Season 1 Episode 1 (Pilot, 'The Cage')

Since I haven't really watched much Star Trek (probably ten or twenty eps of Next Generation, most of the original-series movies, and a few of the movies with the NextGen cast), I was a little surprised that I got chills when the opening theme music played. Not sure if I have a stronger connection to the series than I thought, or if it was just the three shots of Aristocrat making me feel like I was beginning an epic undertaking to go where so many had gone before.

As 'The Cage' got underway, I was disappointed to note that the pilot does not feature some of the characters I'm most familiar with, namely Captain James T. Kirk, Chekhov, Sulu, and Scotty. The guy playing Captain Pike was decent, if a bit... well, he just seemed like any ole' B-level actor from back in the day, really. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that I'd seen him in a dozen MST3K eps, or other TV shows.

The first thing this episode reminded me of was Seven Samurai, and not for any high-brow reasons related to plot or direction. See, the first thing I really noticed about Seven Samurai was that it seemed to involve a lot of shots grown mens' flabby asses. Captain Pike was wearing very tight pants, and the camera seemed to lovingly linger over his backside more than was appropriate, especially towards the beginning. When he plops down on his bed, and lounges in a pose that seemed more suited to Catwoman than a starship captain, I was unable to resist laughing out loud.

The plot was fun. A once mighty race, having destroyed the surface of its planet, has been forced to live underground for millenia. They have developed their brains to super-strength and are able to communicate telepathically, read minds, and even cast illusions over lesser minds. They capture Captain Pike, seemingly to perform experiments on him, and the plot thickens.

I don't want to just summarize episodes in this blog, because a.) that's not really all that fun, and b.) Wikipedia already exists. So I'm not going to. Notable stuff in this episode includes, in no particular order:

• The mind-reading captors can't read minds filled with "lesser emotions" which directly translates to "hate" in the episode. Like so much of the stuff even in this first episode, it's a concept I've encountered before in reading. It's fun contemplating what Star Trek created, and others ripped off, and what others created, and Star Trek ripped off.
• Wow. The rubber suits are pretty bad. Specifically, the rubber suits that form the costume of the green-abominable-snowman-looking-thing that is apparently another species the evil overlords have captured.
• Half naked green lady in the first episode! This show knew what it was about from the getty-up, apparently.
• There seemed to be a sexism sub-plot; I wonder if they'll work with that more, in the series-proper?
• The bulging veins of the evil overlords are great. Especially when they pulse to indicate that they are performing some task with their mental super-powers. While the rubber-suit thing was bad-bad, the main villains were sort of on the line between bad-good and decent.

Alright! The Enterprise escapes with the captain and all of its crew in-tact, the episode ends, humans rule!, and I can go to bed because I have an early day tomorrow.

Random Tally: 7 shots of Aristocrat Vodka, 63 minutes, 1 green girl, 1 giant Viking Mongol warrior, 3 candidates for Eve, and time enough for 8 hours of sleep.