Star Trek

Visual effects comparison of the original broadcast & the Remastered versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgGf_JDbKc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lw4Eev7tZc

I am and will always be a huge fan of TOS, but they're not getting another nickle outta me. It must be declared Public Domain at once!

So it begins, at the very beginning.

The pilot that made NBC tell Gene Roddenberry to take a hike, only for Lucille Ball to veto them and demand a second pilot be filmed. The rest is history.

Honestly, I think this pilot is the better of the two. It is interesting how many parallels The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before share. But this pilot feels more mature, taking the stakes more seriously. I also prefer this crew loadout. The Doctor is a bit nondescript, just an old man wearing a Starfleet bathrobe, but I really like Lieutenant Tyler, Yeoman Colt, and especially Number One. I would still replace Jeffery Hunter with William Shatner. Pike is a good character (as we come to know many, many years later) and Hunter is a good actor, but Shatner embodied the character so much better, gave it so much more energy. Shatner made his character feel like he was from the future in a way Hunter did not.

And of course, Leonard Nimoy's Spock is arguably the most important actor/character combo in the entire franchise. And the longest lived (from 1965's The Cage to 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness) - almost half a century.

The plot is pretty interesting, even today. And it's of its time. The Twilight Zone would have spun this as something actually happening on Earth as the episode aired. The Orville also did a version of this story in its first season. Apart from the small amount of time it took for everything to unfold, nothing feels contrived or forced. The latent sexism on display can be blamed on the Talosians lack of understanding of how intellectual and culturally progressive the Human race was at that point. But at the same time, humans are still humans. Because Vena's just acting to avoid punishment, The Talosians casually betraying Yeoman Colt's inner-most thoughts about Pike is the closest to real romantic undertones this episode gets. Because when they try the same tactic on Number One, she just rolls her eyes.

I get that the NBC board wanted something less sophisticated, so we got a more campy, more colorful pilot to replace this one. And I get that Star Trek owes its early success to being more accessible to the average viewer. But just like the canceled Phase II, imagine what would have been if this had been greenlit from the start.

The Cage takes itself so much more seriously than the series that followed. Muted colour palette, no miniskirts, less bombastic performances, a few mostly imaginary action moments but mostly a methodical conflict between the Talosian manipulation and Pike’s resolve to escape. I really like it, but I wonder if a show that stuck to this tone would have had the success TOS did. Regardless, solid episode that gives us a strong sense of the captain’s character as he goes through a rough time.