Overshadowed by Shatner’s Kirk for many years, Christopher Pike’s current popularity owes much to the man who first played him, Jeffrey Hunter.
Modern-day Star Trek fans will be very familiar with Captain Christopher Pike. The heroic, fatherly, and patient captain of the USS Enterprise made one of the franchise’s all-time great comebacks in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. It was enough to earn him the role of flying the flag for the 23rd-century Federation in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It’s an impressive run for a character who had a handful of appearances in the franchise a half-century ago and was subsequently overshadowed by his successor James Kirk.
Things could have been very different. In a parallel universe, there was no Captain Kirk, and Star Trek’s original series followed the five-year mission of Captain Christopher Pike instead. Actor Jeffrey Hunter commanded the Enterprise in the pilot episode of Star Trek. His disappearance and replacement by William Shatner’s Kirk for the series that followed proved pivotal to the franchise’s success and the narrative weight behind Captain Pike’s return in recent years. What Was The First Episode Of Star Trek?
Star Trek: The Cage
Main Cast
Jeffrey Hunter, Leonard Nimoy, Majel Barrett, John Hoyt, Susan Oliver, Meg Wyllie
Writer
Gene Roddenberry
Director
Robert Butler
Release
February 1965 (first screening to NBC), October 14, 1986 (first home media release)
Where To Watch
Stream on Paramount+
Star Trek first flew with a pilot episode called « The Cage » in 1965. Many elements of the show that millions of fans would fall in love with were there or taking shape already. The USS Enterprise looks very familiar, with its two nacelles and saucer section. On the bridge, in early versions of Original Series uniform tops, Mr Spock was present, albeit not quite the logical Vulcan that would become an icon. One significant difference was the man who sat in the captain’s chair: Jeffrey Hunter’s Christopher Pike.
During the episode, Pike leads an away team to the planet Talos IV, a distant planet with an irresistible mystery. A party of scientists that have survived on the planet for 18 years following a crash-landing is soon revealed to be telepathic illusions created by the powerful and cranially-gifted subterranean Talosians. Hoping to reclaim their ravaged planet, the Talosians attempt to trap Pike in their menagerie of slaves using young female survivor Vina. Ultimately, the Talosians learn a lesson in humanity’s hatred of captivity.
Packed with great world-building and solid sci-fi concepts, « The Cage » blended action, exploration, thought-provoking issues, and romance. But it didn’t convince NBC, who thought it was intellect-heavy and action-light. The network didn’t broadcast the pilot but was persuaded to give Gene Roddenberry’s space opera another go and commissioned a second pilot that would emerge as « Where No Man Has Gone Before » in the first series of Star Trek in 1966.
