Star Trek: The Menagerie Part 2 Rewatch
October 11, 2014 11:46 AM - Season 1, Episode 13 - Subscribe
At Spock's court martial, he defends himself with mysterious footage which retells an ailing Capt. Pike's kidnapping by powerful illusion casting aliens thirteen years prior.
Incorporating "The Cage" into the two-part episode, "The Menagerie", was actually a solution to a large and growing problem with the show's production. Its special effects, unprecedented for a weekly television production, were causing delays in the completion of each episode. The problem was cumulative, with shows getting delivered to NBC later and later. At its worst, episodes (filmed in Los Angeles) were being delivered to NBC (in New York) only three days before their scheduled Thursday airing. Sensing impending disaster, Roddenberry solved the problem by writing a two-part episode that needed only one week of production.
He did this by writing an entirely new bookend story, so that "The Cage" would serve as a backstory for the Starship Enterprise's early history. New footage would be combined with the old and placed into the continuity of the overall Star Trek storyline.
Memory Alpha Link
The Episode can be viewed on CBS, Hulu, and Netflix.
Incorporating "The Cage" into the two-part episode, "The Menagerie", was actually a solution to a large and growing problem with the show's production. Its special effects, unprecedented for a weekly television production, were causing delays in the completion of each episode. The problem was cumulative, with shows getting delivered to NBC later and later. At its worst, episodes (filmed in Los Angeles) were being delivered to NBC (in New York) only three days before their scheduled Thursday airing. Sensing impending disaster, Roddenberry solved the problem by writing a two-part episode that needed only one week of production.
He did this by writing an entirely new bookend story, so that "The Cage" would serve as a backstory for the Starship Enterprise's early history. New footage would be combined with the old and placed into the continuity of the overall Star Trek storyline.
Memory Alpha Link
The Episode can be viewed on CBS, Hulu, and Netflix.
When I saw this episode as a teenager, I was receptive to anything you wanted to show me on TV. I had not yet read "Gilagamesh" or "The Odyssey", "The Mabinogion", "Njal's Saga", "Tale of Genji", etc., etc. I had not yet learned to sort things into categories or worry about point-of-view. I just watched things.
Seeing this today I was impatient, muttering that the plot and motivations made no sense and the flashbacks were poorly integrated, and why couldn't the Commodore have come along since he was just going to acquit Spock anyway? How did this whole thing get set up? Did the Talusians email Spock and Pike? Except how did they find out Pike was maimed? Did Spock email *them* and set this up? And if the Talusians can project illusions light years away, why not just set up an illusion to get pizza delivered once a month and not worry about the soil fertility on Talus? I can't even get indignant because it's not worth it.
Yet I don't get cranky at improbable Gilgamesh plot twists or spend time quibbling about Enkidu's personality; I just accept the story as wonderful and symbolically meaningful. And as a teenager, that's what I did with this episode: accepted the telepathic aliens and their sacrifice and marveled at how awesome Spock was. This episode was an innocent pleasure and I didn't give Orion slave girls a second thought. [They're like *animals*? What does that mean, interplanetarily speaking? What did Gene Roddenberry think it meant?]
posted by acrasis at 3:55 PM on November 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Seeing this today I was impatient, muttering that the plot and motivations made no sense and the flashbacks were poorly integrated, and why couldn't the Commodore have come along since he was just going to acquit Spock anyway? How did this whole thing get set up? Did the Talusians email Spock and Pike? Except how did they find out Pike was maimed? Did Spock email *them* and set this up? And if the Talusians can project illusions light years away, why not just set up an illusion to get pizza delivered once a month and not worry about the soil fertility on Talus? I can't even get indignant because it's not worth it.
Yet I don't get cranky at improbable Gilgamesh plot twists or spend time quibbling about Enkidu's personality; I just accept the story as wonderful and symbolically meaningful. And as a teenager, that's what I did with this episode: accepted the telepathic aliens and their sacrifice and marveled at how awesome Spock was. This episode was an innocent pleasure and I didn't give Orion slave girls a second thought. [They're like *animals*? What does that mean, interplanetarily speaking? What did Gene Roddenberry think it meant?]
posted by acrasis at 3:55 PM on November 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
I said this before in my comment on TNG's "Brothers", which features a similar solo starshipjacking by Data--watching Spock steal the Enterprise is thrilling in a way that watching a good guy (moreover, one who's supremely disciplined and by-the-book) break bad; it's like Batman pulling a jewelry heist, only if doing so would get him the electric chair. And he's forcing the entire ship to go to Talos IV, which guarantees him the death penalty (which begs the question of how Starfleet would execute someone; I'm guessing transporter, wide dispersal out into space).
Something else occurs to me, having seen the Strange New Worlds episode "A Quality of Mercy" (big spoilers for that show in that link and below in "details"), which of course takes place between the events of "The Cage" and the current events of this episode:
Pike as he would end up, in the chair, knows that Spock is extremely important to the future of the Federation (and really a couple of quadrants), which is one of the reasons why he ended up in the chair. Probably the original intention of the writers was to have Pike constantly beeping "no" to Spock is simply that Spock is his friend and he doesn't want him to throw away his career so that he can have psychic holodeck fun with Vina for the rest of his life. But, with what we know from SNW, if Pike could do Morse code via his chair (I think that Futurama did something like that with a Pike-alike once?), he'd probably be saying stuff like this:
DAMNIT SPOCK STOP CUT THIS SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW STOP YOU CANT GET EXECUTED STOP I MEAN WERE BUDS AND ALL BUT BESIDES THAT YOU NEED TO NOT DIE STOP I CANT TELL YOU WHY BECAUSE TIME TRAVEL IS INVOLVED STOP I KNOW BUT TIME TRAVEL IS JUST WEIRD LIKE THAT TRUST ME ON THIS STOP SERIOUSLY MAN I MEAN IT STOP
Anyway, good work on the SNW crew's part if that was intentional.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 PM on February 23
Something else occurs to me, having seen the Strange New Worlds episode "A Quality of Mercy" (big spoilers for that show in that link and below in "details"), which of course takes place between the events of "The Cage" and the current events of this episode:
Pike as he would end up, in the chair, knows that Spock is extremely important to the future of the Federation (and really a couple of quadrants), which is one of the reasons why he ended up in the chair. Probably the original intention of the writers was to have Pike constantly beeping "no" to Spock is simply that Spock is his friend and he doesn't want him to throw away his career so that he can have psychic holodeck fun with Vina for the rest of his life. But, with what we know from SNW, if Pike could do Morse code via his chair (I think that Futurama did something like that with a Pike-alike once?), he'd probably be saying stuff like this:
DAMNIT SPOCK STOP CUT THIS SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW STOP YOU CANT GET EXECUTED STOP I MEAN WERE BUDS AND ALL BUT BESIDES THAT YOU NEED TO NOT DIE STOP I CANT TELL YOU WHY BECAUSE TIME TRAVEL IS INVOLVED STOP I KNOW BUT TIME TRAVEL IS JUST WEIRD LIKE THAT TRUST ME ON THIS STOP SERIOUSLY MAN I MEAN IT STOP
Anyway, good work on the SNW crew's part if that was intentional.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 PM on February 23
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I definitely believe my feeling that Spock finally seemed like Spock, even the manner in which he spoke to Kirk.
The twist that the admiral was never present showcased the extreme power of the Talos IV inhabitants - they're extending their mind powers over a distance that required something like five to six days of travel by the Enterprise. Frightening! Likewise, the convenient, "We're waiving the death penalty application in this instance!" was a little too neat of a bow on the package. It would not have been entirely out of place if Kirk had just turned to the camera, shrugged, grinned, and walked out of sight. Though, apparently the transporters were located immediately outside the door to the court martial room as the doors had only closed before the Talosians beeped Kirk and showed him that Pike was already on the planet.
posted by Atreides at 11:55 AM on October 12, 2014