In the middle 1960s, Gene Roddenberry pitched a new show to CBS that was billed as a "wagon train to the stars." The show, Star Trek, originally featured a Captain Christopher Pike of the U.S.S. Enterprise and his crew. Though the show was eventually picked up, nearly everything about the show was changed (the only substantial things that remained were the ship itself and the Vulcan crewman, Mr. Spock). This pilot, written in 1964 and not airing until 1988, gives Trek fans a really unique look into the show's genesis and Roddenberry's original vision for the show. If you want more history, check Memory Alpha's episode page. It also includes a blow-by-blow of the episode itself. You can also see IMDb's page, too. If you're looking for episode synopsis, go to those links. This blog is not primarily to tell you what happened in a given episode, but to tell you what I saw and thought about it.
This episode is thick with memories for me. My dad had a handful of Star Trek episodes on VHS, and this was one of them. My brother and I would watch these over and over again, and they are foundational to my love for Star Trek. In fact, one of those episodes, "The City on the Edge of Forever," is still my favorite TOS episode to this day. We probably weren't concerned with how this unaired pilot fit in with the Trek universe, but simply saw it as another fun installment in the series. Watching it again a few decades later, I'm left wondering how much different Star Trek would've been had this pilot been picked up.
What Might Have Been
Well, for one, we'd have Jeffrey Hunter instead of William Shatner. Interesting note: Hunter died in May of 1969, which was before the final TOS episode aired (that June). Since I love "City on the Edge of Forever" so much, it would be an interesting thought experiment to see how that would've impacted the future of the franchise. Shatner is arguably the face of Star Trek still today.
 |
| Pike (from Startrek.com) |
 |
| Kirk (from Startrek.com) |
We'd have no Bones (No "I'm a doctor, not a..."), Chekov (No uncomfortable Cold War-era pro-Russia comments or searches for nuclear "wessels"), Sulu, Scotty (is there an engineer who can perform more miracles?) Uhura (another famed Trek ambassador), or the whole host of on again, off again actors and actresses (or would we). Either way, I still hope the Nazis are stopped (man, I love that episode).
I do, however, appreciate Jeffrey Hunter in this role. He played in a number of westerns, and I think that made him well-suited to the show's original vision. He's also very human, and not in the whiny way that is common in television today. In one scene with Dr. Boyce (the ship's chief medical officer), he expressed the struggles of a ship captain that are rarely visible behind Kirk's cocky visage or Picard's stoicism in The Next Generation. Don't get me wrong--these guys both cared deeply about their crews and took seriously their assignments, but Hunter really showed his chops in this scene (and the writers did, too).
I also really liked Dr. Boyce. He seemed to fill the role of ship's counselor (slash bartender) as well as doctor. In the above mentioned scene, Boyce carried a travel cocktail kit and mixed a martini for Pike and himself. Is it possible that there would've been more drinking on the Enterprise than on Madmen had CBS gone with this version of Star Trek? Boyce had some great lines in his role, too; gems like (to a retirement contemplating Pike), "A man either lives life as it happens to him—meets it head on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away." And (on being a doctor and a bartender), "We both get the same kinds of customers: the living and the dying." Boyce, played by John Hoyt, was himself an accomplished actor and writer. In this role, he was very reminiscent of an Old West-style doctor.
Another actress Trek fans would be familiar with from this episode is "Number One," played by Majel Barrett. Barrett eventually married Gene Roddenberry, and played several roles in the Trek universe (she was in all five television series), including Nurse Christine Chapel in TOS. She has no name, other than the designation "Number One." It is disappointing, however, that Pike considered "Number One" one of the "guys" in the episode. I'm guessing this early example of gender role confusion is a result of the then burgeoning sexual revolution. It would've been interesting to see how this dynamic would've developed.
Highly Illogical
This episode also contains a few oddities. The Enterprise's navigator brags at one point about the "time barrier" being broken. Earlier in the episode, Captain Pike sets the ship's speed at "time warp factor 7." It's likely impossible to know where this really falls on the modern Trek's warp scale, not mention the fact that TOS had a different warp scale than the rest of the canon. Second, the normally stoic Spock shows some signs of emotion early in the episode. Was it Roddenberry's intention for Spock to be more human than Vulcan? What was Roddenberry's original vision for the Vulcan?
 |
| (From spacemancentral.com) |
A few things really caught my attention in this episode. First, I was fascinated by the Biblical imagery the writers used. The creation account was referenced several times, mentioning the historical Adam and Eve more than a few times. The Talosians, who captured Captain Pike on the planet's surface intended to use Pike as an Adam and Vina, a human woman who had long-ago crash landed on the planet, as Eve. Using these two, the Talosians hoped to build a society to resurrect the war-decimated Talosian society. The second reference, though subtle, showed Pike burning in hell as punishment for rebelling against his captors. The Talosian keeper calls it "a fable" Pike heard as youth. Coincidentally, I'm writing this entry on the 1st Sunday after Trinity according to the Church's calendar, which provides us with a depiction of suffering in hell in Luke 16:19-31. What is perhaps more interesting (from a theological perspective) is the possibility that Pike's suffering would be potentially endless, just as the rich man's suffering in the account in Luke. Without recognizing it, Roddenberry and the writers provided us with a great sermon illustration and a polemic against any theological system that denies the existence of hell.
Second, the Talosians reminded me of the telepathic humans who lived underground in the 1970 classic, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Did the writers of that movie know about this plot line? Fast forward even farther, the Talosians bear a striking resemblance to the Taleons in Earth: Final Conflict, another Roddenberry creation.
Third, I was also intrigued by the idea of Pike's (and thus, humanity's) refusal to live in captivity, even though the the Talosians were able to use their mental powers to create a reality that met all of his desires. This caused Pike to finally understand the doctor's earlier advice that life needed to be lived, not avoided by choosing an easier path. In the end, however, the Talosians release Pike and create an illusion of Pike to keep Vina company as she lived out her life on Talos. It surprises me that Pike would be complicit in allowing them to use his image to further enslave Vina. Though Vina's existence off Talos would have been full of challenges (since her appearance relied on the Talosians' ability to manipulate reality), it seems to me Pike's don't-cage-me human spirit would have compelled him to convince her all the more to leave Talos behind. After all, Pike was willing to die and take some of his crew with him in order to avoid a lifetime of captivity.
 |
| Talosians (from memory-alpha.wikia.com) |
 |
| Un-Talosianed Vina (from memory-beta.wikia.com) |
 |
| Talosianed Vina (from memory-beta.wikia.com) |
The ethical questions Star Trek raises are one of the many things, in my mind, make the franchise so intriguing and enduring. Star Trek is at its best when it explores these questions.
That's it for now. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please comment below. Feel free to share this post! Next time, we'll begin TOS proper, with the first aired episode, "The Man Trap."
No comments:
Post a Comment