Star Trek: The Cage (1964/1988) TV Pilot Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I ended up not going to Ottawa Comiccon this morning, which is why I'm doing this review rather than shutting myself off from the rest of the world until dinnertime. Today, in honour of yesterday being Star Trek Day in the U.S. and the 6th being Star Trek Day in Canada, I am going to review every pilot episode of Star Trek that I have access to. So that is Star Trek (1966-1969), Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999), Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001), Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005), and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-). This week I'll be starting with the original pilot, "The Cage" that was produced in 1964 but didn't air until 1988). There will be spoilers because with the exception of the first episode of Strange New Worlds which aired last year, all of these episodes are over 20 years old. So let's get into it.

Watching "The Cage" is like looking at a time capsule, because everything that became Star Trek started with this pilot, but at the same time nobody saw it on home video until 20 years later, and it didn't air on TV until TNG had already started. Though we did get a recap of it in the TOS season 1 episode "The Menagerie", which was the only two-part episode that TOS ever had. It's also familiar because this could be considered the pilot or proof of concept for Strange New Worlds being that Pike, Spock, and Una are all here, even if nobody else from the show is. Not to mention it's revisited in season 2 of Discovery and it's what inspired Akiva Goldsman and Henry Allonso Meyer to do Strange New Worlds. It's also what Gene Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to be in the first place.

One of the things that I love about this episode is that it's a rough draft of what Star Trek would become. The terminology is raw, the lore is not locked into place yet, it's just Star Trek. While Jeffrey Hunter's Pike is a pretty different character from Anson Mount's Pike, he's still recognizable as Captain Christopher Pike. I can see Mount's Pike reacting the same way that Hunter's Pike does in this pilot. Even going as far as having Una, simply known as Number One in this episode, setting a phaser to overload in order to convince the Talosians that they don't want to be in captivity. The problem I have with Hunter's Pike is that this is the only episode we get with him. However, I do like the slight character development we got for him. 

The Vina stuff wasn't great, but this was 1960s Television even if it never aired in the 1960s. Even still, having her only purpose being to seduce Pike is less than stellar. Especially for someone as enlightened as Roddenberry was, despite his many MANY flaws. Susan Oliver, the actress who played Vina did a great job. It's just the role wasn't great. 

I was surprised that Una's role in this episode is more than what I remembered it being. Especially compared to the character we know in Strange New Worlds. She actually takes command and figures things out without Spock or Tyler or Boyce making suggestions to her. Speaking of Doctor Boyce, I think I like Doctor M'Benga better. John Hoyt isn't as charming or as fun as Babs Olusanmokun is.

While looking primitive even by the standards of the original TV show, the Enterprise looks pretty good. You could tell they didn't have the interior sets fully planned out yet as we really only had four rooms shown and a very small section of the corridor. We had the Bridge, the Transporter Room, the Briefing Room, and Pike's quarters, which look very different from what Kirk's quarters look like in the show proper, and VERY different from what Pike's quarters look like in SNW. You can also tell that they are sets made out of wood and paint. 

The Talosians are probably the weirdest aliens we see in the early days of the franchise, simply because they aren't just people with really bad wigs on. The problem I have with them is related to the problem I have with Vina. Vina seems to have been there for 18 years, yet they didn't realize that Humans hate being taken as captives. Nor did they do so when the Enterprise arrived. I guess there wouldn't be a story if they'd done that, but still, this episode wasn't about misunderstandings between people from different cultures or anything like that. So it was just a bit wonky how that played out.

So I never saw this episode when I was a kid. It never aired in reruns on CBC, I never got it on VHS and I've never had it on DVD. The first time I ever saw it was in 2009. The remastered version of TOS had been airing for the last three years and Space Channel aired it as the final episode of the series. Then about two or three years later I was on one of the old Yahoo! Star Trek forums, and one of the people I talked to on there sent me an external hard drive containing every Star Trek movie and TV episode up to that point (11 movies, 5 live action shows, and 1 animated show), and "The Cage" was included. I'm still hoping to get TOS season 3 on Blu-ray since I have season 1 on DVD and season 2 on Blu-ray. 

Overall this was an interesting start to my favourite media franchise of all time. As I said earlier, not only does it serve as a what-if? pilot for TOS, but it serves as the pilot for Strange New Worlds. If you've never seen it before, I recommend checking it out as it's a rough draft for what Star Trek eventually became. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be doing alot of Star Trek content over the next little bit between my Marvel Comics's Star Trek overview, Star Trek book reviews, and these pilot episode reviews. But until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.