So, Gene Roddenberry produced “The Cage,” the original pilot for Star Trek,
showed it to the network, and they asked him to make another pilot,
and the second pilot he made was “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” which the network accepted
and ordered to series. It’s kinda like in college when you would turn a paper into your professor,
and they’d give it back to you and say “you don’t want me to grade this one — rewrite it,” so you
rewrite it, turn it back in, and the professor’s like “. . . Fine. I guess I’ll take it.”
This is a review of both pilot episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series: “The Cage,” the first
pilot, and “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second pilot — or, as I like to think of them,
the turtleneck twins! If by some perverse twist of fate you have not seen either of these episodes,
and you don’t want to know what happens in them, be warned: spoilers beyond this point!
Star Trek: The Original Series is not only the only series in the franchise to have had two
pilot episodes, it’s also the only series where the pilot was not the first episode
broadcast. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was actually the third episode of Star Trek to air,
following “The Man Trap” and “Charlie X,” and “The Cage” wasn’t broadcast in its originally intended
form until 1988. Because they were produced first but released later — much later, in the case of
“The Cage” — they feel strangely disconnected from the series they were meant to launch.
“The Cage” in particular has an uncanny quality. It’s Star Trek,
but not Star Trek. It contains many of the elements that would soon enough become familiar
tropes in the series and the franchise that eventually grew from it — the young captain,
somewhat burdened by the responsibilities of his command, a morally righteous man of action whose
closest friend and confidant is the ship’s doctor; the exotic alien worlds represented
by obvious soundstage sets and studio backlot locations; Spock — who in “The Cage” is merely
the most noticeable of several supporting characters, with no indication that he will
someday become one of the most important and beloved characters in popular fiction.
But, there are also differences between “The Cage” and the series that followed. They’re
mostly subtle differences: the sets are a little less colorful, the tone is a little more serious,
the dialogue a little more clipped. Watching it this morning for this review, it really struck me
how much of it plays like Forbidden Planet: The Series. I’ve talked in other videos about how
Forbidden Planet was an inspiration for Star Trek, and if you doubt that, just watch Forbidden Planet
and “The Cage” back-to-back, then try and tell me the latter wasn’t influenced by the former.
There’s also the fact that the crew of the Enterprise — apart from one
background character — is entirely white and, from the sound of it, entirely American. We
know from Roddenberry’s original pitch to the network that he intended Star Trek to showcase
racial and cultural diversity, so perhaps the all-white, all-American cast in the pilot was
there to ease the nerves of anxious mid-1960s network executives, to not come right outta
the gate doing something controversial, like having Black people on the show.
Captain Pike, played here by Jeffrey Hunter, is a bit of a stiff, but he’s also clearly
recognizable as the template for Captain Kirk. His stated discomfort with women on the bridge
seems anachronistic to us today, but at the time would probably have worked as part of
the show’s progressive political messaging: just as Captain Pike will have to get over
his sexism and accept women as equals in the workplace, so will all of you fellas at home.
I’m just guessing that was the intention, I don’t really know.
Number One, played by Majel Barrett giving the best performance she will ever give in a Star
Trek show, or perhaps anything else, makes an impression by remaining cool, in control,
and — while Pike is gone — in charge. Again, this would have been a bigger deal at the time
than it is today, the idea of a woman not only not being overtly sexualized, but also
being second in command of the ship, speaks to how progressive values and a commitment to promoting
equality and social justice were baked into the concept of Star Trek from the very beginning.
Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, as if I had to tell you that, is mostly the same as we see him in
the series. He comes across as focused, serious, by-the-book. He does crack a smile once or twice,
and he is more emphatic than the dry, unflappable Spock we’ve come to know and love, but I think
that’s just a matter of both Nimoy and Roddenberry not quite having a handle on the character
yet. They, and the other writers, figured it out pretty quick once the series went into production.
As for the story, its beats and themes will be familiar to most Star Trek fans:
the plot incited by a distress call from a mysterious source; the captain who is
thinking of leaving Starfleet, but changes his mind by the end; the aliens who capture
our heroes because they need help reviving their dying civilization; the ideas that
reality is almost always better than fantasy, and that captivity is inherently inhumane.
I like the Talosians, the aliens who capture Pike and attempt to control him
through their powerful telepathic illusions. Their character design is reminiscent of the
popular image of extraterrestrials — small bodies, big heads — and their possessing of
apparently godlike abilities is a trope Star Trek will return to again and again through
the years. The head Talosian, called The Keeper in the original script,
played by Meg Wyllie with Malachi Throne providing the voice, projects intelligence,
and a chillingly casual cruelty that makes him a very effective antagonist.
“The Cage” does drag a bit. Its full running time is sixty-three minutes — had it been broadcast
in the 1960s, it would have been trimmed by nearly ten minutes to get it down to
a proper running time for a one-hour show, and I think that would have helped it quite a lot.
The most obvious cut to make would be to lose the entire sequence featuring Vina as
the green-skinned Orion slave girl, which feels tacked-on and serves no purpose to the plot. But,
something tells me that bit would have stayed in — not only does it add some sex appeal,
it also plays unmistakably like Gene Roddenberry working out some of his personal issues on screen.
“A planet where women like to be taken advantage of? Why, it’s the ultimate fantasy! But,
I can’t give in. I must resist! I must! I . . . Must I?” That is a
scene written by an inveterate horndog who wants you to know he’s a horndog,
but is conflicted about it in a way he hopes you will find noble.
Speaking of inveterate horndogs: Captain Kirk!
I know, I know — he’s not actually that much of a horndog, that part of his character has
been greatly exaggerated. I made a whole video about that. I was just reaching for a transition.
So, let’s talk about the second pilot: “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
While there remain a few superficial changes to be made between this and the series — the uniforms,
phasers, and a few other props are still the style used in “The Cage” rather than those seen in the
rest of the series — this pilot moves things much closer to what we think of as Star Trek
both aesthetically and tonally. The bridge is less monochromatic, with the familiar touches of red
added in. The tone is noticeably less serious. There’s an easy camaraderie among the crew,
particularly between Kirk and Spock, Kirk and Gary Mitchell, and Mitchell and Lee Kelso.
Spock still shows little flashes of emotion that are uncharacteristic of his familiar persona,
but Nimoy’s already nearly got him dialed in. He still comes across as louder and
more emphatic than the Spock we’re used to, but this time that’s mostly a result
of the way characters tend to bellow orders and reports like crew members aboard a submarine,
a convention that was dropped when the full series went into production.
The story of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is much simpler and more straightforward
than that of “The Cage.” There’s still a distress call from a long-lost ship,
and there’s still a plot involving characters with godlike powers — ESP and telekinesis
this time — but Kirk isn’t grappling with guilt and self-doubt like Pike,
and there are no fantasy sequences or visits to exotic locales. Most of the action is confined to
the Enterprise. The only planet visited is Delta Vega, an uninhabited automated mining colony.
Instead of aliens, the godlike beings this time around are members of Kirk’s
own crew — his best friend, Gary Mitchell, and ship’s psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner,
played by Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman, respectively — who gain powerful psychic abilities
after the Enterprise contacts the galactic barrier. Mitchell manifests his abilities first,
and the rapid strengthening of his power as Kirk and crew try to figure
out what to do about it gives this episode a sense of urgency that “The Cage” lacks.
Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner — as if I needed to tell you that — is less severe and more
charming than Hunter’s interpretation of Pike, and also goes a lot bigger in his emotional scenes,
which — ya know — Shatner. He gives us the first of many splendid displays of
overacting in the scene on Delta Vega when Mitchell is forcing Kirk to pray
to him as a god, and Kirk is resisting and protesting. Classic Shatner, classic Kirk.
We also get to see what will soon become a familiar side of Spock, when he proposes to Kirk
that they consider killing Gary Mitchell before he becomes too powerful for them to stop, a course of
action that is coldly logical but also intended to safeguard the lives of everyone else on the ship.
The cast is noticeably more racially diverse than in “The Cage.” Lieutenant Uhura is not
yet present, but we do at least see a Black crew member on the bridge,
though he doesn’t get a name or have any lines. Sulu is here,
and gets a few lines. And we also hear Scotty’s decidedly non-American accent.
Thematically, just as is the case with the first pilot,
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” explores ideas that would become mainstays of Star Trek:
the dangers inherent to flying out into the unknown, the toxic effect of power not guided
by compassion, and the universal truth that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Of the two pilots, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” feels much more
like what you would expect the pilot of Star Trek to feel like,
having seen the rest of the series. And that makes sense — it’s the pilot the network accepted. But,
both are decent episodes in their own right, and despite their differences from each other
and from the series that followed, both are classic Star Trek right down to the bone.
It’s a good lesson for those of us who might sometimes balk at the aesthetic or tone of a
new entry in the franchise, be tempted to malign or dismiss it because it “doesn’t feel like Star
Trek.” Watching “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” reminds us that the look and feel
of Star Trek have been changing and evolving from the very beginning, but the core of the
show’s identity has been there all along — sci-fi action/adventure that is progressive,
socially conscious, ambitious, a little cheesy — sometimes more than a little cheesy —
sometimes a lot more than a little cheesy — but always well intentioned and sincere.
Those are my thoughts on the two pilot episodes of Star Trek. Please do share your thoughts
in the comments. If you’d like to support this channel — and I sure wish you would,
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are in the description! I’ll be back next week for a retro review of the pilot episode of Star Trek:
The Next Generation, “Encounter at Farpoint”! Thanks for watching, and take care, everybody.