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Recap / Star Trek S1 E11 "The Menagerie, Part I"

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Original air date: November 17, 1966

The only TOS two-parter, re-telling of the events of the first, unaired pilot episode by framing it as video-recorded flashbacks in Spock's court-martial... for mutiny!

Before the episode, Spock claims to have received an urgent message from Fleet Captain Christopher Pike to report to him at Starbase 11. Upon arriving at the starbase, Kirk is informed that the Starbase sent no such message, and Commodore Jose Mendez rebukes Kirk's argument as impossible, because Pike is in no condition to send any such message. Pike's injuries following an shipboard accident during an inspection tour ( one of the baffle plates ruptured , causing severe radiation burns and brain damage) have left him confined to a motorized wheelchair, conscious but unable to move or speak.

Spock, it turns out, is already aware of Pike's plight, and has devised a plan to kidnap his former commanding officer, for whom he has great respect and admiration, and bring him back to the one place he might find happiness. But he is doing so without the knowledge of any of his colleagues, even Kirk, because his intended destination is the one place in the galaxy restricted under penalty of death — Talos IV.

Through Pike's wordless protest (a light on his mobility chair flashes and beeps once for yes, twice for no , and it was flashing twice a LOT), Spock tells Pike of his well-prepared plan for abducting Pike, and shows very clear emotion in his fervor that it must be carried out, that he has no choice.

Mendez and Kirk argue about the message supposedly sent from the Starbase; it could not have occurred, which means that someone must have altered the tapes; who would want to divert the Enterprise, Kirk wonders? In the computer center, Spock sneaks in and nerve-pinches a technician; then as we return to Mendez's office we meet again Miss Piper, who discusses the results of her investigation into the message; Kirk stresses that a Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing; that goes for his current as well as his past commander. But Mendez returns that Pike could NOT have sent the message; he's completely debilitated and reliant on his special chair which resembles a mobile iron lung; his mind is as active as anyone else's, but it's trapped in a useless, vegetating body. His responses and movement are severely limited; he's kept alive with a mechanical heart, as Mendez tells Kirk with some difficulty.

Meanwhile, in the computer center, Spock is doing some hacking and voice alteration, preparing to falsely order the Enterprise crew to retrieve Pike... The extent of Spock's manipulation is necessarily limited, so most of the new orders, including destination, are fed directly into the ship's computer. Suddenly, the technician who communicated with Mendez's office before discovers Spock and his sabotage; a brief shoving match followed by a neck pinch, and Spock confirms his hacked orders with Kirk's voice, and passes the baton back to himself with the same voice.

Monitoring Pike, Kirk notices he's saying, "No! No!" quite a bit again, as agitated as he can ever exhibit. McCoy comes in and laments that the medicine of their time has not been able to tap into the human brain; Pike is capable of all the feelings and emotions that we feel, but no one can tell because his body is so damaged and restricted. Kirk comes to a frightening realization; Spock may have fabricated the message from Starbase 11 to the Enterprise! McCoy calmly reminds Kirk that as a Vulcan, Spock's incapable of lying; his human half, as McCoy claims, remains completely submerged. Kirk refuses to discount Spock as a suspect, while McCoy is recalled with a cryptic message that he's "needed aboard" the Enterprise...

Mendez gives Kirk the top-secret command-level-only file on Talos IV, certifying he ordered Kirk to read it. Not much is known about the planet or its inhabitants, only that it carries the only remaining death order on Starfleet's lawbook: General Order 7, prohibiting any contact with the world or its inhabitants. Whatever's down there is so dangerous, in form or in application, that Starfleet felt the need to bar access in such a brutal, final way, with only the urging of Pike and Spock themselves, who previously visited the planet, as impetus for the order.

Suddenly Miss Piper, monitoring Pike's room again, reports that he's vanished, chair and all! And immediately afterward, the Enterprise warps out, abandoning Kirk. Oh, Crap! ...

Spock seems rather pensive, almost guilty, but now set on his course as he paces the bridge, snapping at Helmsman Hansen and Uhura for noting the strangeness of there being no navigator (Spock replies that the computer knows where it's going), and reporting a hail (Spock orders her to maintain radio silence). The next thing he does is shatter to pieces the notion that Vulcans can't tell lies (probably by virtue of his half-human heritage) and announce on intraship that he's been placed in temporary command of the Enterprise, that Kirk's been assigned temporary rest leave and that everyone's to obey Spock's orders as though they were Kirk's. McCoy, coming up behind him when he finishes, demands to know what's going on; Spock, regretting that 'they' have kept certain things from McCoy, beckons McCoy to follow him back into the turbolift...

... into the quarters Spock's prepared for Captain Pike, as negative as ever. Spock plays a message from "Kirk," telling McCoy to follow Spock's orders to the letter; McCoy glares suspiciously at Spock, but Spock looks impassively right back...

Back on the bridge, Hansen looks out at the stars, still utterly perplexed, as Spock comes in. Hansen reports that there's a tiny object flying towards them, about the size of a Starbase shuttlecraft; Spock orders no action be taken, but the shuttle will never reach the Enterprise at their speed...

Aboard the shuttlecraft (dubbed Picasso, at least in the remastered version) are Kirk and Mendez, who keep trying to raise the Enterprise but are, of course, met by radio silence. They agree that Spock's definitely en route to Talos IV; Mendez notes that their fuel is running low, close to the point of no return. But Kirk doesn't want to return, and repeats his hails to his increasing frustration...

Spock scans the shuttlecraft and finds that their fuel has already depleted past the point of safe return. Cue a VERY clear This Is Gonna Suck face...

The shuttle finally runs out of fuel, and Mendez and Kirk have to coast... They have two hours of oxygen left. They angst about Spock being in REALLY deep poop if he comes back for them, but that he's DEAD if he reaches Talos IV. Maybe, Mendez says, maybe he's just gone mad, and should be sent to an asylum instead... Well, by the standards of Vulcans, undoubtedly he's gone mad, showing such compassion and emotion to do this for his old Captain...

Spock orders a special command tape (Able Seven Baker) to be played, which puts the engines into a dead stop. Then, he calls for the transporter room to prepare to take Kirk aboard, then for a security team to the bridge. Spock then presents himself to the senior officer present for arrest: McCoy! He reveals, to Uhura's and Hansen's shock, that he never received orders to take command. McCoy, very much put on the spot, impatiently gestures for security to take him away.

Kirk and Mendez beam aboard, being informed by Hansen that Spock's confined to quarters. Mendez argues briefly that he should be in the brig for what he's done. But then we learn something worse: Spock (who now is monitoring Kirk at transporter control from his quarters) has locked in computer control on a direct course for Talos IV; any attempt to disengage will cross-circuit [the Zeerust term for short-circuit, means the same thing] life support! Nothing, it seems, will keep Spock from delivering Pike to that forbidden planet.

Captain's Log, Stardate 3012.4. Despite our best efforts to disengage computers, the Enterprise is still locked on a heading for the mysterious planet, Talos IV. Meanwhile, as required by Starfleet General Orders, a preliminary hearing on Lieutenant Commander Spock is being convened, and in all the years of my service, this is the most painful moment I have ever faced.

Spock waives his right to the hearing, though, and requests an immediate court-martial. Kirk denies on the basis that only two command-level officers are available while three are required. Spock counters with the truth that Captain Pike is available, and still on the active duty list; the Admiralty, according to Mendez, didn't have the heart to retire him, lampshading Spock's preparations for this situation .

Captain's Log, Stardate 3012.6. General Court-Martial convened. Mr. Spock has again waived counsel and has entered a plea of guilty.

Mendez dutifully rings the traditional (manual, not electronic) ship's bell to signal the start of the court-martial, as a recording tape is loaded into the computer. Spock, acknowledging the fact that the death penalty will be applied if the Enterprise enters the Talos Star Group, requests, as an answer to Mendez's demand of "Why? What does it accomplish to go [to Talos IV], or to bring Captain Pike there?" that the screen be engaged, as what's now being shown on it is a direct answer to Mendez's request...

The Enterprise flying through space, Spock noting 13 years ago, with its Captain, Christopher Pike. The view does a very improbably fancy swoop into the Bridge dome...

(Most of what follows can be read about on the page for the pilot , but some diversions occur.)

Shortly into the very oddly-appropriately angled account, Kirk orders the screen off, and asks Pike whether it's really him on the screen. Pike replies yes. Kirk says it's impossible, that no vessel makes record tapes in that detail, so perfectly. Spock refuses to disclose at this time where the footage is coming from. Mendez is ready to shut the whole thing down unless Spock reveals his source, but Spock replies that Mendez did ask WHY Spock started this whole voyage; Mendez claims he was manuevered into asking, and declares Spock's evidence out of order. Kirk contests that; he wants to see more, and denies it's because Spock's his personal friend. Mendez allows the continuation of playback...

After Pike orders the Enterprise to the Talos Star Group, time warp factor seven, Mendez orders the screen off. He accuses Spock of somehow manufacturing the footage they're watching, which Spock, with Pike's help, refutes. It is actually what happened 13 years ago. Spock says that after viewing the evidence, if Mendez still wants to return to the Starbase, he will release the ship, but Mendez, incensed, says Spock is in no position to bargain. He votes that the playback be stopped; Kirk votes against and Mendez declares a deadlock; but he forgets that Pike is still there and a member of the trial board; he votes that the playback continue, and so it does, after...

Captain's log, supplemental. Mr. Spock, on trial for mutiny, has forced the court to accept unusual evidence. On our monitor screen, the voyage of Captain Pike and the Enterprise to the one forbidden world in all the galaxy.

After Pike's been taken underground by the Talosians, and the crew try (and fail) to blast the rock face open with their phasers, the screen turns off automatically, with Uhura radioing in from the bridge with a call for Mendez, a 'fleet signal.' They've detected that the Enterprise is receiving signals from Talos IV, in violation of general orders! ComSol (Command Solutions?) orders Mendez to relieve Kirk of command and take command himself, and return the ship to Starbase 11 so Spock may face the full weight of Starfleet justice. Spock 'respectfully declines' Mendez's order to release the Enterprise to manual control, and Mendez simply states that Spock has earned the consequences.

The yeoman assigned as Clerk exits, McCoy and Scotty slowly guide Pike in his chair out, and Spock looks absolutely devastated. Kirk asks if Spock has lost his mind, and Spock pleads with Kirk not to stop him or let Mendez stop him. "It's your career and Captain Pike's life. You must see the rest of the transmission!" Dutifully, Kirk orders the security guard present to take Spock to the brig; they exit, and "TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK" Kirk walks in solitude, contemplatively around the briefing room, laying a hand on the court recorder computer, Face Palming briefly , then finally walks out as the scene fades...

All tropes relating to the pilot episode itself should be placed on its page.

The Troperie: Part I:

• And I Must Scream : Apparently despite his horrific injuries Pike's intellect is fully intact, but he's imprisoned in a body that no longer works and cannot communicate fully. He is well aware of the situation and repeatedly tries to order Spock to stop to no avail. Kirk: He keeps saying "no". McCoy: No to what ?
• Bling of War : Kirk has a unique stone/amulet/pendant to the left of his ridiculous colorful triangles.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality : One of the earliest episodes to really dig into the idea that Vulcans aren't just people with no emotions and lots of smarts. Spock's loyalty is the impetus for the entire plot, as he cannot simply let Pike suffer, no matter that he has a new commanding officer (to whom he is equally loyal) and hasn't seen Pike in years. Vulcan loyalty is just that strong , to a point a human would consider insane.
• Cannot Tell a Lie : When Spock is first accused of having faked the message calling the Enterprise to the starbase, it's stated that as a Vulcan he's incapable of lying. Though Bones then goes on to state that this is because it would be embarrassing for a Vulcan to act the way a human would, even for a Half-Human Hybrid .
• The Casanova : Kirk visibly appreciates the pretty yeoman sent to greet them, and looks worried when she mentions knowing a former Love Interest .
• Chair Reveal : Played for drama with a Face-Revealing Turn of Pike's horrific injuries.
• Clip Show : Averted to a degree since they are clips of something we hadn't seen before, though it uses the framing of a clip show to get mileage out of the unused original pilot footage.
• Cliffhanger : Pike has been kidnapped by the Talosians, while in the present day Kirk is relieved of command and Spock refuses to release the Enterprise from computer control. When Spock urges Kirk to continue allowing the transmission from Talos, Kirk has him hauled off to the brig instead. To Be Continued …
• Cool Starship : We get a good look at the exterior of the Pike-era Enterprise, distinguished by the long spikes on the red warp nacelle caps.
• Forbidden Zone : Landing on Talos IV is punishable by death, the only death penalty crime still on the books.
• Forged Message : Spock lies about having received a message summoning them to Starbase 11, then uses faked computer instructions and confirmation orders from Captain Kirk to take control of the Enterprise.
• Heroic Sacrifice : Pike was conducting an inspection of a training ship when a baffle plate ruptured, flooding the engineering compartment with delta radiation. Pike saved as many cadets as he could before the radiation crippled him and left him an invalid.
• I Did What I Had to Do : Spock's apparently simple motive for abducting Pike and hijacking the ship.
• Irrevocable Order : Spock has wired the Master Computer so their course cannot be changed, even after he surrenders command of the Enterprise.
• Jerkass Has a Point : Since Spock has already faked several messages when stealing the Enterprise, and he refuses to explain the origin of the footage, Mendez has every reason to be skeptical.
• Spock says that he wants to hold the court-martial against him immediately. When Captain Kirk says that they need three command officers and only two (himself and Commodore Mendez) are present, Spock points out that Fleet Captain Pike is still listed as being on active duty.
• After Mendez objects to the presentation of evidence from an unknown source, Spock points out that he is allowed to introduce it in response to a direct question about why he did something. Lampshaded when Mendez grumbles that Spock maneuvered the court into asking him that question, then subverted when we find out in Part Two that Mendez is a Talosian illusion and presumably working (subtly) to steer the proceedings in Spock's favor.
• Lotus-Eater Machine : What the Talosians set up for their zoo, to keep themselves entertained and their subjects pacified; also, though we only begin to see this motive in this part, it's heavily implied in dialogue that it's what Spock wishes to return Pike to, that he may leave the confines of his broken body and let his mind run free.
• Magical Security Cam : Actually subverted, as Kirk protests that the footage from "The Cage" clearly isn't from security recordings, which is explained in Part 2.
• Once for Yes, Twice for No : The only form of communication left to the injured Captain Pike.
• Selective Obliviousness : At first, McCoy flat out denies that Spock could have lied and forged orders for the Enterprise to report to Starbase 11. McCoy: To question Spock of all people! Me, yes. I could run off half-cocked given a good reason, so could you! But not Spock. It's impossible!
• Sequel Episode : An odd example, as it's to "The Cage", the original pilot episode which at the time had not been broadcast.
• Stock Footage : A shot of crewmembers on a corridor, listening to Spock's speech on the intercom is recycled footage from " The Corbomite Maneuver ". The same shot appears in " Balance of Terror " and " Assignment: Earth " as well.
• Tractor Beam : Used to bring Kirk's shuttle aboard after he deliberately runs out the fuel to force Spock to stop and retrieve him.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit : Kirk deliberately exhausts the shuttle's fuel so Spock will have to chose between continuing his mission or letting Kirk die, knowing Spock wouldn't allow the latter to happen no matter what the mission may mean to him.
• You Are in Command Now : Spock fakes a message placing him in command of the Enterprise . When Kirk and Mendez catch up to him, he turns over operational command to Lieutenant Hansen and then surrenders to Dr. McCoy (the senior officer present).
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious : Even Kirk thinks Spock is out of his mind. Spock replies, "Jim, don't stop me." Justified as a court martial for mutiny is pretty serious.
• Star Trek S1 E10 "The Corbomite Maneuver"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S1 E12 "The Menagerie, Part II"

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Episode Preview: The Menagerie, Part I

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The Menagerie, Part I

The original crew of the USS Enterprise are sent on a mission to transport a disabled, wheelchair-bound Starfleet officer, Commodore Mendez, to a Starbase for a hearing. Little do they know, this is no ordinary mission.

When the Enterprise reaches its destination, Mendez is nowhere to be found. Instead they find the ship’s former captain, Christopher Pike, in a strange catatonic state. The crew soon learns that Pike has actually been abducted by his first officer, Spock, who has taken control of the ship, and is now piloting it towards the forbidden planet Talos IV.

Spock is willing to answer questions from the crew, but only one at a time. He reveals that over a year ago, Pike had been on a secret mission to the planet. During this mission, Pike was exposed to powerful beings known as the Talosians. The Talosians had the ability to make Pike experience whatever the crew were seeing while they were on their away mission. The Talosians also forced him to relive an event from his past. This traumatic experience had left Pike a shell of his former self and unable to serve as captain of the Enterprise any longer.

Spock believes that the Talosians can restore Pike’s health. He is convinced that if Pike can be brought to Talos IV, the Talosians will be able to cure him. Spock is determined to make this happen, no matter the cost.

The crew of the Enterprise are left conflicted. On one hand, they wish to help their former captain, but on the other, they know that going to Talos IV is strictly forbidden. They also fear that Spock is not in his right mind and may be endangering the ship and all their lives.

Admiral Komack, the highest ranking officer of Starfleet, orders the Enterprise to turn back and return immediately to Starbase 11. However, Spock continues on his course, determined to see his plan through.

The crew soon finds out that Spock has been granted a temporary legal pardon by a mysterious figure called the “Adjudicator”. The Adjudicator is the only person who has the authority to override Komack’s orders.

The Enterprise eventually arrives on Talos IV, where Spock is reunited with the Talosian leaders. The Talosians reveal to Spock that their world is teeming with living illusions, illusions that can make a person think they are living out their wildest dreams. They explain that they have been watching and studying Pike since his initial visit.

With the help of the Talosians, Commodore Mendez is able to restore Pike’s mental state enough for the crew to take him back to Starbase 11. However, before they can return, Spock is put on trial for his actions. Will Spock be able to convince the court to allow him to continue his mission? Or will he be found guilty and punished for his actions? Find out in the next thrilling episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, The Menagerie, Part I.

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Star Trek: The Menagerie

Tonight was a night not just for classic Star Trek , but for classic fans. We bought our tickets and we piled into 300 theaters around the country this Tuesday and Thursday for special, sold-out presentations of a classic, original series Star Trek episode. Star Trek: The Menagerie beamed directly into movie theaters, and Trekkies showed up in force.

As I slid into my seat juggling a box of candy and a coke icey, it was hard not to notice that most of my fellow Trekkies were of the grey-haired variety. This was an event for those who were there in the beginning. A long forgotten, slumbering giant faction of fandom. The original fandom that took a little TV show and kept it alive with a letter writing campaign, launched it into movies by sheer force of fan will, and turned it into an international icon. They were there tonight, most of them over 50, many of them there with their kids, and all of them wishing for a better time when Star Trek was still Star Trek .

The evening opened with an on screen introduction by Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry’s son, and we were treated to a brief look at a few behind the scenes features, all of which will be on the upcoming HD-DVD release of Trek . Ok, it was basically a commercial, but a good commercial, especially when giving us the chance to see vintage Trek scenes remastered and thrown up there on a big screen. For once, these were commercials an audience could love and they served as the perfect setup for the warp-speed Trek double dose to follow.

The only two part episode in the history of the original Star Trek series, The Menagerie combines elements of the show’s unaired pilot “The Cage” with footage involving a mutiny by Spock designed to save his pre-Captain Kirk commander from a life spent in the future equivalent of an iron lung. It’s a solid Trek episode, but it was obviously chosen for theatrical re-release more because of its length than because of any special quality contained in this particular episode.

Not that it mattered. Newly remastered with fresh effects and redone to be re-released in HD DVD this month, classic Trek has never looked better. I’ve been watching the remastered episodes as they’ve aired on television, and loved every minute of them. What was surprising is that this 1966 vintage show looked even more brilliant up on screen. The colors were vibrant, the presentation was spot on. Earlier this week I watched Battlestar Galactica ’s Razor projected in a movie theater, and though it’s a modern show, it looked drab when projected on a format larger than the one for which it was intended. Not so with Star Trek . If only there were more two-hour episodes to repeat this with, it’s as if the bright look of classic Trek were born for the cinema.

But I’m not here to review a decades old television show, instead I want to talk about an event of the type I think audiences would love to see more often. If you missed Menagerie , you missed out on a great theater night packed with old school fans smiling and laughing the way they haven’t in decades. Seeing so many silver-haired Trek fans gathered together like this, it’s hard not to think of the vast army of aged fandom that Hollywood seems to be overlooking. A few weeks ago I wrote an appeal to JJ Abrams, director of the new, upcoming Trek film, asking for him to take these fans into consideration. To date, we don’t know if he’s listening, but if he’d been there with us tonight… then perhaps he’d see why maybe marketing to the cool kids just doesn’t matter.

My only real complaint here is that there’s more potential in these specialty screenings than is being mined by distributors like FathomEvents. Sure, they managed to pack a single theater screen in the middle of the week, a time when it probably would have otherwise been nearly empty. And they did it with almost no advertising. But why not make more out of it? We had a theater loaded with fans ready to have fun, and all they gave us were a few sneak peeks at upcoming Star Trek DVDs, and then straight into the episode. I’m not complaining, that alone was great, but why not make more out of it? Why not make this a real event? Theater owners talk a lot about the trouble they’re having getting audiences, well why not put forward some effort? What about a giveaway? Commemorative prizes? Klingons in costume? Why not make this seem like it’s really something? We’re paying more for the tickets ($12.50 for Menagerie ), why not give us more with them?

Whether or not they gave us complimentary Spock ears or commemorative Star Trek communicator badges, Menagerie was fun beyond all expectations. It was a chance to remember back to a simpler time, when Sci Fi had something to say and it did it with more than just whiz bang effects. Classic film and television can work on modern theater screens and classic fans are out there, ready and waiting to show up for it. If they’re smart, theater owners will find ways to do more and make more out of events like this in the future.

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Star Trek – The Menagerie, Part I (Review)

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Ah, clip shows. The bane of modern television. Okay, I’m being a bit harsh. After all, home media is a relatively recent invention. Up until the past couple of decades, it seemed that most people would only catch their television shows on… well, television. The audience was generally thought to be somewhat transient, the realities of scheduling and life making it highly unlikely that everybody would see everything. Indeed, most fans of old television shows found themselves at the mercy of fickle network schedules. Particularly for long-running shows, it was reasonable to assume that a significant portion of your audience might not be intimately familiar with the show.

Of course, the emergence of DVD box sets and on-line streaming have radically changed the way that television operates. Most obviously, there has been a massive a swing towards serialisation in the past few years, overlapping with the expansion of home media. While it’s tough to imagine a show like  The Wire or  Game of Thrones working in the early nineties, the fact that people can record and download and own their television shows means that producers can get away with assuming that everybody has seen everything.

What I’m getting at here  is that there was a time when clip shows were an understandable, maybe even desirable, part of the network television landscape. They could bring new viewers up to speed, or allow old viewers to celebrate the favourite parts of the show that they would otherwise never see again. Indeed, The Menagerie , the only two-part episode of the classic Star Trek , has a better excuse than most. The clip sections of this adventure are taken from the 1964 pilot, The Cage . Not only was this footage two years old when The Menageri e was broadcast, it had also never been aired.

Spock the difference…

There was a time when The Cage was something of a ghost among Star Trek fandom. Gene Roddenberry would take it to conventions and show it to those in attendance, but it wasn’t until after Star Trek: The Next Generation came on the air that the show was broadcast on network television. Since then, of course, the episode has been included in VHS releases and DVD box sets. The adventures of Christopher Pike have been incorporated into various media, really starting with D.C. Fontana’s Vulcan’s Glory in 1989. Pike has featured in his own books as part of crossovers, and played a significant role in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.

The Cage won’t ever be “just another episode” of Star Trek . Its place in the canon is too sacred for that. However, it is a lot less exotic than it was over two decades ago. As a result, The Menagerie has lost a lot of its cache, a lot of its uniqueness. And, to be honest, I’d be lying if I argued that The Menagerie was “the best way to watch The Cage” or anything like that. The insertion of Kirk and the modern Enterprise into the story undercuts the segments from The Cage , because nothing slows down a pulpy science-fiction adventure like court room scenes.

Everything goes up to eleven…

Indeed, I can honestly see why the broadcast and production order for The Menagerie and Court Martial are so different. By the time we reach the end of The Menagerie, Part II , we’ve had three solid hours of court room drama in Star Trek . The concept of putting one of our crew on trial was novel in Court Martial . Unfortunately, doing a two-part adventure about directly afterwards makes it seem like the show has run out of ideas. Given some of the gems waiting towards the end of the season, we know that isn’t the case.

There are even some themes carried over from Court Martial as well, particularly early on in the hour. Here, a member of the crew finds their official statements at odds with the recorded version of events. In Court Martial , Kirk found his word weighed against the Enterprise’s computer. Here, Spock apparently responds to a message never sent. “Spock stated he received a message for us to come here,” Kirk tells Mendez. “He entered same in his log. That’s all the proof I require.”

It’s a beeping mess he’s got himself into…

When Mendez points out that the evidence does not support that assertion, Kirk won’t hear of it. “Then I suggest the record tapes have been deliberately changed,” he argues. “A computer expert can change record tapes, duplicate voices, say anything, say nothing.” Of course, not only does the episode play out Kirk’s suggestion with a wonderful irony (with Spock as the “computer expert” in question), but Kirk also had very recent first-hand experience with such tampering.

Interestingly, the episode is also set at Starbase 11, the same setting featured in Court Martial . The fact that Christopher Pike was here, and it didn’t come up in the last episode, is probably the reason that Court Martial was shifted to much later in the schedule. Similarly, it’s really weird that Commodore Stone isn’t present here. Maybe he just dealt with disciplinary stuff, or maybe he was transferred away after all the crazy stuff that happened in  Court Martial .

Spock’s holiday slide show made for surprisingly compelling viewing…

Anyway, it does feel a little weird to use Starbase 11 so soon after  Court Martial , but without maintaining even a hint of continuity. Not that Star Trek was great with continuity. As a case in point, the name of Starfleet is re-established here, after being introduced in Court Martial . However, the organisation will be called “Spacefleet Command “ in Squire of Gothos . So it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that the show can’t maintain a real consistency between two episodes set at the same location.

That said, Court Martial and The Menagerie both do a great job extending and developing the depiction of Starfleet, and place both Kirk and Spock in a broader administrative framework. While a lot of Star Trek featured Kirk engaging in pulp sci-fi adventures, episodes like The Menagerie make it clear that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I’ve been talking a great deal about world-building, and that’s something that really begins in the middle of the first season, from around Balance of Terror onwards.

Spock strikes a nerve..

The Menagerie continues this theme. The Conscience of a King and Court Martial confirmed that Kirk had a personal and professional history. The Menagerie establishes the same for Spock and the Enterprise. I’ll talk a bit more about Spock in a moment, but The Menagerie really firmly suggests that we aren’t watching the origins of the Enterprise or its crew. The ship has been around a long time, so long that it has a life before Kirk. Asked how long he served with Pike, Spock answers, “Eleven years, four months, five days.”

That’s a lot of empty space there, and it leaves a lot of room for back story. While stories so far have referenced particular events – the Earth-Romulan War, Kirk reporting Finney, the massacre on Tarsus IV – The Menagerie does the opposite. It establishes a blank space where events could be. It invites the audience to fill in that white canvas with details of these adventures and these stories. Star Trek tie-ins thrive on these gaps and these little spaces. It’s no wonder that the novels and comics have seized the rather expansive period where Pike commanded the Enterprise.

Now he’s no longer being Stone-walled, let’s see if Kirk can Mendez his relationship with Starbase 11…

I actually really like The Menagerie . Well, okay, let’s qualify that. I acknowledge that it’s a clip show. If I want to watch Pike command the Enterprise, I’ll just stick on The Cage . I don’t want to watch episodes of Star Trek about characters watching episodes of Star Trek . I don’t consider Shades of Grey the worst Star Trek episode ever written, but it’s a pretty crappy hour of television. That said, I do like some of the meta-fictional aspects, as the script intentionally draws our attention to the fact that we are watching a clip show.

Kirk points out that it’s unlikely the ship’s log would record Pike’s adventure in such cinematic terms. “That’s impossible,” he protests, like a fan on an internet forum who just found a plot hole. “Mister Spock, no vessel makes record tapes in that detail, that perfect. What were we watching?” While The Menagerie doesn’t have an especially effective or compelling cliff-hanger, I respect that it’s honest enough to have Roddenberry Spock make a plea to the audience Kirk. “You must see the rest of the transmission.”

Pike chairs the judging panel…

I’m not a big fan of watching an episode chopped up and inserted into another episode. However, I do like the framing story of The Menagerie . It’s a pretty great Spock story, coming only a few episodes after the first true Spock story, The Galileo Seven . Playing on the themes that are developed through most of the stronger Spock stories, The Menagerie hints at the idea that Spock is more governed by emotion than he might let on. Certainly, he actions here are sentimental, rather than logical.

As McCoy and Kirk note, this conduct is not possible for a Vulcan. In a nice touch, The Menagerie casts McCoy as a character who has complete and implacable trust in Spock. This is a character who disagrees with Spock’s whole worldview, but still respects the man and his traditions. It’s a much more balanced and sophisticated portrayal than the disrespect McCoy demonstrated in  The Galileo Seven . While McCoy would never give Spock the satisfaction of admitting it to his face, it’s clear that he quite likes and trusts Spock.

The lights are on, but no one’s home…

Indeed, McCoy and Kirk both demonstrate how well they know and understand Spock, and what drives him. “Jim,” McCoy reminds his commanding officer, “forgetting how well we both know Spock, the simple fact that he’s a Vulcan means he’s incapable of telling a lie.” Kirk points out, “He’s also half human.” McCoy responds, “And that half is completely submerged. To be caught acting like us or even thinking like us would completely embarrass him.” Interestingly, both characters are right about Spock, even as they disagree. McCoy understands that Spock can’t bring himself to acknowledge his human half, while Kirk knows he can’t completely hide it.

Kirk even points out the illogical and irrational nature of Spock’s plan. “If he had wanted to see Captain Pike he could have requested a leave,” Kirk tells Mendez. “I would have granted it.” It seems hard to believe that Spock couldn’t have simply bribed passage on a freighter with Pike, or even taken an especially well-stocked shuttle. As much as Talos IV is off-limits, there are no hints of orbital defences or security checkpoints. The Enterprise just flies there unmolested.

Mendez’s spec. script for a sequel to “Talos III” was garnering great word of mouth…

Spock’s plan to hijack the Enterprise is – on the surface – most illogical and inefficient. A cynic might suggest that it exists purely to set up the court martial subplot. However, I think there’s a very clear reason for Spock to hijack the Enterprise. He doesn’t just want to bring Christopher Pike to Talos IV. He wants to take him for one last trip on the Federation flagship, probably the most high-profile ship Pike ever commanded. There’s a sentimentality there, a clear respect and affection for his old commanding officer. It’s a shame that we don’t get a better sense of the bond between Pike and Spock, even if we can intuit it easily enough.

This is, after all, a nice bit of foreshadowing. Much as Spock hijacked the Enterprise to bring an old friend some sense of peace, Kirk and his crew would eventually do the same for Spock in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . Even this early in the series, it’s hard to believe that Spock wouldn’t do the same for Kirk or even McCoy. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that Kirk would have refused – even under penalty of death – had Spock asked this of him as a friend.

Well, that’s one way for Spock to get his command…

Leonard Nimoy does his usual great work here. A lot of the reason that the first half of the episode works so well is down to Nimoy’s performance. Despite the fact that this is all a contrived set-up so that the production crew can broadcast an unaired pilot, Nimoy’s portrayal of Spock gives the episode a great deal of nuance. He also invests us in this particular framing adventure. I suspect that  The Menagerie would probably be worth skipping entirely if it weren’t for Nimoy’s work.

Indeed, it’s fascinating that we trust Spock so much that we almost immediately accept that he has a good reason for lying to Kirk, incapacitating a bunch of officers and stealing the Enterprise. The fact that he surrenders himself, and is willing to confess his crimes, also maintains the character’s dignity and audience’s trust. It seems like the show is realising pretty quickly exactly what it has in Spock, who really is one of the most fantastic characters in the history of television.

I guess they can kill the time by catching up with fleet shuttlebutt…

There are other little touches that fit quite well with Roddenberry’s vision of Star Trek , this early in the show’s run. There’s a sense that the Enterprise is cruising along the frontier, isolated and insulated from the goings-on among the core worlds. While Spock had obviously heard somehow, Kirk is shocked to hear what has happened. “You don’t know?” Mendez asks, shocked. “You actually don’t know what’s happened to Captain Pike? There’s been subspace chatter about it for months.” It really gives you a sense that the Enterprise is truly on the frontier.

It seems like the show has really settled into its characterisation of Kirk as a ladies’ man, to the point where the show is even making jokes about it. Though, to be fair, as of Court Martial , we’re reaching the point where Kirk is awkwardly bumping into ex-girlfriends at space ports. Maybe there’s a reason the Enterprise spends so much time so far out. Here, Mendez introduces Kirk to his mini-skirted assistant.

Watching Star Trek reruns is the best part of Mendez’s job…

“I recognized the Captain immediately,” Piper responds, politely. “A mutual friend described you, sir. Lieutenant Helen Johansson.” Shatner does that wonderful thing where Kirk is delightfully socially awkward. This is a man who can order crew members to their death, but not talk about basic human interaction. “Helen described–?” Piper politely cuts his embarrassed comment off. “She merely mentioned she knew you, sir.” I’m actually kind of curious as to what Kirk thought she “ described.” I know I should probably be more mature, but there’s something weird about the use of the word of “described” instead of “said” or “told.”

Building off episodes like Court Martial and Dagger of the Mind , The Menagerie also suggests some institutional doubts about the structures of authority in classic Star Trek . Again, this is probably a result of the script’s desire to create suspense rather than any conscious decision on the part of Gene Roddenberry, but it’s fascinating that Starfleet still has a death penalty. And that it is reserved for a very particular case. (Which, naturally, comes into play here.)

“Don’t worry, we just did one of these last episode, it’ll be fine…”

“General Order 7,” Kirk clarifies. “No vessel under any condition, emergency or otherwise, is to visit Talos IV.” Mendez continues, “And to do so is the only death penalty left on our books. Only Fleet Command knows why. Not even this file explains that.” Not only does this suggest that Starfleet is keeping secrets (we’re also told that “the command reports stated Talos contained absolutely no practical benefits to mankind” ), but also that the operational body is genuinely  afraid of Talos IV. In a way that, for example, they are not afraid of the Neutral Zone or the Galactic Barrier or any other exotic locale.

It’s interesting that Starfleet has these sorts of operational secrets. You might understand why a military body would keep the news of an ancient civilisation with that sort of power relatively quiet, but it does raise questions. Despite the relatively amicable terms on which Pike left, does Starfleet consider the Talosians a threat? Or was this order established with their consent? If Starfleet is so concerned about people going off to live fantasy lives so real that they would never leave, how come they go on to develop the holodeck?

Into darkness…

More than that, what other dark secrets does Starfleet harbour? The footage from Pike’s expedition is news to Kirk, so does that mean that nay of Vina’s surviving relatives never discovered what happened to her? Or any other relatives of those lost in the crash? Despite the appearance of Utopia, does Starfleet take similar steps to cover up Kirk’s adventures? If the Talosians are off-limits, would Starfleet admit that the events of – to pick an example – Errand of Mercy took place? Sure, they signed “the Organian Treaty” , but is it possible that they suppressed news of how powerful the Organians were?

What about things like Gary Mitchell’s insanity in Where No Man Has Gone Before or Adams’ abuse in Dagger of the Mind ? After all, if Starfleet seems afraid to admit the awesome power of these aliens, it must be motivated by fear if the word got out. What would happen if people discovered that visiting the Galactic Barrier turned you into a god-like being or that Federation officials had been systematically abusing penal colony inmates? All of a sudden, the Section 31 stuff from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the version of Starfleet presented in The Final Reflection don’t seem so radically incompatible with Roddenberry’s vision.

These are the times that try men’s (and half-Vulcan’s) souls…

So The Menagerie is an interesting piece of Star Trek , even beyond being the first clip show and the first two-parter. It’s an interesting addition to the mythos, a wonderful Spock story and filled with some fascinating ideas. The second part doesn’t quite stick the landing, but the first part is still well worth a watch.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the first season of the classic Star Tre k :

• Supplemental: Vulcan’s Glory by D.C. Fontana
• Supplemental: Early Voyages #1 – Flesh of my Flesh
• Supplemental: Crew by John Byrne
• Where No Man Has Gone Before
• The Corbomite Manoeuvre
• Mudd’s Women
• The Enemy Within
• The Man Trap
• The Naked Time
• Supplemental: My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
• Supplemental: Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne
• Supplemental: Errand of Vengeance: The Edge of the Sword by Kevin Ryan
• Dagger of the Mind
• The Conscience of a King
• The Galileo Seven
• Court Martial
• Supplemental: Early Voyages #12-15 – Futures
• Supplemental: Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno
• Shore Leave
• The Squire of Gothos
• Supplemental: Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman & Kevin Ryan
• Supplemental: The Fantastic Four #108 – The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man
• Tomorrow is Yesterday
• The Return of the Archon
• A Taste of Armageddon
• Supplemental: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II by Greg Cox
• This Side of Paradise
• The Devil in the Dark
• Supplemental: Spock Must Die! by James Blish
• Supplemental: The Final Reflection by John M. Ford
• Supplemental: The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison/Cordwainer Bird
• Supplemental: Crucible: McCoy – Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III
• Supplemental: Star Trek (Gold Key) #56 – No Time Like the Past
• Operation — Annihilate!

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch , Cage , Chris Pike , Christopher Pike , Court Martial , Fleet Captain , J. J. Abrams , james t. kirk , kirk , Leonard McCoy , Menagerie , spock , star trek , Star Trek Into Darkness , star trek: the next generation , StarTrek , USS Enterprise |

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Star Trek : "The Menagerie"

For all its throbbing-vein aliens and green-skinned slave girls, the two-part “Menagerie” finds its most iconic image in the fate of the poor Christopher Pike. Check out the picture—the guy saved some kids from deadly “delta-rays,” and for his troubles, he’s paralyzed, horribly scarred, and forced to spend the rest of his life in a giant black box. Sure, the box lets him communicate; one beep for yes, two beeps for no. I can’t imagine a conversation that would require anything more nuanced than that. Plus, the thing moves like a motorized wheelchair, so I don’t think he has anything to complain about, right?

The design is striking enough to be the subject of parody and fan-worship, but not even familiarity can diminish how simultaneously neat and utterly retarded the damn thing is. Common sense raises all sorts of issues here. There are quadriplegics with more mobility than Pike, and while allowances can be made for the fact that we’re never told exactly what delta rays do, it’s hard to imagine something that could render a man so inert that magic-future-tech can't save him, and yet he still doesn't die. And even if we’re willing to accept that, what the hell is up with the two beeps? Nobody had the time to teach him Morse Code?

But there is something nightmarish about that absurdity. The folks behind TOS were clearly trying to come up with the most horrible living death they could, and while it doesn’t really scan logic-wise, it does serve as a perfect example of “shit I don’t want happening to me.” Pike’s predicament has to be sufficiently dire for “Menagerie” to work at all; anything less than utterly horrible, and Spock’s actions would go from ill-advised to downright inexplicable. As it is, watching the cool-headed half-Vulcan engage a one-man operation to take control of the Enterprise is kind of fun, so long as you don’t spend too much time wondering about the consequences.

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the first Star Trek pilot to air, but it wasn't the first one filmed; Roddenberry originally tried his idea out with “The Cage,” featuring a slightly different Enterprise and an almost entirely different cast. “Menagerie” has two plots. The first has Spock turning mutinous, steering the Enterprise towards the forbidden planet of Talos IV, and then surrendering himself to a court martial; which leads us to plot two, focusing on Pike’s adventures on Talos IV years ago, back when he was captain of the Enterprise, the First Officer was a woman (gasp!), and Spock himself had a wider variety of facial expressions. This second storyline is made up of footage cannibalized from that first pilot, presented to Kirk (and us) as a visual recording made by the awesomely powerful Talosians. Clips shows are nothing new to TV, but this is something different—flashbacking to a rerun that never actually aired in the first place.

Different can be good, and back before VHS and DVD releases, this was probably the only way most people could see “The Cage” even in an abbreviated form. And it really is worth seeing; partly because the story isn’t half bad, but also because it does a great job of showing just how important casting was to TOS ¸ and how crucial the chemistry between Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest is towards making the series work. When Roddenberry presented them with his first version of Star Trek , the network complained it was too brainy, without enough action, and while I don’t think it’s possible to be “too brainy,” I have to admit, the suits were on to something. “Cage” is clever enough, but there’s hardly any humor, and even less warmth. It’s a show that’s better respected than enjoyed.

Take Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike. (Hunter's only in the "Cage" clips; Sean Kennedy plays the inanimate-object version we get in the “present” sections of the episode.) He’s a solid actor—before his untimely death at 43, he’d done a lot of TV and movie work, including a great turn in The Searchers . There’s nothing obviously wrong about his performance as Pike; he’s believable, and he commits to the premise. But he’s not all that much fun. Whatever you say about Shatner, he’s got charisma coming out his ears as Kirk; Hunter is too grim. You buy that he’s world-weary, you buy that’s he’s furious at his captors, and you definitely buy his talent for “primitive thoughts,” but you don’t really want to spend week after week planet hopping with him. It’d be like vacationing with a guy who only wants to visit Holocaust museums.

The rest of the cast is similarly restrained. It’s nice having a female with a rank above nurse or secretary, but Majel Barett isn’t given a whole lot to do; at one point, Vina, the woman the Talosians are trying to mate Pike with, accuses her of being like a “computer,” but it’s more a clever line than an accurate character assessment. (Makes for an unintentional in-joke, too, since Barett would go on to voice most of the computers in the series.) The doctor's generic, the yeoman is cuter than Rand but not much else; the only real personality we get is from Spock. Ironically, out of the lot, Nimoy is the one who gets to display the widest range of emotion, but even he seems to be floundering. I’m sure things would’ve solidified if this pilot had been picked up, but it’s not hard to see why it wasn’t.

At least the actual story of “The Cage” is strong. The Enterprise gets a distress signal from Talos IV, and stops to investigate; they find what at first appears to be a colony of survivors from a crashed ship, a bunch of old scientists and one pretty young blonde. Within moments, though, the old guys vanish, and the blonde, Vina, spirits Captain Pike away. It was all a set-up by a bunch of big-brained natives—they’ve got this zoo going, and they want to bring in Pike so Vina will have a partner. Plus there’s something about the Talosians being a dying race, who need hot-blooded humans around to keep them alive. Standard alien stuff.

The Talosians are masters of telepathy and illusion, and one of the big strengths of the “The Cage” (and the parts of it that appear in “The Menagerie”) is how consistently those abilities are displayed. We never see the aliens engaging in shows of physical prowess, and their mental powers never blur into telekinesis. Instead, the big balds get what they want through trickery. After imprisoning Pike, they use a variety of fantasy scenarios to try and fool him into wanting Vina; he doesn’t fall for it, of course, although he does have a struggle over the “Orion slave girl” bit. But the fantasy doesn’t end there. Pike’s crew is frantically trying to break down the door to rescue their errant captain, but their weapons seem to have no effect on the structure. “Seem” being the operative word; it’s ultimately revealed that the barrier was destroyed early on, but the Talosians were projecting the image of an undestroyed barrier. The same way they convinced Pike and company that their phasers were inoperative; the same way they punished Pike for not obeying their wishes.

And the same way they make Vina look like an eighteen year-old girl (okay, they say she’s supposed to look eighteen, so I’ll play along), when she was really the only survivor of the crash from so long ago. When her true appearance is revealed, it’s a little heartbreaking; the Talosians rebuilt her, she’s healthy—but they had never seen a human before.

All very sad, and, while it has its problems, "Cage" would've made a solid hour-long Twilight Zone episode. But that's not exactly what we get in "The Menagerie"; while Roddenberry manages to reuse a good chunk of film, the whole thing plays out over two hours, and with a framing story from the regular cast that, while dramatic, doesn't quite gel.

Spock's behavior here, while not completely out of character, favors impulse over logic to a distressing extent. His motives are largely a mystery till the second part of the ep, but once we discover what's driving him—he's trying to get Pike back to Talos IV, where he can spend the remainder of his box-life living a carefree, illusion-based life—the knowledge doesn't really justify everything we've seen him do. Mr. "The Needs Of The Many Outweigh The Needs Of The One" is putting the lives of the entire crew in jeopardy just so his old boss can get an upgrade in nursing homes. Apparently, loyalty to his former commander trumps his loyalty to Kirk and Starfleet; while he doesn't exactly betray his current captain, you can't imagine Kirk being all that happy to have the Enterprise stolen away by his most trusted subordinate. And the main reason for all the subterfuge is bizarre; people are forbidden from visiting Talos IV on pain of death. Why, exactly? The Talosians are creepy, but once they realize that human beings hate captivity, they leave off quickly enough. The only real justification for the extreme measure is to justify a Spock's trial, a trial we need if we want to get all that "Cage" footage in.

As for the use of that footage—surely it could've been trimmed a bit. Gene wants to get as much bang for his buck, but spending all that time away from Kirk and Spock diminishes the conflict that's supposedly driving the episode. There's no real reason for this to be a two-parter, and the more we learn about the Talosians, the more we suspect that Spock's coup, though bad-ass, wasn't all that necessary. By the end credits, we've found that the court martial was a mock-up created for Kirk's benefit, which means the aliens have an astonishing range with their mind control powers. (Enough to make that whole "death penalty" thing largely irrelevant; if they really wanted to, they could've tricked somebody from Starbase 11 to drop by.) And then there's the way that the charges against Spock are tossed lightly aside, because, hey, he did everything with the best of intentions. Intentions or not, he stole the Enterprise, as well as defrauded the captain and assaulted a number of Starfleet personnel. At the very least, a slap on the wrist would've been nice.

But that would've taken away from our supposedly happy ending, with the crippled Pike reunited with Vina to spend out the rest of their days in artificially induced heaven. It's a rare moment of string-free wish fulfillment; in general, TOS tends to favor hard truth over even the most pleasant lie, and idyllic lives are hardly ever presented without cost. We're supposed to trust the Talosians motives here, but it's hard not to remember what they did to Pike the last time he put his will against theirs. There's something unsettling about abandoning a man that helpless to creatures who we still don't understand all that well, regardless of how much better that abandonment appears to the alternative. "The Menagerie" is a hodge-podge, written primarily as a money-saver, and the various parts never fit together that well, but it has its moments. Pike in that hateful box is still unnerving, and glad as we are to see him free of that box, the ambiguity of that freedom—that he's now entirely at the whim of a race he basically doomed to slow death years ago—is hard to ignore.

Stray Observations:

• On it's own, "The Cage" would rate a B+. Chopping it up and stretching it out does it no favors.
• What is it with captains and pretty yeomen?
• Watching Kirk defend Spock's honor so vehemently makes his willingness to forgivie Spock's betrayal at the end hard to believe. (Although maybe he was just that flattered that everyone had gone to such trouble to win him over.)
• Up next week, "The Conscience of the King" and "Balance of Terror."

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A Lost “Glass Menagerie,” Rediscovered

By Michael Schulman

Jane Klain, the indefatigable research manager at the Paley Center for Media, which houses a vast collection of old television and radio programs, goes on archival treasure hunts that sometimes last for years. She spent four and a half years trying to identify the uncredited soloist who sings “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet” on the 1960 studio recording of the musical “On the Town.” (It was Michael Kermoyan, who’s been credited on the reissue.) It took her ten years—on and off—to find the second half of a  1959 TV adaptation  of the Budd Schulberg novel “What Makes Sammy Run?” (It was languishing, unidentified, at the Library of Congress.) Stephen Sondheim once asked her via fax to track down a promotional featurette for “The Last of Sheila,” the 1973 mystery film he wrote with Anthony Perkins. Eight years later, she hand-delivered it to his door.

Whenever I run into Klain, she regales me with her latest wild-goose chase—but I knew she was reeling in a live one when she e-mailed me last December saying, “I am currently involved in a project to restore a very ‘lost’ TV treasure (one of the most requested in the 21 years I have been at the Paley Center).” She signed off, “Sorry to be so mysterious.” Months went by. I kept asking for details. Then, finally, in late August: “I’m ready to spill the beans.”

Here goes: On December 8, 1966, CBS Playhouse broadcast a television production of Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie,” starring Shirley Booth as the Southern belle turned frenetic matron Amanda Wingfield. Hal Holbrook and Barbara Loden played her children, Tom and Laura, respectively, with Pat Hingle as the Gentleman Caller. The day after it aired, Jack Gould, of the  Times _,_ called it “an evening of superb theater. . . . The delicate delineation of the loneliness of the frustrated Wingfield family was brought to television with lean beauty and eloquence.” (Booth, fresh off the sitcom “Hazel,” was praised as “appropriately intrusive as the perennial Mrs. Fix-it.”) Then, somehow or another, it was lost to time.

Enter Klain. She grew up in New Rochelle, and remembers watching the 1966 telecast as a girl, sitting in the den with her mother. She had just seen Maureen Stapleton play Amanda on Broadway, and thought Booth was all wrong for the role—thinking her delivery too “whiny.” (Her Southern accent was a little patchy, too, which the  Times critic also pointed out.) “Maybe three-quarters of the way through, I so disliked her performance that I threw the apple I was eating at the TV screen,” Klain recalled last week, at her office in the Paley Center, which is crammed with vintage theatre posters and boxes of newspaper clippings. “Part of my memory is my mother screaming, ‘Jani, you almost broke the television!’ ”

For actresses over fifty, Amanda is one of the trickiest but most prized roles in the modern dramatic canon, drawing the likes of Jessica Tandy, Katharine Hepburn, Jessica Lange, and Cherry Jones. (Next up: Sally Field,  coming to Broadway  in February.) Maybe that’s why Klain has received dozens of requests over the years—from historians, from Tennessee Williams festivals—to see the Booth version. About seventeen years ago, Broadway Theatre Archive inquired about releasing the broadcast on DVD. The problem: “It just didn’t exist,” Klain said. “So I helped them try to look. We looked in the bizarre little archives that sometimes things turn up in. Nowhere.” The estate of David Susskind, who produced the telecast, didn’t have it. Neither did CBS, the Library of Congress, or Xerox, which sponsored the broadcast. Booth, who was nominated for an Emmy for her performance, had no heirs. Klain even had a friend call Elia Kazan, who’d been married to Barbara Loden—nothing.

Then, last fall, a breakthrough: Klain was scanning the Susskind estate’s database and found an entry that said “The Glass Menagerie" and "USC.” She contacted an archivist at the University of Southern California, who went hunting and found five or six tapes in the original two-inch format. “It’s just takes,” he told Klain, underwhelmed. Then she mentioned the find to a “mystery angel,” someone who’d been asking for the footage for years (actually, she’s only ever spoken to his assistant), and he agreed to fund a transfer. She got a guy in Burbank—“he’s the Rolls-Royce of transfers”—to convert it to DigiBeta. It turned out to be six hours of raw takes, though one reel was damaged. There was no way to know which takes had been used for the final broadcast, or whether the entirety of what was used was even there.

Breakthrough, Part 2: Klain was noodling around on the Web site Internet Archive  and found that someone (who had likely taped it directly off a TV set in 1966) had uploaded a bootleg audio of the entire show. She contacted Dan Wingate, a Los Angeles preservationist who recently worked on a restoration of the 1965 TV special of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” (“And he’s a pussycat,” Klain says.) Wingate spent nearly twenty-four straight hours matching up the audio file with the raw video, comparing WAV files until he could tell which takes had been used. Then he set about editing them together and restoring the damaged reel. All that was missing was the musical scoring, so he had to use the bootleg audio. About a month ago, he delivered a “final cut” to Klain. “I turned off all the lights and opened a bottle of red wine,” she told me.

And? “I had the same feeling about Shirley Booth—I just didn’t like her performance,” she said. “But the revelation, watching it again alone at home last month, is that Hal Holbrook is stupendous.”

Klain contacted the head of programming at Turner Classic Movies, who just happened to have a slot open on December 8th—fifty years to the day after the original telecast. (Tracking down who owned the rights and getting all the lawyers to sign off was a whole other headache, one that was resolved just last Tuesday.) And so, this Thursday, at 8 P.M. , “The Glass Menagerie” starring Shirley Booth  will air  for the second time in half a century; the Paley Center will also keep a copy.

Meanwhile, Klain’s archival adventures continue. “The Holy Grail still is the lost ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ with Ethel Merman,” she told me.

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By Hilton Als

By Ian Frazier

‘The Glass Menagerie’ Theater Review: Zachary Quinto Goes for the Jugular

“Star Trek” star segues from space to stage in a class-act “Menagerie”

In the past decade, Broadway has been kind to Tennessee Williams’ estate — but not his genius.

In almost each season, there’s been another high-profile but deeply compromised revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” ( Scarlett Johansson among the Maggies) or “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Blair Underwood among the Stanleys), with a 2005 “Glass Menagerie” starring Jessica Lange that nearly derailed in previews when Christian Slater was brought in as a last-minute replacement to play Tom.

Theatergoers have to go back to the Royal National Theater’s 1999 staging of Williams’ early, minor drama “Not About Nightingales” to find the playwright well served.

Fortunately, Williams has once again aligned with the ideal cast and creative team, in John Tiffany’s staging of “The Glass Menagerie,” an American Repertory Theater production starring Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto that previously played Harvard and opened Thursday night at the Booth Theater.

Also read: Daniel Craig, Zachary Quinto, Rebecca Hall Lead Hollywood Invasion of Broadway This Fall

There’s much to praise here, but the major revelation is Quinto, who presents a Tom (Tennessee’s real first name) who can, and does, go mano-a-mano with his near-monster of a mother, Amanda, played by Jones.

Actually, he almost knocks Mom out. Almost. Because he loves Amanda, Quinto’s Tom doesn’t go all the way, but he has the intelligence and wit, which she woefully lacks, to hurl her over designer Bob Crowley’s vertiginous fire escape if he so chooses.

Instead, he simply leaves their godforsaken apartment at play’s end, as he must. Why? Jones makes it clear by providing in her Amanda the missing link between Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Dumont. Imagine that woman for a mother.

These are two big, flamboyant performances. Tom warns us in the play’s first minutes that this isn’t life but rather memory, and like all things remembered, there’s a sense of exaggeration. Watching Jones and Quinto in those opening moments can be bracing, maybe even off-putting, but their many confrontations never fail to explode. Frankly, they’re at each other’s jugular right from the get-go.

See video: Spock vs. Spock: Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy Face Off in New Ad

The way Jones hurls around the word “ashamed” and Quinto talks about being treated with “suspicious hostility” at work, there’s no doubt about this Tom’s sexual orientation or what he’s been doing at two in the morning when he’s supposed to be at the movies.

Against these two oversized performances, Tiffany effectively pushes Celia Keenan-Bolger to the other extreme as Tom’s physically and emotionally challenged sister, Laura. She’s a whisper and wisp of gossamer fabric, and we often expect her simply to slip away into Crowley’s stunning pool of black water that surrounds the Wingfield apartment.

Instead, Tiffany has her enter and exit through the cushions of the living room sofa. Early in the play, Quinto throws himself into reverse as if caught in a malfunctioning movie projector, and later Natasha Katz’s lighting traps Jones in the time warp of Amanda’s own distorted memory.

Into all this surreality Tiffany drops Brian J. Smith, who gives the evening’s one “realistic” (Tom’s word) performance despite carrying its most enigmatic name, the Gentleman Caller. Smith more than holds his own, turning the man who’s supposed to rescue the fragile Laura from her glass menagerie and instead offers up his own surprising collection of insecurities.

In many ways, this is an eccentric “Menagerie,” which is why Tennessee himself would have loved it.

The Menagerie (Episode)

• Edit source
• View history

Spock fakes a message from the Enterprise' s former commander, Christopher Pike , steals the vessel, and sets it on a locked course for the forbidden planet Talos IV .

The USS Enterprise arrives at Starbase 11 after a subspace message asks it to divert there. When Captain Kirk , Spock, and Dr. Leonard McCoy beam down, they are puzzled when the base commander, Commodore Mendez, tells Kirk the base sent no such message.

Kirk insists that Spock received the urgent request from the former commander of the Enterprise , Fleet Captain Pike. Mendez is surprised that Kirk does not know the news about Captain Pike and leads them to the medical section, explaining that, during an inspection tour of a cadet vessel, one of the baffle plates ruptured. Pike removed the cadets who were still alive, severely exposing himself to delta rays.

Now, confined to a wheelchair, Pike is disfigured and cannot speak, though his mind is unimpaired. His sole means of communication is a flashing light with an accompanying beep: once for yes, twice for no. Spock requests a moment alone with his former commander, and says cryptically to him, " You know why I have come.... I know it is treachery and it is mutiny, but I must do this. " Pike can do nothing but repeatedly beep " No. "

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Star Trek (TV Series)

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The Menagerie, Part II (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Production timeline
• 4.2 Production
• 4.4 Preview
• 4.5 Reception
• 4.6 Remastered information
• 4.7 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Special guest star
• 5.4 Guest star
• 5.5 Also starring
• 5.6 Featuring
• 5.7 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.8 Uncredited co-stars appearing in the original Star Trek episode
• 5.9.1 Unreferenced materials
• 5.10 External links

Summary [ ]

Captain Kirk , in his personal log ponders the events of the past day. Spock is facing a court martial aboard the USS Enterprise on multiple charges: Mutiny ; kidnapping his former commanding officer, Fleet Captain Christopher Pike , mutilated by a recent space disaster and unable to speak; and locking the Enterprise on course for the planet Talos IV , for which the penalty is death. Spock has pled guilty to all the charges. However, when the presiding officer, Commodore Mendez , asks Spock about his motive, it gives Spock a legal opening to present his evidence: mysterious but authentic video from thirteen years before , as the Enterprise , commanded by Captain Pike, became the only starship ever to visit Talos. The recap concludes with the revelation that the video presentation is itself being transmitted from Talos.

Act One [ ]

The court martial reconvenes, this time in closed session. Mendez reminds Spock that Starfleet has ordered no contact with Talos IV, with no exceptions. Spock says that the Talosian Keeper has taken over control of their viewscreen. The presentation resumes as Captain Pike had been knocked unconscious and captured by the Talosians. ( TOS : " The Cage ") The Talosians make Pike relive the deadly battle on Rigel VII with the Kalar two weeks earlier in a deserted fortress. But Pike deduces that he is still in the cell, which Spock calls a "brilliant deduction."

Later, the viewscreen shuts off. Pike's head has slumped over, and Spock says the Talosians know that Pike is fatigued, so they have ceased transmitting the image. As Kirk remarks that the Talosians must care for Pike, Spock confirms that the Talosians want him back, alive. Mendez demands an explanation, but Spock insists that they will understand only after they reach Talos and watch the rest of the video transmission from the Talosians.

Act Two [ ]

The Talosians

The court martial and the viewscreen presentation resume. The Talosians continue to show Pike a spacewreck survivor from the SS Columbia named Vina , in various guises, to induce Pike to breed, but he is only interested in learning from her the parameters of the illusions and of his imprisonment. Here she appears as a green-skinned Orion slave girl. Mendez mentions that the seductive women are said to be irresistible.

Act Three [ ]

The viewscreen presentation continues: The Talosians beam down Number One and Yeoman Colt to give Pike a choice of mates, but their laser pistols do not work. Pike deduces that this too is an illusion and uses a weapon to threaten the Talosian Keeper and win their way to the planet's surface.

The presentation is interrupted again and the Talosians seem to have abandoned Spock. Mendez demands that the court-martial panel of three captains reach a verdict. Spock asks Pike to wait to reach Talos, telling him that he will have a chance for life, but Kirk likens it to life as a zoo specimen or amusement. Pike, Mendez, and finally, Kirk vote that Spock is guilty of mutiny, as charged.

Act Four [ ]

Lieutenant Hansen reports from the bridge to Mendez that the Enterprise has entered orbit around Talos IV. Spock tells the court that Talos controls the Enterprise , just as it did on her previous encounter, and that Mendez's inquiry into Spock's motives will now be answered.

The Talosians had abandoned their effort to capture and breed Humans as servants when Captain Pike and the others threatened to destroy themselves using a forced chamber explosion with Una's laser pistol, a decision the atrophied Talosians had claimed condemned them to eventual death . Vina had declined rescue by the Enterprise , for a reason made evident at the end of the Talosians' presentation: the Talosians show Vina to be horribly disfigured, though their mastery of projecting illusions lets her live a normal life. Spock's purpose in bringing Pike back to Talos IV was to enable Pike to live out the rest of his days in the same fashion; the Talosians offer to "free" him from his wheelchair. The basis of General Order 7 , the capital crime forbidding contact with Talos IV, is also evident now: to keep Humans from learning the Talosians' power of illusion which would lead to their own destruction.

Kirk then addresses Mendez, but Mendez suddenly disappears. The Talosian Keeper explains that Mendez's presence on board the Enterprise and on the Starbase 11 shuttlecraft with Kirk was merely an illusion. Spock and the Talosians orchestrated events to keep the crew from regaining control of the ship too quickly. Kirk challenges Spock, saying that despite the harsh regulations, Spock could have come to him for help; alluding to Kirk's willingness to help his friend, no matter what. Spock admits the reason he did not simply reveal his plan to Kirk was that he did not want to run the risk of subjecting anyone else but himself to the death penalty.

The real Commodore Mendez, still at Starbase 11, sends a message that he too has received the Talosians' presentation. Uhura reports to Kirk that he has suspended General Order 7 for this occasion and directs Kirk to proceed as he thinks best.

Kirk asks Pike if he wishes to accept the Talosians' offer. Despite his earlier protests against Spock's actions, Pike does not hesitate to signal "yes", and Kirk invites Spock to escort his former captain to the transporter room. Spock expresses thanks, both for himself on Pike's behalf, which Pike is quick to second with another "yes." Before Spock wheels Pike out, however, Kirk adopts a mock serious tone, saying he is "concerned" that Spock is exhibiting a disturbing tendency toward flagrant emotionalism. Spock regards this as an insult and insists that his actions have been completely logical .

After Spock and Pike depart the briefing room , the Talosian Magistrate invites Kirk to look at the viewscreen again, where he sees the healthy Pike and Vina walking hand-in-hand.

Log entries [ ]

• Personal log, James T. Kirk

Memorable quotes [ ]

" They're like animals, vicious, seductive. They say no Human male can resist them. "

" Guilty, Captain, yes or no? " (Pike offers a single beep from his wheelchair.) " Yes. I must also vote guilty as charged. And you, Captain? " " Guilty. As charged. "

" Talos controls the vessel now, as they did thirteen years ago. You asked me 'why'. Commodore. You'll see your answer now. "

" Mr. Spock, even if regulations are explicit, you could have come to me and explained. " " Ask you to face the death penalty too? One of us was enough, captain. "

" I want to talk to you. This regrettable tendency you've been showing lately towards flagrant emotionalism – " " I see no reason to insult me, sir. I believe I've been completely logical about the whole affair. "

" Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant. "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

• First draft teleplay "From the First Day to the Last" by John D.F. Black : 12 August 1966
• First draft teleplay "The Menagerie" by Gene Roddenberry : 21 September 1966
• Second draft teleplay: 3 October 1966
• Final draft teleplay: 7 October 1966
• Revised final draft teleplay by Gene L. Coon : 10 October 1966
• Additional revisions: 13 October 1966 , 14 October 1966 , 17 October 1966
• Day 1 – 11 October 1966 , Tuesday (Half Day) – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Transporter room , Mendez's office
• Day 2 – 12 October 1966 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Mendez's office , Spock's quarters ; Desilu Stage 10 : Int. Shuttlecraft
• Day 3 – 13 October 1966 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 10 : Int. Hospital room corridor , Pike's hospital room , Ext. Starbase 11 Mall ; Desilu Stage 9 : Computer center (redress of Engineering ), Briefing room (Hearing room)
• Day 4 – 14 October 1966 , Friday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room ( Courtroom )
• Day 5 – 17 October 1966 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room ( Courtroom )
• Day 6 – 18 October 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room ( Courtroom )
• Original airdate: 24 November 1966
• Rerun airdate: 18 May 1967
• First UK airdate: 30 August 1969
• Hugo Award: 1967
• Remastered airdate: 2 December 2006

Production [ ]

• The first draft of this episode's script (along with that of " The Menagerie, Part I ") was completed on 3 October 1966 with the subsequent final draft being turned in on 7 October , with further revisions on 10 October .
• Robert Butler is the only credited director on this episode. However, Butler had actually directed " The Cage ", which provided much of the material used in this episode. After Marc Daniels was assigned to direct the new footage, it was decided that he and Butler would share credit for the two episodes, Daniels for the first part and Butler for the second. [1]
• This is the only episode of any Star Trek series which uses a captain's log to recap the events of the previous episode in a story arc. All others use a more traditional "previously on…"-type of recap.
• In a deleted scene from this episode, McCoy and Scott explain to Kirk how they figured out which computer bank Spock tampered with to lock the ship on course. They took perspiration readings on all banks, and since Spock's sweat has copper in it, traces of copper were found. [2]
• DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy ), James Doohan ( Scott ) (both of whom had their scenes cut), and George Takei ( Sulu ) do not appear in this episode. Nichelle Nichols ( Uhura ) does not appear on-screen but she does have several voice-over lines at the end of the episode. Along with " What Are Little Girls Made Of? " and " Errand of Mercy ", this is one of only three episodes after the two pilots in which Kelley does not appear.
• Sean Kenney took over the role of Pike from Jeffrey Hunter . Kenney also appeared as DePaul in TOS Season 1 . Because Malachi Throne additionally portrayed Commodore Mendez and an illusion of that character in the "The Menagerie" two-parter, his voice as The Keeper in "The Menagerie, Part II" had to be mechanically pitch-shifted by the post-production team, so viewers wouldn't confuse the two characters. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two , [ page number? • edit ] ) Malachi Throne later played Romulan Senator Pardek in TNG : " Unification I " and " Unification II ".

Preview [ ]

• The preview is from the perspective of Spock: " This is Mister Spock. You'll learn next why returning Captain Pike to Talos IV was worth risking my life and Captain Kirk's career. Join us then to see the conclusion of the incredible adventure on that forbidden planet. " It is implied but not stated that the word after next is "week".

Reception [ ]

• Along with Part 1, this episode won the 1967 Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation".
• Gene Roddenberry picked the whole two-parter as one of his ten favorite episodes for the franchise's 25th anniversary. ( TV Guide [ page number? • edit ] August 31, 1991)

Remastered information [ ]

• "The Menagerie, Part II" was the thirteenth remastered episode of the The Original Series to air. It premiered in syndication the weekend of 2 December 2006 . Among several new, digital shots created for the episode, a new, more realistic digital matte painting of the Mojave replaces the original backdrop, as does a high quality shot of Rigel VII and Talos IV from space.
• A limited-time-only theatrical presentation with " The Menagerie, Part I " occurred on 13 November 2007 and 15 November 2007 . It included a message from Gene "Rod" Roddenberry, Jr., a twenty-minute "making of" documentary about the restoration process, and a trailer for Season Two of the remastered series. [3] (X)

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• US CED VideoDisc release: 22 March 1981
• US LaserDisc release: 1 October 1984
• Original US Betamax release: 1985
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 9 , catalog number VHR 2274, release date unknown
• Japan LaserDisc release: 10 November 1992
• US VHS release: 15 April 1994
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.6, 7 October 1996
• Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 8, 22 February 2000
• As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Special guest star [ ]

• Jeffrey Hunter as Christopher Pike (archive footage)

Guest star [ ]

• Susan Oliver as Vina (archive footage)
• José I. Mendez
• The Keeper's voice (also archived footage)
• M. Leigh Hudec as Number One (archive footage)
• Peter Duryea as José Tyler (archive footage)
• John Hoyt as Phil Boyce (archive footage)
• Laurel Goodwin as J.M. Colt (archive footage)
• Adam Roarke as Garison (archive footage)
• DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy (recycled footage)
• James Doohan as Scott (recycled footage)
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura (voice)

Featuring [ ]

• Sean Kenney as Christopher Pike
• Hagan Beggs as Hansen
• Meg Wyllie as The Keeper (archive footage)

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• William Blackburn as Hadley
• Frank da Vinci as Brent
• Brett Dunham as Pitcairn ("Security Chief")
• Tom Lupo as Security guard
• Eddie Paskey as Leslie
• Ron Veto as Harrison

Uncredited co-stars appearing in the original Star Trek episode [ ]

• Mike Dugan as the Kalar
• Clegg Hoyt as Pitcairn ("Transporter Chief")
• Robert C. Johnson as the First Talosian's voice
• Jon Lormer as Theodore Haskins (aka "1st Survivor")
• Edward Madden as Fisher (aka "Geologist")
• Joseph Mell as the Earth Trader
• Robert Phillips as the Space Officer
• Janos Prohaska as the anthropoid ape
• Serena Sande as 2nd Talosian
• Georgia Schmidt as 1st Talosian
• Bridge crewman #1
• Bridge crewman #2
• Transporter technician

References [ ]

2236 ; 2254 ; Adam and Eve ; adaptability ; " all right "; alternative ; ancestor ; animal ( creature ); answer ; bargain ; beauty ; blood ; bluff ; boasting ; brain ; bridle ; bravery ; breeding stock ; briefing room ; cage ; captivity ; career ; cell ; century ; chance ; childhood ; children ; choice ; circuit ; clothing ; coffee ; colony ; color ; Columbia , SS ; community ; computer ; confusion ; contact ; continent ; conversation ; cooperation ; course ; custom ; danger ; death ; death penalty ; deception ; deck ; desire ; dignity ; disaster ; distress signal ; dream ; dress ; Earth ; emotion (aka emotionalism ); encampment ; engage ; engineering deck ; event ; evidence ; evil ; experience ; experiment ; eye ; fable ; family ; fatigue ; feeling ; flesh ; fly ; forced chamber explosion ; frustration ; general court martial ; General Order 7 ; guilt ; hair ; hand ; hate ; head ; hearing room ; Hell-Fire ; helm ; hope ; hour ; Human ; Human history ; hunger ; husband ; hyperdrive ; illusion ; image ; imprisonment ; inhabitant ; injury ; intelligence ; jailer ; Kalar ; keeper ; laser ; laser cannon ; laser weapon ; lie ; life ; logic ; machine ; Mary Lou ; memory ; memory capacity ; menagerie ; mental power ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mind ; minute ; mutilate ; name ; narcotic ; neck ; nourishment ; order ; Orion slave girl ; overload ; person ; physical body ; Picasso ; place ; planet ; plant ; plea ; power ; prisoner ; proof ; protectiveness ; protein complex ; punishment ; quality ; question ; reaiity ; red ; relationship ; Rigel VII ; Rigel VII moon ; rock ; sabotage ; saddle ; screen ; second ; session ; ship's captain ; shuttlecraft ; signal ; slave ; society ; soul ; space ; spaceship / space vehicle ; space regulations ; specimen ; Starfleet ; stellar group ; strength of will ; subject ; sugar ; surface ; survey expedition ; survivor ; sympathy ; table ; Talos IV ; Talos system ; Talosians ; Tango ; telepathy ; theater ; theory ; thermos ; thing ; thought ; thought record ; thousand ; threat ; trade ; transmission ; trap ; trial ; tricking ; universe ; vegetation ; verdict ; vial ; volunteer ; vote ; wall ; war ; week ; wife ; window ( transparency ); year ; youth ; zoo ; zoological garden

Unreferenced materials [ ]

body chemistry ; calcium ; copper ; McCoy, Leonard ; perspiration ; salt ; Scott, Montgomery ; skin ; sodium ; spectrograph beam ; Sulu, Hikaru ; tapes ; Vulcan

External links [ ]

• "The Menagerie, Part II" at StarTrek.com
• " The Menagerie, Parts I & II " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " The Menagerie, Parts I & II " at Wikipedia
• " "The Menagerie, Parts I & II" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 3 USS Antares (32nd century)

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Star Trek Re-Watch: “The Menagerie” Part II

Season 1, Episode 12 Production episode: 1×16 Original air date: November 24, 1966 Star date: 3013.1

Mission summary The episode begins with an unusually lengthy Captain’s Log entry, recapping the incredible events of the previous episode. Then we dive back into Spock’s court-martial, now in closed session with just Kirk, Spock, Commodore Mendez, and Captain Pike in attendance. Just like Heroes , there’s no way to block the Talosian images, and no one thinks to just turn off the monitor.

Onscreen, the younger Captain Pike awakens in an episode of The Twilight Zone , inside a glass cage with hypercephalic beings studying him. They speak about him telepathically, analyzing his thoughts and predicting his actions. They say he will throw himself against the “transparency” in a “display of physical prowess,” just before he does. Pike speaks to them, insisting he’ll find a way to escape, but they ignore him as though he were a dumb creature and begin planning some experiments on him.

Through the rather astute observations of Pike’s crew, we learn that the Talosians have the ability to make people see any illusion they wish, drawing on their dreams, memories, and desires. Pike’s captors then make him think he’s back on Rigel VII, with “something more interesting to protect” than just his own life: Vina in the role of a damsel in distress. Pike swiftly twigs to the fact that the battle at the castle isn’t real and refuses to perform like an animal, but fights the dentally-challenged Kaylars anyway when Vina seems to be in danger. Pike and the girl reappear in his cell, where she has slipped into something more comfortable.

The Talosians abruptly cut off the transmission when they realize Pike has been dozing off in the courtroom (he’s seen this episode before, of course), and Kirk realizes that they actually care about his well-being. When they finally continue the court proceedings, with the planet Talos IV now only an hour away, the images resume. Pike questions Vina:

PIKE: Why are you here? VINA: To please you. PIKE: Are you real? VINA: As real as you wish.

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. But Pike has his mind on other things at the moment: “Yes. Yes, you can please me. You can tell me about them. Is there any way I can keep them from probing my mind, from using my thoughts against me?” Vina is too frightened to tell him the obvious solution—to wrap his head in tinfoil. And where would he get the aluminum anyway, transparent or otherwise?

Up on the planet’s surface, Number One tries to blast through the door in the knoll with a phaser cannon, but it doesn’t have any effect. Dr. Boyce speculates that “(t)heir power of illusion is so great, we can’t be sure of anything we do, anything we see.”

While they chew on that, Vina reveals more about the Talosians, warning Pike that they can’t control him but they can punish him.

PIKE: So the Talosians who came underground found life limited here and they concentrated on developing their mental power. VINA: But they found it’s a trap, like a narcotic, because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record. PIKE: Or sit probing minds of zoo specimens like me. VINA: You’re better than a theater to them. They create the illusion for you, they watch you react, feel your emotions. They have a whole collection of specimens, descendants of life brought back long ago from all over this part of the galaxy. PIKE: Which means they had to have more than one of each animal.

Pike understands now that he’s meant to be the Adam to Vina’s Eve, breeding stock for Talosian slaves to rebuild their dead world. The Talosians take Vina off for punishment, leaving only her clothes behind, and try to feed Pike a delicious “protein complex” in a vial. He refuses and they torture him with images of hellfire, called up from some fable he heard as a child. (Parents, reading to your children is terrific, but don’t start with Dante’s Inferno .)

Pike and his Keeper engage in a mismatched conversation, with him questioning their abilities while the Keeper keeps trying to sell Vina; it even deigns to use its mouth to speak this time. He learns that Vina is the only survivor of the Columbia ’s crash-landing, and that the Talosians repaired her severe injuries before searching for a suitable mate. Pike also finds he is able to surprise the Keeper when he lunges at the transparency, as though it couldn’t read his thoughts for a moment. Vina confirms this when she’s reunited with him in his dream of a picnic on Earth: they can’t read through “primitive emotions” like hate. This apparently doesn’t include lust, because the next stop on Pike’s magical mystery tour is an Orion slave house, where a green-skinned Vina dances sensuously for him.

Kirk perks up a bit and checks to make sure the computer is recording the images for later. Before things get too awkward in the courtroom, a landing party onscreen prepares to beam into the Talosians’ underground compound. But only Number One and Yeoman Colt are transported to Pike’s location, seriously pissing off Vina. The Talosians are offering Pike his choice of the three women: Vina, Number One with her superior intellect, or Colt with her “unusually strong female drives.” Pike resists, filling his mind with violent intentions toward the Keeper, and the Keeper calmly replies with the Orwellian statement: “Wrong thinking is punishable. Right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination.”

Pike makes the only clear choice: he sleeps with all three of the women, or at least pretends to. While the Keeper thinks they’re unconscious, it sneaks in to steal their laser guns and Pike grabs it. It tries to shake him by transforming into a beast but he holds on and eventually subdues it. The Keeper threatens to destroy the Enterprise , but for some reason Pike decides it’s too smart to kill needlessly. Pike’s pretty smart too; he fires a laser gun at the transparency and assumes that it’s blasted a hole even though he can’t see it. He threatens the Keeper until it shows him that he’s right.

Perhaps embarrassed at revealing what is hardly their finest hour, the Talosians temporarily cease the transmission and in the courtroom, Kirk, Mendez, and Pike unanimously declare Spock is guilty as charged. The bridge informs them that the ship has arrived at Talos, and Spock says its now under the aliens’ control. The images continue, showing Pike and his harem on the surface of Talos IV. Number One threatens to blow them all up with an overloaded laser gun rather than submit to slavery. The Talosians check the Enterprise’s databanks and discover to their complete shock that humans don’t like to be imprisoned! If only they had, you know, actually listened to Pike when he repeatedly told them he would like to be set free, please.

KEEPER: We had not believed this possible. The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it’s pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.

The Keeper’s really bummed because they liked Pike best of all their specimens and without him their own race is doomed, but they send Number One and Colt back to the ship. As a final parting gift, they show Pike what he’s giving up: Vina’s true, horribly misshapen form. She’s old, too.

VINA: They found me in the wreckage, dying, a lump of flesh. They rebuilt me. Everything works, but they had never seen a human. They had no guide for putting me back together.

Onscreen, Pike returns to the Enterprise and they get the hell out of there. In the courtroom, Commodore Mendez suddenly vanishes while Kirk is speaking to him. The Keeper appears on the monitor and explains everything:

What you now seem to hear, Captain Kirk, are my thought transmissions. The Commodore was never aboard your vessel. His presence there and in the shuttlecraft was an illusion. Mister Spock had related to us your strength of will. It was thought the fiction of a court-martial would divert you from too soon regaining control of your vessel. Captain Pike is welcome to spend the rest of his life with us, unfettered by his physical body. The decision is yours and his.

Kirk suggests that Spock should have talked to him before setting up this elaborate ruse, but Spock insists he didn’t want Kirk to risk the death penalty—the same death penalty that a moment later Mendez revokes via subspace transmission from Starbase 11.

Kirk asks Pike if he wants to go to Talos IV and he beeps yes. Kirk tells Spock to take Pike to the transporter room to begin his new life, adding that they’ll have to discuss the Vulcan’s “flagrant emotionalism.” Onscreen, Kirk immediately sees Pike—young again—walking hand-in-hand with Vina on the planet. The Keeper bids him farewell with a typically misguided comment: “Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.”

Analysis This is a fairly strong conclusion of the two-part episode, with quite a few surprises and some solid storytelling. That’s mainly because the bulk of this half lies in “The Cage,” which generally holds up as a good episode in its own right.

Pike’s reasoning ability and capable mind is impressive, especially under the conditions in which we see him. It’s the “adaptability” the Talosians admire in him that makes him an unsuitable zoo specimen/slave, not the violence of humanity (or at least, not “just” the danger humans pose to themselves and others). But what is it that drives him? It isn’t even his desire for freedom that lets him hold out so long against the Talosians’ temptations—his responsibility to his ship and crew overrides all. Before Number One pulls her clever but drastic stunt with the overloading laser gun, Pike offers to stay with Vina after all, as long as his crew is kept safe. After the Talosians dismiss him, he even suggests they trade and cooperate with each other, but the pessimistic Talosians say “Your race would learn our power of illusion and destroy itself, too.” This is unexpected compassion on both their parts, given the circumstances. Considering the care they later show to the injured Pike, their hearts are as soft as their big squishy heads.

The frame narrative, as limited as it is, is weaker in this episode than the last. But it is not without its merits. In addition to the surprise twists of Pike’s experience on Talos IV (especially the reveal of Vina’s actual appearance), we also have the surprise that the Mendez who accompanied Kirk was a long-distance Talosian illusion, meant only to delay him from stopping Spock before the ship could reach their planet. This is a fairly mind-blowing development, but it also seemed somewhat unnecessary. Kirk is right—Spock should have said something. He maintains that his actions were “completely logical,” but I still don’t buy it. I believe that last exchange with Kirk over not insulting him about his emotional response is only meant to show that their friendship is still intact, and there won’t be any official consequences for Spock’s mutiny. They can joke with each other again now that the troubling situation is behind them, but if Kirk does hold onto any lingering doubt over the trustworthiness of his first officer, he’d be perfectly in the right. He might also take some comfort in knowing that if he were ever in Pike’s chair, that Spock would do the same for him. And in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , Kirk gets a chance to help his friend instead.

Most frustrating to me is the fact that Spock’s reason for not confiding in Kirk—the death penalty—is invalidated when the punishment is conveniently removed as soon as they regain contact with the starbase. Who knows what might have happened if the situation were explained from the beginning? Kirk and Mendez are not unreasonable men, after all. Even considering these issues with the resolution, it’s great that the episode could pull the rug out from under viewers, without relying on a twist completely out of left field. This is perhaps a matter of perspective though. What do you think of Spock’s approach?

Following up on the horror of Pike the elder’s condition, we see Vina as a kind of Frankenstein monster, the result of the Talosian’s attempts to heal her. If she were damaged enough that they had to physically put her back together, then I think they probably did a decent job given their lack of knowledge. Then again, how hard is it to assume that the bipedal creature they found might bear some similarity to the physiology of their own species? (As horrible as it is to admit, when I saw Vina’s malformed body, I thought “Oh good, now she and Pike are a perfect match for each other.” I know, I’m a bad person.) But since we’re on the topic… I imagine Pike has an easy choice: a miserable life trapped in a useless body, or a life that conforms to his every desire. But such a life would still be only an illusion. Under those conditions, which would you opt for?

On another note, it turns out that as awesome as Pike’s story about Rigel VII sounded, seeing it onscreen demonstrated that it wouldn’t make for a good episode after all.

As much as I like this episode, and especially the two parts of “The Menagerie” as a whole, the ending seemed a little too contrived and pat for my tastes, so I’ve deducted slightly from my rating.

Eugene’s Rating: Warp 5 (on a scale of 1-6)

Torie Atkinson: I, too, was a little disappointed with the reveals of this episode. I’m not clear about why visiting Talos IV has a death penalty: I can see why you shouldn’t go there (you could be captured and put in a cage), but why the death penalty? I guess I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic to actually merit such a harsh punishment. I also didn’t buy the disfigured Vina: they can get into her thoughts and memories but they don’t know what a human looks like? Skeptical Torie is skeptical!

That said, I really love the essence of this episode, which is the importance of freedom to the human spirit and the power of thought and imagination. Nothing is impossible for mankind because we can imagine . Even when it seems hopeless, Pike assures the Talosians: “There’s a way out of any cage, and I’ll find it.” His ingenuity and his ability to outthink the illusory puzzles utterly impressed me (as it must have impressed the Talosians). The Talosians seem to understand that about humans and keep attempting to cage him despite that knowledge. When Vina becomes an Orion slave-girl, one of the hedonists with Pike suggests that this life is “worth a man’s soul.” It’s not, of course, because our souls need to be free. Our imaginations demand more than simply pleasure: we need challenges, new experiences, and the unknown.

Finally: what did you guys think of the show within a show? I still prefer the series we got, but I don’t think I would’ve been disappointed with the alternative! Pike’s determined and he’s confident in his own abilities. That tenacity and enthusiasm are infectious and he makes a great leading man. I loved that neither of the two women were interested in Pike romantically—that would have been so easy and they didn’t go there. And can I just say that Majel Barret kicked ass? She’s smart, she’s confident, and she’s not afraid to die.

Torie’s Rating: Warp 5 (on a scale of 1-6)

Best Line: Pike: “I’m willing to bet you’ve created an illusion this laser is empty. I think it just blasted a hole in that window and you’re keep us from seeing it. You want me to test my theory out on your head?”

Syndication Edits: The first discussion between Pike and Vina in Pike’s cage; Pike’s crew setting up the laser cannon (let me repeat: LASER CANNON); a shot of Pike exploring his cell before the nutrient drink appears; chunks of the Vina-as-Orion-girl-dance; Vina jealously remarking on Number One and the other chick; and a second Pike speech on his primitive thoughts.

Trivia: Though the actors playing the Talosians are all female, male voices were dubbed in. Malachi Throne, who plays Commodore Mendez, provided the voice of the Keeper in the original version of “The Cage,” but his voice was replaced by Vic Perrin here.

In the original script, McCoy and Scott have a scene wherein they explain to Kirk how they figured out which computer bank Spock tampered with to lock the ship on course. They took perspiration readings on all banks, and since Spock’s sweat has copper in it, traces of copper were found.

Previous Episode: Season 1, Episode 11 – “The Menagerie” Part I .

Next Episode: Season 1, Episode 13 – “ The Conscience of the King .” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website .

This post originally appeared on Tor.com .

About Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

To address some issues brought up in your reviews;

Why is there a death penalty for visiting Talos IV? Consider that in later seasons we would see that even starship captains were not immune to the temptations of power. Consider Merik in “Bread And Circuses” who was content to sacrifice his morals and his crew for a cushy life, or even more pointedly, Ron Tracey in “The Omega Glory”, who abandons his Starfleet oath, his scruples, and even resorts to murder all for a chance to posess the secret of immortality. Does he do it for the good of humanity? The way he tries to sell it to Kirk, it doesn’t sound like his intentions are entirely altruistic.

It seems to me that Starfleet considered the death penalty neccessary as a deterrent to anyone who might get curious and stumble upon the secrets of illusiory control. If mastered by an unscrupulous being, such powers could be used as a terrible weapon ( although I will concede that it would seem unlikely that a mere human without the, no doubt, far superior mental powers of a Talosian brain would be able project such powerful and all encompassing scenarios).

As to the Talosians being unable to read Vina’s thoughts in order to reconstruct her properly, I always assumed that she was nearly on the point of death. I would think that the gleaning of any useful information from a human mind that was in such agony would be difficult, and the knowledge gained suspect at best. They probably did the best they could using their own anatomies as a guide, and considering how damaged her body was in the crash, the result was the best that could be expected. Also, considering that they’ve lost the knowledge of how to repair their own machines, it’s possible that their knowledge of the medical arts is probably waning as well.

Now my own comment:

In viewing this episode over the decades, there’s a bit of dialogue which seems to me like an eerily prescient warning to television viewers ( and some future Trekkies, before there was even the concept of a ‘trekkie’ ). It comes as Pike finally gets Vina to open up and share her knowledge of the Talosians, and she is describing the downfall of their civilization. She tells him that the Talosian’s ambitions have decayed, and that “…when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building…” and that they just “…sit. living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.” Sometimes when watching that scene, I get a little uncomfortable. Because, if anyone is guilty of sitting and reliving other lives ( for ‘thought records’ read ‘home video’ ), I definitely am. Something to ponder…

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