10 Times Star Trek Hit The Reset Button

10. A New Pilot, A New Crew

Star Trek famously stumbled out of the starting gate before it was wrangled back in again for a spot of maintenance. By which we mean a complete overhaul and tone shift, lest the idea die before it had any chance to breathe.

The Cage had all the hallmarks of what Star Trek would become later in the franchise, with its cerebral plot proving too much for an introductory episode. To be fair, there is a lot of sense in this argument. There are many franchises that have lasted for years with pilot episodes that have very little to do with what the show became. The Cage was a mirror of this - but it was a hard sell to the networks.

Where No Man Has Gone Before is much closer to the tone of early Star Trek, with Kirk in his shirt-tearing best in his brawl against the superhuman Gary Mitchell. Spock, the only holdover (bar the ship itself) from The Cage was still present, though was now a cold, unfeeling officer, rather than the more overtly emotional one displayed before.

While Jeffery Hunter's Christopher Pike shares many traits with Kirk, including their love of horseriding and affinity for scantily clad women, Pike was a slower-to-act person, haunted by recent tragedies, whereas Kirk was more of an action hero ready to go. He would later evolve into a character more closely resembling Pike, but this was after the show had been sold.