James Hise - The Unauthorized History of Trek

“The Cage” began shooting with a cast of characters drawn from the original format, although the captain was now named Christopher Pike. Pike was portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter, who had the rare distinction of having once played Jesus Christ, in King of Kings. John Hoyt played the ship’s doctor, Philip Boyce. Leonard Nimoy appeared as Spock, but the character was a bit different from its later incarnation, as the logical aspect of his future personality belonged to the character Number One, portrayed by Majel Barrett.

Leonard Nimoy had assumed that he would be trying out for the part of Spock; he failed to realize that he was Roddenberry’s first and preferred choice for the role. The prospect of a regular series was exciting to the actor, who, despite his frequent guest appearances on television, did not have what could be called a stable income. He did have some misgivings about the part; what if the show was an unmitigated flop? Would he become a laughing stock, forever derided for having dared to don those silly-looking pointed ears? In conference with his friend Vic Morrow, he even pondered the possibility of developing character makeup that would completely conceal his true face—just in case Star Trek was a disaster and an embarrassment. Fortunately for his future recognizability, he thought better of this idea.

Still, one obstacle remained to be overcome. The makeup department had yet to come up with a painless means of applying the Spock ears. The ears were irritating and painful where the glue was applied; one of the reasons for Spock’s general stiffness was the fact that any facial movement, however slight, served only to compound the intense physical discomfort generated by the aural appliances.

Matters were even more confounded by the odd fact that, due to contractual obligations, the actual ears had to be made by the props department, not the makeup department. Considerable variations in the shape of the ears (as well as in Spock’s general appearance) can still be seen in the two pilot episodes. Leonard was frustrated by this situation, and expressed his dissatisfaction over it to his producer.

Roddenberry could tell that Nimoy’s anguish was real—but what could he do? Finally, grasping at straws, he promised Nimoy that if, after thirteen episodes, he was still unhappy with the ears, Roddenberry would personally write an episode in which Spock had an ear-job to give him normal, human-looking ears. Nimoy pondered this, and then broke into laughter. The fate of the ears was sealed—and Spock still has them to this day.

“The Cage” introduces viewers to Roddenberry’s nascent version of the Enterprise crew as it is headed toward a starbase after a disastrous first contact with an alien culture. Captain Pike and his crew are tired and in great need of some rest, but they are distracted by a distress signal from a nearby planet.

When they investigate, they find a colony of scientists who have survived a crash nearly twenty years earlier… and a beautiful young girl, Vina, who the survivors claim was born just as their ship crashed. When Vina lures Captain Pike away from the encampment, he is abducted by dome-skulled aliens and taken below the surface. The scientists and their camp, merely an illusion designed to lure humans, disappear.

Pike regains consciousness to find himself in an enclosed space; he has become part of an alien zoo, held prisoner by beings who can read his thoughts and project him into a bewildering variety of subjective but real-seeming scenarios. As he goes through these, he resists them at every turn, but begins to realize that the girl has a role in all this, too. Perhaps she is not an illusion, but another captive; she constantly tries to get him to accept his situation and make the best of the illusions his captors create.

Meanwhile, Number One and Spock haul out an impressive array of technology in their attempts to free their captain from his subterranean prison, but to no avail. Beneath the surface, the philosophical drama unfolds, with Pike finally being freed after resisting mind control. It is revealed that the woman, Vina, was the only survivor of the crash; not truly young, she was also severely disfigured by the crash. When Pike offers to take her off the planet to rejoin humanity, she elects to stay and live the rest of her life in the illusionary happiness the aliens have provided her. The aliens have been acting partly out of their own motivations but also out of a desire to help the lonely woman. Pike goes on to a starbase while she continues to embrace a reality that is false but which offers her the only comfort she will ever know.

NBC’s reaction to this pilot was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. In its intelligence and its appearance, it surpassed anything done in the genre television before, and looked better than the vast majority of theatrical science fiction films as well. No one had a bad word to say about the finished product.

They rejected it anyway.

The problem, it seemed, was that it was too intelligent. NBC execs were afraid that the story would go over the heads of most of the audience. Something a bit more action-oriented would perhaps be better, they mused—and, in an unprecedented move, they gave Roddenberry a shot at a second pilot.

They also wanted to get rid of the guy with the pointed ears. There was always the possibility that religious groups might be offended by such a demonic-looking character.

Roddenberry set out to revamp the entire show, but he was determined to keep Spock. He discarded the character of Number One, who hadn’t gone over too well, and promoted Spock to second-in-command, bringing him closer to the forefront.

This time, NBC wanted three complete scripts for consideration. All three had plenty of action: “Mudd’s Women,” by Stephen Kandel; “Omega Glory,” by Roddenberry; and “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” by Samuel A. Peeples. The network chose the Peeples script; the second Star Trek pilot was under way.

CHAPTER TWO:

A NEAR MISS AND A SOLID HIT

Despite the network’s misgivings, Roddenberry was determined to stick with Spock. He was also determined to maintain the Enterprise ’s multiethnic crew despite the network’s concerns that this might affect ratings in various areas of the country.

As for Spock, Roddenberry worked with the character a bit; the now-discarded Number One left a vacancy for the second-in-command, and Spock fit the bill perfectly. Spock also inherited Number One’s cold, dispassionate logic. This all gelled to provide a fascinating amalgam of intelligence, restraint, and a certain attractive aura of mystery, all admirably brought to life by a highly capable actor, Leonard Nimoy.

Leonard Nimoy was born in Boston in 1931, the son of Jewish immigrants from the USSR. He showed an early interest in the theater, making his stage debut in a production of Hansel and Gretel at the age of eight.

After high school, he studied briefly at Boston College. With only six hundred dollars to his name, he took a three-day train trip to California in pursuit of an acting career. Studies at the Pasadena Playhouse did not lead to much movie work, however, and he was obliged to work at a variety of menial jobs: theater usher, ice cream counterman, pet shop clerk, vacuum cleaner salesman, and many others.

A fluke break landed him the lead in a Z-grade boxing picture, Kid Monk Baroni , but this and a few much smaller roles in such forgettable pictures as Francis Goes to West Point , where he was billed far below the picture’s talking-donkey star, were all the film work he could obtain at the time.

After marriage and a stint in the army in Georgia, Nimoy returned to Los Angeles in the late fifties and began to get more roles in episodic television, frequently as a heavy. But he was far from being a household name.