7 Star Trek Actors Who Were Fired

1. The Entire Cast Of The Original Pilot (Minus Spock)

In 1964, with America still firmly gripping its throbbing erection over the space race, NBC decided to cash-in on this fascination with the stars and commission a show that would see man exploring the wonders of outer space. By February of the next year that show had been pitched, produced, and piloted, and Star Trek's The Cage was screened to the network. They absolutely hated it.

It was too slow, too intellectual, too boring, and nothing at all like what millions of Americans would be imagining the final frontier to be. But, in a move that virtually never happens, they were still sold on both the idea and the man behind it, so allowed Gene Roddenberry to try it again and produce a second pilot. He went back to the drawing board, created the characters of Kirk, Scotty and Sulu, and Where No Man Has Gone Before saw the show commissioned.

However, right next to that drawing board was the trash can, and in that he'd put Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike, Majel Barrett as Number One, John Hoyt as Dr. Boyce, and virtually every other member of the ship's crew. In fact, from the original pilot, only Leonard Nimoy's Mr Spock remained, albeit with a new approach to the emotion-suppressed Vulcan species.

Pike stayed part of the canon with Hunter reprising the role and Barrett would admittedly return as Nurse Chapel, Lwaxana Troi, and the Ship's Computer, but that was it. Star Trek's most famous and brutal swing of the axe came before it had even started.