10 Actors Who Were Recast After The Pilot Episode

This is one episode of the beloved sci-fi series that boldly went where no Kirk had ever gone before, to Talos IV, with a captain named Christopher Pike.

Believe it or not, it was Jeffrey Hunter, not William Shatner, who led the crew of the USS Enterprise in the series' pilot episode, and Star Trek may never have been the same had he not wanted out when asked to film a second pilot.

William Shatner replaced Hunter, production rewrote the Pike character as James T Kirk, and a legend was born. Shatner went on to become the famous face of the Trek franchise (as well as, in some sense, the Halloween franchise), and has lived comfortably off that name ever since. It's not like Jeffrey Hunter got to star as an animated opossum in DreamWorks' 2006 family comedy Over The Hedge, is it?

It was only later in Star Trek's run that the writers had the notion to include Pike again in the double episode The Menagerie, as the former captain of the Enterprise. The original pilot features as footage from the ship's earlier visit to Talos, presented by Spock at a court-martial, all in a big old ploy to bring Pike back to the planet once again...

Simpler times, eh?