Overview
"The Cage" has many of the features of the eventual series, but there are numerous differences. The captain of theFootage repurpose for series
During the first season, the need for new episodes to be delivered to the network to meet airdates became urgent, and a framing story with the series regulars was written around most of the original footage from "The Cage" resulting in the two-part episode " The Menagerie". The process of editing the pilot into "The Menagerie" disassembled the original camera negative of "The Cage", and thus, for many years it was considered partly lost. Roddenberry's black-and-whitePlot
The USS ''Enterprise'', under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, receives a radio distress call from the fourth planet in the Talos star group. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. The Talosians confront Pike and his companions before they can transport back to the ''Enterprise''. The captain tries to negotiate, but the first officer sets her weapon on a buildup 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."Primary cast
*Casting
Jeffrey Hunter had a six-month exclusive option for the role of Captain Pike. Although he was required to continue if the series was picked up by the network in that time, he was not required to film the second pilot that NBC requested. Deciding to concentrate on motion pictures instead, he declined the role. Gene Roddenberry wrote to him on April 5, 1965: Two weeks after the option expired on June 1, 1965, Hunter formally gave his letter requesting separation from the project. He died on May 27, 1969, one week before the original series ended its run. Roddenberry later suggested that he was the one who—unhappy with interference by Hunter's then-wife Dusty Bartlett—had decided not to rehire Hunter; however, executive producer Herbert F. Solow, who was present when Bartlett, acting as manager, refused the role on behalf of her husband, later said in his memoir, ''Inside Star Trek'', that it was the other way around.Production
"The Cage" was filmed atReleases and availability
Although most of this episode was edited into the original series episode "The Menagerie" (aired November 1966), no stand-alone version of "The Cage" pilot was available until a 1986 VHS release. Gene Roddenberry had in his possession a black-white filmReception
In 2010, SciFiNow ranked this the third best episode of the original series. In 2016,Follow-up and spin-off
In 2019, the '' Star Trek: Discovery'' episode " If Memory Serves" saw Pike and Spock (roles re-cast) return to Talos IV; the recap at the beginning of the episode used scenes from "The Cage". CBS All Access officially ordered '' Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'' to series in May 2020 featuring the characters of Captain Pike, Number One, and Spock. At 55 years between ''The Cage'' and the announcement of ''Strange New Worlds'', Co-Showrunner and Executive Producer Henry Alonso Myers calls this the longest pilot to series pick up in television history.See also
* List of ''Star Trek'' episodes *'' Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'', the 2022 television series based on ''The Cage''.References
External links
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