For more than twenty years this two part episode, Menagerie, was all that viewers were able to see of the first pilot, The Cage. Despite the confusion that comes from watching it too soon after the original, this story-within-a-story made good use of the unused footage and created a memorable adventure. The opening scenes are something of a homage to early depictions of space exploration, with futuristic cityscapes in the background and huge, noisy computers complete with multi-coloured flashing lights.
The story opens with Kirk confronted with another interchangeable, soft-focused female assistant; this one a brunette who teases him about all she has been told by her friend Helen. This was probably a reference to Dr Helen Noel from an earlier episode but someone got the surnames mixed up. After all, Kirk's endless parade of lovelies didn't merit being treated as real people, did they? Not so the real women who played these roles through: actress Julie Parrish whom played Miss Piper spent the ten years leading up to her untimely death in 2001 campaigning for and working with the victims of domestic violence.
However, let's get back to the story.
Who could forget poor Captain Pike's dreadful tragedy or Mr Spocks' deeply disturbing treachery? They make a clever envelope for the Pike/Vina story, most of which falls within the second episode. The extra scenes weres written by Gene Roddenberry himself after he was unhappy with the draft provided him. Apparently, he also entered into some dispute over who would direct but, after all, The Cage had been his special creation, something that has probably been circulating in his mind for years before he finally got the opportunity to make it. If financial necessity dictated that the footage had to be used then he must have been absolutely committed to choosing the form in which audiences were going to see it.
Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.
The story opens with Kirk confronted with another interchangeable, soft-focused female assistant; this one a brunette who teases him about all she has been told by her friend Helen. This was probably a reference to Dr Helen Noel from an earlier episode but someone got the surnames mixed up. After all, Kirk's endless parade of lovelies didn't merit being treated as real people, did they? Not so the real women who played these roles through: actress Julie Parrish whom played Miss Piper spent the ten years leading up to her untimely death in 2001 campaigning for and working with the victims of domestic violence.
However, let's get back to the story.
Who could forget poor Captain Pike's dreadful tragedy or Mr Spocks' deeply disturbing treachery? They make a clever envelope for the Pike/Vina story, most of which falls within the second episode. The extra scenes weres written by Gene Roddenberry himself after he was unhappy with the draft provided him. Apparently, he also entered into some dispute over who would direct but, after all, The Cage had been his special creation, something that has probably been circulating in his mind for years before he finally got the opportunity to make it. If financial necessity dictated that the footage had to be used then he must have been absolutely committed to choosing the form in which audiences were going to see it.
Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.