Originally published January 26, 2010 at TVVerdict.com
And so it is that I dive into “The Cage,” the original pilot shot for Star Trek in 1965 but not aired until over 30 years later. What’s most notable about the episode is that it features hardly any of the characters that would eventually make up the crew of the Enterprise — including the Captain himself, James T. Kirk. At the helm of “The Cage” is original captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), a square-jawed and mostly humorless hero straight out of 1950s sci-fi. The only eventual crew member to show up on “The Cage” is Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, but even he isn’t yet exactly what he would eventually become — he’s less stoic and serious, even delivering his final lines of the show with half a smile. The rest of the crew in the pilot is mostly a generic collection of white faces; I guess the Enterprise hadn’t yet become the melting pot that Star Trek would turn out to be. Continue reading
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