In case you’re not aware, The Cage was the first pilot for Star Trek in 1964 for the NBC network who thought it too cerebral for their viewers. But they liked the concept of the show, so commissioned another pilot – Where No Man Has Gone Before. The Cage was never aired and fans had to wait until 1988 before it was first shown to the public. Parts of that pilot were used in The Original Series episode, The Menagerie.
Two versions of The Cage exist – a black and white version (only available on the remastered Season 3 disk and the Star Trek The Original Series: Origins disk) and a color one.
Here is some footage of Gene Roddenberry introducing the color edition of The Cage:
Around about 1999, the Sci-Fi Channel acquired syndication rights for the original Star Trek television series. For years, the shows had been cut down to fit the amount of commercial time needed for current day programs (there was less commercial time during the original 60’s run and in re-runs, 50-minute episodes were cut to fit a 42-minute airtime). Sci-Fi fixed this problem by making the time slot a full hour and a half. Dubbed “Star Trek The Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition“, the episodes were supplemented with original interviews with the cast and crew discussing each episode. The interviews and extra bits were especially entertaining since they featured more than just the standard cast but also highlighted guest actors, writers, etc.
This is one of those segments, looking at the production of The Cage:
When the remastered editions of Original Star Trek were being made, The Cage was included in the upgrade. This video shows a comparison between the original effects in the pilot and the remastered special effects. On the left side you see the original scene as it was created in 1964. On the right side you will see the same scene as how it looks in the 2008 “digitally enhanced” edition. This new edition features brand new all-CGI special effects. Both versions can be seen on the 2009 Blu-ray on the TOS Season 3 release.
This is the original intro for the Black and White version of the pilot:
And here, Leonard Nimoy talks about he got the role of Spock…
Top image credit: The Cage poster was created by Michael Schuh at FOTOschuh.
Tagged with: Gene Roddenberry • Leonard Nimoy • spock • Star Trek Pilot • The Cage
Filed under: Star Trek: The Original Series
Look at the problems NBC Star Trek had getting on, and staying on the air with NBC… the same thing has happened to Hannibal.
TV networks aren’t (and probably never have been) concerned with the quality of their programming (why else do we have so many cheap-to-make reality shows?). They only care about how many eyeballs it brings to the adverts. Which also explains why time allotted to commercials increased from 10 minutes per hour in the 1960s to 18 minutes per hour in the 1980s.
Bean counters have little or no understanding of certain genres (like science fiction) and lesser understanding of how a series might resonate with its audience. We’ve seen it time again, more so in the last 20 years, when promising new shows get canceled after their first season because viewing figures appear to be low. They forget (at least until recently) that not everyone watches a show live as it airs. They also seem to forget that lower audience figures are to be expected given the number of channels people can watch these days. And the attention of the younger demographic is also diverted by social media and other online content streams.
If you want a show to stand a real chance of running to completion, it needs to be made by companies like HBO, AMC, Showtime, Amazon or Netflix. They are far more likely to stand over a show that has low initial viewing figures rather than panicking and canceling the show as the TV networks are wont to do.
Star Trek was popular enough that the fan letter campaign to keep in on air, run by Bjo Trimble, was successful in getting Star Trek a third season. Instead of recognizing the hit they had, NBC cut the budget on the show, resulting in lower script quality and special effects.
So the last entity that should judge if a show should be renewed or canceled is the network that makes it!