laser, inside an underground cell with a transparent wall, through which he sees several creatures of different species in nearby cells. Several Talosians arrive and make callous scientific observations about him, which he perceives not through sound but telepathy . They note that Pike is more adaptable to his new surroundings and prepare to begin "the experiment."

Pike and Vina enjoy an illusory picnic outside Mojave

The Talosians intend to make Pike experience illusions based on his memories, in order to interest him in Vina. The first illusion returns Pike to Rigel VII, with the new task of saving Vina. Pike is not interested in participating, telling Vina he is " not an animal performing for its supper, " but he is interested in learning the parameters of the illusions and of his captivity. Nevertheless, he manages to survive the illusory attack from the Kalar and is returned, with Vina, to his cell.

He learns from Vina that the Talosians have severely weakened their world and themselves by reliance on their telepathic powers. They want Captain Pike and Vina as breeding stock for a new, stronger race to repopulate the barren surface of the planet. The Talosians punish Vina for revealing this information to Pike.

The Talosians provide him with a vial of liquid nourishment and insist that he consume it, even offering to make it appear as any food he wishes. Pike proposes to starve himself instead, which results in the Keeper punishing him with an illusion of being surrounded by scorching flame and threatens to punish him more severely for continued disobedience. Pike appears to relent by consuming the liquid, but then displays another outburst of attempting to break through the containment, unexpectedly startling the Keeper. Pike realizes that the Keeper was unable to read his mind during his outburst of anger and tries to inquire more as to why this is. The Keeper, still unable to probe Pike's mind, attempts then to distract Pike by changing the subject to Vina. Pike relents again, and the Keeper reveals that Vina was the sole survivor of the Columbia crash and confirms what she inadvertently revealed previously – that Pike and Vina were being kept to propagate Humanity and repopulate Talos IV. The conversation ends with Pike demanding that the Talosians punish him instead of her, since he is the one being uncooperative, which the Keeper regards as an excellent development in their relationship.

Vina appears as an Orion slave girl

The next illusion is a pleasant picnic just outside Pike's hometown of Mojave , with Vina attempting to entice Pike with the familiar setting, but with Pike still resisting, knowing that all of it is just a mere illusion. Vina then realizes that scenarios with which Pike is already familiar have not been successful in enticing him to cooperate, and surmises that he might be more easily swayed by a forbidden fantasy. The Talosians next tempt Pike by making Vina appear as a dancing Orion slave girl .

The Enterprise landing party and Vina

The Enterprise tries without success to channel the starship 's power to the surface to blast a way to Pike. Then Spock locates the Talosians' power generator and prepares a landing party . However, only the females (Number One and Yeoman Colt) are the only ones transported, as the Talosians seek to give Pike a choice of mates; and their weapons and communicators appear not to work. Vina resents the competition; Number One says records indicate Vina cannot be as young as she appears.

As the rescue attempts have failed, Spock orders the Enterprise to leave orbit, but the Talosians immobilize it and scan its records, convincing Spock that the ship's utility to the Talosians is at an end and that they will now "swat… this fly."

Pike determines that any strong emotions keep the Talosians from controlling his mind and uses this to his advantage. While Pike feigns sleep, the Talosian magistrate tries to recover the female officers' lasers from the cage. Pike seizes the magistrate and ignores the illusions. He reasons that the malfunction of the lasers was itself an illusion and uses the laser pistol to compel the magistrate to stop deceiving him. He now sees that they had blasted away the wall of the cage on their first attempt.

He escapes with the women to the surface and sees that the blasting operation on the door had also succeeded, despite an illusion made to appear otherwise. But the communicators still don't work, and the Talosian says that the original goal was to put the group on the surface. Pike offers himself as a captive for the freedom of the others and the Enterprise , but Number One begins a "force-chamber" overload of her laser pistol, intending to destroy herself and her shipmates to thwart the Talosians' plans. She tells the Talosian magistrate that it is wrong to create a whole race of Humans to live as slaves.

The magistrate's aides arrive, presenting the summary of the ship's records. The records have shown that Humans possess a "unique hatred of captivity," even when pleasant, making them too dangerous for the Talosians' needs. The magistrate does not apologize for the imposition but concedes that they will now become extinct. Pike asks if commerce or cooperation might not restore the planet, but the magistrate replies that Humans would learn the Talosians' power of illusion and destroy themselves, just as the Talosians did. The crew members are free to go, but Vina says she cannot join them. After the others transport aboard, the Talosians show Pike Vina's true appearance: underneath the Talosian illusions, she is badly deformed from the crash of the Columbia . They were able to make it so that she could remain alive, but could not restore her appearance. The Talosians agree to take care of Vina and they provide her with an illusory Captain Pike to keep her company.

Pike returns to the bridge, reassuring Dr. Boyce that he is completely refreshed for work, and waving off a query from Yeoman Colt about whom he would have chosen as a mate, as well as accusing the doctor of being a "dirty old man" for inquiring into the meaning of Colt's remark. The Enterprise departs.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Check the circuit. " " All operating, sir. " " It can't be the screen then. "

" Records show the Talos star group has never been explored. Solar system similar to Earth; eleven planets. Number four seems to be… class M. Oxygen atmosphere. " " Then they could still be alive even after eighteen years. " " If they survived the crash. "

Pike and Boyce

" Sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. "

" Chris, you set standards for yourself no one could meet. You treat everyone on board like a Human being except yourself. "

" I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't. And who's going on the landing party and who doesn't. And who lives. And who dies. "

" A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it. Or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away. "

" We both get the same two kinds of customers. The living and the dying. "

" It's just that I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge. " (Number One looks surprised) " No offense, lieutenant. You're different, of course. "

" You appear to be healthy and intelligent, captain. Prime specimen. "

" There's a way out of any cage, and I'll find it! "

" But they found it's a trap. Like a narcotic. Because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. "

" I'm a woman as real and as Human as you are. We're like Adam and Eve. "

" No, please! Don't punish me! "

" You overlook the unpleasant alternative of punishment. "

" You either live life – bruises, skinned knees and all – or you turn your back on it and start dying. "

" But we're not here. Neither of us. We're in a menagerie, a cage! "

" A curious species. They have fantasies they hide even from themselves. "

" A person's strongest dreams are about what he can't do. "

" Can you believe it? Actually like being taken advantage of! "

" The women! "

" Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection. Each of these two new specimens has qualities in her favor. "

" Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretense. She often has fantasies involving you. "

" The factors in her favor are youth and strength, plus unusually strong female drives. "

" Wrong thinking is punishable. Right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination. "

" With the female of your choice, you will now begin carefully guided lives. " " Start by burying you? " " That is your choice. "

" It's wrong to create a race of Humans to keep as slaves. "

" The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs. "

" No other specimen has shown your adaptability. You were our last hope. "

" She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant. "

" Who would have been Eve? " " Yeoman! "

" Eve? As in Adam? " " As in all ship's doctors are dirty old men. "

" What are we running here, a cadet ship, Number One? Are we ready or not? " " All decks show ready, sir. " " Engage! "

Background information [ ]

• The title of this episode was changed during production from "The Cage" to "The Menagerie". However, when the two-part episode " The Menagerie, Part I " and " The Menagerie, Part II " (which reused almost all the footage from this episode) went into production, the title of this installment reverted to "The Cage". ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 10; [1] )
• Although the episode has a title, and is universally referred to as "The Cage", no episode title actually appears on screen, with the only title used in the credits being "Star Trek".

Story and script [ ]

• The genesis of this episode was the first of twenty-five proposed stories in Gene Roddenberry 's series outline Star Trek is... . The description of the plot concept that became this episode (initially titled "The Next Cage") read, " The desperation of our series lead, caged and on exhibition like an animal, then offered a mate. "
• During an early May 1964 meeting wherein Gene Roddenberry and Herbert F. Solow pitched the series to television network NBC , Jerry Stanley – NBC Program Development Vice President – asked to hear more about the idea for the series' pilot episode. Solow later reflected, " I asked Gene to explain. He did, very succinctly describing the premise of 'The Menagerie'. " Neither Grant Tinker – who was also present at the meeting and was, at the time, NBC Vice President of Programs, West Coast – nor Jerry Stanley was convinced to agree to a series deal with Roddenberry and Solow. Just as Roddenberry was about to leave the room, Solow made a last-ditch attempt to persuade the NBC executives, stating, " If you give us a commitment for a ninety-minute script instead of one hour, and we make the pilot, you can always run it as a TV special and recoup your investment if it doesn't sell as a series. Besides, I'm not leaving this room until you give us a script order. " This was enough to sway NBC's stance and the executives agreed to make a deal. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 6, 19-20)
• This episode's premise was not the only concept that NBC considered for the series' pilot. Herb Solow explained, " They wanted to hear more stories before one of them was chosen for the pilot script. We had more meetings, and Gene gave them more stories. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 20)
• This episode's narrative style was selected after Oscar Katz , the president of Desilu Television at the time, personally pitched four different narrative approaches to the NBC executives. Whereas the first two-story types primarily focused on events aboard the Enterprise and the third option featured a planet whose inhabitants were much like Humanity of either the past or the future, the fourth type involved a planet that was highly different from Earth and was inhabited by people who were likewise very different from Humans. NBC chose the fourth type, the hardest to produce, as they wanted to challenge Desilu by making it as hard as possible for that studio to prove the series was doable. Explained Katz, " I tried to talk them out of it, because I knew it was going to be expensive and, even more, I felt that it might not be representative of the series. But they couldn't be talked out of it. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 11)
• The plot idea for this episode underwent further development in early May 1964, after NBC vice-president Mort Werner provided Gene Roddenberry with US$20,000 in development money to write three different story outlines based on the Star Trek format. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 41-42; The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 10) With so much at stake over the trio of episode outlines, Roddenberry diligently labored away at them, obsessing over each page and every word. He spent a month writing the outlines as well as several weeks revising them, after which he finally turned the pages over to NBC. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 33) The outlines had been forwarded to the network by the end of June 1964 and the particular outline for this episode was dated 29 June ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 45 & 47). The other two candidates were "The Perfect World" aka "Visit to Paradise" (which became " The Return of the Archons ") and "The Women" (which became " Mudd's Women "). ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed., p. 34) Following the submission of the outlines, NBC took several days before announcing their choice of "The Cage" as the pilot-to-be. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 33)
• The episode's story outline consisted of 26 pages. [2] In those pages, the name of the Enterprise 's captain was Robert April (as it was in the series outline Star Trek is… ). He was the only one of his crew whose name was to be changed, as the episode continued to evolve. Also, the Talosians were crab-like aliens (their species remaining unnamed, though they were commonly referred to as "crab-creatures"), and their planet was "Sirius IV". The outline is fully transcribed in The Making of Star Trek (pp. 47-65).
• Some of Gene Roddenberry's initial thoughts for the episode's illusory scenarios had to be altered or scaled back due to production and budgetary realities. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• Hours after NBC greenlighted the pilot (a duration that Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow spent ironing out some of the "twists, turns, and bends in the plot"), Gene Roddenberry set to work on writing the teleplay. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 36; Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 20-21) As he wrote the first draft script, he spared no thought for the practicalities of producing what he was writing about, such as the episode's laser cannon, instead leaving such realistic considerations until later. Noted Herb Solow, " The network draft wasn't for shooting, the network draft was for selling. When we got the order for the pilot film, then we'd face the budget problem head on. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 20-21)
• Gene Roddenberry did, however, care about the believability of the script. To this end, he initiated a period of intensive scientific research and began an acquaintance with Harvey P. Lynn , a physicist from the RAND Corporation who served as Roddenberry's unofficial technical adviser on the pilot. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 74, 76-77)
• During the remainder of the summer and into the early autumn of 1964, major effort was invested in the development of the shooting script, the intention being that it was to later be submitted to NBC for approval. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 78) The first script draft was dated 8 September 1964 . ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 11) In that version of the episode, the captain's name was still Robert April, though both the Talosians and their homeworld of Talos IV received their eventual names. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 91-95)
• It was also the initial draft of the episode's teleplay that changed the Talosians from resembling crabs to becoming small and slim humanoids with elongated heads. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 93) This alteration was made because the production staff realized the aliens might seem too much like the bug-eyed monsters of "1950s horror movies," the antithesis of what Gene Roddenberry wanted the more intellectually-minded Star Trek to be. Depicting the extraterrestrials as crab-like creatures would have not only run a good chance of making them look unconvincing but also would have been prohibitively expensive, two deciding factors in the adjustment of their form. ( Star Trek: The Original Series 365 , p. 008)
• According to Majel Barrett , the first character introduced in the script was Number One. " That was the first character Gene wrote into the script, " Barrett stated. " Captain April was not an afterthought because he knew he had to have a captain, but the first character that was described was Number One. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , p. 43)
• The episode's first draft script had an opening scene in the hangar bay where Captain April, whose character at this stage was a tad older than Captain Pike was later written, is inspecting new crew members. He remarks disapprovingly to the doctor, at one point, about the young age of some of these officers. " Something, " Roddenberry later wrote in a memo, " that Jim Kirk , the boy wonder of the Academy , never would have done. " In this same scene, April sees a number of badly-wounded crewmen off the ship, onto a space shuttle or taxi from the Human colony of Antares . Among these departing officers is an uninjured former navigator named Crowley who April is sending back in disgrace, because he fired on friendly aliens. The officer argues that they were monstrous in appearance and asks how he could have known that they were intelligent enough to have weapons. These protests are met by a stern but subdued dismissal from the captain, who quietly orders, " Get off my ship, mister. " ( The Making of Star Trek ; The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., pp. 11-12)
• While scripting the episode, Gene Roddenberry developed a habit of being somewhat possessive about story ideas, to such a degree that Herb Solow considered this quality to be excessive. " As Gene completed the first-draft pilot script, " Solow remarked, " he unfortunately became overly protective of his new baby. " Furthermore, Roddenberry began to frequently lay claim to the input of others. " A new side of Gene slowly appeared: ownership of ideas, " commented Solow. " If a good story or series point came from anyone, be it NBC, [Desilu's agent] Ashley-Famous, or Desilu, Gene Roddenberry appropriated it. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 21)
• A copy of the episode's first draft script was sent from Gene Roddenberry to Harvey P. Lynn, shortly prior to 14 September 1964. On that date, Lynn responded with correspondence of his own – a letter that included many comments on the script draft. Concerning the docking scene, Lynn proposed a theoretical docking method and a suggestion that the name Antares, since it refers to a sun unsuitable for the habitation of Humans, be substituted with "a more vague name" such as Tycho, Fabricus, or even Lynnicus (the latter name clearly being offered as an in-joke). Additionally, Lynn took the liberty of suggesting that the shuttle or taxi might be from a ship similar to the Enterprise and that that vessel had recently departed from Earth, which Lynn observed would correlate well with the introductions of both Tyler and Yeoman Colt. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 90-92) The docking scene was excised from the script in a revised draft, and Roddenberry notified Lynn of the scene's exclusion in a letter sent on 24 September. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 96-97)
• Though the first script draft referred to Talos IV as being located at the "edge of the universe" and stated that Earth was "at the other end of this galaxy," Harvey P. Lynn rejected these notions, advising Gene Roddenberry that traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other would take an impossibly long time and encouraging him to switch the latter reference to "far away in this galaxy." ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 92, 94) Evidently, Roddenberry ultimately minimized the references to the far distance between Earth and Talos IV; of the two such references, the first was deleted while the second remained.
• Harvey P. Lynn recommended that Talos IV be stated to be in either Sigma Draconis, Eta Cassiopeiae, or HR 8832 (aka Gliese 892 ), owing to both their proximity to our solar system and the fact that it is unknown whether any of them have any Earth-type planets. Other astral names that Lynn requested be changed were Epsilon VII, Orion, and Rigel 113, which he suggested substituting with Draconis, HR 8832, and Vega 113, respectively. A similar idea that he presented was changing Orion traders to Centaurian traders. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 92, 95) In his reply on 24 September, Roddenberry expressed an interest in having the names of the stars in this episode be ones that were familiar to the audience. " This is why I've avoided such terms as 'HR8832,' etc, " he explained. On the other hand, he conceded that the continued use of Rigel and Orion could still be substituted, in the final shooting script, with names such as Vega, admitting that such names – while being more appropriate from a scientific perspective – were also possibly just as familiar. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 97) Comparing the second revised final draft script (dated 20 September 1964) to the episode's final draft indicates that Roddenberry ultimately replaced Rigel 113 with Rigel VII. Neither the same script draft nor the actual episode contain reference to Epsilon VII, though they also evidence that Roddenberry ultimately excluded not only HR 8832 but also Draconis and Vega 113.
• Due to Harvey P. Lynn's influence, the SS Columbia is said to have been lost in the same "region" as the Talos star group, rather than the same "quadrant" as that star system, and the gravity of Talos IV was altered from "1.3 of Earth" to less than Earth's gravity. Lynn submitted the latter suggestion on the basis of the Talosians' appearance and proposed that Talos IV have a gravity that was 85% as powerful as Earth's. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 92) In the episode's final version, it is said to be "0.9 of Earth."
• The character of Geologist was known as Astroscientist in the first draft script, but this was also changed on the recommendation of Harvey P. Lynn, who opted for "Geologist" because he believed it was a more specific title. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 93)
• In the first draft script, the illusory Columbia survivors had more dialogue than they do in the episode's final edit. For instance, it was established that the survivors' distress call had been a directional beam. Harvey P. Lynn, however, proposed that it would be more likely for the survivors' signal to have been a broadcast beam, owing to the increased probability that such a beam would be intercepted. Solar batteries were mentioned by at least one of the survivors too, but Lynn opposed this by suggesting that the illusory Human instead say, " After we could no longer use the ship's power, we switched to automatic batteries and started praying. " ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 93) This dialogue was evidently later cut or omitted entirely.
• Harvey P. Lynn also made some notes on the specifics of several elements that were intended to continue to be featured in the forthcoming series (such as lasers , for which he submitted four alternative names, though Gene Roddenberry maintained that he wanted the name to stay as it was, due to the high odds that it would be recognizable to viewers). ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 94, 97)
• Executives at Desilu were also included in the revision process. Herb Solow explained, " Finally, all the top executives received copies of our pilot [script] to read, review with others, and comment on. I personally walked the Star Trek pilot script into [Desilu president and actress] Lucy [Ball] 's dressing room and handed it to her. 'Lucy, this is the Star Trek pilot script. There'll be lots of changes, so if you have any comments, let me have them, because there'll be ample time to implement them.' Lucy never mentioned the script […] I know Oscar [Katz] read his copy of the pilot script, but he never offered any comments [either]. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 22)
• The second revised final draft script of the "The Cage" indicates, as does the episode, that Spock, José Tyler, and others had been wounded in the fighting on Rigel VII – events which took place just prior to the action in "The Cage". The script includes stage directions for Spock to be limping and for Tyler to have a bandaged hand.
• As late as 20 November 1964 (in the second revised final script), the captain's name was James Winter.
• Even though Gene Roddenberry was open to some of Harvey P. Lynn's suggestions, his possessiveness over plot ideas affected his interactions with NBC. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 21) The script's final draft was ready to send to the network by the end of September 1964 and the proposed shooting script was submitted to NBC in the last week of September. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 90, 99) Herb Solow offered, " Gene and I met with NBC to get their script comments. He took offense at most of them, at times unnecessarily so. Some ideas were really good. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 21) However, Roddenberry was pleased with the network's general reaction to what he had written, the major stumbling block between them, at this point, being a specific dream sequence that Roddenberry had scripted. NBC warned against overly focusing on the sequence, wary that the message concerning what is reality might be lost on the audience. Numerous other, minor alterations were requested, but NBC more-or-less gave their approval for the episode to be filmed. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 99)
• By the time this episode's script was completed, Gene Roddenberry's initial concept for the installment had been greatly changed by suggestions from Desilu and NBC. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 22) The teleplay also reflected the input of the numerous scientific advisers who Roddenberry had consulted. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 90) Having finished writing the script, Roddenberry asked Robert Butler to read it. Butler later remembered his reactions to the teleplay; " I remember thinking it was a terrific yarn, but that it was somewhat obscured because it was such a showcase script. 'The Cage' showcased such solid, good and fascinating science-fiction disciplines, examples and events, that it was, I thought, a little obscure. The story was somewhat remote. " ( Starlog , issue 117, p. 55)
• By the time filming began, the name of the Enterprise 's commanding officer had finally been changed to Christopher Pike. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 115)
• Prior to the making of this episode, Gene Roddenberry already knew that he wanted to cast both Majel Barrett – who he had in mind when originally developing the character Number One – and Leonard Nimoy as Number One and Spock, respectively. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 23; Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 2 , p. 82) All three had previously worked on The Lieutenant , a series that had been produced by Roddenberry and had featured appearances from Barrett and Nimoy. ( Star Trek Memories , pp. 43)
• Casting director Joseph D'Agosta had also worked on The Lieutenant . At a point after Star Trek had been greenlighted but did not yet have a casting director, Gene Roddenberry called D'Agosta and eagerly invited him to fill that production capacity. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 213)
• The casting process began at a time when the script revisions were under way and the captain's name was still Robert April. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 41; Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 11 , p. 26) However, because Joseph D'Agosta was meanwhile at 20th Century Fox, his work on the episode was indirect. " I cast it on the phone, " he explained, " by just suggesting films to look at and what actors to see, and I relayed all this through a young man named Morris Chapnick , who was Gene's assistant. " ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 213) Chapnick, yet another production staffer who had worked on The Lieutenant , had first become aware of Star Trek when Roddenberry had told him about this pilot. ( The Making of Star Trek , pp. 100-101)
• Majel Barrett was cast as Number One before both Leonard Nimoy and Pike actor Jeffrey Hunter were cast in their roles. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 23) Alternative actors that were considered include Lloyd Bridges for the Captain Pike role, Martin Landau for the Spock character, and Yvonne Craig for the guest star role of Vina. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 11 , p. 26; [3] ) DeForest Kelley was considered for the roles of both Dr. Boyce and Spock. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 98; Star Trek Memories , p. 44) Even though Leonard Nimoy was always Gene Roddenberry's first choice for the Spock role, he often said that he would have instead approached Martin Landau to play the role, if Nimoy had been unavailable. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 11 , p. 26)
• Robert Butler was involved in many of the casting decisions for the episode, including the selection of Peter Duryea as José Tyler. Butler later recalled, " I was very much in on the casting of the supporting people […] I remember trying to get a freshness and colloquiality in those characters and not have them all be rigid and pasteboard leading men. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 6 , p. 53)
• Robert Butler was happy with the casting of Peter Duryea, Majel Barrett, and Susan Oliver as Vina but had some difficulty with Jeffrey Hunter playing Pike. " I certainly knew of him and found him to be a real co-operative good guy, " stated Butler. " He was a little heroic and a little stiff, and I tried to modify that a little bit. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 6 , pp. 53-54)
• In his introduction for the 1986 VHS release of "The Cage" (which can now be seen on the DVD version in the third season set), Gene Roddenberry noted that he refused to cast his crew what the network dubbed "sensibly," which according to Roddenberry meant "all white." This was indirectly contested by Herb Solow in the book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , in which he states that Mort Werner deliberately encouraged NBC to show racial diversity and integration in its programs.
• In general, the pilot gave its cast a good impression of how good the potentially forthcoming series could be. Laurel Goodwin , who was cast as Yeoman J.M. Colt , remembered, " The whole gang of us knew this show was going to go along wonderfully well. We were all so involved with our characters. There was no doubt in my mind that this would be a successful show if they could just get good stories. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 59)
• Leonard Mudie , who has one line of dialogue as one of the Columbia survivors, was a veteran of dozens of films dating back to the 1930s. He was 81 when this sequence was filmed, and he died the next year. He was the second-oldest actor ever to appear on the original Star Trek and the first to pass away.
• Although male voices were dubbed in for the Talosians, all the Talosian actors were actually women. (This is, unfortunately, not correct. Felix Silla (January 11, 1937 - April 16, 2021) played one of The Keepers; he was not just a background image to show how small they were.) Robert Butler and Gene Roddenberry struck upon using this casting method at about the same time as one another, Butler reckoning that it would lend the Talosian characterizations an alien-like androgynous quality. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 97) Roddenberry believed that the lighter builds of females might suggest that the Talosians had allowed their bodies to atrophy while instead choosing to concentrate on advanced brain development. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ) Upon searching for suitable performers to play the parts, Roddenberry scoured Hollywood for short actresses with faces that he deemed to be interesting. ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 15) Meg Wyllie was cast as the Talosian Keeper on Butler's recommendation, they having previously worked together. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 98)
• Clegg Hoyt played the transporter chief, Pitcairn, but his voice was dubbed in by Bob Johnson. Johnson was the voice on the tape (and disc) in the TV series Mission: Impossible .
• Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett are the only actors to appear in both this episode and the final episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , " Turnabout Intruder ", where Barrett played her most regular role, Nurse Chapel .
• Malachi Throne ( Voice of The Keeper ) featured not only in this episode, Leonard Nimoy's first Star Trek appearance, but also appeared during Nimoy's final TV Star Trek appearance, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode " Unification II ".
• This is the first of six Star Trek instances in which Leonard Nimoy appeared without William Shatner, the other five being TAS : " The Slaver Weapon ", TNG : " Unification I " and " Unification II ", and the films Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness .
• Mike Dugan , who played the illusory Kalar warrior, was actually a stunt performer. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• After the crew beams down to the planet surface of Talos IV , Spock is seen limping as he walks toward the singing plants. It has been mistakenly stated that Nimoy had suffered an injury prior to filming. In fact, Nimoy's limp here was feigned, in accordance with the script. ( The Making of Star Trek [ page number? • edit ] ) José Tyler similarly appears with a bandage around his hand. Both injuries were meant to reference the recent mission-gone-wrong that Pike speaks to Boyce about.
• Because Jeffrey Hunter (who played Pike) was playing a very controlled, internalized character, Nimoy felt the need to bring in some energy and animation onto the set. ( Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime ; et al.)

Production [ ]

A moment from production on this episode

• The making of this episode despite the fact that best estimates for the pilot originally placed its production cost as more than US$500,000 represented a considerable gamble for Desilu, which was a small, ill-equipped studio at the time. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 41) Nervous about this situation, NBC set out to monitor the progress of the pilot, keeping a check on the project's schedule and cost. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 36)
• Oscar Katz announced NBC's go-ahead to produce the pilot at a Desilu board meeting, after which Herb Solow fielded questions from the board. He explained that, although the pilot was going to cost more than NBC gave the studio, Desilu had no way of knowing how much more until after the revised script had been budgeted. Solow later mused, " The board was nervous. Production of a ninety-minute science-fiction pilot was an expensive business move, a risky business move. " As the meeting went on, Solow gave assurances that it was possible for Desilu to produce the show and tried to maintain a positive demeanor as he answered more questions about the imminent pilot. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 23)
• At first, it was uncertain how a production crew could be assembled to handle such an ambitious and complex episode as this, though Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow immediately ruled out the crew that regularly produced Desilu's The Lucy Show , which starred Desilu President Lucille Ball. " As professional as the crew was, most of them would be of little help when confronted with the overwhelming demands and technical requirements of the planned Star Trek pilot, " explained Solow. " Basically, Gene and I were faced with the job of building a production unit from scratch at a time when the availability lists from the unions were scant or empty. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 27)
• Besides Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow, the first production staffer to be assigned to this episode was Robert Butler. He was chosen by Roddenberry and Solow, following extensive talks with both NBC Programming and Alden Schwimmer, the boss of Ashley-Famous. NBC was satisfied with the decision, Butler having established himself as a director on numerous television series in the 1960s (including The Lieutenant ). ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 27 & 13) It was Gene Roddenberry who asked Robert Butler to helm the episode. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 6 , p. 52) Both Roddenberry and Solow regarded Butler as highly dependable. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 27) However, Roddenberry's extreme protectiveness over the episode clashed with Butler's impression of the script as being somewhat obscure. Butler later reflected, " I discussed whether or not people would get it. I could tell at that point that Gene was so consumed with it that he couldn't have heard any objections. " ( Starlog issue 117, p. 55) The director also said, " I remember trying to suggest to Gene that we ought to do some straightening out, or at least we should discuss it, and I remember thinking that Gene was too far into it, so I just gave up. " ( Trek: Deep Space Nine , p. 43) Butler wanted Roddenberry to change the title of the show from " Star Trek " to " Star Track ", feeling that the former was too pretentious, tedious, inert and boring. ( Starlog issue 117, p. 55; [4] ) " In that discussion, and others regarding the story's obscurity, Gene was not in the mood to receive any such input, " remembered the director. ( Starlog issue 117, p. 55)

A set design for the Talosian cage, as sketched by Matt Jefferies

• After Robert Butler was drafted, some key members of the art department were also sought out. These were Pato Guzman , the art director from The Lucy Show , and Matt Jefferies , who was hired as the episode's assistant art director. Jefferies was initially assigned to design the Enterprise 's exterior, with Guzman deciding upon the look of the sets. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 27-28; The Making of Star Trek , pp. 78-79) One of the environments that Guzman designed was Captain Pike's quarters. ( The Art of Star Trek , p. 11) When he left amid the episode's pre-production phase (specifically, in October 1964), Guzman was replaced by Franz Bachelin , a veteran art director. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 101; Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 35) One set that was designed by both Guzman and Bachelin was the planet surface of Talos IV. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) However, Matt Jefferies also worked on designing the sets, such as the cage-like environment that serves as the episode's namesake. ( The Art of Star Trek , p. 5) In fact, much to his frustration, designing the Enterprise 's exterior initially delayed Jefferies from planning the episode's sets. ( Star Trek Memories , p. 32) A great deal of effort went into scheming the sets, on paper, while the installment's shooting script was in development, spanning late summer and early autumn of 1964. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 78)

Theiss adjusting Oliver's wardrobe on the set of "The Cage"

• Costume Designer William Ware Theiss was fortunately available and was hired on the pilot with the task of designing, on a very limited budget, costumes that had to be different from any seen before on television. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 28)
• In early October 1964, Robert H. Justman was interviewed for the post of associate producer on the pilot but turned it down, fearing that his post-production knowledge was not as extensive as it had to be for the episode, a response that lead to Byron Haskin instead being recruited as the pilot's associate producer. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 28-30; "The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) Justman meanwhile went back to working on The Outer Limits , on which he had worked with Byron Haskin.
• The Star Trek pilot still required an assistant director. " The first Star Trek pilot needed a good one, " clarified Herb Solow. " I didn't want to use any first assistant [director] who'd worked with Bob Butler in the past, feeling that too much familiarity might be a disadvantage on this mind-boggling science-fiction pilot. " After Solow consulted producer and director friends (including his college classmate James Goldstone ) around Hollywood (irritatedly referring to the pilot as "a bitch"), he found that Robert Justman was the highest recommended candidate. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 31) Solow then convinced Leslie Stevens , Justman's boss on The Outer Limits and other projects, into permitting a temporary transfer of Justman to the Star Trek pilot, saying, " With prep time, the shooting, and some wrap-up, figure I'd be borrowing him for no more than a month at the most. " Stevens wanted Justman to serve as assistant director on his upcoming Esperanto language horror movie, Incubus , which coincidentally starred William Shatner . However, pre-production of Incubus went overdue, so Stevens loaned Justman to Desilu. Justman likewise believed his assignment on Star Trek was not going to be longer than six weeks and, when he returned to Desilu, he was surprised to find that no final shooting script was yet available for him, the teleplay undergoing one of Gene Roddenberry's many rewrites of the script. Justman began his work after he read through the latest rewrite, initiating the schedule and budget "breakdown" process. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 32) His role as this episode's assistant director made Justman responsible for a virtually endless series of critical production details. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary )

Filming the parkland scenes

• When Director of Photography William E. Snyder became available, he brought his own camera crew and "lighting" gaffer with him. Although some sources cite Jerry Finnerman as having been the camera operator on this episode, the actual cameraman was Richard A. Kelley , according to both Robert Justman and the original crew sheet for the episode. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 36)
• Locating a makeup supervisor who was equipped to tackle the pilot involved a challenging search. " It was apparent that we needed the best makeup man we could find, " explained Robert Justman. " There were numerous 'appliances' [latex or rubber prosthetics] that would have to be designed, built, and affixed, on a daily basis, to the actors who would portray non-human aliens […] Most makeup artists didn't have the prosthetic expertise we needed. " Also, Desilu had no makeup department of its own. Justman spoke about the project with Fred Phillips , a busy makeup man who had worked with him on The Outer Limits and several previous series. " I managed to spring him long enough to do our pilot, " concluded Justman. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 36)
• Purchasing a laser cannon for this episode was of some difficulty. Herb Solow once commented that it was " tough to go down to the local hardware store or gun shop and buy one. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 20) The laser cannon prop was ultimately a modified camera dolly. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• The weirdness of Gene Roddenberry's requirements startled some of the advisors he attempted to consult. " Well, it was all so new and strange to them, " Roddenberry observed. " Like you call some unsuspecting production man on the phone, and he says, 'Hello,' and you say, 'What does it cost to paint a girl green?' You get a long silence! " ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 77)

Majel Barrett screen-testing Orion make-up for this episode

• When doing makeup tests for Vina as an Orion slave girl, Majel Barrett was used as a willing test subject. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 40) " I was cheap, I was there, and our guest star was not! " Barrett laughed in retrospect. " She would have had to be brought in and they would have had to test it [on her], and there just wasn't the money. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , p. 43) This took place early in the episode's preproduction phase and it was Fred Phillips who applied the makeup to Barrett. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ) However, the footage of these tests kept coming back without the green skin being visible. Puzzled by this, the makeup crew kept painting the actress again and again with other shades of green, hoping it would be visible on film. This went on for a period of three consecutive days. Afterward, the makeup artists discovered that the film processing lab was "de-coloring" her because they didn't know she was supposed to be green. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 40; The Making of Star Trek , pp. 77-78)
• The first filmed scene from "The Cage" (and of Star Trek ) – the sequence with Dr. Boyce and Captain Pike sharing a martini – was filmed on Friday, 27 November 1964 . ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary )
• Only a short stretch of corridor was built for this episode. This set can be seen, in its entirety, during the scene in which Pike heads through a passageway into his "cabin" (or quarters), passing a young couple. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary )

Pike and the humanoid bird in a cut scene

• The animation of two of the specimens in the Talosian menagerie – the anthropoid ape and the humanoid bird – was provided for by Janos Prohaska . ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ) The ape creature originally appeared in The Outer Limits episode "Fun and Games", without its facial hair. Prohaska was brought in by Robert Justman, who had worked with him previously on the series. The owl-like bird creature, entirely designed and built by master craftsman Wah Chang , also appeared in a later episode of that series, "The Duplicate Man". ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 3, Issue 9 , pp. 71-72) Still, "Roddenberry's weirdness" of it all continued to befuddle Director Butler, as he recalled. " I remember there was some chicken – some killer fowl – being locked in some cell somewhere, and I'm talking to this stuntman – it's crazy, me talking to this Janos Prohaska, [who was] Hungarian or something…[saying], "Janos, okay that's good, baby, now try this." And there's this big chicken – this killer chicken – or some equivalent. I mean, it was nuts. " ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed, p. 60) Needless to say, the extended scenes were not utilized in the pilot as presented.
• One of the imprisoned species is seen only by its shadow; the last cage in the zoo contains a large crab-like creature with huge claws. This was a shadow puppet, rendered with several fingers silhouetted against a lit background. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• The Talosian seen down the corridor as Pike looks at all the imprisoned creatures was a dwarf ( Felix Silla ). This gave the appearance of great length to what was actually a short, forced-perspective hallway. Bob Justman came up with this idea when they realized the budget wouldn't allow them to build a large hallway. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p 47)
• The Talosian headpieces – complete with their bulging veins and small, round ears – were also created for this episode by craftsman Wah Chang, who (like Robert Justman, Byron Haskin and Fred Phillips) had previously worked on The Outer Limits . ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) The head prosthetics were blended into the actresses' own facial features by Phillips and his makeup staff. ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 15)
• The Talosians' elevator landing was built on a platform, allowing room for the lift to descend without having to excavate below the soundstage's floor. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary )
• A matte painting created by noted matte artist Albert Whitlock was used to portray the Rigel VII fortress, though these exterior shots also involved the filming of live-action footage on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer back lot. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )

Makeup artist Fred Phillips turning Susan Oliver into an Orion slave girl

• While Susan Oliver was wearing her green Orion slave girl makeup, she became very tired. A doctor was called to the studio to give her a vitamin B shot. He went to her dressing room where, not having been informed of her appearance, he was greatly surprised to see that her complexion was green. The doctor was so flustered, in fact, that it took him nearly five minutes to simply identify an area to administer the shot. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 78)
• The spearhead Pike uses to kill the Kalar on Rigel VII was a recycled prop from RKO Pictures . It measured approximately thirty inches in length and was seven and a half inches wide. ( Star Trek: The Original Series 365 , p. 011)
• Robert Butler said in an interview with Star Trek Monthly that he wanted some dirt and rust on the sets, but Roddenberry vetoed this idea, claiming that everything must be clean and shiny. In another interview, Butler claimed that this was his basic reason for disliking Star Trek overall, calling it "too square-jawed, heroic" and "too worthy and clean" for his taste. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 6 [ page number? • edit ] )
• The landing party jackets in this episode were fastened by long strips of black Velcro running down the entire length of the inside flap, visible in some of the scenes.
• The belts were grey-colored elastic-type bands that had metal hook/clip fasteners at the front which held the communicator and hand weapon. They were worn over the shirt but under the jacket, at the waist.
• When indicating the region of the Talos group on his viewscreen, Spock calls up a photograph of the Pleiades Cluster .
• The scene inside the Rigel fortress was one of the last scenes to be shot for this episode. It was filmed on 14 December 1964 . Gene Roddenberry was present during the filming and model maker Richard C. Datin, Jr. also payed a visit to the set, presenting the three-foot USS Enterprise study model to Roddenberry, it eventually turning out to be a full-fledged filming model onto its own. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary , [5] )
• This was the single most expensive episode ever created for the original Star Trek series. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) According to several sources (including the The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 17), NBC spent US$630,000 on this episode. According to Majel Barrett, however, there was only US$168,000 available for the pilot. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , p. 43) The episode's preproduction costs were reduced thanks to the use of rear-screen projection for images on the Enterprise 's main viewscreen. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) Based upon extensive research author Marc Cushman had performed on the internal studio documentation used at the time, he has reported the budget and total cost at $452,000 (hugely debunking Barrett's earlier statement) and $616,000, respectively. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed., p. 64)

Visual effects [ ]

Datin (l) taking delivery of the eleven-foot studio model

• Howard Anderson Company , the company responsible for all visual effects or "opticals" as they were called at the time, subcontracted the build of the Enterprise studio model to Richard Datin. Datin himself built the above-mentioned small three-foot that was originally intended to serve as a study model, but which ended up being used for filming nevertheless. The actual large eleven-foot filming model he himself had to sub-contract to Production Models Shop due to time pressure and lack of space in his workshop. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 132 , pp. 51-53 For a far more detailed treatise on the two models, see: Constitution -class model
• The opening shot of this episode was filmed with the use of frame-by-frame stop-motion animation, in order to allow for the transition between the footage of the Enterprise model and the shot that was taken on the set for the starship's bridge. Due to the movement of the space vessel, the shot was necessarily very intricate and extraordinarily difficult to produce. It was created by the Howard Anderson Company. ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary ) The shot used the eleven-foot model of the Enterprise , while the other ship shots of this episode involved the three-foot miniature of the spacecraft. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ) The shot was the very last to be produced and the only one where the large model was utilized, as it was only delivered to Anderson's on 29 December 1964 , after all other footage had approximately been completed a week earlier. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 132 , p. 54) The text commentary for "The Menagerie, Part I" refers to the shot's creation as " an outstanding achievement in television visual effects. "
• The opening establishing shot of the Enterprise was reused in several early episodes: " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", " The Corbomite Maneuver ", " Mudd's Women ", " The Man Trap ", and " Charlie X ". The starship, traveling at warp speed, is depicted in a unique effect that was never re-created for the series; the camera "sidles up" to the Enterprise model and "swoops over" the top of the primary hull. Combined with this shot are two space effects: one of a stationary star field and the other of a star field moving rapidly, from right to left. The completed effect is meant to suggest that "local" stars are flying past the Enterprise while the great "backdrop" of the galaxy remains motionless. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed., pp 90-91)
• The effect of the laser cannon firing was an animation produced by the Howard Anderson Company. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• Majel Barrett felt that her perceived lack of "special effects" in this pilot episode was an indication that the finances provided for the pilot "didn't go very far." ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , p. 43)
• Upon first hearing the theme tune for this episode (which went on to serve as the theme music for the original Star Trek series), Robert Butler was impressed. He later reminisced, " The music was good; I remember that theme song was quite wonderful […] I remember liking it when I heard it. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 6 , p. 53) Alexander Courage provided not only this thematic composition as well as the episode's score but also created the sounds of the singing plants . ("The Menagerie, Part I" text commentary , TOS Season 1 DVD ; et al.)
• The musical score of this episode has been released on CD, tied with the score of the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The first official release came in 1988. It was later expanded, restored and remastered for disc 1 of the Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection .

Reception and aftermath [ ]

• One of the first occasions on which word of this episode reached the press was following NBC's approval of the pilot script; while Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow were celebrating the confirmation during lunch with their daily Cobb salad at the Hollywood Brown Derby on Vine Street, Dave Kaufman – a television reporter and columnist for Daily Variety – passed by their table on his way back to his office and Solow notified him of the news. However, the cheerful Kaufman replied, " I knew it before you did. " After leaning over to engage Roddenberry in a handshake, Kaufman repeatedly asked who would be producing the pilot, doubting that Desilu was up to the task. Roddenberry and Solow acknowledged Kaufman's remarks and he wished them good luck before exiting. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 26-27)
• The first view of the completed pilot was at a special screening for the episode's cast and crew. " I remember the screening and the special effects and the makeup were just perfect, " remarked J.M. Colt actress Laurel Goodwin, " Everyone was applauding when we saw the transporter effect put together. When you shoot it, of course, they just stop the camera and you walk off. But on film, it was so great. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 119 , p. 59)
• NBC rejected the episode, following its production, and declared it was "too cerebral." Robert Butler found he could relate to this statement. " Apparently, the network, at its level, was feeling exactly as I did, " he remarked. ( Starlog issue 117, p. 55) According to Gene Roddenberry, he had a similar response to the news. " I sort of understood [NBC's verdict], " he said. " I wrote and produced what I thought was a highly imaginative idea, and I realized I had gone too far. I should actually have ended it with a fistfight between the hero and the villain if I wanted it on television […] because that's the way shows were being made at the time. The great mass audience would say, 'Well, if you don't have a fistfight when it's ended, how do we know that's the finish?,' and things like that. " ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 10) Besides finding the episode too intellectual, NBC also cited criticisms such as the presence of a female first officer on the bridge and the character of Spock being too alien for audiences of the time. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 6 , pp. 14, 20, 52; et al.)
• However, the "myth" of the network wanting to eliminate the female first officer was debunked by Herb Solow and Robert H. Justman in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story . In the book, they state that NBC supported the idea of a strong woman in a leading role, they only rejected Majel Barrett, feeling the actress is not talented enough to pull off such a role, and "carry" a show as co-star. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 60)
• NBC was also not satisfied with the majority of the actors. They wrote, " We also think you can do better with the ship's doctor, the yeoman and other members of the crew ". Solow decided to hire a full-time casting director for the next pilot, and eventually the series. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 60-61)
• Another aspect of the pilot which NBC was very worried with, was its "overall eroticism", most notably the "scantily clad green dancing girls with the humps and grinds". This was a major factor for not choosing " Mudd's Women ", which dealt with "an intergalactic pimp selling beautiful women hookers throughout the galaxy", to be the second pilot. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 59-61, 65-66)
• Oscar Katz was pleased with this pilot episode. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 10) However, Lucille Ball was seemingly uninterested in it. Herb Solow offered, " The day the completed pilot was screened for NBC on the West Coast, I walked into Lucy's dressing room to tell her NBC's reaction. The pilot script was still there, apparently untouched. " ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 22)
• DeForest Kelley viewed this episode around the same time it was being shown to studio executives. He told Gene Roddenberry, " Well, I don't know what the hell it's all about, but it's either gonna be the biggest hit or the biggest miss God ever made. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 18 , p. 18)
• Despite the numerous nitpicks they had with this episode, NBC made the extraordinary (and, at the time, rare) move to order a second pilot, " Where No Man Has Gone Before ". For that subsequent pilot, the briefing room , transporter room and bridge were kept much the same as they are in this historic first attempt (although the bridge doors and other bridge features were painted red, and several smaller modifications were made). However, the only actor to be reused from this episode was Leonard Nimoy. In reference to Number One and Spock, Gene Roddenberry once joked about how he kept the alien character and later married the woman, noting, " I couldn't have legally done it the other way around. " ( Inside Star Trek ) Majel Barrett commented, " To be fired from the job and then see it come back 30 years later made me feel kind of good, but at the time I wasn't happy. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , p. 43)
• After Jeffrey Hunter's wife convinced the actor that science fiction was "beneath him," Gene Roddenberry – planning to cast William Shatner for the second pilot – arranged for himself and Shatner to watch this episode in Los Angeles. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , pp. 10 & 16) " When I walked out [of the viewing] I remember thinking it was a very imaginative and vital idea, " Shatner recalled. " I thought everybody took themselves a little too seriously. " Shatner not only thought that the episode lacked humor but was also of the opinion that its cast had overacted their parts, to the point of being unrealistic. " That was my impression, " he admitted, " and we spoke about that. " ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 16)
• Fred Freiberger was highly impressed with the episode and, in 1988 , he expressed surprise that the outing had been rejected by NBC. " I fell in love with [it] […] To me, 'The Cage' was pure science fiction, " he enthused. " That's what the show should have been […] 'The Cage' was what the series was all about. At that time people didn't accept it. " ( The Star Trek Interview Book , pp. 162-163)
• In her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura (pp. 139 & 140), Nichelle Nichols comments on this installment, stating, " Viewing it today […] the show stands as the purest earliest representation of what Gene hoped Star Trek would achieve. " She also characterizes the episode as " not only the basic pattern for countless future Star Trek episodes but a blueprint for the future of civilization " and describes the episode's conclusion as "an intelligent, peaceful resolution."
• In 1996 , Grace Lee Whitney cited this as one of her favorite TOS episodes (along with " Charlie X ", " The Devil in the Dark " and " The City on the Edge of Forever "). ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 19 , p. 32)
• The following year, Majel Barrett similarly named this as one of her two favorite episodes of TOS (the other being "The City on the Edge of Forever") and said that she thought both of them "are more Star Trek than anything else that has been conceived." Of this episode specifically, she enthused, " I thought it was beautiful. People still ask me, 'What is your favorite episode? no question, it would have to be 'The Cage' […] [It] was pure Star Trek . " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 27 , pp. 43 & 44)
• A black-and-white 16mm print of this episode was owned by Gene Roddenberry and was shown by him at speaking engagements and conventions. One of these events was "Tricon" – 1966's World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio – whose attendees included Allan Asherman , a future writer of Star Trek reference works. Due to popular demand, the black-and-white version of this episode was shown after "Where No Man Has Gone Before". ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., pp. 1 & 3) The event was the first convention that Roddenberry took the Star Trek pilots to. ( The Star Trek Interview Book , p. 11) Asherman later wrote how he had been impressed by the "serious and imaginative detail" in this episode, a facet he believed it shared with the later pilot. He went on to comment, " In addition there were the laser cannon opticals, the superb Talosian makeups, and another interesting musical score. Its most outstanding characteristics were the intelligence of its story, its polished production values, and the performances of its actors. " ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., pp. 1, 3)
• The master color 35mm negative of "The Cage" was cut into the master negative of "The Menagerie" in 1966, and the trims not used were subsequently lost. No color or 35mm print of "The Cage" was known to exist, only the black-and-white print owned by Gene Roddenberry, who continued to exhibit the footage at various Star Trek conventions throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
• "The Cage" was initially released on home video in late 1986 , in celebration of Star Trek 's 20th anniversary. The release was a combination of the color footage used in "The Menagerie" and the additional scenes in Roddenberry's black-and-white print. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ; et al .)
• In 1987, film archivist Bob Furmanek discovered the missing trims from the color 35mm negative of "The Cage" at a Hollywood film laboratory, and saw that they were returned to Paramount. However, the soundtrack trims were not found. When restoring "The Cage", Paramount used the soundtrack from "The Menagerie" for most scenes, and the soundtrack of Roddenberry's 16mm print (which was of lower audio quality) for the restored trims. [6]
• A full-color version of this installment was aired on 4 October 1988 , with a two-hour special called The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation To The Next bookending it. The special was hosted by Patrick Stewart and traced the history of Star Trek from "The Cage" throughout the first season of TNG and the beginnings of production for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . The opportunity to broadcast "The Cage" in its original form came when production of Star Trek: The Next Generation was interrupted due to a Writers' Guild strike. The broadcast filled in for two of the four hours missing from TNG's truncated second season .
• The Keeper's voice ( Malachi Throne ) used in "The Cage" was modified for "The Menagerie", in which Throne guest-starred as Commodore Mendez. ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary ) When the color and black-and-white versions were spliced together in 1986, The Keeper's original voice was heard in the black-and-white footage and the altered voice in the color footage taken from "The Menagerie". This voice discrepancy persists in the "restored" all-color version of "The Cage" in the TOS Season 3 DVD set, even though it would have been entirely possible to substitute the original audio from the 16mm print for the Keeper's lines in footage taken from "The Menagerie". Conversely, the remastered version included on the 3rd season Blu-ray Disc set has the Keeper's dialogue from the black and white footage digitally pitched up to more closely match the altered voice track heard in the color footage.
• This episode's depiction of the Rigel VII fortress is one of the most-recognized and celebrated matte paintings in Star Trek history. The same painting was reused (unaltered) in the third season, as Flint 's home in " Requiem for Methuselah ". In addition, the large moon in the background of the painting was the inspiration for a song called " Moon over Rigel VII ", which Captain Kirk recommends as a campfire song in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . ( citation needed • edit )
• Footage of the asteroids from the beginning of this episode was reused later, in " Mudd's Women " and " The Doomsday Machine ".
• Throughout most of the first and second seasons, the "singing plant" sound heard on Talos IV became the standard background noise on various planets. Beginning with " Spectre of the Gun ", a different, warbly sound was used for a number of the remaining shows. The sound was used as the transporter beam sound effect in the series proper.
• In his introduction for the 1986 VHS release of "The Cage" (which can now be seen on the DVD version in the third season set), Gene Roddenberry noted that he wanted no-one aboard the Enterprise to smoke. This was despite the fact that tobacco advertising was a major revenue source for the television networks in 1964. Even one of Star Trek 's sponsors, during its first season, was Viceroy cigarettes. (All tobacco advertising was banned from television and radio on 1 January 1971 ). Seventeen years later, Patrick Stewart would appear on-screen smoking a cigarette in " The Big Goodbye ", although Picard was shown choking on it.
• Herman Zimmerman commented: " From my point of view, Gene Roddenberry created, without being maudlin, an eternal idealization of the future. The characters that he created came out of his imagination pretty much whole cloth. You could compare "The Cage" to Sign of Four , which was written by Arthur Conan Doyle . Sherlock Holmes and Watson and Moriarty and Lestrade and the Baker Street Irregulars have a charm and an identity that are immediately discernible from that very first novel ". ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , pp 5-6)
• Zimmerman found similarities between "The Cage" and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's pilot episode, " Emissary ". Zimmerman commented, " 'The Cage' was a brilliant piece of science fiction work – especially for when it was done. 'The Emissary' is equally as good. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , pp. 40-41)
• The same was true (if only for one scene) for Michael Piller , who commented, " I haven't seen 'The Cage' in years, but what brings to mind the memory of it is the imagination that takes you out of that locked cage – Gene's imagination. It takes you into green fields and the picnic and Susan Oliver and those wonderful moments. I would be lying if I did not say that image was with me when I wrote " Emissary ". I don't remember much about it. I don't remember the story, but I remember that friendly green pasture. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 19)
• In a 1993 interview, Rick Berman revealed, " I've never seen 'The Cage'. I've seen little pieces of it. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 22)
• When this episode was re-released on VHS in 1996, Star Trek Monthly  issue 16 , p. 57 rated the episode 3 out of 5 stars (defined as "Warp Speed") and regarded it as a "now classic story."
• Similarly, Cinefantastique scored the episode 3 out of 4 stars in 1996. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 26)
• In their 1998 book Trek Navigator: The Ultimate Guide to the Entire Trek Saga (p. 29), co-writers Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross both individually rate this episode 4 out of 5 stars (defined as "Classic!").

Continuity [ ]

• This episode is difficult to reconcile with canon in many instances. For example, Spock smiles and uses several Human expressions (for example, "buzzing about down there"), which he seldom does in subsequent episodes and films. In the series, he instead has the emotional control and genius level intellect present in the character of Number One here. This change was actually due to the fact that, in contrast to Jeffrey Hunter's portrayal of Captain Pike, Leonard Nimoy found William Shatner as Captain Kirk had his own energy, animation, and exuberance, so Nimoy felt like he was able to be more reserved and internalized in the series than in this pilot. ( Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime , et al.) Nonetheless, the scene of Spock smiling was included in " The Menagerie ", with Kirk later making a brief reference to Spock's emotions, though the moment itself is not commented upon directly.

Spock's smile when he encounters the singing flower on Talos IV inspired Michael Chabon to write the Star Trek: Short Treks episode " Q&A "

• More than half a century later, Michael Chabon wrote the Star Trek: Short Treks episode " Q&A " to provide an in-universe explanation for the differences between Spock's behavior and manner in this episode and in the rest of the original series. ( "Michael Chabon Explains His New Short Trek 's Connections to The Next Generation and Picard" at SyFy Wire ) Chabon wrote that "apart from the ears and the gull-wing eyebrows, the Spock who served under Captain Pike was nothing like the Spock who later launched a thousand zines."
• Pike tells the Talosians that he's from a stellar group "at the other end of this galaxy," which, in modern Star Trek parlance, implies that Talos IV is deep in the Beta , Gamma or Delta Quadrants – anywhere but the Alpha Quadrant which it is established as being in in " If Memory Serves ". This does not seem likely, especially because the SS Columbia was lost for only eighteen years and, having traveled at less than light speed, must be relatively close to Earth. In fact, Harvey P. Lynn , who served as Gene Roddenberry's unofficial technical adviser on the pilot, told him that traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other would take an impossibly long time. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 92)

The Enterprise

• Tyler implies that faster-than-light (FTL) travel is relatively new. He tells one of the scientists that they can get back to Earth quickly. " The time barrier's been broken! Our new ships can… " Earlier, with an expression used only once in the series, Pike orders FTL speed to Talos IV by saying, " Our time warp, factor 7. " Basically, this establishes that warp speed is not only FTL, but also "negates" the time dilation effect about which Einstein theorized in his Special Theory of Relativity. Of course, later Star Trek canon establishes that Zefram Cochrane "discovered" the space warp in the mid-21st century. "The Cage" takes place two centuries later, in 2254.
• Spock's cry of " Switch to rockets , we're blasting out! " is very anachronistic – there are no direct references to rocket engines in the episodes to come.
• Dwight Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy , and Lyndon Johnson make the only contemporary presidential appearances in an original series episode here, as images in the Talosian download of the ship's computer .
• As opposed to the electronic clipboards used in the regular series, Pike uses a very 20th century metal clipboard. A television also appears in his quarters.
• A "captain's hat" can be glimpsed, in passing, on top of that television, although Pike never wears it, and after this pilot, the hat was never seen again, though similar caps later appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness and in Carol Freeman 's ready room in Star Trek: Lower Decks .
• Landing party jackets also vanished after "The Cage", but returned in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , also appearing in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . Star Trek: Enterprise was the only other television Star Trek that depicted hats and a variety of environment-specific outerwear being regularly issued to crew members.
• Judging by the shape of the wall and the window, Pike's quarters seem to be directly below the bridge; there are no other curved windows on the saucer section of the model.
• The bed in Pike's quarters was far too short for Jeffrey Hunter. His feet are extending well beyond the end of the mattress, as he briefly reclines on it.
• The sign next to the door of the captain's quarters reads simply "Captain." When the series went into production, Captain Kirk's name was put on the nameplate outside his quarters.
• The pants that the crew wear have a very conspicuous pleat down the front and seem to be a shade of dark blue-grey.
• At the end of "The Menagerie, Part II", Kirk sees Pike and Vina – with their illusions of youth and beauty – running off, hand in hand. This is an example of the reused footage from this episode. Here, it is an illusion of Pike who the Talosians have provided for Vina to keep her company. In "The Menagerie, Part II", it is the "real" Pike (or rather the non-physical consciousness of the now-disabled Pike) rejoining Vina to start a new life.
• In one brief part of the first transportation sequence, the transporter chief's assistant is a man wearing glasses , but the scene changes and he appears without them. This is one of only three occasions where Starfleet officers are shown wearing corrective eyeglasses.
• Although Pike cites the crew complement as 203 other lives besides his own, the Enterprise 's total crew complement was increased to 428 in " Charlie X ", and 430 in later episodes. DIS : " Brother ", however, confirms that, at the time of Pike's mission, the ship had 203 crewmembers.
• This episode's depiction of a parkland near Mojave is the only time that 23rd century Earth is ever seen in the entirety of the original Star Trek series. Given that this is merely an illusion created by the Talosians, the first appearance of the real Earth of the 23rd century was in TAS : " One of Our Planets Is Missing ", in which scenery from Earth is shown to a cloud creature from the ship's library computer . However, it is not shown in live-action until Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 .
• "The Menagerie, Part II" establishes that, following the events of this episode, the Federation imposed General Order 7 on the Talos system, preventing anyone from ever approaching the planet again, under penalty of death .

Apocrypha [ ]

• Star Trek: Early Voyages #4: " Nor Iron Bars a Cage " (from Colt's point of view)
• #9: " Return to the Forbidden Planet "
• #10: " Return to the Forbidden Planet, Part 2... A Prelude to War "
• Star Trek Annual (DC volume 2) Annual #2: " The Final Voyage "
• Pocket TOS : Legacy
• Pocket TOS : Burning Dreams
• Roddenberry actually almost uses the term "forbidden planet" ( the one forbidden world in all the galaxy ) in his teleplay for "The Menagerie", thereby coming close to admitting how much of "The Cage" was actually "stolen" by him from the 1956 movie of that name, including: setting the action in the 23rd century; the visual design of the starship (the flying saucer design of the C-57D spaceship in the movie becoming the saucer section of the USS Enterprise ); the military organisation of the crew; their Navy-style uniforms; setting the action on an alien planet; the planet's name Altair IV, which became Talos IV; the mental powers of the Krell, which became (only slightly altered) the mental powers of the Keeper; and the energy weapons of the Cruiser's crew, which became the Star Trek hand phasers. The 1956 film also uses, as its main cast, the spaceship's captain, first officer, and medical officer: the command structure which Roddenberry lifted as the basis for the main cast on Star Trek .
• Additionally, a few novels have theorized as to the cause for the vast differences between Spock's highly emotional behavior in this episode and his reservedness in the regular series of Star Trek . Examples of this include Spock possibly not having complete control of his emotions at that point, as he was still quite young, and that he achieved full control of his emotions by observing Captain Pike. In fact, the novel Burning Dreams establishes that indeed, whether Pike liked it or not, Spock did consider him a mentor and so Pike tried his best to live up to that assignment. Burning Dreams also establishes that Spock yelled early in his career because he was under the mistaken impression that Humans couldn't hear him unless he did. The novel The Fire and the Rose establishes that Spock was simply emulating Human behaviors such as smiles, and that there was truly no emotion behind his own smile. He eventually stopped though when his crewmates came to distrust him, believing him not to be truthful about himself to them.
• Burning Dreams delves much deeper not only into Pike's life before and after Talos, but also Vina's, establishing her to have been a singer and a dancer, who was lovers with the real Theodore Haskins. In fact, before the Enterprise 's arrival, she spent much time in illusion, dreaming that Columbia had successfully returned to Earth and she led a dance troupe afterward. The novel also establishes that Vina stood up to the Talosians, demanding that they never refer to her as a 'specimen' again and she was just as important as them, perhaps moreso, because their plans for Pike depended on her. During the Rigel VII illusion, she played the "damsel in distress" role effectively, although she hated female characters that screamed like she had to do.
• A cat version of "The Cage" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats .

Production timeline [ ]

• Series proposal, " Star Trek is... ": 11 March 1964 – Mentions story idea "The Next Cage"
• Rough draft outline: 25 June 1964 [7]
• Pilot story outline: 29 June 1964 ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 47)
• Final draft outline: 8 July 1964 [8]
• Final draft outline: 22 July 1964 [9]
• Teleplay titled "The Cage": 31 August 1964 [10]
• First draft script: 8 September 1964 ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 11)
• Revised draft script: on or shortly before 24 September 1964 ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 96)
• Revised teleplay: 6 October 1964 [11]
• Color Makeup Tests at Desilu Culver Stage 15 : 17 November 1964 ( Call sheet )
• Second Revised Final Draft script, titled "The Menagerie": 20 November 1964 [12]
• Day 1 – 27 November 1964 , Friday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Int. Pike's quarters
• Day 2 – 30 November 1964 , Monday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Int. Briefing room , Corridors
• Day 3 – 1 December 1964 , Tuesday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Int. Transporter room
• Day 4 – 2 December 1964 , Wednesday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Bridge
• Day 5 – 3 December 1964 , Thursday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Bridge
• Day 6 – 4 December 1964 , Friday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Orion courtyard
• Day 7 – 7 December 1964 , Monday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Ext. Talos IV surface
• Day 8 – 8 December 1964 , Tuesday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Ext. Talos IV surface
• Day 9 – 9 December 1964 , Wednesday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Ext. Talos IV surface
• Day 10 – 10 December 1964 , Thursday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Ext. Talos IV surface ; Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Talosian monitoring area
• Day 11 – 11 December 1964 , Friday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Pike's cell , Talosian menagerie
• Day 12 – 14 December 1964 , Monday – 40 Acres "Arab Village" backlot: Ext. Rigel VII fortress
• Day 13 – 15 December 1964 , Tuesday – 40 Acres "Arab Village" backlot: Ext. Rigel VII fortress
• Day 14 – 16 December 1964 , Wednesday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Pike's cell
• Day 15 – 17 December 1964 , Thursday – Desilu Culver Stage 15 : Int. Pike's cell , Hell-Fire illusion
• Day 16 – 18 December 1964 , Friday – Desilu Culver Stage 16 : Int. Orion cavern , Ext. Mojave parkland
• Score recorded: 22 January 1965 ( citation needed • edit )
• Network rejection: February 1965 ("The Menagerie, Part II" text commentary )
• Color "trims" discovered: 1987 ( citation needed • edit )
• Premiere airdate: (complete color) 4 October 1988 ( citation needed • edit )
• First UK airdate: 19 August 1992 (BBC Genome Radio Times listings magazine )

Remastered [ ]

The Enterprise translucent bridge dome, as seen in the remastered episode.

• Originally intended for airing in syndication on 26 April 2008 , the remastered version of the episode was removed from the schedule the week before its intended airdate, but was rescheduled for 2 May 2009 , partly as a tie-in with the release of Star Trek . [14] The remastered episode is also included in the TOS-R Season 3 DVD and TOS Season 3 Blu-ray sets, along with the original 1986 color-black/white release presented by Gene Roddenberry in its original ("unaltered") format.

Home media format releases [ ]

• US Betamax release (one-episode tape, Paramount Home Video ): Volume 51 , catalogue number 60040-01, November 1986
• US LaserDisc release (two-sided disc): Volume 27, catalog number LV60040-106, October/ November 1986
• Original US VHS release: November 1986
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 1 , catalog number VHR 2207, release date unknown
• US Betamax/VHS release (one-episode tape, Paramount Home Video ): Volume 80 , catalog number 60040-99, 1989
• UK VHS release as "The Cage" All Colour Collectors Edition (CIC Video): catalog number VHR 2374, 2 July 1990
• US LaserDisc release (two-sided disc): Volume 42, catalog number LV60040-99* , 11 October 1991
• Japan LaserDisc release (two-episodes disc): As part of the Star Trek - Log 1 collection, catalog number PILF-1615(16), 10 November 1992
• US VHS re-release in color: 15 April 1994
• UK VHS re-release: As part of the Star Trek - 30th Anniversary Trial Pack collection: 2 January 1996
• UK/German LaserDisc release (two-episodes disc): As part of the Star Trek - The Pilots collection, catalog number PLTES-34071 (UK)/PLTGB-34561 (Germany), April 1996
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.1, 24 June 1996
• US DVD release (two-episodes disc): Volume 40 , 11 December 2001
• US/Europe DVD release (two versions single-disc): As part of the TOS Season 3 DVD collection, 14 December 2004 (US)/ 6 December 2004 (Europe)
• US/Europe remastered DVD release (two versions single-disc): As part of the TOS-R Season 3 DVD collection, 18 November 2008 (US)/ 27 April 2009 (Europe)
• US/Europe Blu-ray release (two versions single-disc): As part of the TOS Season 3 Blu-ray collection, 18 December 2009 (US)/ 22 March 2010 (Europe)
• US/Europe Blu-ray release (five-episodes disc): As part of the Star Trek: The Original Series - Origins Blu-ray collection, 10 September 2013 (US)/ 2 September 2013 (Europe)

Links and references [ ]

Leonard Nimoy as young Lt. Spock

Starring [ ]

• Jeffrey Hunter as Christopher Pike

Guest star [ ]

• Susan Oliver as Vina

Co-starring [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy as "Mister Spock "
• Majel Barrett as Number One
• John Hoyt as Phil Boyce
• Peter Duryea as José Tyler
• Laurel Goodwin as J.M. Colt

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Sam Bagley as Columbia survivor
• Barker as 4th Talosian
• John Burnside as bridge engineer
• Carol Daniels as Communications crew woman
• Mike Dugan as Kalar
• Joe Evans as Columbia survivor
• Carey Foster as Orion servant girl ( deleted scene )
• Sandra Gimpel as Talosian
• Clegg Hoyt as Transporter Chief
• Anthony Jochim as 3rd Survivor
• First Talosian (voice)
• Transporter Chief Pitcairn (voice)
• Jon Lormer as 1st Survivor
• Edward Madden as Geologist
• William McCarter as Columbia survivor
• Joseph Mell as Earth Trader
• Leonard Mudie as 2nd Survivor
• William H. O'Brien as Columbia survivor
• Robert Phillips as Space Officer
• Anthropoid ape
• Humanoid bird
• Adam Roarke as 1st Crewman
• Serena Sande as 2nd Talosian
• Georgia Schmidt as 1st Talosian
• Felix Silla as 3rd Talosian
• Malachi Throne as the Keeper (voice)
• Meg Wyllie as the Keeper
• Bridge crewman #1
• Bridge crew woman
• Bridge engineer #1
• Columbia survivors #8 , #9 , #10 , and #11
• Command officer in corridor
• Four Orion colony musicians
• Guards #1 , #2 , and #3
• Orion slave master (deleted scene)
• Sciences officer
• Sciences officer in briefing room
• Sciences officer in corridor
• Transporter technician
• Two civilian crewmembers
• Two laser technicians
• Two Orion servant girls (deleted scene)

Stunt doubles [ ]

• Sandra Gimpel as stunt double for Meg Wyllie
• Robert Herron as stunt double for Jeffrey Hunter

Stand-ins [ ]

• Charles Bidwell
• Carol Daniels

References [ ]

2236 ; 2254 ; 24-hour clock ; acting captain ; address ; Adam and Eve ; adaptability ; adult ; advice ; age ; alternative ; American Continent Institute ; ancestor ; animal ; answer ; apology ; armor ; artisan ; artist ; atmosphere ; backpack ; bargain ; bartender ; battery ; battle-axe ; beauty ; big cities ; blood ; bluff ; boasting ; brain ; bravery ; breeding stock ; bridle ; bridge ; briefing room ; bruise ; building ; business ; button ; cactus ; cadet ship ; cage ; call letters ; canyon ; captain ; captivity ; cell ; century ; chance ; chicken ; chief petty officer ; childhood ; children ( offspring ); choice ; circuit ; class M ; clipboard ; clothing ; coffee ; collision course ; colony ; color ; Columbia , SS ; commander ; communicator ; community ; computer ; condition ; confusion ; conjecture ; contact ; continent ; conversation ; countdown ; course ; creating ; creature ; custom ; customer ; danger ; day ; death ; deception ; deck ; desert ; desire ; destination ; devil ; dignity ; distress signal ; doctor (occupation); doctor (title); dream ; dress ; Earth ; emotion ; encampment ( camp ); engage ; engine room ; engineering deck ; Enterprise casualties ; entry ; escapism ; evasive maneuvers ; evil ; experience ; experiment ; fable ; fabric ; family ; fear ; feeling ; flesh ; fly ; food ; fool ; forced chamber explosion ; forced landing ( crash ); form ; fortress ; frustration ; geological lab report ; geologist ; glasses ; gravity ( g ); green ; hair ; hand ; hand laser ; hat ; hate ; head ; headache ; health ; Hell-Fire ; helm ; hereditary ; " hold on a minute "; hole ; home ; hope ; horse ; horseback riding ; hour ; hull ; Human (aka Human being ); Human history ; hunger ; husband ; husband-wife relationship ; hybrid ; hyperdrive ; ice ; illusion ; Illyrian ; image ; indication ; inert element ; information ; inhabitant ; injury ; intelligence ; intention ; intercraft ; jailer ; judgment ; Kalar ; keeper ; knee ; knoll ; landing party ; laser cannon ; laser weapon ; library ; lie ; lieutenant ; life ; life span ; limitation ; love ; luck ; lunch ; mace ; machine ; magistrate ; magnetic field ; martini ; Mary Lou ; mate ; measurement ; medical report ; memory ; memory capacity ; menagerie ; mental power ; message ; metal ; metal fabric ; meteoroid ; meteoroid beam ; microrecord ; mile ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mind ; minute ; mission ; Mojave ; mutual cooperation ; mutual dependence ; name ; narcotic ; NC ; neck ; need ; Nguyen, Zac ; nitrogen ; nuclear weapon ; nourishment ; officer ; olive ; opinion ; orbit ; Orion ; Orion colony ; Orion slave girl ; overload ; oxygen ; pair ; parent ; parkland ; passion ; pen ; percent ; permission ; person ; physical appearance ; physical prowess ; picnic ; picnic basket ; picture ; pike ; Pike's mother ; place ; planet ; plant ; power ; power generator ; preliminary lab survey ; printout ; probing ; problem ; proof ; protectiveness ; protein complex ; pulp ; punishment ; quality ; quarters ( cabin ); radio ; radio-interference distress call ; radio wave ( radio beam ); reality ; reason ; recipe ; record ; red ; reflection ; region ; Regulus ; report ; resignation ; respect ; responsibility ; rest leave ; Rigel VII ; Rigel VII moon ; risk ; rock ; rocket ; saddle ; safety limit ; sand ; sandwich ; scientific party ; scientist ; scouting party ; second ; secret ; shield ; ship's captain ; signal ; singing plant ; situation ; size ; slave ; society ; Sol system ; soul ; space ; space vehicle / spaceship ; speaking ; species ( race ); specimen ; spectrography ; speed of light ; star system ; stellar group ; starvation ; " steady as we go "; strength ; subject ; sugar ; supper ; surface ; survey expedition ; survey vessel ; survivor ; sword ; sympathy ; table ; Talos star group ; Talos system ; Talos system's stars ; Talos IV ( moon ); Talosians ; Talosian ancestors ; Talosian observers ; Tango ; tape ; technician ; telepathy ; television ; theater ; theory ; thermos ; thing ; thought ; thought record ; thought transmission ; thousand ; threat ; time barrier ; time computation ; time warp ; time warp factor ; town ; trade ; trader ; transporter ; trap ; travel ; tricking ; tuna ; universe ; USS ; Vega colony ; vegetation ; vein ; vessel ; vial ; viewer ; Vina's parents ; volunteer ; Vulcan ; wall (transparency); war ; warp drive ; warp factor ; warrior ; water ; weapon ; week ; white ; wife ; window ; word ; wreckage ; wristwatch ; year ; yeoman ; youth ; zoo

Library computer references [ ]

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) library computer : Africa ; Alaska ; altimeter ; American Civil War ; American Revolution ; Anchorage ; Andromeda Galaxy ; Antarctica ; antenna gear box ; Arabian Peninsula ; Arabian Sea ; Arctic Circle ; Asia ; astronomical unit ; Atlantic Ocean ; Atlas-Agena ; Australia ; Battle of Hampton Roads ; Bering Sea ; Black Sea ; bronchial tube ; Canada ; Caspian Sea ; Central America ; command antenna ; cosmic dust detector ; diaphragm ; daisy ; Delaware ; Dumbbell Nebula ; Earth sensor ; Eisenhower, Dwight D. ; electrostatic analyzer ; Explorer S-55 ; Europe ; eye ; flower ; gallbladder ; gamma-ray spectrometer ; Hawaii ; high-gain antenna ; high resolution camera ; Hong Kong ; infrared scanner ; intestine ; ion chamber ; ironclad ; Jackson, Stonewall ; Japan ; Juneau ; Kennedy, John F. ; kudu ; Kyoto ; Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville, The ; Lee, Robert E. ; Lincoln, Abraham ; liver ; long range Earth sensor ; Los Angeles ; Luna ; lunar capsule ; lung ; Lyman-alpha telescope ; magnetometer sensor ; Mariner 2 ; Mars ; Maryland ; Mercury ; Mexico ; micrometeoroid satellite ; mid-course motor ; Monitor , USS ; New Orleans ; Nimbus 1 ; North America ; North Pole ; omnidirectional antenna ; optic nerve ; orbit ; Orbiting Geophysical Observatory ; Orbiting Solar Observatory ; Pacific Ocean ; particle flux detector ; Pioneer 5 ; Pleiades Cluster ; Point Barrow ; polar orbit ; Portland ; President of the United States ; primary sun sensor ; probe ; radiometer ; radiometer reference horn ; Ranger 5 ; Ranger 7 ; Ranger program ; retrorocket ; rib ; rocket ; San Francisco ; satellite ; secondary sun sensor ; skull ; Sol ; Sol asteroid belt ; solar panel ; Sol system ; South America ; South Pole ; Soviet Union ; star ; star chart ; stomach ; Talos I ; Talos II ; Talos III ; Talos V ; temperature control louver ; temperature control shield ; thermal control van ; Tokyo ; trachea ; TV camera ; United States of America ; Venus ; viola ; Virginia ; Virginia , CSS ; Washington, George ; Washington, DC ; wildebeest ; yaw control nozzle

Remastered : Africa ; Asia ; Australia ; battery ; Brazil ; Aldrin, Buzz ; Andromeda Galaxy ; Apollo CSM and LM ; Apollo mission ; atomic bomb ; Battle of Fort Hindman ; Bikini Atoll ; Blair, Montgomery ; Blue Marble, The ; Brooks, Jack ; Canada ; carbon dioxide ; Chase, Salmon P. ; China ; Colombia ; Earth ; Earthrise ; docking port ; Eisenhower, Dwight D. ; Emancipation Proclamation ; eye ; fuel ; Fat Man ; First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln ; fox squirrel ; Gray's Anatomy ; Great Egret ; heart ; helium ; Hughes, Sarah T. ; India ; Indian Ocean ; International Space Station ; Iran ; ironclad ; Jupiter ; Kennedy, Jacqueline ; Kennedy, John F. ; Kilduff, Malcolm ; Johnson, Lady Bird ; Johnson, Lyndon B. ; life support system ; Lincoln, Abraham ; lionfish ; Luna ; lungs ; maple ; Mexico ; Mongolia ; Moses ; Moses Showing the Tables of the Law to the People ; muscles ; NGC 602 ; nitrogen tetroxide ; oxygen ; Peru ; Rayburn, Sam ; ribs ; rose ; Russia ; Saturn ; Saturn V ; Seward, William H. ; Small Magellanic Cloud ; Smith, Caleb B. ; South Africa ; Soyuz ; space shuttle ; steamship ; Ten Commandments ; Thomas, Albert ; United States of America ; V838 Monocerotis ; Valenti, Jack ; Vina's parents ; Vostok 1 ; water ; Washington, George ; Welles, Gideon ; Wright Flyer ; Yosemite Falls

External links [ ]

• " The Cage " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " The Cage " at Wikipedia
• " The Cage " at the Internet Movie Database
• " The Cage " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

The Cage: The Star Trek Pilot That Wasn’t (Quite)

“The Cage” was the original Star Trek pilot that later became part of the double episode “The Menagerie,” which was first broadcast in November 1966. “The Cage” had received the green light two years earlier, in September 1964. Months of preparation had gone into it. Gene Roddenberry had rewritten the story again and again, obsessing over every detail. Production costs were estimated to be in excess of half a million dollars — an extraordinary high amount for a television series pilot at the time, especially for a small studio like Desilu.

By the time the episode was completed, costs had soared to $630,000. Roddenberry admitted that it was an “abnormal amount”, but argued in The Making of Star Trek :

We had to realize that we were building the interior of a spaceship, doing complex opticals of ships in flight and transporter effects and so forth, all props had to be built from scratch, all costumes had to be designed from scratch. To be quite honest, I don’t think the “powers that be” at the studio were aware of how much we were spending until after it was spent. But we spent it making a good product.

The network’s executives were less sure. When they watched “The Cage” in February 1965, almost ten months after they had first expressed an interest in Star Trek , they turned it down.

Not because they didn’t like it. To the contrary, NBC was impressed with Roddenberry’s work. But they felt the show would go over the heads of most of their viewers. Star Trek , they thought, was “too cerebral.”

“Looking back,” Roddenberry recalled in The Making of Star Trek , “they probably felt that I had broken my word.” He had pitched Star Trek as a “wagon train to the stars”, but “The Cage” was light on action and adventure.

I had known the only way to sell Star Trek was with an action-adventure plot. But I forgot my plan and tried for something proud.

Roddenberry’s casting choices raised some eyebrows. Not everyone was sure if the audience would accept a female first officer and a racially mixed crew. On this, Roddenberry stood his ground. “This approach expressed the ‘message’ basic to the series,” he wrote.

We must learn to live together or most certainly we will soon all die together.

The character of Spock was particularly unappealing to NBC. “They were afraid his satanic appearance would repulse people,” according to Roddenberry. He was adamant about keeping the Vulcan.

My own idea on that was, in a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime we could reach out and really communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate. And this is exactly what Spock is trying to do. Literally tens of thousands of letters have come in to Spock, saying, “Yes, I understand. I’ve had the same problem all my life.”

Keeping Spock was clearly the right choice. He became the most popular character of the franchise by far.

Roddenberry did relent and give up his female “Number One”. Her role was deemed “too domineering” and her cold and logical attributes were given to the alien science officer instead.

The decision to eliminate “Number One” wasn’t the network’s, Producers Herb Solow and Robert Justman reveal in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story . NBC supported a strong female lead but didn’t think Majel Barrett — Roddenberry’s girlfriend and future wife — could pull off the role.

Other female actors you may not have noticed played the Talosians. Their voices were dubbed by men. The episode’s director, Robert Butler, reckoned it would lend the Talosians an alien-like androgynous quality. Roddenberry suggested that the women’s lighter builds might suggest that the Talosians had allowed their bodies to atrophy while concentrating on the development of their brains.

Costumes and makeup

“The Cage” introduced two of Star Trek ’s most iconic alien looks: the green-skinned Orions and the pointy-eared Vulcans. Both were created by makeup artist Fred Phillips, who would stay with Star Trek for many years.

Click here to learn more about Phillips; here to learn more about the Orions, and the trouble they had keeping keeping them green; and here to learn more about the creation of Spock.

Another Star Trek regular who came on board for “The Cage” was costume designer William Ware Theiss. Click here for his story.

Another interesting piece of this story is that “The Cage” had largely been lost in the 60s and 70s. I saw Gene Roddenberry speak in the late 70s/early 80s, and one of the high points of his talk was a screening of a black-and-white version of “The Cage” which was apparently the only full version they’d found at the time. In the mid-80s, I purchased a VHS version of “The Cage” that switched between color and black-and-white, with the parts that had been used in “The Menagerie” episodes in color and the other parts in black-and-white. Of course, now the full episode is available in full color, though I don’t know whether that means they eventually found a color version of the whole episode, or if they colorized the black-and-white version.

It wasn’t “colorized”. In 1987, film archivist Bob Furmanek discovered the missing trims from the color 35 mm negative of “The Cage” at a Hollywood film laboratory, and had them returned to Paramount. I have the laserdisc release from 1991 of the all-color version. You can see the new color footage had a bit more contrast to them than the parts used from “The Menagerie”. The sound was still from the black-and-white print, so it was more scratchy during those scenes as well. They used that cut again with minor clean-up for the DVD release in the early 2000s. And, finally a proper restoration was done to make it all look and sound consistent for the Blu-ray release.

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Here's what you need to know about Star Trek pilot The Cage - the Original Series episode featured in Star Trek Discovery

Confused about that old school montage at the beginning of Star Trek Discovery season 2, episode 8? We explain

If you've caught the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery season 2 chances are you either loved the mind-blowing opener... or were very, very confused. Depending on how well you know Star Trek, the old school montage which kicked off Star Trek Discovery season 2, episode 8 might have been the best call back to the Original Series in the show so far or meant literally nothing to you. 

If it's the latter, don't worry, because we're here to help with a quick explainer about the Original Series episode that was referenced and the even better news that it's on Netflix right now! Read on for everything you need to know, but beware of spoilers if you're not up-to-date.

Back in 1965, a TV pilot was made for a new sci-fi series about a starship full of explorers called Star Trek. It was called The Cage and its star was Captain Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter. Along with his First Officer (simply known as Number One and played by Gene Roddenberry's future wife Majel Barrett) and his Science Officer, a Vulcan named Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy), Pike investigates a distress call from Talos 4 where they discover a group of survivors from a scientific expedition, including a beautiful young woman named Vina (played by Susan Oliver). 

Ring any bells? If you've watched the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery then it certainly should. Long story short, the 'survivors' are actually the local aliens called Talosians who have incredible mental abilities that can make you see and feel anything. Vina is human, but she's terribly scarred from the crash which brought her to Talos 4 and it's the Talosians who make her feel whole again. 

Predictably, Pike and Vina fall in love and Pike asks her to leave with him, but she can't leave the planet without reverting back to her true form, which she's not willing to do, so Pike and his crew leave and Talos 4 becomes a restricted planet due to the potentially dangerous abilities of its locals.

This original Star Trek pilot was rejected by NBC for being "too cerebral", "too intellectual", "too slow", and with "not enough action", so they commissioned a new pilot, which later became Where No Man Has Gone Before, starring a completely different captain: one Captain James T. Kirk played by William Shatner. 

Star Trek viewers were eventually introduced to Captain Pike in Original Series two-parter The Menagerie, which sees Spock abduct his former commander (here played by Sean Kenney), who is terribly disfigured and confined to a wheelchair, and take him to the forbidden planet of Talos 4. Once there, the Talosians use their mental abilities to give Pike a life without his crippling injures and he lives out the rest of his days with Vina. While The Menagerie actually continued Pike and Vina's love story from the original Star Trek pilot, viewers didn't know that at the time and a lot of footage from The Cage was actually used in the two-parter to save money.

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The Cage remained under lock and key for some time until it eventually aired in 1988, with Star Trek well and truly back in the public consciousness thanks to the movie series and the newly launched Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now another Star Trek show has incorporated the story into its timeline. 

It's clear from the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery that the events of The Cage are a part of this Pike's (now played by Anson Mount) past, but will we see him eventually follow the same path of The Menagerie and end up terribly injured, but eventually living happily ever after with Vina on Talos 4?

If the short montage from The Cage at the beginning on Star Trek Discovery's latest episode has given you a taste for the Original Series then you can now watch the original pilot, as well as the rest of the Original Series and indeed all the other Star Trek series (!), on Netflix now. Just be prepared... it's very different from the Star Trek you know and love.

What did you think of the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery? Maybe it should make it onto our list of the best Star Trek episodes of all time...

Lauren O'Callaghan is the former Entertainment Editor of GamesRadar+. You'd typically find Lauren writing features and reviews about the latest and greatest in pop culture and entertainment, and assisting the teams at Total Film and SFX to bring their excellent content onto GamesRadar+. Lauren is now the digital marketing manager at the National Trust.

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All About the Lost Star Trek Pilot

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Original Star Trek Pilot Episode

On September 8, 1966, the original science-fiction series Star Trek aired its first episode, "The Man Trap." The episode introduced characters such as William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as First Officer Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy. However, "The Man Trap" wasn't the original pilot for the series. The original pilot was called "The Cage." When the network saw this original pilot, they didn't like it and ordered a new one. Viewers eventually got to see some of "The Cage" as an episode of the first season called "The Menagerie." But the content of "The Cage," the reasons why it was replaced, how it was lost and eventually found, have become the stuff of legend. Let's explore the history of this fascinating and mysterious episode.

Writer and producer Gene Roddenberry approached several TV networks with his concept for a new and realistic science fiction series called Star Trek. Like all TV series, Roddenberry needed to provide the network with a description of his new show, called a "pitch." The pitch included a list of potential episodes to prove the show had staying power. "The Cage" was one of twenty-five proposed stories for Star Trek . At the time, the concept was simply: "The desperation of our series lead, caged and on exhibition like an animal, then offered a mate."

Originally, the pilot was supposed to be sixty minutes, but the pitch meeting to NBC went poorly. In an attempt to sell the series, co-producer Herbert Solow suggested they film a ninety-minute pilot instead of a one-hour pilot. If it didn't go to series, he argued, NBC could air it as a TV movie to recoup their investment. The network agreed, and “The Cage” was selected as the story to be the pilot.

In the original pilot, almost none of the regular cast members appeared. The captain was Christopher Pike, not Captain Kirk. The first officer was a woman known only as Number One, played by Majel Barrett. The doctor, Philip Boyce, was played by John Hoyt. In fact, the only regular character to survive to the full series from "The Cage" was Mister Spock, who wasn't the first officer.

Plot Overview of "The Cage"

When the episode was written, "The Cage" became about the starship USS Enterprise investigating a distress call from a remote planet Talos IV. When the ship sends an away team to the planet's surface, they discover a group of old men and one woman who claim to be stranded. But before they can take the survivors back to the Enterprise , the captain is kidnapped and imprisoned. He finds himself trapped in an alien zoo by a group of powerful alien beings . The alien Talosians possess incredible psychic powers, capable of making anyone see or feel anything they want. As his crew tries to rescue him, the captain is forced into a series of illusions, from his recent attack on Rigel VII to his hometown on Earth. As Pike tries to escape from an ever-changing prison of horrific and idyllic surroundings, he finds himself seduced by a mysterious human woman imprisoned with him.

The alien Talosians were thin beings with enormous pulsating heads. They were originally supposed to be crab-like creatures in the script. This was changed to be cheaper and to avoid the stigma of “bug-eyed monsters” in cheap science fiction movies at the time. The Talosians were played by women and voiced by men to give them an androgynous feel. Ironically, the big-brained psychic alien has itself become a cliché.

Another interesting moment came when the human woman Vina appears to Pike as a green-skinned Orion slave girl. Behind the scenes, her makeup caused some unnecessary headaches. The makeup team spent three days painting the actress various shades of green, but the test film kept coming back a normal flesh color. On the third day, they discovered the processing lab thought the green was a mistake and kept adjusting the skin color back to normal.

One striking difference many viewers notice in the episode is that Spock is much more emotional than usual. At one point, he even laughs. According to Nimoy, the idea of Spock being unemotional wasn't in his character. Number One was intended to be calm and stoic, and Captain Pike was restrained as well. Spock being more energetic and vibrant was a way to balance them out.

"The Cage" ended up costing more than $500,000, a huge amount for the fledgling studio. It also cost more than any other episode in the original series. However, NBC rejected the pilot.

"The Cage" Was Rejected for a Number of Reasons

For one thing, network executives thought the episode was too cerebral. Much of the episode explores themes of the conflict between illusion and reality. Also, this was a time when shows like Lost in Space with flying saucers and alien monkeys were the standard of science fiction. A show like Star Trek's "The Cage" with its military structure and psychic aliens seemed far too deep.

The network also thought the show was too sexy. The moment where Vina dances seductively as a slave girl, and the Talosians openly saying they wanted Captain Pike to "mate" with her left the network uncomfortable with its overt sexuality.

Third, the network thought the pilot didn't have enough action. Other than a brief fight with a giant warrior and some laser cannon fire, there isn't too much excitement in the story. In particular, the story ends with both parties separating peacefully. Roddenberry himself later said, "I should actually have ended it with a fistfight between the hero and the villain if I wanted it on television [...] because that's the way shows were being made at the time. The great mass audience would say, 'Well, if you don't have a fistfight when it's ended, how do we know that's the finish?' and things like that." 

The network also wasn't happy with the female first officer. While this has often been criticized as sexist, it seems the network objected more to Majel Barrett as a poor actress than her being a woman. The fact she was also having a public affair with Roddenberry probably didn't help. Though Majel ended up leaving the regular cast, she returned to the show as a recurring character, Nurse Chapel.

Changes to the Original Star Trek

Even though they didn't like the pilot, it seems like "The Cage" convinced the studio the concept could work. Reportedly, Lucille Ball (the co-owner of Desilu Studios) herself convinced NBC to make the rare move of paying for a new pilot. The second pilot was "Where No Man Has Gone Before." "Where" focused on the Enterprise crossing the edge of the Galaxy , and becoming caught in a "magnetic space storm." The storm grants two crew members god-like powers, which causes them to turn on the ship. The network demanded the firing of almost the entire cast, except for Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike . However, Hunter declined to return, convinced by his wife that the show was "beneath him." William Shatner was hired as Captain James Kirk to replace him.

There were also a lot of minor changes. For instance, in the original pilot, female Starfleet officers wore pants just like the men. In the new pilot, the female crew wore extremely short mini-skirts. While some people criticized this as being a sexist move by the studio, it was actually initiated by a cast member. Grace Lee Whitney (who played Yeoman Rand) wanted to show off her "dancer's legs," and the crew liked it so much that they made the miniskirt standard uniform for all the women on the ship.

Struggles and Survival With Network

Though "Where No Man" was approved and took the show to series, it ended up airing as the second episode. The first aired episode became "The Man Trap," about a shape-shifting alien disguised as a human who ravages the ship and crew. The original pilot was shelved until later in the first season. The studio was having trouble coming up with enough episodes to fill NBC's order, and footage from "The Cage" was used to save money. Instead of filming an entirely new episode, "The Cage" was cut into a framing story about Spock seizing control of the Enterprise to return Pike to Talos. "The Cage" became a flashback in the episode. The result was a two-part episode called "The Menagerie." While this allowed fans to see much of the original pilot, there was a disastrous side effect. The master copy of "The Cage" was cut into the negative of "The Menagerie," and any scenes not used for the episode were lost.

After three seasons, the show was canceled in 1969. Gene Roddenberry was left out of work for most of the 1970s while struggling to sell various failed pilots like Planet Earth and Genesis II . While he struggled to try to produce other TV shows, Roddenberry supported himself by lecturing at colleges and Star Trek conventions. Roddenberry often screened his personal black-and-white 16mm print of "The Cage" for audiences. His copy was thought to be the only remaining version of the original pilot. But in 1987, a film archivist named Bob Furmanek found an unmarked print in the archives. It turned out to have the missing pieces of the original color print of "The Cage." Paramount was able to combine the new color film strips with the negative of "The Menagerie" and audio from Roddenberry's print to restore the full episode.

In 1988, a strike by the Writer's Guild halted production on Star Trek: The Next Generation . During the strike, no episodes could be written, leaving the season started without enough time to write four episodes. In order to make up for the missing episodes, Paramount decided to air the newly restored episode of "The Cage." Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard on TNG) introduced the two-hour special, The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next . It included "The Cage" in color on television for the first time ever.

While "The Cage" wasn't well received at the time, it's since been praised by the cast and crew. In her 1994 autobiography Beyond Uhura , Nichelle Nichols wrote, "Viewing it today [...] the show stands as the purest earliest representation of what Gene hoped Star Trek would achieve." In 1996, Grace Lee Whitney listed "The Cage" as one of her favorite TOS episodes, alongside "Charlie X", "The Devil in the Dark," and "The City on the Edge of Forever." In 1997, Majel Barrett named "The Cage" as her favorite episode of TOS, along with "The City on the Edge of Forever." She thought both episodes "are more Star Trek than anything else that has been conceived" and "pure Star Trek ." Now that the full episode is available, we can all enjoy it.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cage_(episode) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cage_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)

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Recap / Star Trek S1 E0 "The Cage"

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The original Pilot Episode of Star Trek: The Original Series . Written by Gene Roddenberry and produced in late 1964, it preceded the series itself by a good two years. While this pilot was not considered to have been a success at the time, the network executives did like it enough to finance a second pilot episode. And you all know how well that turned out.

The episode begins with the USS Enterprise (under the command of Captain Christopher Pike) on a routine patrol. Pike is suffering from self-doubt, having just come from a mission where a number of his landing party were killed in action (including his close friend and Yeoman).

The ship receives a belated S.O.S from survivors of an Earth spaceship that crashed on the nearby planet Talos IV some time ago. Once they arrive on this barren and desolate planet, they find a ragtag bunch of survivors, but something doesn't feel quite right about them. While the landing party does a thorough examination of the group, a young woman named Vina lures Captain Pike to a secluded spot, where he gets zapped by humanoid aliens and taken deep underground.

The survivors vanish, having been revealed to be an illusion created by the alien Talosians. Captain Pike has been placed inside a zoo. The Talosians aim to pair him off with Vina, who is in fact the only true survivor of the earlier spaceship crash. While the aliens use their telepathy to try and bring Pike and Vina closer together, in illusionary versions of his recent near-death encounter, his home city of Mojave back on Earth, and a Orion slave harem; the crew of the Enterprise attempt to breach the underground complex and rescue their kidnapped captain.

The Talosians finally kidnap two further females from the Enterprise crew, giving Pike the choice of three potential mates. The Enterprise 's female first officer sets her hand phaser to self-destruct, forcing the Talosians' hand and giving them no option but to let the three of them go. Pike watches sadly as the true extent of Vina's injuries are revealed, explaining why she cannot come with them.

Footage from this unaired pilot was later re-edited as a two part regular episode called "The Menagerie", where the events were presented as something that had happened to a former crew of the Enterprise , ten years prior to the start of the main series. The original version, however, eventually made its broadcast premiere in 1988, as part of the TV special The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation To The Next , which previewed the writers' strike-delayed second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation . "The Cage" was also the last of the digitally remastered TOS episodes to air, debuting the week before Star Trek (2009) opened in theaters.

Star Trek (2009) takes place in an Alternate Timeline and predominantly takes place at about the same time as this episode, reimagining Pike as played by Bruce Greenwood and a mentor figure for Kirk before showing the change of command. In the main timeline Captain Pike is recast with Anson Mount as he shows up in the second season of the prequel series 2017's Star Trek: Discovery , chronologically about two years after the events of this episode. In 2022 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuted, set shortly after the events of Discovery and about seven years before the first season of TOS.

"The Cage" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adam and Eve Plot : The Talosians kidnap Captain Pike, and then Number One and a female yeoman (Colt), to act as breeding stock. To avoid it being a "polyg" situation, the Keeper mentions that "with the CHOICE of female...", in keeping with 1964 TV broadcast standards, but what would have been done with the two women Pike didn't choose is unclear. Had the Talosians intended to produce a race of human servants, it'd have made sense to have Pike sire children with ALL THREE of them. At the end, safely back aboard the ship, Yeoman Colt, her "unusually strong female drives" and curiosity getting the best of her, asks her Captain WHO would have been "Eve", much to Number One's annoyance. Number One: "Offspring" as in... he's Adam.
• Aggressive Negotiations : Pike tries to negotiate the life of the Magistrate for his crew's freedom and to Take Him Instead but Number One threatens mass suicide before they respond.
• Alien Blood : When threatening the Talosians, Pike wonders along about what color their blood would be. Pike:  I'll break out of this zoo somehow and get to you. Is your blood red like ours? I'm going to find out.
• Alien Geometries : The alien prison has weird angles and perspectives (done purposefully with optical illusions), and also Bizarrchitecture : slanted walls and weird shapes. Notably, the form of their monitor display is in a really weird shape.
• Aliens Are Bastards : Pike certainly thinks so and he's right, at least at the start. Then we learn the Talosians do just as many benevolent things as they do malevolent. They saved Vina's life, try to find a suitable man to keep her company as she's lonely, and, later on , allow Pike to peacefully retire with them to be with Vina after he's also disfigured.
• Alien Sky : The first illusion where Pike is placed has a lilac sky dominated by an immense moon and distant ringed planet.
• All Planets Are Earth-Like : Of course there is a planet that is conveniently "Class M" (Trek for Human Habitable). Spock: Solar system similar to Earth, eleven planets. Number four seems to be Class M, oxygen atmosphere.( In the series proper, "oxygen-NITROGEN" atmosphere is used, anyone familiar with the Apollo I tragedy knows the extreme fire hazard of a pure oxygen atmosphere! )
• Spock is shown to be limping when the party first beams down to Talos IV. According to the script, Spock was one of the crewmen mentioned as having been injured on Rigel VII.
• A few novels have theorized as to the cause for the vast differences between Spock's highly emotional behavior in this episode and his reservedness in the regular series. Examples of this include Spock possibly not having complete control of his emotions at that point, as he was still quite young, and that he achieved full control of his emotions by observing Captain Pike. In fact, the novel Burning Dreams establishes that indeed, whether Pike liked it or not, Spock did consider him a mentor and so Pike tried his best to live up to that assignment. The novel The Fire and the Rose establishes that Spock was simply emulating Human behaviors such as smiles, and that there was truly no emotion behind his own smile. He eventually stopped though when his crew mates came to distrust him, believing him not to be truthful about himself to them.
• Ambiguous Gender : Enforced: Producers went out of the way to ensure ambiguity to the point of dubbing male voices over the female actors.
• Anatomically Ignorant Healing : Vina turns out to have been left disabled and disfigured by the Talosians' well-intentioned efforts to heal her — they were able to successfully restore her to physical health, but their unfamiliarity with human anatomy led to them putting her back together as a scarred hunchback.
• Baby Factory : The aliens present the women to Pike so he can "choose" the best specimen for intelligent offspring .
• The Bartender : Dr. Boyce brings some alcohol with him during his visit to the Pike's quarters, and mixes him a martini as a part of the captain's Epiphany Therapy . Boyce: Sometimes a man will tell things to his bartender that he'd never tell his doctor.
• Beneath the Mask : The Talosians put Captain Pike in a fantasy where he's a decadent Orion slave trader with a Green-Skinned Space Babe dancing erotically for him. Earlier Pike had been griping about The Chains of Commanding and let slip a thought about giving it all up to be an Orion merchant. Vina: A person's strongest dreams are about what he can't do . Yes, a ship's captain, always having to be so formal, so decent and honest and proper. You must wonder what it would be like to forget all that.
• Bizarre Alien Biology : Inverted with the Talosians. They've never seen a human before Vina and have no idea how to properly heal her injuries beyond making her basically functional.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead : The Talosians, who want Captain Pike to breed them a race of slave workers, offer him blonde fellow captive Vina and, later, his own crewmembers — the coldly intelligent Number One ( Brainy Brunette ) and his pretty female yeoman (a redhead with "unusually strong female drives").
• Blue-and-Orange Morality : Although they keep sentient beings enslaved For Science! , the Talosians aren't exactly evil; they just don't understand why humans hate being held captive. When they do figure it out, they release the humans — not out of respect for their desires, but because their hatred of captivity makes them unsuitable for the Talosians' plans.
• Body Horror : Downplayed, but real Vina has been left scarred, withered and exaggeratedly hunchbacked as a result of her ship's crash.
• Book Ends : The Crash-Into Hello is replayed again at the end, with Captain Pike repeating his exact same words.
• The Bridge : Ur-Example ! Although movies and series with crews in space are known (see Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space ), in The Bridge most action revolves around the Captain's Chair as the center of the bridge.
• Yeoman Colt; ironically her presence makes Captain Pike uncomfortable as he's not used to having a woman on the bridge. note  Colt actress Laurel Goodwin ultimately became the last surviving credited cast member to perform in the episode, dying in 2022 at the age of 79.
• Averted and Lampshaded HARD by Number One, who gives Pike a Death Glare until he leaves the bridge.

• The Captain : Roddenberry confessed he styled the captains on Horatio Hornblower . The Captain is the Hero Protagonist to whom everything happens around him.
• The Chains of Commanding : Pike lays out how tired he is of being responsible for the lives of his crew, and making decisions that include "who lives, and who dies".
• Characterization Marches On : Spock's emotional outbursts, such as his joyful reaction to hearing the singing plants on Talos IV and his panic when he realizes the women have been kidnapped, contrast with his later deliberately emotionless persona. According to Spock's actor Leonard Nimoy , this is because he felt that Spock needed some warmth to balance out how Hunter played Pike. At this point, Spock was just supposed to be an alien, "probably half Martian". Vulcan heritage and stoicism weren't part of his character yet. He is also a fairly minor character in the plot, serving as third in command after Pike and Number One and not having much of a focus on his personality compared to the others or Dr. Boyce.
• Cool Starship : The Enterprise itself, the basis for the whole series where they use it to travel through the stars. But note that is our only look at the Pike-era Enterprise, distinguished by the spikes on the red warp nacelle caps.
• Crash-Into Hello : Introduces Colt, embarrasses the Captain, and establishes her as a one of the possible Love Interests .
• Cross-Cast Role : Although male voices were dubbed in for the Talosians, three of the Talosian actors were actually women. Robert Butler and Gene Roddenberry struck upon using this casting method at about the same time as one another, Butler reckoning that it would lend the Talosian characterizations an alien-like androgynous quality. Roddenberry believed that the lighter builds of females might suggest that the Talosians had allowed their bodies to atrophy while instead choosing to concentrate on advanced brain development. Upon searching for suitable performers to play the parts, Roddenberry scoured Hollywood for short actresses with faces that he deemed to be interesting. Character actress Meg Wyllie was cast as the Talosian Keeper on Butler's recommendation, as they had previously worked together.
• Crystal Spires and Togas : Deconstructed with the Talosians. Their manner of dress and their city is very elegant, but they're also completely detached from any kind of adventurous spirit, not understanding why anyone wouldn't choose a pleasant dream over unpleasant reality, and being unable to grasp the more primal emotions.
• Damsel in Distress : Complete with medieval dress , screams and ineffectual defense. Might actually be a Deliberately Distressed Damsel as she already knows it is All Just a Dream .
• Despair Event Horizon : The Talosians reach this point with the failure of their plan: Captain Pike: And that's it. No apologies. You captured one of us, threatened all of us... Talosian: Your unsuitability has condemned the Talosian race to eventual death . Is this not sufficient?
• Pike's fantasy of being an Orion trader is implied to be this, as he mentioned it during his gripe session with his doctor. " Glistening green. Almost like secret dreams a bored ship captain might have..."
• After beaming Number One and Colt down to Pike's cell as alternate mating choices, the Talosian Magistrate tells him that Number One's Ice Queen demeanor is a façade and she's often had fantasies about him, while Yeoman Colt has assumed the captain was out of her reach , "but now is realizing this has changed ".
• Dirty Old Man : The doctor pointedly inquires about Colt's impertinent question "Who would have been Eve?" Boyce: Eve as in... Adam? Pike: Adam as in all ship's doctors are dirty old men.
• Distress Call : One of these kickstarts the plot, with a radio wave keyed to trigger the sensors of a passing vessel (it initially appears to be an oncoming object) thereby drawing the attention of its crew. In a subversion, Pike's initial response is to ignore the signal on the grounds that a 20 year old distress signal with no indication of survivors doesn't warrant changing course, so the Talosians send another indicating that there are survivors in distress.
• Double Entendre : The Talosians comment that Yeoman Colt has "unusually strong female drives." One assumes they weren't referring to an urge to shop.
• The Dulcinea Effect : Pike correctly deduces that the Talosians are trying to make him feel protective of Vina so that he'll fall in love. However, after he points to the illusions that cast her as a Damsel in Distress , he protests against their treatment of her in the real world, proving that their ploy is indeed working.
• Dying Race : The Talosians. Turns out being able to create illusions indistinguishable from real life but better makes you largely uninterested in real life.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : Everything, from the characters, to the uniforms, to some details of the USS Enterprise itself. Some of it could be explained through changing uniforms and refits, but some dialogue like their Faster-Than-Light Travel being described as both "Time Warp Factor 7" and "Hyperdrive" before it settled into being a Warp engine in the series proper.
• Enemy Scan : To properly get to know the capabilities of humans, the Talosians scan through the ship's computer to learn all about them.
• Energy Weapon : The huge laser cannon that gets wheeled out on the planet surface to use as a Laser Cutter during the Enterprise crew's attempt to break into the Talos compound.
• Epiphany Therapy : Dr. Boyce's attempts to help Captain Pike get over his Heroic BSoD . Boyce: A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he... turns his back on it and starts to wither away. Pike: Now you're beginning to talk like a doctor, bartender. Boyce: Take your choice. We both get the same two kinds of customers — the living and the dying.
• The Evils of Free Will : The fact that humans would prefer death to any form of captivity is a sticking point on why they are unsuitable for the Talosians' plans. Pike tries to console the Keepers, suggesting some sort of mutual cooperation to solve their population problem. The Keeper, however is savvy enough to know what will happen if humans eventually acquire the Talosian power of illusion . All of this at least explains why there is a General Order forbidding any contact with this planet.
• Expy : The main crew members have identifiable counterparts in the series that eventually developed. Pike is an early version of Kirk, Number One was combined with Spock , Dr. Boyce is early McCoy , and Colt is early Rand. Of course, this pilot came first, so it's technically the characters of the eventual series who are the expies. The notion of referring to the First Officer as "Number One" returned in Star Trek: The Next Generation .
• Face Palm : Vina does this when Pike gets punished for thinking wrong thoughts.
• Facial Dialogue : When the captain refuses to respond to the distress call, a couple of blueshirts exchange a puzzled shrug after he leaves the Bridge.
• Failed Pilot Episode : Zig-Zagged . On the one hand, the network rejected this as the pilot for ST:TOS and ordered another one which led to the show that started the franchise. On the other hand, this episode was repurposed as a two-parter in the series, making it canon. On the other other hand, season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery would feature Pike, Spock, and Number One along with the Enterprise , which would lead to them getting their own show — so in a sense, this pilot did get its own show, just a few decades later than anyone thought.
• Fantastic Flora : Talos IV's surface is home to turquoise plants that emit eerie, almost singing sounds, which give the planet a distinctly alien atmosphere. Pike and Spock touch them to discover what exact sound each leaf produces.
• Fate Worse than Death : Rather than allow Pike to submit to Talosian captivity, Number One puts her phaser on overload to destroy all three of them. Vina elects not to retreat underground either, since it would mean the Talosians would just grab another man later.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell : The Talosians invoke the feeling of being tapped in a fiery Hell on Pike any time they want as punishment, and threaten to outdo that trauma if they have to.
• Food Pills : With a slight variation: all the nourishment Pike needs is in liquid form in a small slender glass.
• While talking with Doctor Boyce, Captain Pike talks about the battle on Rigel Seven and two activities he might partake in after retiring: going on a picnic on Earth or becoming an Orion trader. Each of these is used as the basis for one of the telepathic illusions the Talosians use on him later.
• Throughout the episode it's implied that Vina is not who she seems. At first this seems to be explained by her pretending to be a Talosian illusion in hopes of more easily seducing Pike; then Number One offhandedly mentions that, rather than Vina having been born right as the Columbia crash-landed on the planet, she was listed on manifests as an adult crewman. This foreshadows her true appearance, that of a much older, deeply scarred and disfigured woman.
• Glassy Prison : One wall of the cells the humans are kept in is made of a crystal material, so the specimens can be put on exhibit and analyzed.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe : The Trope Codifier . Although strictly speaking, Vina is only pretending to be a green-skinned space babe. However, she's still the first one ever seem in Star Trek .
• Happy Place : The aliens construct visions of Pike in "Happy Places": Back Home and as an Orion Slave Trader (actually a Psychological Torment Zone , as he is perturbed and runs out of the harem), but Pike immediately knows it's All Just a Dream .
• Heroic BSoD : Captain Pike is going through one of these when the episode begins, having lost several crewmen (including his personal yeoman) on a mission.
• Humans Are Special : The Talosians desire humans for their adaptability, but then they access the records of the Enterprise and conclude that humans have "a unique hatred of captivity" that renders them unsuitable for their purpose.
• Ice Queen : Number One, whom Vina sarcastically compares to a computer when she's kidnapped as another potential mate. There are several hints that this is a façade however.
• Inertial Impalement : How Pike finishes off the barbarian in the illusory battle.
• I Need a Freaking Drink : Inverted, Boyce implies to Pike: "YOU need a freaking drink!".
• In Medias Res : The story begins as the Enterprise has completed a mission that resulted in serious casualties and is returning to base.
• Instant Sedation : The aliens spray a gas in Pike's face and he falls down to the ground immediately.
• It Only Works Once : As Pike foiled their plans for breeding a Slave Race , the aliens just give up and accept their fate of their failed civilization . To be fair, they indicate they had already tried out several other species (possibly the ones Pike saw in the zoo) but none of them had shown the same adaptability as humans. Pike was their "last hope".
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure : Pike doesn't know Vina and doesn't especially like her, but he objects when she's punished for his lack of cooperation. This is all part of the Talosians' plan to make him breed with her, because it causes Pike to feel empathy for Vina over her unjust punishment.
• Knockout Ambush : Pike was led by Vina where the aliens surprised him, knocked him out with a gas, then took him away.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine : Averted. It's rare where scientists are not portrayed in labcoats, and in this case they appeared in normal clothes, but ragged and tattered.
• Loafing in Full Costume : Averted; Captain Pike is shown passing by a couple of off-duty crewmembers dressed in civies.
• Lost in Transmission : A distress message inexplicably just "fades" away before it can explain a certain crucial danger. Rather than concealing a crucial plot point, this was just a lure by the Talosians to Pike, who had previously turned down answering the earlier (and genuine) Distress Call .
• Love at First Sight : Both Pike and Vina are attracted to each other and explicitly say so.
• Lured into a Trap : Pike is coaxed to walk right into a trap where the aliens capture him. Vina mentions that he's been feeling tired, and Pike is noticeably distracted by her , so he's likely not as alert as he should be.
• Magical Security Cam : When the crew are greeting the survivors, the aliens see the scene through an alien monitor, but there are no cameras or devices that anyone can see.
• Male Gaze : There's a shot of an off-duty female crewmember walking away from the camera in a pleated skirt.
• Master of Illusion : The Talosians force Captain Pike to partake in a series of illusionary worlds. When he resists, they are also able to punish him with a Fire and Brimstone Hell and then believably threaten to go deeper into his mind for experiences even worse ! Similarly, the Enterprise crew actually easily breaks into the Talosian base, but their powers of illusion made it appear that they'd been doing no damage at all, so they didn't realize they'd succeeded until Pike was already released.
• Meaningful Background Event : Lt. Tyler, the navigator, is shown wearing a bandage on his right hand/wrist. Although it is never acknowledged, but it presumably happened during the landing on the previous mission on Rigel VII.
• Mind Probe : The aliens probe Pike's mind and discover "excellent memory capacity". This is not shown and the Captain does not seem to even notice or show any signs of the probe.
• Mind Rape : Pike is tortured with visions of fire and brimstone .
• Moving the Goalposts : Pike agrees to pick an illusion to share with Vina if she answers his questions. After she does, he says that he made a "bargain with someone that didn't exist" and it doesn't count, which forces her to admit that she was lying about being yet another illusion.
• My Brain Is Big : The aliens have very visible bigger craniums with pulsing veins, which give them great mental power. Spock: Look. Brains three times the size of ours. If we start buzzing about down there, we're liable to find their mental power is so great they could reach out and swat this ship as though it were a fly.
• My Greatest Failure : Pike is troubled by the fight at Rigel 7 where he lost three crew and seven were injured. He claims It's All My Fault , establishing a Guilt Complex (he is tired of being who decides "who lives and who dies") so bad he is in Heroic BSoD and considers retiring. Boyce does respond with the typical You Did Everything You Could .
• Named After Their Planet : Talosians. From Talos IV.
• No Name Given : Majel Barrett's character is referred to throughout simply as "Number One".
• Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious : One of the "sustenances" given to Pike while in the holding cell is a glass of blue mystery liquid, which the Talosian Keeper claims contains a "nourishing protein complex". They compensate for its blandness by using their mental powers to make it seem like whatever food is desired.
• Not Like Other Girls : When Pike complains about how unused he is to having a woman (Yeoman Colt) on the bridge, he says that Number One doesn't count. He doesn't seem to realize that she is apparently insulted at the way he differentiates her from other women.
• Number Two : Number One, actually, who goes by no other name. Spock is present but is not the First Officer as he would become when the show went to series. (He appears to be third-in-command behind Pike and Number One, as he takes command after Number One is abducted, but this isn't definitely established in dialogue.)
• One of the Boys : How Captain Pike treats Number One regarding her presence (as a woman) on the bridge.
• People Farms : The aliens try to make Pike "breed" with any female, and were planning to make them a Slave Race to rebuild the surface of the planet.
• Pet the Dog : After their plan fails, the Talosians release Pike without harm, but allow Vina to have an illusion of him staying with her. They also refuse Federation aid to prevent other races from falling into the same trap that they did.
• A failed one, in fact, but it showed enough promise for the network to commission a second pilot.
• Trope Namer ! When asked for an example of a pilot of a show, this episode is commonly used as an example.
• Plot Twist : Survivor Rescue plot is actually Aliens Want to Breed Us .
• The Power of Hate : Pike lunges at the glass wall of his cell, causing the Keeper to flinch. Since the Talosians can read his thoughts, and should have known he was going to do that, he deduces that his powerful, 'primitive' emotion was able to block their telepathy. Pike then concentrates on feeling intense hatred for his captors.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide : The Talosian Keeper tries to get Pike to release him by threatening to destroy the Enterprise . Vina confirms that he's not bluffing about his capability — the Talosians' illusion power could reach the orbiting starship and trick the crew into operating the wrong controls — but it turns out that he's bluffing about his willingness to follow through on the threat.
• Psychic Static : The Talosians can't read "primitive" emotions like anger or violence, so Pike uses that as a Psychic Block Defense . However Vina points out that it's impossible to maintain such emotions over a long time.
• Raised by Dudes : Vina claims to be this at first, acting awkward and unfeminine around Captain Pike because she was raised by a group of old male scientists.

• Recycled with a Gimmick : The start of the Horatio Hornblower In Space subgenre of sci-fi. Pike's ruminations on choosing which crewmen will live and die are remarkably similar to Hornblower's thoughts on being a Valkyrie "chooser of the slain" in Hotspur.
• Red Alert : A red flashing light goes off and an alarm sounds when the ship seems to be in danger, but the alert is not vocally called.
• Refusal of the Call : Pike refuses to answer an eighteen year-old Distress Call because they have their own wounded to take care of (it's also implied that Pike is tired and his morale is low after recent events). Only when another message arrives confirming that there are survivors in need of help does he order the Enterprise there.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens : The Talosians have entire rubber heads. They are more elaborate than later makeups in the series, and they also cast female actors but dubbed-over male voices in an attempt to make them more alien.
• Same Language Dub : Clegg Hoyt played the transporter chief, Pitcairn, but his voice was dubbed in by Bob Johnson, who was the voice on the tape (and disc) in Mission: Impossible .
• Script-Reading Doors : Dr. Boyce knocks on the door and it opens automatically before the Captain responds.
• Secret Underground Passage : Actually an elevator, but the doors are hidden from view, camouflaged as a rock wall, and they do lead underground.
• Shrug Take : Right after Captain Pike refuses to look for survivors and leaves the bridge.
• Signature Sound Effect : Averted (in later episodes) with the "singing" plants of Talos IV. Pike and Spock verify (in a lovely bit of non-verbal acting) that the plants are the source of the low, eerie wailing heard in the surface scenes. Future episodes re-used the same sound on many — if not most — of the other planets the crew visited, without explanation.
• Sole Survivor : The aliens confess there was an actual crash of an Earth vessel, but with only one survivor, Vina.
• Space Clothes : The Talosians (and Vina) wear shiny, silvery clothes. Averted with the crew of Enterprise, whose uniforms are deliberately mundane.
• The Spock : An Ur-Example . The Stoic , computer-mind character was supposed to be Number One, a female. As Roddenberry said, the network didn't want a woman in a position of power (the executives denied this), so he passes the traits to Spock.
• Stay in the Kitchen : Pike starts to chastise Colt when she interrupts him, explaining that he asked for the report. He then openly says he is not used to women on the bridge.
• Strictly Professional Relationship : Colt: Sir, I was wondering. Just curious. Who would have been Eve? One: Yeoman! You've delivered your report.
• Subspace Ansible : Averted; the distress call has taken eighteen years to reach the Enterprise 's current position.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands : The Talosians seem perfectly capable of seeing everything that goes on in the cell as well as reading minds, but the Keeper doesn't see Pike waiting to ambush him. Probably masked by Pike's anger and treachery. That should have been a big, fat, hint to the Talosians that the humans would prove unmanageable, but they might have been too desperate to save their race to recognize the hint.
• Technobabble : Spock's initial utterance sounds too simple, but it is used to establish that something "Techy" is going on. First Star Trek words recorded. Spock: Check the circuit.
• Technology Marches On : An in-universe example. The consoles on the Enterprise bridge are here fitted with what look like personal computer printers (which print out messages on paper), and the Yeoman is seen using a clipboard with paper sheets on it. The beam weapons are called lasers instead of the later phasers. And the weapon used in the attempt to blast the Talosian entrance is a bulky device transported from the ship instead of ship-mounted weapons. By the time of the series proper, both would be replaced by more futuristic devices. Medical science is presumably more primitive than it's portrayed in TOS, as Pike doesn't even speculate about the possibility that Vina's disfigurements might be repairable with Trek -era medicine. But technology has also already marched on, as one crewman enthusiastically says to the "survivors": space travel is now incomparably faster than 18 years before. Nearly 60 years later, things like printers and paper on clipboards would seem "old school", but Science Fiction tends to predict the future with things we're still familiar with. Besides, the special effects involved in showing hi-resolution imagery on something like an iPad were somewhat beyond even what a high-budget movie could do in those days.
• Telepathic Spacemen : The Talosians are telepathic, and it's how they create their illusions.
• Teleporters and Transporters : To avoid the hassle and cost of showing travel by shuttle, the Landing Party travel by the Transporter.
• 10-Minute Retirement : Albeit only an illusory one for Captain Pike, indulging in activities he talked about. As soon as He's Back! on duty: Pike: What are we running here, a cadet ship?
• This Is the Part Where... : The Talosians note that, after hurling himself in frustration at the glass, Pike will now threaten them with the power of his starship . Hearing this, Pike chooses a more diplomatic (but equally futile) approach.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works : Pike tries throwing a sword at the barbarian during the illusory battle; it hits at the right angle and with enough force to embed itself in the barbarian's back.
• Too Good to Be True : Pike realizes too late that the Columbia 's heroic survivors they've seen were just playing into their ideal fantasies. Also, Boyce suspects something fishy is going on, as all survivors are in perfect health.
• TV Telephone Etiquette : Mr. Spock calls on the ship's video intercom to deliver exposition and cuts the call immediately.
• Between Pike and J.M. Colt in particular. According to the Talosians, possibly also Number One.
• This was the entire purpose of the Talosians capturing Pike: to get him to develop enough tension with Vina that he would give in and help them breed a new race to reclaim the surface.
• Unusual Ears : Mr. Spock is alien, of course. Don't you see the Pointy Ears ?
• Wagon Train to the Stars : Ur-Example . This was the first pilot presented to the network to show this concept.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside : After Number One and Yeoman Colt beam down, the Keeper punishes Pike for "wrong thnking." While the two are wondering what is going on, Vina just cradles her head in her hand. She knows that Pike is being punished and while it seems like a couple of seconds, for him the punishment could be lasting for hours.
• Your Heart's Desire : Orion women are presented as a dark male fantasy come to life . They're exotic , animalistic Sex Slaves , from a culture where they actually want to be taken advantage of so you don't have to feel guilty about doing so. Orion slave trader: Suppose you had all of space to choose from, and this was only one small sample. Wouldn't you say it was worth a man's soul?
• Your Mind Makes It Real : According to the Talosians, Pike could visualize the vial of nourishment liquid provided by the Talosians as any meal he wished. Presumably, as long as he was able to somehow forget that it really was nothing more than a vial of blue liquid . Whether Pike's mind could fool his GI tract enough to turn it into dietary fiber, OTOH...

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The enterprise bridge.

In the opening of the first "Star Trek" pilot, the Enterprise picks up a distress signal.

Example of: The Bridge

• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S1 E1 "The Man Trap"

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• Capt. Pike is held prisoner and tested by aliens who have the power to project incredibly lifelike illusions.
• This is the pilot to the series that would star William Shatner. Only in this version there is different Captain, Christopher Pike, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew. Now it begins when the Enterprise receives what appears to be a distress message. But when they get to the planet where the message was sent from, they discover that the supposed survivors were nothing more than illusions created by the inhabitants of the planet, for the purpose of capturing a mate for the one genuine surviving human, and Captain Pike is the lucky winner. While Captain Pike tries to cope with the experiments and tests that the aliens are conducting on him, his crew tries to find a way to rescue him. But the aliens' illusions are too powerful and deceptive (at first). — <[email protected]>
• Capt. Christopher Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise travel through the far reaches of space. When they receive a distress signal from the distant planet Talos IV, they proceed to investigate. What they find are the survivors of a Federation expedition that disappeared 18 years earlier. Most of the survivors are now quite elderly except for one, the beautiful Vina, who they claim was born at the time of the crash. It's all an illusion, however, and the planet's super-intelligent inhabitants take the Captain prisoner. While the ship's First Officer, Number One, and the Science Officer, Mr. Spock, try to locate and rescue their commander, Pike is alternately subjected to temptation and torture for reasons that his captors will not explain to him. — garykmcd
• On the first voyage of the Starship Enterprise, Kirk's predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike, tries to rescue an Earth crew that disappeared eighteen years earlier. But it's a trap! Pike is imprisoned in a zoo-like cage and studied by mysterious higher life forms. — Robert Lynch <[email protected]>
• The USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), receives a radio distress call from the fourth planet in the Talos star group. A survey expedition on the ship SS Columbia had been reported missing from Talos system 18 yrs ago. Spock (Lenord Nemoy) argues that the crew of the ship may have survived on the 4th planet (which is a class M with an oxygen atmosphere) even after 18 yrs. A message from Talos indicates that there are 11 survivors. The Enterprise has a crew of 203. Pike is tired of making life and death decisions for his crew on a daily basis. He considers resigning from his post. A landing party is assembled and beamed down to investigate. Tracking the distress signal to its source, the landing party discovers a camp of survivors from a scientific expedition that has been missing for eighteen years. Amongst the survivors is a beautiful young woman named Vina (Susan Oliver). Captivated by her beauty, Pike is caught off guard and is captured by the Talosians, a race of humanoids with bulbous heads who live beneath the planet's surface. Vina and the survivors suddenly disappear after Pike is lured away from the rest of his landing party. Pike is captured and taken underground, while the landing party is stranded on the surface of the planet. The landing party's weapons are not able to cut through the alien metal guarding the entry door. It is revealed that the distress call, and the crash survivors, except for Vina, are just illusions created by the Talosians to lure the Enterprise to the planet. The Talosians communicate telepathically and can read the primitive human minds. While imprisoned, Pike uncovers the Talosians' plans to repopulate their ravaged planet using him and Vina as breeding stock for a race of slaves. The Enterprise uses power cannons to blast through the metal, but it wont budge. The crew knows that the survivors were illusions and thus are not sure now if the metal they see in front of them are illusions or not. The Talosians use their power of illusion to try to interest Pike in Vina, and present her in various guises and settings, first as a Rigellian princess, a loving compassionate farm girl, then a seductive, green-skinned Orion. Pike resists all forms. Vina is punished when she communicates to Pike and answers some of his questions. After an earlier landing party failed to gain entry from the surface, six members of the Enterprise crew prepare to beam into the Talosians' underground complex, but only Pike's first officer and yeoman-both women-materialize in Pike's cell to offer further temptation. Vina is angry at her captors as she did everything they asked her. The first officer says that the Vina listed on the crashed spaceship was an adult and that was 18 yrs ago. By then, however, Pike has discovered that primitive human emotions can block the Talosians' ability to read his mind, and he manages to escape to the surface of the planet along with the two members of his landing party. Pike captures one Talosian, when he tries to sneak into the cell to pick Pike's phasers. Pike guesses correctly that the phasers are working but the Talosians have created an illusion that they are not. Pike threatens the Talosian with death, if he doesn't help them escape. The first officer finds that they not being able blast through metal was also an illusion. The Talosians confront Pike and his companions before they can transport back to the Enterprise. The captain tries to negotiate, but the first officer (Majel Barrett) sets her weapon on a build-up to overload. Pike and Vina move closer to her, agreeing with her preference for death rather than captivity. After all, as Vina explains, if the Talosians have even one human being, they might try again. This demonstration of fatal resolve confirms what the Talosians have been gleaning from the records they've accessed from the Enterprise's computers: The human race despises captivity far too much to be useful. Despite their last hope having been proven unsuitable, the Talosians are not vengeful. They let the humans go. The first officer and yeoman beam up immediately, but Pike remains behind with Vina, urging her to leave with him. Vina explains that she cannot leave. An expedition had indeed crash-landed on Talos IV; Vina was the sole survivor, but was badly injured. The Talosians were able to save her, but as they had no understanding of human physiology or aesthetics at the time, she was left horribly disfigured. With the aid of the Talosians' illusions, she is able to appear beautiful and in good health, as much to herself as to any others. Realizing that the continued Talosian illusion of health and beauty is necessary for Vina, Pike is ready to return to the Enterprise without her. In an act of goodwill, the aliens show him that Vina sees an image of Pike next to her, and they walk up to the entrance that takes them into the Talosian habitat. Pike then beams up after the Keeper's closing words: "She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."

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Den of Geek

Star Trek Pilots Ranked From Worst to Best: From The Original Series to Strange New Worlds

There have been a whopping twelve different pilots for various Star Trek series through the decades, and we rank them all, from The Original Series' false start all the way through the modern days of Discovery and Strange New Worlds!

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What is the best Star Trek pilot? We aren’t asking “what is the best Star Trek series” (at least not yet). Star Trek pilots rarely sell what the series delivers, with plenty of shows taking two or three years to evolve into the eventual classics they become, while other promising starts quickly fumble the ball.

Instead, we are looking at the pilot episodes themselves, and how they stand on their own merits. This ranking includes every pilot episode ever produced, including both pilots for The Original Series, “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (although the nerdiest among you will notice we excluded the first Star Trek episode to actually air , “The Man Trap”, because as the sixth episode produced it really stretches the definition of “pilot,” and while a case could be made that “The Corbomite Maneuver” is the first episode of the show that truly felt like Trek, by then it wasn’t in the pilot stages).

Of the twelve Star Trek pilots we have counted in this ranking, eight of them feature a ship called “Enterprise” (and half of those are the Enterprise NCC-1701), four of them feature Mr. Spock (five if you include appearances from his immediate family), and three of them feature Captain Picard. Finally, a whopping five of them feature the crew encountering an entity with mysterious God-like powers.

Now, to rank these episodes we have asked each of our Den of Geek Star Trek Brain Trust to provide their own rankings, before scientifically collating them to produce a list so accurate, so precise, so objectively correct that nobody could ever disagree with it. Don’t even bother going to the comments, all they will say is “Yes. I agree with this.”

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12. Star Trek: Discovery – “The Vulcan Hello”/“Battle of the Binary Stars”

Whatever else you think of them, Star Trek: Discovery ‘s “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle of the Binary Stars”, provide the most polished and well-produced pilot episodes that the franchise had seen until that point. But they also broke rules. Instead of introducing a hero ship, a crew, an obstacle for them to overcome and the promise of more adventures to follow, the plot revolved around one protagonist who was not even the Captain, and we don’t even get to see the ship.

That’s forgivable, brave even, but Trek is also a show about teams working together, so when that protagonist launches a mutiny (an act her brother is so embarrassed by that when he is asked if there has ever been a mutiny on a Federation ship, he only says there is “Absolutely no record of such an occurrence”), gets her Captain killed and ends up in jail, viewers are understandably skeptical.

11. Star Trek: The Animated Series – “Beyond the Farthest Star”

There remains controversy over whether this series is even canon, although it had the same cast and writing team as the live action series. So to save time – Lower Decks features a giant Spock skeleton and a Kzinti crewman, and a Pandronian . It counts.

Despite those common elements, Star Trek: The Animated Series was a completely different ballgame to The Original Series , with wildly imaginative settings and aliens far beyond even the current live-action series, but half the run-time and a cast with only three facial expressions and about six animated actions each.

“Beyond the Farthest Star” was the first episode of the series to air and it gives the crew of the Enterprise a mystery to solve with an epically-sized alien ship, its unknown alien crew wiped out by a mysterious threat. It has brilliant designs and writing that is unmistakably Trek. It deserves its place in the pantheon, but modern viewers will still have a challenge getting past the animation quality.

10. Star Trek: Enterprise – “Broken Bow”

These days, the idea of a Star Trek prequel feels pretty commonplace. But, in 2001, Enterprise boldly attempted the impossible: Do a soft reboot of the entire franchise, set a century before The Original Series . Because an early scene features a Klingon getting blasted with a shotgun by a farmer in a cornfield, the overall vibe of Enterprise was very clear: This show was trying to bring Star Trek back down to Earth. The attempt at casual realism in Enterprise mostly backfired. While Captain Archer’s NX-01 baseball cap was pretty fly, the rest of the tech seemed like it was a couple of decades ahead of Kirk and Spock, rather than a century behind. 

That said if you think of Enterprise as the retroactive beginning of the newer canon which was continued by Discovery , and now, Strange New Worlds , it works perfectly. “Broken Bow” is also a solid Star Trek pilot episode, setting up a big idea for the entire series (the Temporal Cold War) while establishing all the characters quickly, and making us like everyone instantly. In many ways “Broken Bow,” is better than the rest of the show’s first season, but isn’t the worst introduction to the Star Trek canon as a whole.

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Because Enterprise is still the furthest point in the past of the Trek canon — including the reboot movies — “Broken Bow” has become more and more foundational as time goes on. You’ve got Klingons, a ticking clock, a little ship named Enterprise , and a last-minute “beam me up” escape. What more do you want?

9. Star Trek: The Next Generation – “Encounter at Farpoint”

Oh “Farpoint,” you grand, ambitious, beautiful doofus, you. Has there ever been anything, before or since, that is more Star Trek than this episode? Yet, it is also a demonstration that Star Trek is a spirit in need of a mixer.

Let’s be honest, a lot of this episode is pretty rough, with painful dialogue and agonizing pacing. Anyone who complains about the Enterprise fly-by in Star Trek: The Motion Picture hasn’t seen Farpoint’s saucer separation sequence.

The ingredients of the Star Trek: The Next Generation we know and love are here but they have a long way to go. Patrick Stewart is still figuring Picard out, playing him as grumpy old man who just wants to give the galaxy a good telling-off. Wesley Crusher instantly earns a generation’s internet hatred. But the episode’s saving grace is John de Lancie as Q, who immediately realizes the only thing that can save this pilot is oodles of camp.

8. Lower Decks – “Second Contact”

From its first episode, Star Trek: Lower Decks proved many of the naysayers wrong. As a mosaic of every Star Trek series, ever, Lower Decks is the one series more inclined to remind you why you like Star Trek more than any other. But, its pilot, “Second Contact,” is a breezily efficient introduction to this low-stakes iteration of Trek. We’ve all heard about making first contact with aliens, but what happens after that? Who goes back and gets the aliens used to being part of the Federation? 

The pilot episode of Lower Decks answers that question hilariously and brilliantly. Come for the introduction of Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford, but stay for the deep cuts about Gary Mitchell . If someone wanted to learn about Star Trek without watching other Star Trek, the pilot of Lower Decks is here to say, that’s just fine. And we’re gonna have a lot of fun along the way.

7. Picard – “Remembrance”

After Discovery , it didn’t seem possible that another Star Trek debut episode could stir up more controversy. And yet, somehow, the debut of Picard did just that. That said, for all you Picard haters out there, “Remembrance” is much better than some might say, and really only has one flaw: Its second part, “Maps and Legends,” should have been aired as one episode. In fact, the first three episodes of Picard , all directed by Hanelle Culpepper, feel like the true pilot for the series. Because “Remembrance” ends with the death of Dahj (Isa Briones) it feels incomplete, but if you consider “Maps and Legends” to be part of the pilot, the whole thing feels more complete.

The biggest criticism of Picard , by and large, is that fans felt that the series has been too dark to be part of the legacy of The Next Generation . But, when you consider that Picard was always poised to be the Star Trek version of Logan , “Remembrance” does exactly what the series is trying to attempt; make a grounded, more realistic sequel to TNG , in which everything is not what it seems. Plus, everyone knows the best Picard moments in TNG involved Jean-Luc losing his temper, and this episode has plenty of that. Jean-Luc might drink his Earl Grey decaf in “Remembrance,” but that’s also the point.

6. Prodigy – “Lost & Found”

Like Discovery , Prodigy ’s pilot also breaks a lot of rules. Aside from a couple of fan-pleasing continuity deep cuts it doesn’t remotely feel like Star Trek. But then, what does the Star Trek universe feel like outside of the warm light of the Federation? The answer, basically, is Star Wars. It doesn’t hurt that Prodigy is beautifully animated, and is light years beyond what that other Star-franchise has managed to pull off in this format.

But that is the trick Prodigy pulls. Trek always started from the Federation and ventured outwards, but in Prodigy the Federation is the unknown, and its characters learn about that world at the same time its much younger audience does.

For everything that is different on the surface, the bones of Star Trek are here. There is something very Trek about the universal translator turning on and transforming a rock monster into a shy little girl. As the series continues, Prodigy becomes more and more obviously a Star Trek show , but this pilot shows it already understands the assignment.

5. Voyager – “Caretaker”

“Caretaker” was the third Star Trek pilot created by this production team in the space of eight years, and that is where all the episode’s strengths and flaws lie. This episode feels like a sizzle real of what you want from Star Trek, while admittedly starting to show the limitations of its ’90s form.

Encounter a bizarre alien trader in space? Check. Mysterious abduction to a place that looks oddly like historical Earth? Check. Away mission to a desert planet? Yep. Underground alien city? We got you. Super-advanced alien who has evolved into a sort of CGI jelly mold? You got it.

Yes, the Kazon are little more than rubbish-looking Klingons and the Maquis aren’t quite the loophole past Rodenberry’s “no conflict” rule that they’re supposed to be. To a certain extent it feels a bit by-the-numbers, but it hits all of those numbers with absolute confidence and polish , and only TOS and DS9 have so effectively and efficiently introduced its new cast and characters.

4. The Original Series – “Where No Man Has Gone Before”

The difference between “The Cage” and “Where No Man Goes Before” is in the opening shot. “The Cage” starts in space, and zooms in to look down on the crew in the bridge, “Where No Man Goes Before” starts in space, then pulls out to reveal it is on a monitor in the ship’s rec room.

Star Trek , proper, begins with Kirk and Spock playing 3D chess, establishing the “humanity vs. logic” conflict that is the heart of The Original Series , if not Star Trek itself. When we do see the bridge it is not from the ceiling, but through the turbo lift doors.

Sci-fi writer Charlie Jane Anders has even argued this episode is Kirk’s origin story , as he struggles to choose between the coldly logical, but unerringly practical Spock, or his more fun but douchey best friend, Gary Mitchell, before Kirk ultimately follows Spock’s advice to save the day and become the Captain he needs to be.

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“The Cage” (more on that in a minute) brought proper, adult science fiction to serialized TV, but “Where No Man Goes Before” grounded it in human relationships.

3. Strange New Worlds, “Strange New Worlds”

This could have been the best pilot. Like “Encounter at Farpoint” it is a pure Star Trek story, so much so that you spend a lot of the episode feeling like you have seen this story before even though you never have. Like “Where No Man Goes Before” it understands that the show will live or die by its characters and their relationships.

It introduces the Enterprise as a familiar, lived-in ship and delivers a simple, self-contained plot that shamelessly steals from The Day the Earth Stood Still and adds some added Prime Directive-flavored frosting. It gets the wonder of exploration, the camaraderie of the crew, the way that humanity has advanced to become something better than it is and the terrible things that befell it before it was able to.

The only place it falls down is that for some reason it feels like it has to tie into Discovery , shoehorning in mentions to a convoluted, season-long arc that new viewers are unfamiliar with and old ones are well over.

But even with that, “Strange New Worlds” is a nearly perfect piece of Trek .

2. Deep Space Nine – “Emissary”

Without a doubt, a masterful series premiere, the only fault of “Emissary,” is that it slightly misrepresents what Star Trek: Deep Space Nine eventually became by its seventh season. Still, in terms of tonal consistency, DS9 is remarkable in that its pilot episode is honored throughout the show with very few plot threads left abandoned.

As a series that was essentially a spinoff/sequel to The Next Generation , “Emissary” ran the risk of being way too in-the-weeds for a casual viewer, right from the first scene. Because the very first scene began inside the most famous TNG episode ever, “The Best of Both Worlds,” DS9 demanded a degree of Trek literacy immediately. And yet, the paradox of “Emissary,” is that it’s so well written that all of these continuity barriers vanish right away.

Most of this is a credit to the brilliant casting. Avery Brooks carries the episode as Benjamin Sisko, who, as we learn, doesn’t want this job, and doesn’t care for Jean-Luc Picard, either. This choice was brilliant and set DS9 apart not just from TNG , but from the basic idea of what Trek was supposed to be. It was okay for people to disagree. It was okay for Sisko to change his mind, and everything we thought we knew about the Star Trek galaxy was blown wide open by a wormhole. From Odo to Kira to Dax, Bashir, O’Brien, and Quark, the new characters are introduced quickly, but thoughtfully. In all the Trek shows, you’re never more excited for the next episode than you are after the debut of Deep Space Nine .

1. The Original Series, “The Cage”

So here we are. Possibly the only pilot episode credited with being the pilot for two individual TV shows ( Star Trek and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ) as well as launching the entire 11 TV series, 13 movie franchise.

It’s the original, but is it really the best?

“The Cage” is a strange watch today. Everything is grittier than we are used to in Star Trek, the colors are washed out, the Captain is weighed down by trauma and duty, and the biggest smile we see in the episode is probably cracked by Spock.

But from the start “The Cage” expertly sets out Star Trek ’s primary mission, one the franchise has occasionally forgotten: To bring big, thoughtful, hefty science fiction ideas to a mainstream TV audience.

The other thing it captures that perhaps Trek has lost over the decades, is its sheer weirdness .

The psychedelic angles, lighting, and music are all extremely ’60s, but also unworldly and strange in a way that Star Trek should maybe strive for again.

It is telling that when we see the Talosians again in Discovery , they have lost their androgyny to become more obviously gendered, their huge veiny craniums replaced with a more Voyager -esque ridged forehead, and the weird splashes of color replaced with a very uniform-looking blue light.

With its singing plants and alien palaces, “The Cage” leaves viewers in no doubt that this is a strange and heavily-populated universe, far more so than the automated mineral processing plant on a lifeless moon we see in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

While the Enterprise crew here are perhaps a bit more sterile than we are used to, “The Cage” introduces us to a universe we immediately long to explore, which is probably why we have done so for nearly 60 years.

What are your favorite Star Trek pilots? Let us know in the comments!

Screen Rant

Leonard nimoy hosts star trek's original pilot movie in rare footage.

Rare footage has surfaced of Leonard Nimoy hosting Star Trek's original pilot, "The Menagerie", when it was turned into a 1975 TV movie.

• Rare footage of Leonard Nimoy hosting Star Trek's "The Menagerie" resurfaces on YouTube, with insights into the transformation from original pilot to two-part episode.
• Gene Roddenberry's rejected pilot "The Cage" led to a recasted version, with only Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock remaining for Star Trek's second pilot.
• Discover the history behind how "The Cage" was refashioned into "The Menagerie" in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 through Nimoy's hosting.

Leonard Nimoy hosted a 1975 TV special of Star Trek's The Original Series ' "The Menagerie", and the rare footage has resurfaced on YouTube. In 1964, Gene Roddenberry produced "The Cage," the original hourlong pilot for Star Trek . NBC rejected "The Cage" but commissioned a second Star Trek pilot, with the entire show recast except for Leonard Nimoy's Vulcan Mr. Spock. In Star Trek: The Original Series season 1, "The Cage" was refashioned into a two-part episode, "The Menagerie," that showed nearly all o f Star Trek' s original pilot as a flashback.

YouTube user Rob O'Hara uploaded rare footage of Leonard Nimoy hosting Star Trek 's "The Menagerie" when it was turned into a 1975 TV movie by Oklahoma station KAUT-TV Channel 43. The footage includes Nimoy's interstitials as he introduces Star Trek 's original pilot and explains how and why "The Cage" was turned into "The Menagerie," the first two-part episode of Star Trek: The Original Series . Check out the video below.

Star Trek: The Original Series Cast & Character Guide

Modern star trek has made tos' original pilot more important, "the cage" is now the basis for star trek: strange new worlds.

For over 50 years, Star Trek 's original pilot , "The Cage", was a curiosity; Captain Christopher Pike's (Jeffrey Hunter) USS Enterprise was acknowledged in "The Menagerie" as having happened, but it was just a piece of trivia in Star Trek 's overall lore. Star Trek: Discovery season 2 brought back Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) , and revisited "The Cage" by bringing Spock and Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) back to Talos IV. Pike was even reunited with Vina (Melissa George), his love interest from "The Cage."

Strange New Worlds begins in 2259, five years after Pike's Enterprise's fateful encounter at Talos IV.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is not just a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery , but it's also a direct sequel to "The Cage." Strange New Worlds begins in 2259, five years after Pike's Enterprise's fateful encounter at Talos IV. Star Trek: Discovery also added the wrinkle that Pike learns he will be disfigured , as seen in "The Menagerie," and Strange New Worlds season 1 dealt with Chris coping with this knowledge. Seeing Leonard Nimoy's footage in 1975 is a fun reminder that Star Trek has never forgotten "The Cage" as the basis for the franchise and today's hugely successful series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek: The Original Series is available to stream on Paramount+.

Source: Rob O'Hara YouTube

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Published Sep 22, 2016

50 Years Later: Where No Man Has Gone Before

“ Where No Man Has Gone Before ” was the second pilot made for Star Trek , and it came about because “The Cage,” the first pilot, failed to sell the series to the NBC network. As we mentioned in last month’s article, the executives at the network realized after viewing “The Cage” that Gene Roddenberry and Desilu Studios could produce mature science fiction, but that the story they told in that first adventure wasn’t what NBC was looking for. Thus, the network took an unusual step and requested another pilot for the series. This time, however, they made it clear to Roddenberry that they wanted a simpler, less erotic action-adventure story and a somewhat different cast.

So, with those marching orders, Roddenberry went to work retooling Star Trek . He fleshed out not only his ideas for a new story concept, but he also invited other writers to pitch theirs. Finally, out of three possibilities (“Where No Man Has Gone Before” by Samuel A. Peeples, “ Mudd’s Women ” by Stephen Kandel and “ The Omega Glory ” by Gene Roddenberry), “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was selected by the network to put into production. This story was on the mark, as far as NBC was concerned, because it gave them almost everything they asked for. And, after the network viewed the finished film, they were sold… and so was Star Trek . The Original Series was officially green lit, and that started its historic trek to television.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the television premiere of “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” we thought we’d explore the galactic barrier and present two behind-the-scenes snippets about it.

Mr. Mitchell, we’re leaving the galaxy. Ahead, warp factor one.

Most of the viewing displays in “The Cage” – for example the one in the briefing room and the monitors above the bridge stations – were frosted screens that had slides and motion pictures rear projected onto them. Although this approach was tedious and noisy (and expensive, as they had to pay the projector operators), rear projection allowed the actors to see and react in real time to what was displayed. This wasn’t the case, however, for the viewing screens in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and the rest of the episodes, more or less. For the most part, the active graphics on the viewing screens from the second pilot onwards were separate optical elements that were inserted into them in post-production. This meant, of course, that the actors had to use their craft to imagine what they were not seeing.

As an example of the optical effects work that was used to insert images on the main viewing screen (MVS), here’s a photo sequence from “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that shows how the galactic barrier was placed on it.

The large photo on the left in the above collage is from a frame of film showing William Shatner watching the MVS as the scene is slated by John Eckert. The black area in the interior of the screen is the “hole” that’s been added to it in post-production and will be the place where the footage of the barrier display will be added. The upper photo on the right shows a frame from galactic barrier footage that will be inserted into the MVS. According to the script, the galactic barrier was to resemble an aurora borealis, so it was created, in part, by flooding a brightly-lit cloud tank with colored ink/paint and photographing the results. Using the optical printer, the completed footage of the barrier was then matted (masked) to the size of the MVS. Finally, the matted galactic barrier film was rephotographed together with the footage of the MVS with the “hole” in it to complete the effect as shown in the bottom right photo. Rejected Barrier Effects

When the Enterprise encountered the galactic barrier in the first act, it wreaked havoc on the ship and its crew. On the bridge, we saw electronic panels exploding and Elizabeth Dehner and Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) turning negative as they got shocked with thick, sparking lines. (An example of this latter effect, done in post-production via mattes and animation techniques, is shown below.)

Interestingly, though, this entire sequence originally had different effects that, for unknown reasons, were left on the cutting room floor. Presented below are photos from frames of black and white daily footage that show them, and please note that the captions for the letters in the bottom corners of the pictures can be found after the collage.

Photo A: This first frame comes from before the scene began and shows the cast relaxing before the action started. The technicians in front of the navigation console and on the far right are preparing flash pots (containers holding special pyrotechnic powder) for the soon-to-be-happening explosion and related shower effects.

Photo B: After the director called for action, the bridge was filled with smoke to create the illusion of off-stage fire and a scissor arc lamp was fired to simulate the flash of light for the static electric “lightning bolt” from the barrier. Of course, the lightning bolt striking the bridge panel (denoted by the yellow arrow) was added in post-production and was not seen in the completed and broadcast episode.

Photo C: After being zapped by the barrier lightening, the bridge panel then erupted in a shower of sparks courtesy of a flash pot.

Photo D: Later in this scene, the flash pot on the navigation console was ignited and, simultaneously, Gary Mitchell got hit with several bolts of static electricity that amplified his “Esper” ability (courtesy of optical effects and denoted by the yellow arrows). It’s interesting that the animation effects in this discarded sequence are different from those used in the finished episode (shown earlier) but similar to the ones that were later used in sickbay when Mitchell attacked Kirk and Spock.

And with that, we’ve ordered Mr. Kelso to get us out of here. Lateral power!

Biographical Information

David Tilotta is a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC and works in the areas of chemistry and sustainable materials technology. You can email David at [email protected]. Curt McAloney is an accomplished graphic artist with extensive experience in multimedia, Internet and print design. He resides in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and can be contacted at [email protected]. Together, Curt and David work on startrekhistory.com. Their Star Trek work has appeared in the Star Trek Magazine and Star Trek: The Original Series 365 by Paula M. Block with Terry J. Erdmann.

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Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage

The first model of the USS Enterprise is displayed at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, shake hands over the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at the Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, view the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

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DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.

The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”

AP AUDIO: Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the return of the original model of the USS Enterprise from the TV show “Star Trek.”

Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”

They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”

Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.

“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.

The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.

This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.

“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”

Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.

“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.

He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.

“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.

Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.

“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.

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Original ‘Star Trek’ Enterprise Model Is Found After Being Missing for Decades

The 33-inch model surfaced on eBay after disappearing around 1979. An auction house is giving it to the son of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of “Star Trek.”

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By Emily Schmall

The first model of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the starship that appeared in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series , has been returned to Eugene Roddenberry Jr., the son of the creator of the series, decades after it went missing.

“After a long journey, she’s home,” Mr. Roddenberry wrote on social media on Thursday.

For die-hard Trekkies, the model’s disappearance had become the subject of folklore, so an eBay listing last fall, with a starting bid of $1,000, didn’t go unnoticed.

“Red alert,” someone in an online costume and prop-making forum wrote, linking to the listing.

Mr. Roddenberry’s father, Gene Roddenberry, created the television series, which first aired in 1966 and ran for three seasons. It spawned numerous spinoffs, several films and a franchise that has included conventions and legions of devoted fans with an avid interest in memorabilia.

The seller of the model was bombarded with inquiries and quickly took the listing down.

The seller contacted Heritage Auctions to authenticate it, the auction house’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said on Saturday. As soon as the seller, who said he had found it in a storage unit, brought it to the auction house’s office in Beverly Hills, Calif., Mr. Maddalena said he knew it was real.

“That’s when I reached out to Rod to say, ‘We’ve got this. This is it,’” he said, adding that the model was being transferred to Mr. Roddenberry.

Mr. Roddenberry, who is known as Rod, said on Saturday that he would restore the model and seek to have it displayed in a museum or other institution. He said reclaiming the item had only piqued his interest in the circumstances about its disappearance.

“Whoever borrowed it or misplaced it or lost it, something happened somewhere,” he said. “Where’s it been?”

It was unclear how the model ended up in the storage unit and who had it before its discovery.

The original U.S.S. Enterprise, a 33-inch model, was mostly made of solid wood by Richard C. Datin, a model maker for the Howard Anderson Company, a special-effects company that created the opening credits for some of the 20th century’s biggest TV shows .

An enlarged 11-foot model was used in subsequent “Star Trek” television episodes, and is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum , where it was donated by Paramount Studios in 1974.

Mr. Roddenberry, who said he gave the seller a “reward” for its recovery but did not disclose the terms, assembled a group of “Star Trek” production veterans, model makers and restoration specialists in Beverly Hills to authenticate the find.

The group included a “Star Trek” art supervisor, Michael Okuda, and his wife, Denise, an artist on “Star Trek” television series and films, and Gary Kerr, a “Trek x-pert” who served as technical consultant for the Smithsonian during a 2016 restoration of the 11-foot model.

“We spent at least an hour photographing it, inspecting the paint, inspecting the dirt, looking under the base, the patina on the stem, the grain in the wood,” Mr. Roddenberry said.

“It was a unanimous ‘This is 100 percent the one,’” he said.

Gene Roddenberry, who died in 1991 , kept the original model, which appeared in the show’s opening credits and pilot episode, on his desk.

Mr. Kerr compared the model to 1960s photos he had of the model on Mr. Roddenberry’s desk.

“The wood grain matched exactly, so that was it,” he said on Saturday.

The model went missing after Mr. Roddenberry lent it to the makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979, Mr. Maddalena said.

“This is a major discovery,” he said, likening the model to the ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” a prop that was stolen in 2005 and recovered by the F.B.I. in 2018, and that Heritage Auctions is selling.

While the slippers represent hope, he said, the starship Enterprise model “represents dreams.”

“It’s a portal to what could be,” he said.

Emily Schmall covers breaking news and feature stories and is based in Chicago. More about Emily Schmall

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He missed a chance to be the first Black astronaut. Now, at 90, he's going into space

Scott Neuman

Ed Dwight poses for a portrait in February to promote the National Geographic documentary film The Space Race during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption

Ed Dwight poses for a portrait in February to promote the National Geographic documentary film The Space Race during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Edward J. Dwight Jr. has waited a long time for his ride into space.

In the 1960s, he seemed poised to become America's first Black astronaut. That dream was never realized. Now, at age 90, he's about to finally get his shot, aboard a Blue Origin rocket.

The opportunity is "a curiosity more than anything else," Dwight says. "They called me up and asked me if I was interested. And of course I said yes."

The 1st Black Woman To Pilot A Spacecraft Says Seeing Earth Was The Best Part

While Dwight won't be the first African American in space — that honor went to Guion Bluford Jr. in 1983 — he will be the oldest person to go there, edging out (by a few months) Star Trek actor William Shatner , who flew aboard a Blue Origin rocket in 2021.

For many his age, a journey into space would seem unthinkable. Dwight says he's ready to go. He points out that the rigors of his upcoming flight won't be much different from what he experienced as a test pilot in the Air Force. "I've pulled more G's than any person on Earth," he says with a wry smile. "I've been high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. ... I've been doing things like that most of my life."

Space health expert Dorit Donoviel says the 11-minute flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket means many of the concerns about the long-term effects of orbital and deep-space missions won't come into play.

"The main thing we worry about is the G forces," says Donoviel, director of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine.

Air Force Capt. Edward J. Dwight Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of the Titan III-X-20 Dyna-Soar combination during a visit to Air Force headquarters in the capital in November 1963. Getty Images/Bettman Archive hide caption

Air Force Capt. Edward J. Dwight Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of the Titan III-X-20 Dyna-Soar combination during a visit to Air Force headquarters in the capital in November 1963.

Those G forces cause blood to drain from the head, and that's an issue for anyone launching into space, regardless of age. However, she points out that the seats aboard Blue Origin's rocket are angled at 20 or 30 degrees. "As you're experiencing the G-forces, you're getting it through the chest, which is not affecting your head," Donoviel says. "It's distributed through the chest, which really shouldn't matter very much."

And then there's the landing. The crew capsule will separate from the booster and come down under a set of parachutes — emitting a last-minute retro thrust to reduce speed to about 2 miles per hour to cushion the impact. "It's not even a controlled crash. It's a crash," Donoviel says. Still, she anticipates no issues.

No launch date set

Blue Origin has not announced a launch date yet. But Dwight and his crewmates will train for two days before liftoff at the company's Launch Site One in western Texas, not far from the Mexico border.

The company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, declined to disclose the per-passenger cost of the flight, but says Dwight's seat is being sponsored by Space for Humanity and Blue Origin, with additional support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Family Foundation . (Jaison Robinson, who flew on a previous Blue Origin flight, is on the NPR Foundation Board of Trustees.)

Leland Melvin, a retired NASA astronaut who flew two space shuttle missions to the International Space Station, says it will be good to see Dwight finally "get his due" all these years after he first trained for space.

My Big Break

From touchdowns to takeoff: engineer-athlete soared to space.

Dwight sees his upcoming spaceflight as the "climax to an interesting story."

His own story, that is. One of the earliest chapters begins at an airfield in Kansas City, Kan. As a child, Dwight's fascination with aviation led to odd jobs cleaning aircraft owned by wealthy flyers. But even then, he had greater ambitions. "I told them I didn't want their nickels and dimes for cleaning airplanes anymore," he says. "I wanted to fly." At age 8, he got his first flight.

Dwight was equally interested in art and earned a scholarship to pursue his passion after high school. His father would have none of it. Art wasn't a real career, he insisted. Dwight should study engineering instead, so he enrolled at a junior college, receiving an associate's degree in 1953, the same year he enlisted in the Air Force.

After finishing primary flight training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Dwight also got a bachelor's of science in aeronautical engineering from Arizona State University. Discrimination was an ever-present reality in the armed forces at the time, but as a skilled pilot, he made captain.

Kennedy wanted a Black astronaut

That's when President John F. Kennedy — eager to link his administration's push for civil rights to the country's early space exploration efforts — asked for a Black astronaut.

At the time, it was test pilots who became astronauts, and there were no Black test pilots. So, Dwight was invited to attend the Air Force's newly opened Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS).

But when he got the invitation letter, he almost threw it out, Dwight recalls. His Air Force peers "got a big laugh out of it," telling him that "all those guys have swagger, and it's a club," he said, referring to the all-white astronaut corps. They said, "They are not going to let you get in that club."

"And, of course, they were right," he says.

'Black In Space' Explores NASA's Small Steps And Giant Leaps Toward Equality

It was a huge career gamble. Dwight's father, who played baseball in the Negro Leagues, was strongly opposed. His mother, though, changed her son's mind. "She said, 'You are going to do this' because she was thinking it would be uplifting the race and racial pride," he says.

Upon entering the flight-test program, Dwight experienced immediate pushback that he says was rooted in racism. He says Chuck Yeager, the famed test pilot who ran the school, resented having to accept a Black candidate. (Yeager, who died in 2020, wrote in his memoir that his only issue was Dwight's piloting skills, which he described as "average.")

Once on the astronaut track, Dwight became a minor celebrity, especially in the Black community. He appeared on the cover of magazines such as Ebony and Jet . But he also endured taunts of "Kennedy's boy" because of the president's support.

Kennedy's 1963 assassination nearly derailed Dwight's training, he says. Days after the president's death, "Lo and behold, I had orders in my mailbox shipping me out of the country," he says.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother, intervened to keep him in the program, according to Dwight. He stayed in the Air Force for a few more years, but it became increasingly clear that he would not be selected as an astronaut. "When I found out it wasn't going to happen, that's when I left the program," he says. "I just packed my bags and left."

One of Ed Dwight's sculptures in Battle Creek, Mich., depicts escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad being led to freedom by Harriet Tubman and local abolitionist Erastus Hussey. Carlos Osorio/AP hide caption

One of Ed Dwight's sculptures in Battle Creek, Mich., depicts escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad being led to freedom by Harriet Tubman and local abolitionist Erastus Hussey.

After the Air Force, Dwight, who eventually settled in Denver, became a computer systems engineer for IBM, later opened a restaurant and worked as a real estate developer before being drawn back to his childhood love of art . Despite having little formal training, he was commissioned in 1974 to create a sculpture of Colorado's first Black lieutenant governor, George Brown.

Black History Month 2024

A child's dream to 'drive' a space shuttle propels him toward a historic nasa mission, from would-be astronaut to sculptor.

From there, his reputation as a sculptor blossomed. In 1977, he earned a master's of fine art in sculpture from the University of Denver. He specializes in sculpting historic African American figures. Among his more notable pieces are busts of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and one of Louis Armstrong on display at the National Museum of American History.

Melvin, who is African American, says when he met Dwight, he didn't know much about his backstory. "I got a copy of his book and I read some of the stuff that he had done," he says. "He reminded me of Katherine Johnson ," the NASA mathematician who led an all-woman group of "computers," who made vital orbital calculations for the agency's early crewed spaceflights. Their story was later featured in Hidden Figures, the book and 2016 film.

Dwight and Melvin became close friends. In recent months, they have worked together on The Space Race , a documentary released last year about the contributions and experiences of Black astronauts. Dwight's own story is prominent in the film.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Leland Melvin pose with Ed Dwight for a portrait to promote The Space Race in February at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Leland Melvin pose with Ed Dwight for a portrait to promote The Space Race in February at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif.

"He's not only funny, he's self-deprecating," Melvin says of Dwight. And one quality stands out. "He's got grit."

"But the other thing that his mother taught him was grace," he says. So, when being an astronaut didn't work all those years ago, "he gracefully pivoted to doing something else. It was just as impactful — just as impactful, especially in the Black community, which was his sculpture."

"He will now get his chance to do some zero-G floating and look at the planet from another vantage point," Melvin says.

Correction April 25, 2024

An earlier version of this story omitted Blue Origin as a sponsor of the flight that will take Edward J. Dwight Jr. into space.

• blue origin

WhatCulture

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Posted: April 27, 2024 | Last updated: April 27, 2024

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'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5's Captain Rayner Ran His Ship Like a Pirate

Callum Keith Rennie also discusses coming into 'Discovery's final season, getting into prosthetics, and how much he has in common with Rayner.

The Big Picture

• Callum Keith Rennie's Captain Rayner brings conflict and depth to Star Trek: Discovery 's final season.
• Rennie discusses his experience on Star Trek: Discovery , praising the supportive cast and crew, despite the initial challenges of joining an established series for its last season.
• In Season 5, Episode 4 "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner must work together within a time bubble to save the universe.

As Captain Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) embarks on one last adventure with her crew, Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 is bringing a few new characters along for the ride. Chief among those newcomers is the blunt, war-worn Captain Rayner. Played by Battlestar Galactica alum Callum Keith Rennie , Rayner is Burnham's new second in command on the Discovery , taking over after Saru ( Doug Jones ) took a different position at Starfleet.

Having lived through The Burn, Rayner doesn't have time for niceties and butts heads with Burnham almost immediately — so naturally, she takes it upon herself to give him a second chance when Starfleet is ready to cut him loose. Last week's episode saw him, rightfully, put in his place a bit as Tilly ( Mary Wiseman ) attempted to help him connect with the crew, much to his chagrin. In Season 5 Episode 4, "Face the Strange," Rayner and Burnham are thrown into a time bubble, forcing them to work together if they ever want to get back to the correct timeline and prevent the universe from being destroyed.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Rennie to dig into Rayner's backstory, what we can expect from him in the rest of the season, and what it will take for Rayner to truly connect with the crew of Discovery . During our conversation, we also discussed Rennie's history with sci-fi, what it was like joining Discovery for the show's final season, and what he's taking away from the whole experience.

Star Trek: Discovery

*Availability in US

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Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Rennie is no stranger to science fiction, having had roles in such series as The Umbrella Academy , Jessica Jones, and Battlestar Galactica. As Battlestar Galactica was the series that turned me into a sci-fi fan, and perhaps Rennie's most recognizable role, I had to ask him about being a part of such massive and beloved franchises within the genre. "It's amazing," he said. For Rennie, even though Battlestar was also a reboot of a classic series , the show's success was a lot less predictable than the mainstay that is Star Trek . He explained, "Like, say Battlestar , when I started on that I had no idea where that one was gonna go. Discovery was already very established , but I actually didn't let any of that into my [head], because I went, “That's not gonna help.” So, I didn’t. Now, I'm feeling the world of it. Now, I'm sensing what the world of Discovery is and how many people love it, and how it fits. "

Discovery also isn't his first experience with Star Trek , "I watched the original. That was my thing, and that was it," Rennie told me. While he may have missed some of the series' in between, saying, "There's big chunks of time where I just didn't watch a lot of TV, so I missed all of the other stuff," he'll always make time for The Original Series when he comes across it, "even if the old Star Trek comes on, I'll still watch it because that was my Star Trek . Jim Kirk, and all of that. "

While we've gotten a pretty good sense of who Rayner is in these first four episodes, most of his backstory remains a mystery. Rennie revealed that "some backstory comes up in a few episodes." Part of his gruff exterior will be explained as we'll "get a sense of why he's maybe got a chip on his shoulder and has some unprocessed resentments about a bunch of things that maybe have played out in his work in a negative way."

Rennie Calls 'Star Trek: Discovery's Latest Episode "Amazing"

"Face the Strange," is such a classic Star Trek episode, employing the ever-entertaining sci-fi trope of sticking our main characters in a time loop, both to put an obstacle in their path as well as to bring them face to face with some of their own demons. For Rennie, the episode really put the science in science fiction. "It was like, 'Whoa! What's happening? I don't get it.' There's just so much science stuff and talk, so much jumping about to places and history and stuff." But he had high praise for his fellow castmates as well as the crew behind the camera." Lee [Rose] being the director, you're in great hands. Being in scenes with Sonequa, you know that you're gonna be in it , and it was great. I watched it again last night, and there’s just an amazing amount of stuff in there. It was just an amazing episode. "

In this episode, Burnham and Rayner are tossed back in time to the first season of Discovery , bringing them both face to face with the version of Burnham who's fresh off her own demotion in Starfleet . Throughout the episode, it becomes quite clear that Burnham and Rayner have a lot more in common than either of them might have realized. When asked if this experience might put them more on equal footing, Rennie confirmed that "he's learned an understanding of the crew." He went on to point out that we haven't seen the relationship that Rayner had with his own crew.

He explained: "We're not on the Antares talking about his crew, which I think is an important part that we missed, where you go, 'How did I see my people on my particular ship? And how well did I know them?' No one's asking me how well I knew everybody because I did, but if I've only been there a brief time, you're only gonna have facts." He admits that it is important for Rayner to connect past the surface level. "Through that particular episode, you learn and go, 'Yes, it is good to know what people are up to and where they're from,' because in that particular instance, it saved us. So, I learned a thing, and I give a, 'Yes. Got it. Thank you.'"

Rayner Will Have to Shorten the Distance Between Himself and the Discovery Crew

While it doesn't sound like we'll be getting any flashbacks to Rayner's time on the Antares Rennie believes that he'd spent a similar amount of time with that crew as Michael has with hers. "We didn't get to inhabit that, I get to make it up in my own mind," he said. "But for me, it was more like a pirate ship that I had. " While Rayner comes off as the more stubborn, stick-to-the-mission Captain between him and Burnham, Rennie doesn't think he was quite so strict on his own ship. He said:

"That's the way I perceived it. It wasn't some rigid, completely stoic, boss fest, but a little bit of a wild card ship. We're gonna go into things that nobody else wants to go into, or knows how to deal with, but we would. "

While the walls around Rayner are still pretty high, Rennie explained that we will see him "shorten the distance" he's put between himself and the crew of the Discovery. "There's a great bit, there's an episode where Burnham leaves me again to take control of the ship. There's an interaction with everybody in a certain way because they don't like me yet. [Laughs] And I need some help a little bit, but I've created a distance, and I have to shorten that distance between everybody." He went on to say there are plenty of "fun dynamics" to look forward to and Rayner's insistence on keeping everyone at arm's length will likely come back to bite him.

Star Trek has quite a long list of original alien species created for the franchise, and Rayner just happens to be a Kellerun, a race that hasn't been seen since Deep Space Nine . In classic Trek fashion, Kelleruns appear mostly human with the most visible difference being the shape of the ears. As he follows in the footsteps of the likes of Leonard Nimoy and any actor who has ever played a Vulcan or a Romulan, I asked Rennie about getting into prosthetics for the role. "Those guys are great. Rocky [Faulkner] was great, Nicola [Bendrey] was great." While it was certainly an extra step the process was brief enough that it didn't bother him to come to set a bit earlier than usual. "That was probably an hour, and I really didn't think about that enough to go, 'Oh, that's right. I have to get up earlier.' But I think we got it down to an hour and a bit for just the ears because there’s a lot of stuff on them."

Despite the agonizing wait of sitting in front of a mirror for an hour, Rennie noted that Faulkner and Bendrey made the make-up experience as fun as it could possibly have been. He said: "I don't love just sitting there looking at myself for an hour, but there's music and great company and coffee, and it became a really sweet part of the day, and then another sweet part of the day where I download. " It wasn't his first time getting into prosthetics, but his previous experience had been brief. After playing Rayner across an entire season, Rennie admitted by the end, removing the glue actually started to feel like you'd expect pulling costume glue off your ears to feel. "There was a point near the end where the glue-on, glue-off became quite painful for a while."

The Support of the Cast and the Fans Are Highlights of Rennie's 'Star Trek' Experience

While this is Rennie's first season on the show, it's the final bow for Star Trek: Discovery . When asked what he'd be taking away from this experience, he had nothing but high praise for the cast and crew. As a newcomer on a well-established show, jumping into the fifth season had a bit of a learning curve. "I found that coming into the show was difficult for me because it was unlike a show that I'd been on before. It was already very well established." He went on to say:

"I pat myself on the back because I made it through, and there was this wonderful group energy that helped me do that. The good naturedness of the show was something that I maybe haven't worked on. There was a wholehearted goodness about it, which was quite nice, which overlapped into how people treated each other and mutual respect. Also, I kind of blocked out all Star Treks in my mind, so I'm there not thinking of Star Trek history. I'm just doing scene-to-scene and working on this stuff, and then it finishes, and then I forget that there's an incredible vast following of the show that somehow you are now part of it like that. All of that, this is all relatively new to me."

As a new addition to an already established group, I pointed out that it seemed as though Rennie's experience mirrored that of his characters, and he agreed. "I'm excited for people to see the season. And then, coming into it playing, “I don't want to be liked. It doesn't matter if I'm liked. I'm there to do my job, like Rayner, and I'm doing it. And then there's the after-effect of an incredible fan base that seems to be very supportive ."

You can watch our full conversation in the player above, and catch the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery now on Paramount+.

'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5 Review: One Hell of a Final Ride

Watch on Paramount+