Star Trek: The Cage Retrospective Review
A play-by-play review of all Star Trek Original Series episodes...
A play-by-play review of all Star Trek Original Series episodes. We start with The Cage, the unaired first pilot for the show that was completed in early 1965, though never broadcast on television fully until 1988. Written by Gene Roddenberry Directed by Robert ButlerThe theme is all... different. That's the first thing you notice. It's different. And not in a good way. This was made well before the series, and while it is still recognizable, it is also very different. The bridge is different: And that's just the first shot. This is not what we would call advanced science fiction. In fact, Voyager watchers will understand what I mean when I say I expect Captain Proton to chase Satan's Robot and Chaotica across the bridge any second, especially when they are having trouble telling the difference between a meteroroid and a radio wave to the point where Spock, bless his pointy ears, opens his very first Star Trek scene with the words check the circuit which in the context of trying to distinguish a meteoroid from a radio wave doesn't even make sense. Majel Barrett as Number One begins her Star Trek career with the slightly more prophetic There's still something out there! Words that apply in a very different sense today. Red alert starts flashing. The sound is something akin to a dying bird. They are on a collision course with whatever it is. A radio wave? The meteorite beam deflected it. I think the metorite beam will eventually be renamed the deflector. And also, why can you see the radio waves? And why can they be deflected? I don't think they'd hired the science consultants yet. The radio wave is a distress call, from the S.S. Colombia. Spock talks weirdly, almost like Shatner. Disappeared-in-that-region-approxamately-eighteen-years-ago! Very robotic. It's from a star system they've never explored called the Talos Star Group. What makes it a Star Group? Wouldn't that be a cluster? And shock number four planet is class M. Capable of supporting life. That class M thing goes back far. Number One and Captain Pike decide to continue on their current course to take care of our own sick and injured first so something must be going on but it doesn't really explain what yet. What follows is a gratuitous shot to show us that, really, in space, people are just like people. They walk, they date... They commit crimes against fashion...
It's like reading that column in US Weekly, Stars, They're Just Like US! where they have pictures of celebrities drinking lattes and picking up their dry cleaning. Spacemen, they're just like us! They wear skirts and striped shirts and fashion hasn't changed one bit since 1964! Because fashion never changes. Just ask the corset. Anyway, Pike. Right. That's why we're here. Pike. He calls Boyce to his cabin and lays down on his bed. Boyce comes in and brings his medical kit, so I guess he must be the doctor. Boyce asks Pike about the distress signal and says he agrees with Pike's decision not to pursue it. He then mixes a drink for the captain out of his medical kit. He brings up the fight on Rigel 7 which explains the whole injured people thing. Pike goes on a whole I'm tired of being in command rant. He is thinking of resigning and going home and riding his horses or he could go into the Orion slave trade. Slave trade. This is an acceptable occupation? I can see why they never aired the episode. Boyce proceeds to give Pike a little pep talk about how there is no other job for him, a talk reminiscent of De Kelly's This is about you flying a goddamn computer console when you want to be out hopping galaxies speech from The Wrath of Khan. Spock calls to say they got another message, and they now know there are survivors on Talos, or were, eighteen years ago. See, the message came into the computer and got spit out on this little bitty piece of paper. Paper. This is not the Star Trek we know and love. This would have been a very different Star Trek. For starters, Jeff Hunter, who played Pike, didn't survive long enough to make any movies. But also, things got printed out on paper. It's kind of like looking into an alternate universe and seeing what would have happened if Kirk's dad had died when he was a baby and the planet Vulcan was destroyed. Oh, wait. Wrong alternate universe. So Pike orders them to the Talos Star Group, Time Warp Factor Seven. I can hear Tim Curry singing Do The Time Warp in my head. A cute little warp scene with star patterns overlaid on the Bridge ensues. The Yeoman arrives on the Bridge and Pike yells at her for coming on the Bridge but she's just there to give him some reports. Number One asks if she is replacing his former yeoman and Pike says I just can't get used to having a woman on the Bridge... you're different, of course. Ouch. They enter orbit and someone comes to the Bridge with more paper. They mention gravity is 0.9 of earth, which is nice to know they thought of gravity at all after the visible radio waves. Pike takes a team down leaving Number One in command. In the transporter room they all put on their jackets and beam down. No, really. Jackets. I think Sulu would have appreciated a jacket in The Enemy Within. When they arrive on Talos IV, the rocky planet seems to go on forever a refreshing change from the flat horizons in later TOS. They fan out and explore and almost immediately Pike finds a wiggling blue plant. He and Spock each grab a leaf and then it happens: 
Spock grins. He grins. Nimoy said, in his book I Am Spock that he was grinning because I wasn't playing a Vulcan, I was playing a first officer. Over the years, many people have tried to come up with a logical explanation, but ultimately, we just have to deal with the fact that Spock used to smile and now he doesn't. Or not. I have a rule that any show gets fifteen episodes to work out the kinks. The Cage is the first episode of a show that never was, so I guess it doesn't even count against Star Trek's fifteen. It's still annoying, though. After they grab the happy plant, they find some raggedy looking men in a tent city on the planet's surface. The men certainly seem happy to see them. And there's this really hot chick, who is definitely not old. Oh, and some aliens are watching them on a viewscreen. People are always surprised to find out the aliens were played by women. I don't know why, they certainly seem effeminate to me. The aliens watch as the Enterprise crew begins preparing to evacuate the survivors. The woman, Vina, approaches Pike and says You appear to be healthy and intelligent, Captain. A prime specimen. Creepy. One of the survivors tries to apologize for her choice of words but Pike is not offended. Boyce says that everyone is in perfect health too healthy. They send Vina to show Pike the secret of their health, and he can decide if Earth should know this secret. She takes Pike to a cliff face and says don't you see it? There's nothing. I don't understand. You will. You're a perfect choice. She vanishes. The aliens come out of a door in the cliff and knock Pike out, then drag him through their door. The survivors' encampment vanishes and the crew see Pike getting knocked out, so they run over to try to save him. Spock, and the navigator, Jose Tyler, try to blast through rock but they can't get through the metal behind it. Dramatic music plays. Spock calls Number One and tells her we've lost the Captain. Pike wakes up in a cell of some kind. Actually, it's a zoo exhibit but that's beside the point. He tries to throw himself through the glass but that doesn't work. There are other beings in other cells down the hall, and a Talosian, commonly known as the Keeper, walks down the hall to view the new captive, along with two other Taolosians. Pike tries to negotiate. The Talosians mentally talk about how stupid he is and his primitive reactions and so on. They consider Pike to be more adaptable than other specimens. Spock has a slide show prepared. He briefs them all on the illusions the Talosians put in their minds. Boyce points out that the inhabitants of the planet can read their minds and give them illusions to make them think anything is real. Tyler wants to save Pike and Number One agrees to try to blast through the metal they couldn't get through earlier. The Talosians watch Pike and read his recent memories, saying they will give him something more interesting to protect. And he winds up back on Rigel VII, with the woman from before, Vina, begging him to protect her. Then the warrior from two weeks ago presumably the reason they have injured crew members - when they actually were on Rigel VII is coming and Pike has to fight him again to protect poor helpless Vina. She's even wearing a pure white wedding dress. Talosians, apparently, have all the subtlety of a rampaging herd of Apatasaurs. She hides behind Pike and begs, in a rather pitiful, unliberated way, for him to save her. So once again, he beats this guy up, dramatic music and a fight scene ensues, and during a pause, Pike asks her why would an illusion be frightened? Because that's how you imagine it. Huh. Eventually, the warrior dude grabs the Bride, and while she's screaming pitifully, Pike saves her and then, suddenly... They're back in his cell. She hugs him. The Talosians are watching and she lets him go. Are you real? he asks. I'm as real as you want me to be. He points out her dress is made of the same material the Talosians wear, an interesting, and, may I say, unKirklike observation. He still thinks they're testing his reactions. Silly man. But he does suspect that the Talosians feel with him too. She offers to please him. He asks for information about the Talosians, how to stop them from reading his mind. You're a fool! she says. He refuses to talk to her anymore, since she's an illusion anyway. Captain Proton would be proud of their fashion sense though. 
Meanwhile, Vina tells Pike she'll answer his silly questions. He asks how far the Talosians' power goes. She says that if she answers, all she wants is for him to pick some dream you've had and let me live it with you. This just takes larping (Live Action Role Playing) to a whole new level of weird. He says maybe. Very tactfully. She tells him they can't make you do anything you don't want to, but they can create illusions you can't distinguish from reality, and they can punish you if you don't obey. So wait. They can't make you do anything you don't want to do. But they could make Pike think that, say, Number One's quarters were his quarters, or that Number One was the hot Yeoman he may or may not be, as Odo says, mingling with. But they can't make you do anything you don't want to do. Moving on. Pike asks about the Talosians' history, and learns that there was a war on the surface and that the Talosians were stuck underground and became trapped by their own powers of illusions. They collect specimens to experience their feelings while they are in the illusions. Which means they have to have more than one of each animal. Where do they intend to get the Earth woman? I'll say this. He's smarter than Kirk. But in this particular instance, Kirk's mind would have jumped straight to mating, so he would have got there ages ago. She tries to get him back into the larping, but Pike says that was a bargain with something that didn't exist. I hate it when my husband says that. The Talosian Keeper is watching. I'm a woman, as real and as human as you are. We're like Adam and Eve... and then she starts screaming Don't punish me! and vanishes. The Keeper leaves. Pike is looking for a way to get out. A door opens up to give him a nourishing protien complex as the Keeper calls it. They demonstrate the punishiment he will receive if he starves himself. Literally winding up in a depiction of hell. You will now consume the nourishment. Pike suggests they put hunger in his mind, and the Keeper threatens him with even more unpleasant things. Pike drinks it. And then he rushes the glass and the Keeper is startled. The Keeper tries to change the subject, but Pike realizes that the Talosians can't read primitive thoughts. The Keeper still tries to talk about Vina. Pike agrees, realizing they want him to love Vina, then to build a family. A race of humans. The Keeper seems satisfied that Pike is upset she was punished. And now he's on Earth riding his horse out for a picnic with Vina, his wife. She sets out the picnic goods. He tries to talk about the Talosians and she gets a convenient headache. He remembers his conversation with Boyce. She tells him she made his mother's recipe for chicken tuna. That sounds disgusting. She discusses the possibility of children. He points out the headaches would be hereditary. Pike has figured out that their children would be the Talosians' next generation. He also tells her about the primitive thoughts and she admits that it is true but you can't keep it up forever, feeling nothing but hatred, not when there's all those illusions flying around. She also admits that the Talosians probed her thoughts about the perfect man and that's why they chose Pike. The Talosians are watching. Vina brings up the idea of forgetting his discipline, the Keeper waves his/her arm, and... Dancing green woman. Vina is now a dancing green woman. 
Susan Oliver, who played Vina, is a pretty good dancer. As for the green paint all over her, apparently they had to go through a lot of pain and agony to get it to work, and once it did, poor Susan had to be constantly retouched. If you look closely during the scene, it looks like it is thinner in some places than others. Certainly on Enterprise and Star Trek (the new movie) the green women look a lot better probably not without some help from a talented CGI crew. Just getting makeup to stay right on your face for ten minutes is a headache. Whole body? Hours? Forget it. While the dancing continues (and believe me, Riker's harp-playing chippies at the beginning of Haven do not even come close to matching Vina's stripper moves) the fellow spectators try to persuade him to give up and go over to the dark side. Imagine you had all the universe to choose from and this was only one small sample. And Pike's just sitting there thinking, wow, she is really flexible. At least until our brave captain panics and runs out of the room. In the back, though, the door vanishes, and he is there alone, until Vina arrives, still green. Spock has found a magnetic field and is preparing to beam down with Number One, Yeoman Colt, and a bunch of other guys. So they go to beam down, only that doesn't go quite as planned. Only Number One and Yeoman Colt vanish. The women! yells Spock. 
Those of us who love Spock take a deep, cleansing breath. I recall my 15 episode rule and take another deep, cleansing breath. Number One and Colt arrive in Pike's cell. With phasers, which don't work, sadly. Pike is furious and imagines beating the Talosians' heads to a pulp. Vina, Number One, and Colt immediately begin a chick fight over Pike. Number One points out that Vina must be considerably older than she appears. The Keeper arrives and points out that Number One would produce highly intelligent kids and really does have emotions after all, even though she doesn't show them. Yeoman Colt has unusually strong female drives. The Keeper punishes Pike for continuing to think of hateful thoughts. On the Bridge, meanwhile, Spock takes command and orders them to leave the Captain and Number One behind. But the controls go dead. The Bridge goes dark... One of the other Talosians enters the cell. Pike pretends to sleep and gets the jump on him/her. He wrestles him/her to the ground and gets his hands around the neck, and even when the illusions come out he doesn't let go. Your ship. Release me or we'll destroy it. Oh. The Talosians run through the whole ship's library. Vina warns Pike they could make the crew of the Enterprise do whatever they want, work the wrong controls or so on, throwing a monkey wrench in that whole they can't make you do anything you don't want to do thing from earlier. Pike gets a dead phaser and shoots it at the glass. He points it at the Talosian's head and offers to test if it really works or not. The hole he blasted in the glass appears. Win. They get to the surface okay. The blue plant is still there, but the whole top of the rock face is gone they blasted through and didn't even know it. The Keeper greets them on the surface and tells Pike that whatever woman he chooses will help him in his new life on the surface on the planet. Pike says he will stay with Vina if they send the two others back. Number One sets the phaser on overload. Pike tries to send Vina below. She refuses to go. Then another two Talosians come up, having read through the ship's library. They share the information with the Keeper, who realizes that Humans really don't like captivity even when it's pleasant and benevolent so they can leave after all. Pike, understandably, is angry. But the Talosians wanted them to save their civilization and they refuse to allow a trade, for fear that the Humans would learn the power of illusion and be destroyed. It seems to be all settled but Vina says she won't go with them. Number One and Yeoman Colt are returned to the ship. Power comes back too. 
Vina turns into an old, rather decrepit-looking woman. She was the only survivor of the crash, and the Talosians, when they found her, had never seen a human before. So they put her back together they had no guide for putting me back together. Hint: start with symmetry. Pike makes them promise to give her back her illusion of youth. And more, promises the Keeper. Pike watches as Vina takes his hand and guides him down below the surface. The Keeper turns back to Pike. She has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant. 
Pike beams up to the ship alone. Number One and Yeoman Colt ask about Vina is she coming? No, says Pike, and I agree with her reasons. Boyce is there to pester, the Yeoman is on the Bridge again to deliver a clipboard (clipboard!) of reports and ask Who would have been Eve? Eve as in Adam? asks Boyce. As in all ship's doctors are dirty old men. Really? That's where you're going with that? The theme plays and the ship flies off into space. So that was that. The first episode of the first Star Trek series. The series that never was because Jeffery Hunter didn't work out and they had to, and I'm quoting Leonard Nimoy quoting Gene Roddenberry, NBC finally said that either the woman or the Martian had to go. So I married the woman and kept the Vulcan, because, obviously, I couldn't do it the other way around... (Some sources add I mean, Leonard's cute, but... at the end of that, in case anyone cares.) Maybe it would have been a great show, we don't know. But it's not the show they made.