Pilot: The Cage

       The Pilot stars the actor Jeffrey Hunter who plays Captain Pike. Pike is only present during the Pilot episode of Star Trek and then is later replaced with Captain Kirk, played by the well known William Shatner. The pilot episode was rejected and the Pike character scrapped when Hunter decided during the making of the second pilot he did not want to continue with the series. Though Pike does make later appearances portrayed by different actors in later episodes.
     This episode does have its slow moments but in my opinion is worth its while. The relationships between characters are well written. I was going to write wonderful but I can't exactly say that. Pike has a couple minutes at the beginning of the episode where he makes some incredibly sexist comments to one of his female staff. Alot of the characters go unnamed throughout the episode. The villains, the Talosians, aren't even named until the last half hour of an hour and a half episode. Only three characters are really given a name :Captain Pike, Vena, and Mr. Spock.
     Again I must say this episode is very intellectual and slightly drawn out. It is not something to watch if you are new to the Star Trek fandom. Please build up to this! It was a thrown out pilot! You really won't be missing anything by waiting to watch it until later. Because of its slowness most long lasting hard core fans are probably the more likely to really enjoy this episode.
    The costumes are not the normal Star Trek costumes. For example, there was not a single red shirt. I mean...every die hard Star Trek fan knows that the red shirt are the first to die or have misfortune. In this pilot episode the shirts were only blue and yellow. There are a few small issues with this episode. For example, for some strange reason every one seems to have the same strange blue-grey eye color. The lasers used are lights followed by a puff of smoke. The animals in cages are more like "men-in-gorilla-suits" in cages. And the funniest thing to me is the U.S.S. Enterprise has all this wonderfully high tech equipment. So explain to me why Spock is using a slide projector to show a crude picture of the Talosians to the crew?
    Honestly, the best part of the show has to be around Captain Pike. His storyline around Vena was well written and the only real gripping part of the episode in my opinion. Vena's acting can be drawn out, over done, and at one point over sexually aggressive toward Pike. Pike's transitions between illusions are spectacular. Alot of the effects in this episode are pretty cheesy but on a scale of 10 to cheesy this ranks higher up the scale for a show made in the late 1960's.
    At points I did find myself very bored, but the episode was not lost on me. After finished I found myself talking about the parts that did grip me. A true sign of a good T.V. show.