TetsuoShima Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 As part of our 'relive the past' initiative, we're going to hold a weekly Re-Run of all TOS episodes. Later on we may continue this by doing the same for TNG. All continual episodes/discussions will be featured each week on wednesday in the StarTrek.com order. Since all episodes are allready available, we discourage actual serious discussion of episodes before the event. Reason: we want to stimulate the viewing and discussing of shows at approximately the same time for our community. Everyone is free to join in the weekly fun. There will of course be spoilers in these threads... You'll need to have your own material for the content though, we're not offering any kind of download in relation to this. --------------- This weeks episode: The Cage Wednesday May 23th [spoiler=Short Plot]Thirteen years before James T. Kirk takes command of the U.S.S. Enterprise... The USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, receives a radio distress call from the fourth planet in the Talos star system. A landing party is assembled and beamed down to investigate. Tracking the distress signal to its source, the landing party discovers a camp of survivors from a scientific expedition that has been missing for 18 years. Among the survivors is a beautiful young woman named Vina. Captivated by her beauty, Pike is caught off guard and is captured by the Talosians, a race of humanoids with bulbous heads who live beneath the planet's surface. It is revealed that the distress call, and the crash survivors, except for Vina, are just illusions created by the Talosians to lure the Enterprise to the planet. While imprisoned, Pike uncovers the Talosian's plans to repopulate their ravaged planet using himself and Vina as breeding stock for a race of slaves. Trivia: - Number one is a woman and not just any woman, Roddenberry's wife to be. (at the time they were not yet married) - During production, the title of the episode changed from "The Cage" to "The Menagerie." NBC reportedly called the pilot "too cerebral", "too intellectual", "not enough action", and "too slow". The pilot later on reverted back to its original name after another episode named "The Menagerie" (which featured much of the same footage) was produced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 It's a good episode, but it's not The Star Trek. :D They certainly changed a few things. Almost the entire senior staff is replaced, sound effects (transporter) and the addition of a little more "fun"... Logo: Ship looks the same: Kept the most important Registry No: But this was so revolting that they had to remove Spocks "grin" by default: ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 haha wathched 2 week ago... nice clipboards & paper print outs. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slug Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 Highlights the overt differences between the mid sixties and the late sixties of the actual series. It plays like it was made in the year nineteenfiftyfourteen. I always thought it was quite good. More respectable than the series that followed but no where near as appealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 What kind of comments are we supposed to make about it? Spock looked funny and acted more human than later. Number 1 was an early form of what Riker turned out to be decades later...plus was a woman. The story wasn't to strange for the series. It showed conflicts and their resolutions. Made on the cheap, more so than the series, it was not bad but not my version of Star Trek. Pike was a fair captain. Kirk just couldn't be beat by Shatner as the super macho space explorer. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 The Cage is one of my favourite episodes of star trek, the real reason that #1 was changed was because of the narrow minded bigotry nature of the male run industry at the time. Contrary to other posts here i felt that this Spock was more mechanical hell he even spoke like a machine in this. great story too with the 'scrotum heads' being a lot more sinister than in the later episode called the menagerie. I'll probably get shot for saying this but the entire franchise should have gone down this path, it would have been a lot more sinister than what was to come after. Number 1 was an early form of what Riker turned out to be decades later...plus was a woman. good job you added that last bit dude was wondering where Riker had the operation. another sign of the blatant sexism of the day was that #1 became a nurse in the next episode, damn what on earth did she do to get such a severe demotion lol, after that as you all no doubt know she was the Mother of Counselor Troy a proper Matriarchal Battleaxe stereotype if ever there was one. Also this original pilot was about a civilian ship and not the military run organisation that was to follow. Roddenberry clearly based the idea of this franchise on the forbidden planet (which is based on Shakespeares The Tempest) again it is a shame that it didn't continue down this road. (sits back and waits for the barage of trekkies to say i am wrong, I am right tho these are undisputed facts lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 the real reason that #1 was changed was because of the narrow minded bigotry nature of the male run industry at the time. I totally agree. 99% or more of all businesses were male dominated in that time-frame including Hollywood and network television. They were also bigoted against people of color other than pinkish-white complexion. Number 1 was an early form of what Riker turned out to be decades later...plus was a woman. good job you added that last bit dude was wondering where Riker had the operation. ;D This comment of mine was in reference to something I deleted about command officers needing protective subordinates. #1 and Riker were both constantly trying to keep their captains out of harm's way. in TOS, Spock couldn't keep Kirk from running around shooting at aliens and grabbing the closest woman. another sign of the blatant sexism of the day was that #1 became a nurse in the next episode' date=' damn what on earth did she do to get such a severe demotion lol, after that as you all no doubt know she was the Mother of Counselor Troy a proper Matriarchal Battleaxe stereotype if ever there was one.[/quote'] ;) now Megalith, you know they were totally different characters with the actress being Gene's honey and wanting to be on the show. Of course, Uhura was also dating him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slug Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 They should have compromised and had Majel Barret with a beard as number one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 They should have compromised and had Majel Barret with a beard as number one. lol now that would have been interesting #1 as the bearded lady. FreakShow Trek would have had a completely different audience lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 another sign of the blatant sexism of the day was that #1 became a nurse in the next episode, I thought that was apparent when Captain Pike made such a fuzz about there being a woman on the bridge and then adding to that commenting that no1 was different. :D I read some trivia about The Cage and this was funny: ;) When doing makeup tests for Vina as an Orion slave girl, with Majel Barrett as a willing test subject, the film kept coming back without the green skin being visible. Puzzled by this, the makeup crew kept painting the poor actress again and again with other shades of green, hoping it would be visible on film. Afterward, they discovered that the film processing lab was "de-coloring" her because they didn't know she was supposed to be green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted May 24, 2007 Share Posted May 24, 2007 lol :D, "what? she's supposed to be green?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NiteShdw Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 I just finished watching this episode again. I think it's a great episode. Though, I have to admit that I have never understood why Captain Pike was involved with fighting a barbarian on Rigel 7 (which he talks about before arriving on Talos as well as while he's there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TFMF Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 I finally 'acquired' the episode. It wasn't bad. Very different to what i was expecting. SPOCK SMILED! There certainly was the cheesy factor :D All in all, it was an enjoyable episode. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted June 14, 2007 Author Share Posted June 14, 2007 Haha, I'd forgotten how funny that intro tune is, I allways imagine some hawaiian dancers with it to complete the picture. :D Anyway, I found it a little stretched out and a bit boring at times, portraying the captain as a bit slow in reasoning, but I guess that was part of the 'show' element. I've no idea how good the special effects were for it's time, but the rocks were especially bad. Still, the underlying message and storyline were decent enough. :) The start of a great show! :D __ Nice place you have here Mr. Pike. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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