The
Star Trek that hit television screens in February 1965 was not the first episode of the series made, that one actually not being aired till twenty years later, because at the time the network believed it was too beyond the limited attention span of the then-television audience to grasp and understand, or, as they put it succinctly, “too cerebral”. The original pilot was rejected and Gene Roddenberry had to go back and rethink, coming up with what would be the “proper” pilot to launch the series that would eventually become a worldwide phenomenon and lead to a global super-franchise the likes of which the world had literally never seen before.
Star Trek was probably the first true “brand”, spawning everything from movies to lunchboxes and stickers to novels.
But as every true Trekker knows, “The Cage” is where it's at. It's the original, double-length pilot episode and it is so far removed from what the series would later become, and yet retains some elements of the future programme, that it really does deserve to be reviewed first. For those who are unaware, this original pilot featured: no Kirk (gasp!) no Scotty (double gasp!) no McCoy (triple gasp!) and no Spock (all gasped out now!) - well, it did actually feature Spock, but a far different one to the classic character who would emerge as one of the series', and science-fiction's as a whole, most enduring, respected and recognised characters.
Original Pilot: “The Cage”
The USS
Enterprise investigates an old radio signal which seems to indicate that a ship, the SS
Columbia went down in the Talos system. Or rather, it doesn't. Its captain, Christopher Pike, seems unconvinced that there could still be survivors down there after eighteen years, and is more concerned with completing his own mission. He tells Science Officer Spock to ignore it and continue on. The Captain is brooding about a recent mission in which some of his crew were killed, others injured, and they are now
en route to the Vega colony to seek medical aid for those hurt. He is beginning to doubt his ability to command, and the burden of decision is weighing heavily on his shoulders. He is considering resigning his commission.
However just as he is discussing his options with the ship's doctor, Spock advises him that they have intercepted a follow-up message which confirms there
are survivors on Talos IV, and he is now duty-bound to investigate. They set course for the planet. Once there, they do indeed come across a bunch of survivors, who just happen to have in their number a nubile sexy female, Vina, who leads Pike off on his own, whereupon it becomes clear that everything is an illusion as she and the “survivors” disappear, the rock face opens and from a door set into it emerge three alien beings with bulbous heads. One shoots Pike with a ray of some sort, and before his crew can get to him he is pulled inside the structure. The door remains stubbornly resistant to the phaser blasts the crew direct at it. Spock calls in to advise the ship that they have lost the captain.
Inside, Pike awakes to find he is inside some underground structure and trapped in (say it with me) a cage. He charges the transparent window but it rebuffs him as if it were made of the strongest steel. The three aliens who captured him now appear and communicate with each other telepathically, as they discuss him, and talk about beginning “the experiment” soon. Back on the ship, and against Spock's better judgement, the female Number One agrees to try blasting the rockface with the ship's phasers. In a move that would become typical of later episodes, and series, the aliens manipulate Pike's mind to create a scene out of his memory - the one about which he was agonising on the ship, in which some crew were killed - and provide a female for him to rescue, pitting him against an implacable enemy. Whatever else he is, Pike is not an idiot and realises it's a construct taken from his mind, but the human survival imperative is so strong that he finds himself fighting, both to protect the girl (who was missing from his original mission) and himself. After all, he doesn't know how real this could get, or how far his captors are willing to go.
When the simulation ends though, with Pike victorious, the woman is suddenly in the cage with him. She eyes the Talosians a moment before they depart, and then she tries to seduce Pike, saying she can be anyone or anything he wants, but he rebuffs her advances, trying instead to gain some information about his captors. The first obligation of a prisoner is to seduce the woman he's imprisoned with ... oh, sorry. Was reading from the wrong book there. How did
Captain Kirk's Guide to Alien Babes get here? Sorry. I meant of course the obligation is to escape, and this is what he is trying to do.
Oddly enough, Number One and Spock have, instead of using the ship's phasers from space, transported down a large heavy weapon which they have set up outside the door through which Pike was abducted. Naturally, they have as little success here as they had with their hand weapons. Vina explains that the Talosians used to live on the surface of the planet but that war drove them underground and the surface is only now becoming habitable. They search the galaxy for specimens and lure them here, probe their minds and seem to be interested in procreation (ain't we all?) but suddenly she starts screaming and vanishes. Pike discovers that strong emotion can overpower or block out the Talosians' control of him, as they tell him that the girl who shared his cage is real, the only survivor of the ship whose distress call they picked up. Again the Talosians create a scene from Pike's mind, this time an idyllic fantasy of his dream of retiring, then they change the scenario and she's an Orion slave girl.
Meanwhile, the landing party from the
Enterprise finds that only the two women - a yeoman (sort of a PA kind of Girl Friday deal) and Number One - are allowed transport down, and these two find themselves in the cage with Pike. The Talosians now tell him he has a choice of three women to breed with, including the original one. Pike fills his mind with dark images but still can't break out of the cage. On the
Enterprise Spock prepares to leave but finds that all power appears to have failed, and they are going nowhere. When Pike manages to get the drop on one of the Talosians he is told that they will destroy the
Enterprise if he does not let him go, but he gambles that “you're too intelligent to kill for no reason”, and indeed the scientific nature of the beings is proven to triumph, as they allow, under duress, Pike to see that the “hand-lasers” not working was just an illusion: a hole has been blasted in the wall after all. They head out.
Once on the surface of the planet they are told that the Talosians wish them to begin reclaiming the planet, Pike fathering a race who will exist to serve the aliens and make the planet a home for them again. The captain bargains with their captor: send his two crewmembers back to the ship, and assure its safety, and he will remain behind with Vina. But Number One has other ideas, and sets her phaser to overload, willing to kill them all rather than be part of bringing up a race of slave humans. When the Talosians assimilate the records of the
Enterprise and learn of humanity's hatred for captivity they decide that they are unsuitable for their purposes, and allow the humans to leave.
Vina, however, is condemned to remain on the planet; her beauty is an illusion. The Talosians reconstructed her from the crash, but had no model to go from and so she is, shall we say, less than pretty? If she leaves, the illusion will be broken. The Talosians allow her to regain her beauty through the illusion, and also give her an illusory Pike to spend her days with. The crew leave the planet and head off into space. And back to the dole.
QUOTES
Doctor: “You're tired.”
Pike: “You bet I'm tired! I'm tired of being responsible for 203 lives, tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't, and who goes on a landing party, and who lives and who dies.”
Pike: “Now you're beginning to sound more like a doctor, bartender.”
Doctor: “We both get the same sort of customers, the living and the dying.”
Pike: “She does a good enough job, it's just that I can't get used to a woman on the bridge. Oh, sorry Lieutenant!” (Looking at his Number One, who arches her eyebrow coldly). “You're different, of course!”
Survivor: “This is Vina. Her parents are dead. She was born almost as we crashed.”
(That must have been a tough childbirth!)
Alien I: “It appears, Magistrate, that the specimen's intelligence is shockingly limited”
Magistrate: “This is no surprise, as its vessel was baited here so easily with a simple simulated message. As you can read in its thoughts, it is only now beginning to realise that the survivors' encampment was a simple illusion that we placed in their minds.”
Vina: “When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travelling, building, creating, you even forget how to operate the machines left behind by your ancestors.”
Vina: “He doesn't need you. He's already chosen me.”
Yeoman: “Chosen her? For what? I don't understand!”
Vina: “Now there's a fine choice for intelligent offspring!”
Yeoman: “Offspring? As in children?”
Number One: “Offspring, as in, he's Adam? Is that it?”
Vina: “You're no better choice. They'd have more luck crossing him with a computer!”
Yeoman: “Sir? I was just wondering, just curious: who would have been Eve?”
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Well, obviously. This episode doesn't really tie in with the rest of the
Star Trek canon, though it would be revisited in the first season for an episode that would tie up the loose ends and bring Pike back, albeit much older and played by another actor. But there are so many changes here that occurred between this episode and the next, the true pilot for the series, that it's almost self-defeating to list them. Among the important ones though are:
Pike was replaced of course by Kirk.
Spock was played and written in a far less excitable manner (yeah, seriously: you want to see Spock as you've never seen him before? Check this episode out!) and made much cooler and logical. He was also made Kirk's second in command.
None of the crew apart from Spock (and to some degree Number One, though in a different role) survive the pilot and are completely rewritten and recast for the next episode. I don't mean they die: nobody does, but they are considered surplus to requirements and all kicked off the show. How they must feel like the guy who left the Beatles, or the guy who refused to sign The Rolling Stones!
The red alert sound was fixed; here it sounds like a mouse laughing.
The crew complement began at 203 but eventually settled at around 450.
The word “phaser” has yet to be coined: here, the weapons are “hand lasers”.
The main propulsion is called “hyperdrive”, with the factor called “time warp” (don't! Just don't, okay?) and the backup system, rather than being impulse power as it would soon come to be known as, is simply referred to as “rockets”.
Some things never change
There are those facets of the show however which were carried forward. Though Roddenberry would struggle for several episodes - almost right through the first season, in fact - to decide what to call headquarters (from “Space Command” to “Star Control” and so on, till he eventually settled on “Starfleet Command”) he had the idea of “M” class planets here, a planet with a breathable atmosphere, though that may have come from astrophysics, I don't know. But it is a designation that was carried not only through
Star Trek, but the rest of the franchise over the decades.
Interestingly, the word “Engage!” is used for the first time here, and would not be uttered again for another thirty years. When Kirk ordered a course, he just said “Ahead, Warp Factor 5” or whatever. It wasn't until Picard arrived in
Star Trek: The Next Generation that he began using the phrase to execute the command. I wonder why they initially dropped it, when it later became so popular? Perhaps Roddenberry was anxious to sever as many ties with the original, rejected pilot as possible.
Even in this first episode, they used the term “landing party” to refer to a group of the crew who would transport down to a planet and explore.
Personal notes
I feel (though of course I don't know) that this show may have been the first to begin, what is the word someone told me describes it? Can't remember, but basically the story is already well established as the episode opens, with some of the action which may impact on this episode already having taken place. For the American TV audiences of the late 1960s this must indeed have been "cerebral", confusing even: did we miss an episode? What's this thing he's talking about, where people died? He's going to retire? The show has only begun! And so on.
It's a bold move - some shows, even now, have done this but usually end up throwing a "48 Hours (or fill in time period as appropriate) earlier" thing which then goes on to explain what happened previously. This show does not. You're not given any clue as to what Pike is agonising about (there's a teaser when the Talosians use his memory to recreate part of the mission, but other than that, nothing) and you quickly must get used to the idea that this may be a show where you have to (gasp!) think for yourself, that everything will not be spoon-fed to you and that possibly everything may not be tied up in a neat bow at the end.
Welcome to the dawn of true drama television.