#1.11 The Menagerie Part One | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

per-ineptia-ad-astra · 4 years

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fixing The Menagerie

The circumstances behind The Menagerie pose an interesting writing problem: how do you take an already shot, totally completed episode for an earlier version of a TV show that differs considerably from the version that actually made it to air, and turn it into an episode that you can use now, as part of that later version, in a way that actually makes sense for your audience? That would be challenging enough without the additional problems that 1.) you can't reshoot any of the original episode because you no longer have access to the sets, costumes, most of the cast, etc., and 2.) the whole reason you're doing this in the first place is because you can't get a completely new episode out in time to meet your air date, so whatever your framing device is it has to be something that can be shot and finished very quickly--and cheaply, because at absolutely no point in the making of this show has there been spare money to throw around.

When I recapped The Menagerie (eons ago, it now seems) I said in the conclusion to the second part that I thought the framing device used wasn't as effective as it could have been. So, I figured I’d put my money where my mouth was and see if I could come up with another one. Before I start I want to put out the same disclaimer I used for the Return of the Archons post: I am not a professional TV writer (or a professional anything) and I intend this only as a fun exercise and not an angry and serious screed about the writing quality of TOS, which I do very much love for being what it is. I can only offer what, in my opinion, would make a more enjoyable episode, which may not necessarily be what you would find to be a more enjoyable episode. And if you already greatly enjoy The Menagerie as it is, you probably won’t want to read this.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to take The Cage itself as written. It has its own problems, and that might be worth its own post at some point, but I’m not going to take it on here. We’ll assume The Cage exists exactly as it was produced, and the problem now is entirely focused on how to turn it into an episode—or two—of TOS.

(And, just to get it out of the way: I’m not going to talk about how either The Cage or The Menagerie play into Discovery, AOS, or the rest of Star Trek in general. It’s obviously a very important episode backstory-wise, but for this, right now, I’m just going talk about it purely as a TOS episode.)

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about The Menagerie for a moment. What’s wrong with it?

Well, the framing device could certainly have been worse. It’s not terrible. Hell, Part I even won a Hugo, so, guess I’m up against the Hugo committee on this one. But, there are a number of things that I find awkward about it.

In a general sense, there’s the way that, once the flashbacks start, the story is attempting to maintain two separate threads of tension: the flashback story, with the tension being on what’s going to happen to Pike, and the present-day story, with the tension being on what Spock is doing, why he’s doing it, and whether he’s going to wind up getting the death penalty for it. This second thread starts out well—by this point in TOS, we’ve gotten to know Spock well enough to know how out of character all this is for him, which makes the mystery quite gripping. However, once the flashback starts, the story struggles to maintain the tension of this second thread. The attempt to keep the present-day story as tense as the past story only results in breaks away from the action for scenes in the courtroom where something or someone stops Spock from showing the footage, which never results in anything because by the next commercial break they’re back at it. Most of these interruptions are either arbitrary (the screen goes off for no reason and then comes on again for no reason; fake!Mendez randomly decides he’s had enough and tries to stop things) or just not that interesting (Pike fell asleep), and with each one it only becomes more obvious that the only real purpose they’re serving is to pad out the framing story.

The resolution of the present-day story is also rather unsatisfying for a lot of reasons. After so much tension built up about what’s going on and why Spock is acting this way and is his life on the line and is Kirk’s career on the line and how’s he going to get out of this...it turns out that Mendez has been fake this whole time, so nothing he said or did since Kirk left the Starbase matters at all; Starfleet casually waves the whole thing aside with no repercussions, making all the build-up about Spock risking the only death penalty remaining in the Federation mean nothing whatsoever in the end; and we never really get a satisfactory answer as to why Spock insisted on carrying out his court martial the way he did. Sure, eventually the Keeper says the whole court martial was basically staged to stall Kirk so he wouldn’t focus on getting control of his ship back, but not only does that raise further questions—if Mendez was only ever an illusion sent by the Talosians, why did he try to stop the court martial several times? Why did the Talosians turn off the footage at a crucial point, and why did it come on again?--there’s also no reason given why Spock couldn’t just recount what happened himself, which could have taken up enough time if he was careful enough about it, instead of needing the Talosians to broadcast a video version of the events.

There’s also the simple fact that Pike’s ending is itself rather dubious. I suppose this one comes down to a difference of opinion between me and Gene Roddenberry (one of many) since both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character going to permanently stay with the Talosians, with no concern at all expressed about the fact that the Talosians are cruel, torture-happy, and frankly insufferable wannabe-slavemasters who see humans as nothing more than brute animals to be caged, bred and make to work. I said I wasn’t going to tackle The Cage here so I won’t go off about its ending, no matter how much it pisses me off. But The Menagerie is also at fault here, because it needlessly repeats the exact same problem (with a bit less sexism, but still). The ending of The Menagerie gives us no sign that the Talosians have reformed in any way, and no explanation as to why they suddenly care so much about Pike to go to all this trouble for him. We’re just expected to believe that Pike’s gonna go have a nice happy illusion-life with them even though the last time we saw them they were trying to breed a race of human slaves. Really, Gene? Really?

On that note, the treatment of disability in both The Cage and The Menagerie bothers me a great deal. The effect of Pike becoming disabled is to essentially strip him of all his autonomy. I mean no disrespect to Sean Kenney here, but if they’d replaced him with a mannequin it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to the episode, because in The Menagerie Pike is not a character, he’s a prop. We’re assured repeatedly that Pike thinks and feels as much as he ever did, but we have to be told that by other characters because the episode certainly never takes any opportunity to let us in on any of it. Here’s the sum total of what we know Pike thinks about the events of The Menagerie:

1. He doesn’t want to visit with Kirk and McCoy at the beginning of the episode but allows Spock to stay.

2. He tells Spock “no” when Spock tells him his plan.

3. He keeps repeating “no” the rest of that day, which everyone is confused by but no one makes any effort to understand.

4. He falls asleep at one point.

5. He votes for a guilty verdict for Spock during the court martial, when asked.

6. He says “yes” when asked if he wants to go live with the Talosians.

Pike is treated with sympathy and the respect due to his rank and history, but mostly he’s an object of pity. We’re told he can move his chair himself, but he appears to be confined to one small hospital room that’s not even set up for his needs, and he spends the entire episode being moved around by other people. Everyone talks about how bad his situation is, but only Spock attempts to do anything to improve it—and he does so knowing that Pike doesn’t want him to do it. When Pike tells him “No,” Spock doesn’t ask any questions, he doesn’t try to find out what part of this whole thing Pike is objecting to, he just overrides Pike’s objection on the assumption that Pike is only concerned about Spock doing something so very illegal, a concern he pretty much disregards. He turns out to be right—as far as we can tell—but for all the information Spock has at the time, Pike might have been saying, “No, I don’t want to live with the Talosians.”

It doesn’t need to be that way. Pike’s condition is certainly very severe, but as I mentioned in the recap, there are plenty of other things that could have been done for him, or at least attempted. And even if none of those were done, there are other ways that the episode could have developed his character, or at least treated him like a character. Spock’s discussion at the beginning of the episode could have been a mind meld that allowed us to hear Pike’s thoughts on the matter. Spock could have heard his objections and addressed them, and he and Pike could have come to come to an agreement and actually become co-conspirators instead of Pike spending the entire episode as a helpless hostage to Spock’s plan. We could have gotten a scene of Pike and McCoy interacting after Spock tells McCoy to look after Pike—McCoy’s not only highly suspicious at that point and unlikely to be greatly put off by Spock's order to not ask Pike any questions, he’s also the one who gives a whole speech about how cruel it is that Pike “can’t reach out, and no one can reach in”--so give us a scene where he does reach out! We could have had a scene of Kirk talking with Pike—he’s certainly got plenty to ask the man about, both in general and in regard to the current situation. All he has to do is put a little extra work into how to frame his questions. The Talosians could have delivered a message from Pike at the end, or one of them could have astral-projected in earlier to have a telepathic exchange with him. We could have seen Pike express himself by moving his chair, turning towards or away people when they talk to him, interjecting a “yes” or “no” into a conversation instead of only replying when asked something, or repeating a response incessantly to show that he’s emphatic about something. (Yeah, we kinda get the latter when he’s saying “no” over and over early in the episode, but that’s only treated as a “what could he possibly be trying to communicate??? oh, if only we knew!” moment.) There were so many ways Pike could have been treated as a character, as a person, instead of a plot element who exists to be pushed around in his chair and have speeches made about how tragic his situation is.

Both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character who is disabled choosing to spend the rest of their lives isolated from the entire rest of humanity on a barren planet inhabited by jackass aliens because, as everyone around them nods and solemnly agrees, that’s a better fate for them than living among human society. To be clear, it’s not Pike and Vina seeking solutions to their problems that I object to. If Vina wants to be represented by what is essentially an avatar of her own choosing, or if Pike feels that an illusory world offers better quality of life for him, that’s entirely their right. But when life with the Talosians is set up as a situation so horrible that we see four characters literally willing to die rather than remain on Talos 4, and then have two disabled characters say “actually it’s better this way if I stay here,” you kind of wind up with a message that looks a lot like “being disabled is a fate worse than death.” I doubt that was intentional, at least not entirely, since we see other disabled characters in TOS who are treated considerably better—but there it is, all the same.

This is not to say that there’s nothing of value in The Menagerie’s framing story. The tension between Kirk wanting to trust his friend but being forced to act in authority over him because he’s undeniably done something very seriously against the rules, and he won’t tell Kirk why, is great while it lasts. Spock’s character is expanded considerably by showing us that there are some things he places above his honor and obligations as a Starfleet officer—and indeed above his own life. We see a bit of his history, a glimpse of a relationship with a former captain that he respects so much that Spock will put everything on the line to secure a better future for him; and we see how much he respects and values Kirk, that he foregoes the chance to explain himself—and thus gain an ally and aid in his cause—because to do so would put Kirk in danger as well. And we get that great little moment where Spock tells McCoy to call security on him and McCoy has absolutely no idea how to react. And we get backstory! And kind-of-continuity! Okay, it’s not much backstory, but by TOS standards it’s practically a goldmine.

I don’t want to throw all that away. But I think there must be some way to address the problems without totally losing the good parts.

It’s only fair, though, that any attempt to improve the episode should keep in mind the circumstances it was made under. I don’t know enough about budgeting and producing TV in the 1960s either generally in or in this specific case to know exactly what was available to them when it came to producing The Menagerie, so I’m just going to try to deduce roughly what we might have to work with based on what what was in the finished episodes:

Much of Part I and all of Part II take place in preexisting sets, either the Enterprise ones or the shuttlecraft interior set. The new sets include the Starbase 11 exterior—which is mostly a matte painting—Mendez’s office, Pike’s hospital room, and the Starbase computer room. The computer room is a redressed Engineering set; I suspect the hospital room is also a redressed existing set, but I don’t know for sure. It’s quite simple regardless, and is clearly mostly using existing pieces (the bed and the chair). Mendez’s office is likewise set up with pretty standard preexisting TOS set dressing pieces, with the exception of some cut-outs outside the window standing in for the Starbase exterior.

Discounting any background extras we have five new characters: Commodore Mendez, Piper, Chief Humbolt (the computer room guy), Lt. Hansen, and Pike himself. Of these, only Mendez and Pike have much significant screen time. So, we can assume that hiring an extensive guest cast is probably not on the table here.

Most of the original cast from The Cage are probably not available. Pike we know is definitely out—Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t willing to come back after The Cage failed, and probably would have been too expensive to hire for two episodes anyway. Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett were, obviously, still working on TOS, so presumably we could incorporate past-Spock and Number One if we really needed to. Since Malachi Throne was also on hand for The Menagerie, we could record new dialogue for the Keeper (as The Menagerie did indeed do), but presumably no new footage (Throne voiced the Keeper, but they and all the other Talosians were portrayed onscreen by female actors). I don’t know if any of the other original cast could have been gotten back, but since they weren’t, let’s assume we can’t use them.

Let’s also assume that all of the sets, costumes, makeup, etc., from The Cage are inaccessible. In reality I’m sure at least something was still kicking around in storage somewhere, or was reused for TOS, but there’s no point in trying to figure out exactly what, so for simplicity’s sake we’ll say anything we might want to use from The Cage has to be recreated from scratch, and if it can’t be then we can’t use it.

Because the entire reason this is going on in the first place is because the effects work was making TOS run behind schedule, we can’t have much in the way of effects for The Menagerie, especially post-production effects. There’s a shot of the planet Starbase 11 is on, a matte painting for the Starbase 11 exterior, a couple uses of the transporter, Pike’s chair and makeup, some shots of the Enterprise and the shuttle flying around in space, and some things being shown on screens—and I think that’s more or less about it.

So. If I was told that I had to take The Cage and wrap it up as a TOS episode with the above restrictions in mind, here’s some things I would keep in mind:

If we look at this from a starting-from-scratch perspective, it seems to me that if you have an episode that you need to incorporate into your main show that has an almost entirely different cast, and one of the characters from your original episode, who has never once been seen or even referenced in your main show, is played by an actor that you can’t get back, the simplest thing to do is to not show that character. We don’t actually need Pike himself to be onscreen for The Menagerie. That he would be at least mentioned in some capacity, sure, but we do in fact have the opportunity to avoid putting some poor dude through five hours of makeup by simply having Pike remain offscreen. We'll probably wind up putting someone else through five hours of makeup, but we'll get to that in a bit.

For me at least, if the Talosians are going to re-appear, they either need to still be villains in some sense or we need to know that they have begun to change their behavior in some way. To have them simply show up again and be treated as friendly after everything that happened in The Cage, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the fact that they did do everything they did in The Cage...it just doesn’t make sense, and it’s much too distracting for me to get past.

Although I’ve set the rule that I’m not going to change The Cage itself, The Menagerie being a sequel to those events opens up the opportunity to follow up on the ending of The Cage in a different direction. In other words, I’m going to rescue Vina, because her fate in The Cage really, really bothers me.

Insisting on the preexisting footage being literally shown as a video in-universe has always felt pointlessly awkward to me. It’s so weird that the characters have to stop and go, “Hang on, what? Where’d this come from? This can’t possibly be security footage. Why does it have different camera angles?” to forestall the exact same questions the audience were probably having at that point. And, as I said above, there’s really not a good explanation as to why the footage did have to be shown in that manner. It seems to me that it would be much simpler to have the flashback footage be just that: a flashback. A story which is being recounted, but not literally shown, in-universe. By doing so you avoid having to open up a bunch of dead-end plot threads about why the footage looks the way it does and is being shown the way it does. I think we can give the audience at least enough credit to assume they’ll understand that if a character starts recounting an event, and the scene cuts to footage of that event, that footage is a representation of what the character is saying, not literally something being shown in-universe.

I’m not going to bother with the whole “going to Talos 4 warrants the death penalty!!” thing. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to begin with, and it never actually pays off in The Menagerie. We can manage a better source of tension than that, I think.

All of this would ultimately take my version of The Menagerie in a pretty different direction than the actual episode, I admit. It's a rather drastic change, but, if I was tasked with writing a framing story for using The Cage in TOS, here's how I'd do it:

The Enterprise is out tooling around doing their usual business when Uhura picks up a distress call from a ship stranded in space. It’s very faint, distant, and there’s something odd about it, but of course they’re gonna follow up on it because that’s how they roll. So they head off in the direction of the call, but the funny thing is that as they get closer, Uhura says that the source of the distress call appears to be moving around. They follow it, send some hails, and finally get back a scratchy, staticky response: it’s coming from a ship that’s been heavily damaged, and the crew is no longer able to steer it, so it’s drifting erratically through space. Kirk has Uhura send a hail: “We’ve received your signal. Keep broadcasting it and we’ll find you.”

They keep following the ship. It’s difficult—the call is weak, and the Enterprise has to go carefully or risk overshooting it. After they’ve been chasing it for a while, Spock points out that they should be wary of entering a nearby star system, because it contains a planet all Federation ships are warned to avoid. Kirk, of course, doesn’t want to give up on the damaged ship, but Spock steps over to his chair and quietly says, “Captain...I should warn you that it may be the lesser of two evils to abandon this ship, rather than risk going too close to Talos 4.”

Kirk, of course, is stunned to hear Spock say this, and asks what makes Talos 4 so dangerous. Spock says it would take rather a long time to explain. Kirk says that Spock almost sounds like he’s familiar with the place, and Spock replies, “More than familiar, captain. I’ve been there before.”

[dramatic sting, cut to commercial]

Since it looks like the damaged ship will take a while to track down, Kirk has McCoy, Scotty and Spock convene in a briefing room to hear Spock’s story. Spock gives a short introduction: “What I am about to tell you, gentlemen, occurred as I said thirteen years ago, when the Enterprise was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. I’ve pulled up the log entries of Captain Pike pertaining to this time to provide his own perspective on the matter, as it was he that had the closest encounter with the Talosians. At the time, the Enterprise had only recently escaped a disastrous encounter on Rigel 7 which had resulted in the deaths of three crewmen and injuries to several more, including myself. Some of the injuries were beyond the capacity of the ship’s doctors to treat, so we were en route to the Vega colony for treatment when we began receiving a distress signal...”

Spock’s voice-over fades out over a transition to the Cage footage. We watch that--perhaps interspersed with the occasional bit of narration from Spock, or a question from Kirk or McCoy or Scotty--until about the point where the landing party encounters the fake survivors' camp and Pike is captured by the Talosians. Then Spock is suddenly interrupted by Sulu calling Kirk to the bridge. Everyone hurries up to the bridge, where Uhura reports that the distress call has suddenly disappeared. Sulu says it's not just that: somehow, he doesn't understand how or why, his sensors are suddenly showing that they're not on the same course or even in the same place that they were only moments ago. Somehow, they've wound up in the Talos star system--and they're heading directly for Talos 4.

"It is just as I feared," Spock says gravely. "This has all been a trap."

Kirk orders Sulu to change course, and he tries—but somehow the ship doesn’t divert even a little. It’s like the helm just isn’t responding. Kirk does all the usual things, telling Scotty to do something, etc, nothing’s working, and then Uhura reports that they’re receiving a hail. And it appears to be coming from Talos IV.

Naturally Kirk tells her to put it on. The voice on the other end is staticky and faint. "Greetings. Is this...the Enterprise?"

"This is the Enterprise. I'm Captain James Kirk."

Silence for a moment. Then the voice on the other end, obviously surprised, says, "Captain Kirk? Not Captain Pike?"

"Captain Pike no longer commands this vessel."

There's a long pause. "I see. We were...in error. We apologize for the deception, Captain Kirk. It was important that we bring Captain Pike to this planet, but we feared that his...past experiences here...would leave him unwilling to come close enough to hear our message.”

“That would be a most logical decision for Captain Pike, were he here,” Spock says coldly. “Considering the nature of those experiences.”

“You speak as though you are familiar with what transpired here before, then.”

“I am First Officer Spock. I was present aboard the Enterprise as Science Officer during the events thirteen years ago.”

There’s an even longer pause. When the voice returns, the signal is even more crackly than ever. “Our apologies, this communication is...difficult to maintain. We must wait to deliver the message in full until you are...closer to our planet. However...until then...you may be assured, Spock...that this time...” [pause for more crackling] “This time...the intent of the Talosians...is peaceful.”

The signal cuts out, and Uhura can’t get it back. The ship appears to still be locked on course for Talos 4. With seemingly nothing else to do for the moment but wait, everyone goes back to the briefing room, where Spock continues recounting Pike’s story.

At some point, Spock has to pause so everyone can go take a break, and everyone else files out of the room while he remains behind for a moment, staring at the computer contemplatively. Then suddenly, we hear a voice saying, “Spock--” and Spock turns around in surprise. We can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, only a soft glow at the edge of the camera, and then the scene cuts away.

Kirk’s grabbing a nap in his quarters when he’s woken by an urgent message: they’re still some way from Talos 4, but the ship appears to have stopped moving all on its own. He hurries up to the bridge, where Sulu tells him that it seems like they’re having some kind of computer error with the helm, but they can’t track it down yet. In the middle of all this, Uhura whirls around and exclaims, “Sir! Shuttle bay reports Mr. Spock has knocked out the tech on duty and is boarding one of the shuttles!” Kirk yells for security to get down there, but they are, of course, too late: Spock rigged the shuttle bay doors to open automatically and flies out before they can stop him.

Stunned and confused, Kirk orders Uhura to raise the shuttle, which she does.

“Spock, are you out of your mind?!”

“Negative, captain. My reasoning is quite sound, though I regret I cannot explain it to you just yet.”

Kirk yells for the tractor beam to grab the shuttle, but Sulu can’t get the tractor beam to respond either.

“You need not be concerned, captain. I believe it is well within Mr. Scott’s abilities to repair the computer in due time.”

“You did this to the computer?”

“It was necessary. You will find the transporter similarly incapacitated. I could not risk you coming after me, or stopping me. Not yet.”

“Spock—do you know what you’re risking by doing this? You were the one who warned me not to go near Talos 4!”

“Yes, captain. And it is because I know what the Talosians are capable of that I am doing this. Either they are telling the truth, in which case there is no danger...or they are not, in which case it is better that I alone risk doing this.” A pause. “Jim...wait 24 hours for me. If I do not contact you by then...you must leave in all haste.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

“You must. 24 hours.” And with that, Spock ends the call. As Uhura’s trying fruitlessly to reestablish contact with him, she suddenly looks up and says, “Captain...we’re receiving a message from...Fleet Captain Pike?”

“What?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well...put him on.”

So Uhura puts Pike on speaker, and Kirk says, “We’re, er, in the middle of a bit of a situation, sir...what can I do for you?”

“I might ask what I can do for you, captain. Mr. Spock left a message requesting that I contact you.”

Stunned pause for a moment. “He did what?” Kirk finally says.

“About an hour ago. I regret I wasn’t able to return his call earlier, but it’s the middle of the night here...Kirk, what’s this all about?”

Kirk sighs. “It’s a long story, captain, and I don’t entirely understand it myself. Uhura, patch this into the briefing room...it’ll take a while to tell.”

A little later, we see Kirk and McCoy sitting in the briefing room as Kirk finishes up explaining everything to Pike. “What do you make of that, captain?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it, Kirk. I can’t imagine why Spock would want to go to Talos 4. All Federation starships have been warned away from there ever since our encounter with them, and Spock’s well aware of that.”

“Yes...Captain, I confess I’m not familiar with the entire story of that encounter myself...Spock was telling us about it before he, er, left, but he hadn’t finished. Could you enlighten us about the rest of it? We do have your logs, of course, but you might have more information--”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, but I can at least tell you what I know...”

Pike continues telling the story where Spock left off. Around about the point where Pike and the others escape from the cell, there’s a call from the bridge reporting that their sensors show that the shuttle has landed on Talos 4. Frustrated, Kirk wonders once again just what Spock thinks he’s doing down there.

We then cut to a shot of what looks kind of like the barren landscape of Talos 4, only this time there seems to be a small surface settlement among the cliffs. Then we see Spock entering a small, plainly decorated room with windows looking out to the rest of the settlement. “I am here, as agreed,” he says, and then the camera turns to show us a figure wearing a robe and a hood sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

“Welcome, Mr. Spock," the figure says. "Won’t you sit down?”

Back aboard the ship, Pike finishes telling Kirk and McCoy the story.

“So...that’s all of it?” Kirk says.

“Yes. We left Talos 4 and never looked back. Never heard anything from the Talosians, either, but Starfleet marked the place as too dangerous to visit just in case.”

“Poor Vina,” McCoy murmurs.

Pike sighs. “Leaving her there is one my greatest regrets. She seemed determined to stay, but...Even put in a request to go back, once, but Starfleet wouldn’t allow it. Too risky. I often wonder what happened to her. If she was really happy with them after all. But, as you may have gathered, Kirk, none of this explains just what the devil Spock thinks he’s doing--”

He’s interrupted by a call from Uhura: “Captain—message coming from Mr. Spock!”

“Put him on! Spock, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Quite well, captain. Has Captain Pike contacted the ship yet?”

“I’m on the line right now,” Pike says. “Spock, what do you think you’re playing at?”

“Ah, captain. I have someone here who wishes to speak to you.”

We then cut back to Spock sitting at the table with the figure, who takes his communicator and says, “Hello...captain.”

Pike is too stunned to speak for a moment. “Vina...? Is that you?”

“The very same. I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Between them, Spock and Vina explain just what is going on. There's been a change in Talosian society since the Enterprise left. Not all of the Talosians agreed with the plan to breed a slave race to begin with—others felt that they could, and should, attempt to reclaim the surface themselves. The incident with Captain Pike brought matters to a head, and a rebellion erupted shortly afterward. Once in power, the new leaders dedicated their efforts to repairing their ancestors’ machines and establishing a colony on the surface.

The reason the Enterprise was lured back to Talos 4 was Vina: she's had medical problems as a result of the crash and the botched surgery, and it's been getting worse for years, to the point that she likely won't live much longer if she doesn't get proper treatment. The new Talosian leaders wanted to make up for what their predecessors had done and gave her the best care they could, but simply didn't have the human medical knowledge to fix the problem. So Vina asked if they could help her get home, instead. The Talosians were concerned, however, that the Federation wouldn't believe a genuine call for help, given their history, so they hatched the plan to lure the Enterprise, and Pike with it, back to Talos 4. They've been waiting for quite a while, listening to subspace chatter, hoping the Enterprise would come near. Once it did, they put out the illusion of the damaged ship to bring the Enterprise close enough that they could maintain an illusion over the helm controls, making sure the helmsmen were not altering their course as they thought they were.

When they discovered that Pike was no longer aboard the Enterprise, they instead sent a telepathic message to Spock, hoping that his own experience with the Talosians would make him see the difference between their current society and the old one, and thus be more likely to believe them. They had to wait until the ship got close to Talos 4, because the new society of Talosians have been deliberately letting their psychic powers weaken, attempting to break the addiction to illusion that was holding them back from reclaiming the surface. They were able to keep up the illusion of the damaged ship for a while, but couldn't manage that and the illusion on the helm and extended contact with the Enterprise at the same time, making the whole thing very nearly fall apart at one point.

Kirk demands to know why Spock ran off on his own, and Spock explains that while he found the Talosians' message plausible, a risk remained that this was all an elaborate set-up. They might have been attempting another pass at the plan that failed thirteen years ago. If that was the case, Spock would be the least risky member of the crew to make contact with them, since as a non-human he wouldn't be suitable for their plans. Since he knew Kirk would never agree to that, he took the shuttle and hacked the ship's computers to ensure that they wouldn't be able to follow him, at least for a while. He now feels confident that this is not a trap, though, as the Talosians' powers have weakened enough that his own mental defenses are strong enough to mostly see through them.

So Vina accompanies Spock back to the shuttlecraft, and they fly back to the ship. Vina's taken to Sickbay while Kirk confronts Spock about stealing the shuttlecraft. Spock says he'll accept all punishment, but felt he had to do it--he saw what almost happened to Pike on Talos 4, and couldn't risk the same fate happening to Kirk. But he also felt he owed it to Pike to investigate Vina's story, and help her return if that was truly what she wanted. Kirk lets the whole matter go, because of course he does, telling Spock not to try that shit again because he can't lose his best officer and all that.

Kirk and Spock go to visit Sickbay, where McCoy reports that with proper Federation medical care Vina's prognosis is good. Kirk wants to talk to her, but McCoy tells him to wait because she's got another visitor. Kirk glances around the doorway and sees Vina sitting up in bed looking at a video monitor, from which Pike's voice is coming. Kirk smiles and says he'll come back later.

Everyone goes back to the bridge, and with the computer damage now fixed, they're preparing to leave, when Uhura reports that there's a call coming from Talos 4. Kirk has a short conversation with the Talosian on the other end, who is glad to hear that Vina will be alright. They also ask that Kirk relay a message to Pike, extending their apologies for what he went through, which Kirk assures them he will. He then adds that the Federation would likely be willing to open trade negotiations with the new Talosian government, and the Talosian says they may take them up on that. And with that, the ship flies off.

Most of this story would only require the existing Enterprise sets, and potentially some brief shots of the shuttle interior. The only new locations needed would be the Talosian settlement exterior, which could be a matte painting, and the inside of the building where Spock meets Vina, which wouldn't require much dressing. The only non-main-cast characters would be Pike, Vina, and the Talosian that contacts the Enterprise. The Talosian is a voice-only role. Pike is also a voice-only role, and would require someone who can approximate Jeffrey Hunter's voice, but it's a lot easier to find a sound-alike than someone who's a sound-alike and a look-alike--plus Pike would be thirteen years older than in The Cage, which allows some leeway. I don't know if Susan Oliver would have been willing/able to come back to play Vina, but if she wasn't, a hood, wig, careful camera shots and some old-age makeup would probably serve well enough to disguise another actress. The only special effect needed is a bit of glowiness for the Talosian that appears to Spock just out of frame.

As for the fate of Pike himself, I don't want to erase a disabled character, but I also don't really feel that Pike's appearance in The Menagerie does any justice to him as a disabled character. Did Gene always envision that kind of fate for him or did he simply seize upon it as a plot device in a desperate moment? I don't know, so in the end I decided to leave it more or less open. There would be considerable leeway for multiple options that would still allow him to serve the same role in this episode: he could be commanding another ship, he could retired and settled down somewhere, he could have suffered an accident as he did in canon and spend this entire episode talking through a voice synthesizer. Imagine whatever one feels most suitable to you.

This is only my own take on the story. I know it would have considerable repercussions to later Star Trek canon and I'm not going to make the claim that those repercussions themselves would be better than what actually happened. It's certainly a more hopeful ending than The Menagerie, on the whole, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it was an interesting exercise.

#trek talk #1.11 The Menagerie Part One #1.12 The Menagerie Part 2 #fix-it post #fixing The Menagerie

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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Star Trek Episode 1.11: The Menagerie, Part 1

AKA: Spock Goes Rogue, Shows Vacation Photos

Did you think we were done with the pilots yet? Ha ha ha, no. We will never be done.

You remember how, back in Where No Man Has Gone Before, I mentioned that there was a first pilot that NBC was interested in but didn’t like enough to greenlight the show? That pilot was called The Cage, and was quite different from the eventual show in its design. It was also very different in cast, with Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett being the only cast members to stick around for the rest of the show. Nimoy still played Spock, but a much more emotional, earnest Spock, while Barrett played Number One, the second-in-command who was actually much more like Spock, being cool, intelligent, and seemingly emotionless. Instead of Kirk the captain was Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter, who made for a much more serious and gloomy kind of leading man.

Now, as mentioned, that pilot didn’t get approved, so they went on with the second pilot, and then with the main show, leaving The Cage to be an interesting what-could-have-been side note in the show’s history, but nothing more than that. Or at least, it would have been, if the show hadn’t run into a problem with production delays while doing the first season, on account of all that time-consuming effects work. To help catch up, they needed an episode that could be completed in much less time than they were usually taking. Come to think of it, didn’t they have an entire story, already shot and edited and everything, just sitting around unused?

And so Roddenberry hit on the idea of re-using the scrapped pilot to fill out season one. It’s an odd example of being a clip show (that is, an episode of a TV show mostly comprised of clips from other episodes) from a production standpoint, but not from an audience one, since they had never seen the old footage before. Of course, the pilot was so different that they couldn’t just drop it in as it was. It was weird enough when they did that with Where No Man Has Gone Before, and at least that one had the same captain. So a framing device had to be invented, something that would allow them to justify showing the pilot in the context of the show. That framing device combined with the longer running time of The Cage—an hour and a bit compared to TOS’s usual fifty minutes—made for two episodes, resulting in the only two-part story in TOS.

Our episode begins with the Enterprise in orbit around a large planet that’s a nice purple color. A view from the planet’s surface shows us a walkway and grassy courtyard between rows of buildings, under a purple sky with a ringed planet on the horizon. A nice change from the planets we’ve seen so far, which have mostly been bleak at best and desolate hellholes no one would want to live in at worst. Well, Miri’s planet was okay. Shame about the plague, though.

Anyway, this planet is clearly quite inhabited, as lots of people in Starfleet uniforms are walking about, including a redshirt woman who pauses and looks around with a rather...confused expression on her face. It kinda looks like she’s just suddenly found herself outside and isn’t entirely sure how she got there.

But a moment later, the thing she was looking for arrives: Kirk, Spock and McCoy beaming down into the courtyard. The woman greets them and says that the commodore is waiting to see them, and wants to know why they suddenly changed course to come visit him. Now it’s Kirk’s turn to be confused, because according to him, they got a message telling them to divert to the base immediately. But the woman says the base sent no such message. Well, that’s a mite strange.

Kirk is soon talking to said commodore, Mendez, who says that no, they definitely didn’t send anything like that to the Enterprise. But Kirk insists that Spock received a message from the former captain of the Enterprise, now-Fleet Commander Pike, and Kirk has rock solid faith in Spock so as far as he’s concerned, if Spock says there was a message, there was a message.

Before Kirk can offer to duel for Spock’s honor, Mendez says that he’s not doubting anyone here, it’s just that it’s impossible that Pike could have sent that message. When Kirk asks why, Mendez is surprised he hasn’t heard since it’s been all over the subspace chatter. Apparently Kirk hasn’t been keeping up with his social media lately. Judging by the commodore’s tone, it’s not happy news.

He takes the three of them upstairs to the medical section, because sure, why not stick a hospital directly on top of your space navy headquarters. On the way, they talk about Pike; Kirk only met him once, but Spock served with him on the Enterprise for eleven years. According to Mendez, Pike was doing an inspection of an old cadet ship when a plate ruptured, exposing the people on the ship to delta rays. Which are a real thing, but probably not one that has much of anything to do with this. Anyway Pike went into the danger zone to rescue all the cadets that were still alive, but judging from the grim warning Mendez gives before he opens the door to Pike’s room, he didn’t come back in great shape.

They enter the room, to see a man sitting with his back towards them. When Mendez addresses him, he slowly turns around, revealing that his chair is in fact a mobility device encasing him up to his shoulders. The little that we can see of Pike himself doesn’t look real good.

[ID: A man in a hospital room with a large window looking out onto a cityscape. The man is in a kind of pyramidal chair that encases him up to his shoulders, with five round lights arranged on a panel in the front, four silver and one yellow. The man has pale hair, drooping eyelids, bubbled skin on the lower part of his face, and a huge purplish-red burn scar curving from his left temple down to his jaw.]

Kirk, Spock and McCoy look back with muted reactions—which could be called underacting, but I call it sensible, because the last thing you want to do when seeing a person who’s been injured and disfigured is scream about it, that’s not good for anyone’s mental health. Mendez goes over to Pike and says hey, you remember these guys, they wanted to come see you. In response, the yellow light on Pike’s chair flashes twice. Mendez says two flashes mean no. So, he doesn’t remember them, or he doesn’t want to see them? Mendez seems to think it’s the second one, because he asks if Pike won’t make an exception, but he only gets another no. Looks like they’ll have to leave. Kirk asks if there’s anything he can do for Pike, but he also gets a no.

As they turn to leave, though, Spock asks Pike if he can stay for a moment. The chair light flashes once for yes, so the other three exit, leaving Spock alone with his former captain.

Spock says that Pike knows why he’s come. It’s an awkward conversation. “It’s only six days away at maximum warp, and I have it well planned.” Two flashes. “I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain, but this time, I must.” Two flashes. “I know. I know it is treachery, and it’s mutiny. But I must do this.” Two flashes. “I have no choice.” Two flashes. One suspects that if there was a “goddammit, I said NO” button, Pike would be using it.

That’s not Jeffrey Hunter playing Pike here, incidentally—he declined to come back for the second pilot after the first one didn’t get picked up, and was way too expensive and busy for them to hire him back just to get covered in makeup and sit motionless in a pyramid chair. So the older Pike was played by Sean Kenney, suffering through what had to be one of the most boring acting jobs ever.

After the titles, night has fallen on the purple planet, and still Kirk and Mendez are arguing. Kirk says that Spock claiming to have received a message is all the proof he needs, but as the commodore points out, the record floppy discs tapes show no sign of that message being sent. Kirk suggests the tapes could have been altered, but Mendez says fact is that Pike could not have sent that message and Spock’s the only one who seems to have seen it anyway. Kirk points out that if Spock wanted to see Pike there’d be no need to fake a message, he could have just asked for leave. “WELL THAT’S TRUE OF COURSE!” Mendez yells, and then kind of peters out awkwardly.

The question is, if the Enterprise was nefariously diverted to the base by someone, why? There was nothing urgent going on where they were that anyone would want to get them away from. Mendez calls down to the computer lab to see if there’s any way that message could possibly have been sent from the base, but the guy on duty says that no, they’ve checked and double-checked everything possible. Mendez tells him to start checking the impossible. Dammit, why do these Starfleet types keep saying that? What is anyone supposed to do with that order? “Well, I guess we’ll go look for unicorns in the server room.”

As the computer chief gets up to go set leprechaun traps or whatever, Spock enters from the door behind him. We can tell he's up to no good because he's in stealth mode, creeping suspiciously past a partition in the back of the room and coming up behind the computer guy, who gets nerve-pinched before he even knows what's up. Spock leaves him on the floor and sets to work tampering with one of the computers. Hands-on hacking, that's how they did it back in the day.

Upstairs...downstairs? Adjacent? In another building? Wherever the commodore's office is relative to the computer lab, the redshirt woman from earlier has stopped by. Mendez introduces her to Kirk as Ms. Piper. (She's a civilian? I guess? She wears a uniform but has no rank on her sleeves.) Piper says that she recognized Kirk immediately because a mutual friend described him to her—yet another one of Kirk's old flames, evidently, judging by the way he reacts. Before we can go too far down that old road again, though, Mendez nudges Piper to make her report.

Piper says that their investigation turned up very little, except that Spock served with Pike for several years and was very loyal to him, which we already knew. Kirk butts in to say that a Vulcan “can no more be disloyal than he can exist without breathing” which applies both to Spock’s former commander and his present one. This strikes me as a rather odd thing to say. What do you mean he can't be disloyal? Can Vulcans not dislike or disagree with people that they serve under? Do they just become bound to obey anyone with a higher rank than them? Because that has all kinds of unpleasant implications. It could be that their culture simply places a very high priority on loyalty, but Kirk makes it sound like it's built into them. But then I guess Kirk is a bit on the defensive right now and he might be overstating things. Or he could just be wrong.

Anyway, Piper points out that look, they have to consider everything, and the results on the unicorns haven't come back yet. What they know for sure is that Pike couldn't have sent that message because his condition means he's under constant observation. Mendez says that Pike's chair is built to respond to his brain waves, so he can move it around a little or flash the light, but that's all he can do.

This is something that has always bothered me about this episode, to be honest. It seems weird that they're able to build Pike a chair that can respond to his brain waves but not so well that he can any do more than scoot around a little, but you know what—fine. Let's take it as a given that this is indeed the limit of the technology and medicine of the setting. But no one could think of any way that you could use that little bit that he can do to communicate any better than just yes or no? Really? He can make a light flash—y'all ever hear of morse code, aka a whole system of communication that requires nothing more than a light that can turn on and off? What about a letter board with lights so he can spell out words? If he can mentally activate a light, could he not mentally activate buttons for a text-to-speech device? Or at least a small set of pre-recorded messages? I mean, we have paralyzed patients in real life, right now, who can communicate better than poor Pike even though we have way less advanced technology, because we put some thought into how best to use the technology we do have. At least it's not like they also have people with telepathic powers in this setting—OH WAIT. THEY DO.

At any rate, Mendez reiterates that Pike couldn't have even asked for the message to be sent; his mind is fine and active, but his body can't really do anything anymore, and because everyone in this dang hospital is terrible at their jobs he can't communicate more than yes or no.

In the computer lab, Spock is playing with some wires to make a voice saying 'starbase operations' speed up and slow down. This would seem to be part of the process to synthesize a voice giving new orders to the Enterprise. That, or he was just doing it for fun. On the Enterprise Uhura receives the fake message, saying that they're getting new orders which are top secret so they're going to be fed directly into the ship's computer. This strikes both Uhura and the random guy who I guess is in charge at the moment—a goldshirt named Hansen; don't get attached he won't stick around-- as odd, so they request confirmation.

Before Spock can send that confirmation, he's interrupted by a guy coming in and demanding to know what he's doing in a secured area. He's tampering with the computers, what does it look like he's doing? Spock says he has clearance, but the guy doesn't buy it, and tries to pull him away from the computer. This results in a brief shoving match between the two, like two siblings fighting over the X-Box, before Spock remembers that oh yeah, he can do that thing that makes people go unconscious and stop bothering him.

With that problem temporarily solved, Spock is able to give Uhura confirmation by way of a convenient tape that has a recording of Kirk saying, “You have confirmation” on it. Then he puts in another one that tells them to direct all messages to Spock. Oh, well that's handy.

Spock then tells them that their course for this mission will be computed and laid in automatically, so even the helmsmen won't know where they're going. Also this is top secret so don't discuss it with anyone. Also we're leaving in an hour, so make sure you go to the bathroom beforehand.

Meanwhile, Kirk is sitting by a monitor watching Pike in his room. And y'know, while we're on the subject of Pike here, you'd really expect a completely paralyzed patient under permanent full-time care to have a room that was actually designed to fit their needs as well as possible, wouldn't you? But no, they just crammed his chair into a regular hospital room, complete with a bed taking up half the space. That's just mean. “Here's a bed, you can never use it again, but you'll have to look at constantly!” Maybe that's why Pike is currently facing the camera and flashing 'no' over and over.

McCoy comes in and says he's tried questioning Pike, who's apparently really agitated. Then he goes on a passionate rant about what good is medicine anyway when they can't use it to help this man, trapped with a perfectly functional brain but no way to reach out to people. It's very heartfelt; you sort of get the impression that DeForest Kelley knew he didn't have much to do in this whole story but damn if he wasn't going to do the most he could with what he did have.

Kirk isn't impressed, though; in fact he just keeps staring at the monitor with no sign that he heard McCoy at all. The two of them question what Pike is saying 'no' to; it's an answer but they have no hope of guessing the correct question. But Kirk seems less focused on the plight of Pike and more on this whole mystery about the message. Either someone at the base sent them that message, or someone on the ship lied about receiving it—and he's starting to wonder if, in fact, that someone was Spock.

McCoy doesn't buy that at all; even regardless of how well they know Spock, he says, Vulcans can't lie. Later evidence throughout the show points more towards “Vulcans really want people to think they can't lie” but McCoy doesn't know that yet. And while, yes, Spock is half-human, he so fully identifies as Vulcan that McCoy doesn't see any chance of him acting or thinking like a human; he'd be ashamed to do so.

But Kirk's getting riled up. Someone is messing with his ship and he really hates it when that happens. At this point everyone is under suspicion as far as he's concerned—he'd even suspect McCoy if he thought McCoy knew how to fake a message like that. McCoy is perfectly willing to admit that he could absolutely run off and do some wild bullshit if the mood struck him, but he still insists that Spock wouldn't.

The argument has just about escalated into a shouting match, but it's abruptly derailed by a message on the intercom telling McCoy to report to the transporter. Apparently he's needed on the Enterprise because of a medical emergency, but the guy on the line doesn't know what it is, just that they need McCoy for it. McCoy seems less than impressed by this—reasonably enough, considering that apparently someone managed to get themselves so injured the remaining medical staff can't deal with it while in a safe orbit--but he heads off, promising to let Kirk know what's up when he finds out.

Some indeterminate time later, Mendez is showing Kirk a sealed dossier with TALOS IV—TOP SECRET FOR EYES OF STARFLEET COMMAND ONLY on the front. Mendez asks Kirk what he knows about Talos 4, and Kirk says he only knows what everyone knows—General Order Seven forbids any ship from ever going there for any reason. In fact, Starfleet is so serious about this that it warrants the death penalty—the only one there is left anymore, apparently, but Mendez says that only Fleet Command knows why. Hold on a minute, can Starfleet really enforce the death penalty? They're not actually the government, they're like...the space navy. Do they really have that much power? It'd really suck if we as a society decided to abolish the death penalty, only for Starfleet to come in and be like, “Yeah, we just need it for this one thing though. We're not gonna tell you what it is. Just trust us.”

Apparently this whole business is so secret that even the super-duper secret file Kirk has in front of him doesn't explain what's up. Mendez unseals it and we see the terrible contents.

[ID: A paper inside a red folder which reads: TOP SECRET. For eyes of STARFLEET Command only. Subject: TALOS IV in third quadrant of vernal galaxy. Known facts: Detailed information cross referenced with 3XY phagrin level-mass computer. The only Earthship that ever visited planet Talos IV was the U.S.S. Enterprise commanded by Captain Christopher Pike with Half-Vulcan Science Officer Spock. Recommendations: Be it hereby noted that said following instructions be incorporated into STARFLEET policy--NO ONE WILL EVER VISIT TALOS IV. The following officers have visited Talos IV and recommended that no human should ever visit it again--Captain Christopher Pike--Half-Vulcan Science Officer Spock.]

And that's it. It gives information that's relevant in the context of the episode, but it's difficult to see why those specific facts would be in any way useful to anyone else. It's basically Exposition: The File. Also, what's with the weird obsession with pointing out that Spock is half-Vulcan? Is that really so relevant that it needs to be mentioned constantly in case anyone forgets? Why is he so important to this document anyway if he was just the Science Officer at the time? Spock is important on Kirk's Enterprise because he's the Science Officer and the First Officer. Being First Officer is the bit that makes him right below the captain in the chain of command, just being Science Officer doesn't make him really relevant to big Starfleet policy decisions.

Kirk and Mendez briefly restate the important bits of the document, for the sake of the audience that didn't have highly detailed screens and a pause button, but before they can get into it they're interrupted by a shout from Piper. She'd been watching—well, kind of staring blankly at, to be honest—the exciting live video feed of Pike's quarters, looked away for just a moment, and when she looked back Pike was gone. Evidently he only moves when you’re not looking at him, like a Weeping Angel or Watson in that one Sherlock Holmes game.

While Kirk and Mendez sit there not emoting about this, a message comes in on Mendez's terminal. The Enterprise is leaving orbit, and refusing to acknowledge the base. That's significant enough news for Kirk to turn grimly to the camera before commercial.

Up on the Enterprise, Hansen remarks that it's odd to be heading out with no navigator at the helm, but Spock tells him the Enterprise knows where it's going. I guess Sulu is just gonna get to sleep in today. Come to think of it, one wonders why they need navigators on duty all the time if the computer can do such a good job of it.

Uhura says that they're being hailed, but Spock tells her to keep maintaining radio silence. Then he makes an announcement over the PA: their mission is secret, he's in charge, and Kirk was assigned medical rest leave until they get back. Now everybody go about your business. Nothing to see here, carry on, carry on.

Of course, Spock can tell most people on the ship not to question his orders, but there's one person undeterred by any secret mission or Starfleet orders, and certainly not deterred by Spock: McCoy, who's just come up on the bridge demanding to know what the frell is going on around here. He can't find the source of that emergency that called him back up to the ship, and now Spock is saying Kirk needs medical rest leave? What is this nonsense?

Spock calmly admits that there are some things McCoy hasn't been told, and asks the doctor to come with him. The two of them go to...uh...someone's room, where, much to McCoy's surprise and consternation, Pike is hanging out in the corner, his light still flashing 'no'. Before McCoy can really get into a good rant, Spock plays him a message from Kirk saying that McCoy is to take care of Pike, ask him no questions, and obey Spock's orders. We've still yet to get an explanation as to how Spock is managing to make these fake recordings, anyway. I guess audio editing software has just come a long way by this point.

I'm really not sure what McCoy is supposed to be doing for Pike anyway. You'd expect a patient in his condition to need considerable life support, but we never see any more of him than his head sticking out of that chair, and there was no sign of any other medical equipment in his hospital room. I guess his chair just takes care of all his biological functions? If so I don't know if McCoy can do a whole lot more than maybe put a blanket over him or something.

Spock leaves McCoy (who's got a 'I may be quiet right now but you better believe I haven't given this one up yet' look on his face) to ponder this and goes back up to the bridge, where Hansen tells him that there's an object following them that's suspiciously the size of a Starfleet shuttlecraft. Which makes this the first appearance, in airing order, of said shuttlecrafts, though it’ll be a bit longer before we see any of the actual Enterprise ones. Hansen wants to know if they should turn around or at least stop so the shuttlecraft can catch up to them, but Spock says no, full speed ahead and no contact.

So the Enterprise trundles on through space, followed by a shuttlecraft occupied by Kirk and Mendez. Mendez is trying to make contact with the Enterprise, ordering them to respond to his message, but he's having no luck. By now they're sure that Spock is indeed heading to Talos 4, but they've got no chance of catching up to the bigger ship, and if they go any further they won't have enough fuel to get back to the base.

Spock seems to be thinking along the same lines, because we see him talking to the ship's computer, first asking it to confirm that the object following them is a shuttlecraft, and then asking how long the craft has before it has to return to base. The computer tells him that the craft is already past the point of no return. I'm not sure how it knows this, but the Enterprise computer works in mysterious ways.

Sure enough, the little shuttlecraft that could(n't) soon runs out of fuel, leaving them to coast. Which they will presumably do forever or until they bump into something, because that's how space works, but probably we shouldn't think too much about how space works while watching Star Trek. Kirk angrily stalks around the cabin and tells Mendez that the commodore should never have come anyway, but Mendez cheerfully tells him that he's high-ranking enough that he can do what he wants.

They've got life support for now, at least, but only two hours until the oxygen runs out. Kirk glumly ruminates that he almost hopes that the Enterprise doesn't come back for them because if they catch up to Spock he'll be court-martialed into the next galaxy. Or, if he makes it to Talos 4, executed. I guess the punishment for going to Talos 4 is Federation-wide, even though it's hard to see the Vulcans being onboard with the whole death penalty thing. It's a bit difficult to disentangle Starfleet, the Federation, and the individual planets in the Federation at the best of times but this episode is really making things confusing.

Mendez wonders what reason Spock could have for taking Pike back to Talos 4—according to the reports, the planet has nothing of benefit to offer. Kirk says there Spock has to have a logical reason, but Mendez says maybe he just went mad. You know, like people just do from time to time.

Spock, for his part, seems to still be quite calm and rational about all this, but McCoy's doing his best to change that, standing on the bridge and loudly wondering just who could be in that mysterious shuttlecraft. As usual Spock ignores him; he's busy with locking a tractor beam onto the shuttlecraft, then having the Enterprise come to a halt so they can pick it up.

Then he tells Security to send an armed team to the bridge, tells the transporter room to get ready to beam Kirk aboard, and puts Hansen in command. Which seems odd—well, for the obvious reason, but also because I'm pretty sure there are more people in the chain of command between the First Officer and a random goldshirt we've never seen before or since. Heck, where's Scotty? He's high-ranking enough to take command if both Kirk and Spock are away. Did they leave him behind too? Even Hansen seems confused by this. Poor Hansen—he's having a very confusing day.

Spock then turns to McCoy and says that, since McCoy is the senior officer present, Spock is presenting himself to the good doctor for arrest. This absolutely blindsides McCoy, who had probably been wondering if Spock had finally called a security team on him to make him go away. Spock confesses that he never received orders to take command and has in fact committed mutiny, then waits calmly as the security team arrives. McCoy, for his part, is completely flummoxed, and just kind of stands there in shock for a moment until Spock gently reminds him that he's supposed to be doing something.

This is but a little moment, but a nice bit of characterization. I think McCoy, out of all the main cast, is the one that feels least connected to the identity of being a Starfleet officer. He's a doctor, dammit, and he's fine with fussing at people or even pulling rank in that capacity because it comes out of the perspective of being their doctor. That's how he identifies himself—being in Starfleet is just kind of something that happened to him. But this is asking him to act as a ranking officer, to exert command over someone else in an entirely non-medical sense, and he is clearly neither familiar nor comfortable with that role. I don't think he would be regardless of who he was dealing with here, but the fact that it's Spock he's being asked to bring the hammer down on just makes it even worse. Sure, McCoy will badger and pester and tease Spock, and just this far into the series we haven't seen their friendship develop much, but the fact that McCoy is stunned and dismayed rather than being gleeful over the opportunity to do something like this pretty clearly shows that he does respect Spock and has no desire to see him genuinely brought down.

But eventually McCoy manages to tell the security team that Spock is under arrest—and then, adorably, has to ask Spock himself if confinement to quarters will be enough. Spock says that will be fine since he's not planning on making trouble, and calmly walks away with the redshirts.

Meanwhile Kirk is telling Scotty to beam the two of them up and stick the shuttlecraft in the hanger. Wait, so Scotty is here. I guess he just couldn't be bothered to walk up to the bridge to be in command for the five minutes or so until Kirk got back?

Hansen clearly wants none of this either; Kirk has barely stepped off the platform before Hansen is rushing forward to transfer command back to him. Kirk takes it back and asks where Spock is, and Hansen says he's been confined to quarters. Mendez is shocked that he was only confined to quarters. Look, Mendez, everyone's doing the best they can right now, okay, it's been a very hard day.

Before they can start getting into that, though, Uhura calls down to say that the engines are coming back on. Kirk says to belay that and stop the ship, only to be informed that the ship is now under computer control that they can't disengage from. Scotty is outraged by this and storms off to go yell at the computer until it behaves. Kirk tries to override the computer controls himself, but the computer says that it can't disengage until they reach Talos 4, and any attempt to do so will screw up the ship's life support.

So it looks like they're stuck for the long haul as the ship carries on towards Talos 4. In the meantime, they're going to hold a preliminary hearing for Spock. As a way to kill time on long trips I generally prefer a good podcast playlist, but you guys do you.

The hearing convenes, with Kirk and Mendez sitting in judgment, accompanied by a couple of security guards and a redshirt with a computer who I guess is gonna be the stenographer or whatever. Kirk begins by reminding Spock that he has the right to representation, but Spock says he waives that right. In fact, he's waiving his right to the hearing itself, and wants to go straight to a court-martial. Kirk is like “What? No.” When pressed to provide an actual reason, he says that a court-martial for mutiny requires three officers of command rank, and since Scotty is presumably still busy swearing at the computer they've only got Kirk and Mendez. But Spock points out that actually, there is another such officer aboard: Pike. Because despite his condition, Pike is still technically on active duty. Mendez says they “didn't have the heart to retire him.” Oh, oh you didn't have the heart. Well I'm sure that's a great comfort to the man. He's stuck in a mobile iron lung for the rest of his life and can only say yes or no because no one could be arsed to find a better way for him to communicate, but at least his name is still on some paperwork somewhere.

But Spock's rules-lawyering checks out, so it looks like they'll have to hold a court martial after all. By Starfleet regulations a court-martial is required to be spiffier than just a hearing, so they move to a different but nearly identical room, put dress uniforms on, and stick a couple of flags in the background. Also they've dug out a large bell from somewhere so Mendez can hit it with a mallet at important moments. Scotty and McCoy are now in attendance as well, though for some reason only McCoy had to wear the dress shirt. I don’t really know why they brought those two, honestly; I mean I always like having them around but they really have nothing to do except sit there and look glum. And, of course, Pike has been brought in too. They didn’t dress him up, though.

Spock is still waiving his counsel and has pled guilty. Well, that sorts that out, I guess. Mendez points out that if the vessel makes it all the way to the Talos system there will be another charge brought against him that carries the death penalty, which Spock is aware of and doesn't seem real bothered about.

Mendez demands to know why Spock is doing all this, and Spock responds by requesting the use of the room's monitor screen so he can show evidence to explain himself. Maybe he's prepared a powerpoint? No, evidently, for the screen shows video, a shot of the Enterprise itself that sweeps in to focus on the bridge. But not the bridge we know—this is the Enterprise thirteen years ago, Spock explains, under the command of Captain Pike. The set design is clearly different, though still reminiscent of the one we know, and the crew are wearing heavier shirts similar to the ones from Where No Man Has Gone Before.

On the screen, we see Spock telling Pike that something is headed towards them, but before we can find out what it is, Kirk turns the screen off and asks Pike if that guy on the screen was really him. Pike says yes. You can understand Kirk’s confusion though; young Pike and old Pike look so unalike it’s almost like they were played by two different actors or something. Kirk says this is impossible—ships don't make record tapes in that much detail. Presumably they also don't usually make record tapes that include shots from outside the ship, unless all starships are constantly being followed by a camera ship like on Deadliest Catch. They probably also don’t make record tapes with multiple camera angles and close-ups at appropriately dramatic moments. So what are they looking at? Spock says he can't tell them yet, and Pike confirms that this isn't a record tape from that voyage.

Mendez says this evidence is automatically invalid since they have no idea what it is or what it came from, but Kirk says he wants to see more. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with Spock being his friend! Kirk is totally impartial in this matter! Really!

So they turn the screen back on and resume watching. Spock explains that they were on patrol at the time when they detected something coming toward the ship at the speed of light. Not another cube, hopefully. Pike declines to engage defensive maneuvers and proceeds full speed ahead, and they soon find out what the approaching thing is: a radio wave. You guys can't tell the difference between a radio wave and a physical object coming at you? I hope they upgraded the Enterprise's sensors sometime in the ensuing thirteen years.

Specifically, the radio wave is an old distress signal (there's a lot of those bouncing around the galaxy). It was a survey ship, apparently, the S.S. Columbia, that got in trouble and had to make a forced landing—somewhere in the Talos star system. This was eighteen years ago, which is how long it took their distress signal to carry this far. Not terribly useful as a distress signal, was it.

Spock exposits—loudly—that the Talos star system is unexplored, but they know it has eleven planets, and the fourth one is Class M, meaning it has an oxygen atmosphere and it would be possible for the survey crew to have survived there—if they made it through the crash landing. But with no guarantee of survivors Pike isn't going to divert course to check it out, because there are injured crewmen aboard so they have a pressing need to make it to the colony they're headed for. He gives the conn to his first officer, a dark-haired woman working the helm, and leaves the bridge.

Pike heads through the corridors, inexplicably passing by a man and woman in modern-looking civilian clothing.

[ID: A man and a woman, seen from behind, walking through the Enterprise corridors. The woman is wearing a pink sleeveless shirt with a white pleated skirt, and the man is wearing a blue and black striped t-shirt with blue shorts.]

He enters his quarters, calls up one Doctor Boyce and tells him to come by, and then flops moodily onto the bed. One thing hasn't changed in thirteen years—the total lack of blankets in the Enterprise quarters. Everyone just sleeps on a bare mattress. In their boots.

All of about five seconds after being called, the doctor comes in, carrying a rectangular case with him. Pike protests that there's nothing wrong with him, but Boyce has a different kind of medicine in mind, and proceeds to put together a martini from the contents of the case. He's reckoned that Pike has more on his mind than just getting the doctor's opinion about the distress signal in his log, and quips that “sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor.”

You can definitely see ideas here that would eventually evolve into the character of our own good Doctor McCoy—the ship's doctor who is also a personal confidant for the captain, with a liking for serving drinks and philosophizing. But, while I'll grant it's hard to tell since we don't see all that much of him, Boyce feels distinctly less interesting. He's more passive and neutral, less emotional and...well, he's just not DeForest Kelley, dammit.

Boyce coaxes Pike into talking about what's really bothering him: a fight on Rigel 7 that killed three crewmen and wounded seven others, discussed in just enough detail to tantalize the prospective network. Pike is beating himself up for letting the whole thing happen, though Boyce doesn’t think he could have done anything differently. He's tired of this whole bloody captain thing anyway, tired of having to make dangerous calls and be responsible for life and death. He's so tired he's thinking about resigning altogether, maybe going back home and hanging out with his horses. When Boyce expresses disdain for such a boring life, Pike fires back that he doesn't have to do that, he could—he could become an Orion trader! Boyce is incredulous of the idea of Pike “dealing in green animal women slaves” and Pike says the point is that being a captain isn't the only life available. Um—sorry, Pike, just, uh, hold up, go back a minute there—did you just put out slave trader as a possible career option? We just, uh, we just not gonna talk about that? Just a little?

But Boyce seems less concerned with the ethics of Pike's potential career choices and more with the fact that he doesn't see Pike being happy as anything but a starship captain. “A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head on and licks it,” he says, “or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.” That’s right, life is just a bunch of things that happen to you and if you don’t like it you die. Real men don’t make choices about their future! That’s quitting talk!

Pike comments that he’s starting to talk more like a doctor than a bartender, to which Boyce replies that they both get the same kinds of customers: “the living...and the dying.” Well that’s fair enough for doctors, but if you’re a bartender and your customers are dying I feel like you’re doing your job very wrong.

Mercifully this dreary conversation is interrupted by a call from Spock: they’ve gotten another message, a follow-up to the distress signal saying that there are indeed crash survivors on Talos 4. We cut to the bridge, where a computer prints out a paper copy of the message for a crewman to read out loud. Wow, this future technology really is something. The message says that there are survivors, the planet is habitable, and they can get food and water, but unless...unleeeeeess? Unleeeeess? We don’t know, because the message stops there.

This is enough to convince Pike that they’re going to check out Talos 4 for survivors. Which is a bit odd: one would presume the second message is also about eighteen years old (because if they could send a quicker message why not do that in the first place) which means either there’s no survivors left at this point or if there are they’ve survived almost two decades so they’ll probably be okay for a few more days, whereas the injured crewman on the Enterprise might not be. But who am I to question the judgment of a Starfleet captain.

As the helmsmen lay in the course, the camera draws back from the scene and into the trial room. Mendez, it seems, has had enough. He turns the screen off and tells Spock alright, very good, very creative, don’t know how you did it--but this isn’t a theater, it’s a court of space law, which is like regular law but in space. Spock calls in Pike for backup, asking him to confirm that they’re watching events that really happened rather than something Spock made up, which Pike does. It’s the real deal, Spock says, and if they’re not convinced by the time they’ve watched the whole thing then he’ll unlock the computer control and turn the ship around.

Mendez is outraged by this and is ready to end the trial here and now. Kirk still wants to hear the rest of the story. It’s up to Pike to be the tiebreaker. He sides with Kirk, naturally, since after all we’ve still got a lot of footage left to use.

With that pointless bit of padding over, the story continues. The Enterprise of the past has arrived at Talos 4, and preliminary studies indicate that the planet is indeed safe for human life. A helmsman spots reflections on the planet’s surface that look like metal, possibly the remains of a spaceship. Pike assembles a landing party, including Spock and the helmsman, but not the first officer, who he wants to stay behind because they need an experienced officer on the ship in case things go bad on the planet. They can’t afford to lost their second most important person, after all! Only the first most important person can take that risk.

The landing party gets ready to head out, putting on heavy jackets and shoulder holsters for gear first, because this was before Starfleet instituted the Just Go Down In Your Shirts Or Whatever, It’ll Probably Be Fine policy. They beam down into a dusty landscape filled with rocks, with the only sign of life being a few grim-looking plants. Mountains loom in the distance under a greenish sky filled with thick black clouds. It’s not a welcoming kind of place.

Phasers at the ready, the group moves through the rocks. From this perspective you can see that Spock is limping, meant to be an indication that he was also injured during whatever happened on Rigel 7, but it’s never elaborated on in the episode. They hear a strange humming sound and follow it to its source, a plant with bright blue vibrating leaves. Pike and Spock are intrigued by it, and Spock actually grins with enjoyment, a weird thing to see. It’s a remnant of the different writing for the original pilot and how Nimoy’s character choices differed when he was playing against the more serious Pike versus when he was playing against Kirk, but since they wound up using the footage it’s canon now and we just gotta deal with that.

Leaf enjoyment over, the party goes back to wandering through the canyon until, what ho, there are some survivors over there. They’ve got a base camp among the rocks made of scavenged materials and spaceship parts. There’s quite a few survivors in the camp, all older men (white, natch) wearing extremely ragged clothing. They’re stunned and overjoyed to see the Enterprise crew, and ask if Earth is alright, evidently not trusting in humanity to not destroy the planet when left alone for eighteen years. Which, I mean, that’s fair.

The conversation comes to a sudden halt when the crewmen catch sight of an incredibly shocking phenomenon: a woman. Unlike the other survivors she’s young, and while her clothes are still ragged, they’re ragged in a suspiciously tight and skimpy way instead of the random shreds everyone else is dealing with. Also, since she’s been living in a makeshift shipwreck colony on an inhospitable planet for almost two decades, naturally she’s wearing makeup and her skin and hair are pristine. And she walks seductively to boot.

[ID: A survivor’s camp made from scavenged equipment, with a few survivors in worn clothing standing around. In the center of the image is a white woman wearing a ripped, sleeveless blue shirt with a very low neckline and a brown skirt made of some kind of scavenged fabric. She has short, puffy blonde hair and is looking at the camera with a somewhat dazed expression.]

The lead survivor introduces the woman as Vina and says that she was born right before they crashed. So she’s only eighteen. Doesn’t she look it? Pike keeps on ogling at her, because that’s not creepy at all.

While this nonsense is happening, the view draws back again—but not to the conference room in the present this time. Instead, the scene is being remotely observed in a cave by three figures in shapeless gray robes. They look pretty much human except that the tops of their heads are bulging and covered in veins. Because they are Very Smart, you see. They watch dispassionately while the survivors and crewmen mingle, before one of them nods and the other two head off.

Meanwhile the crewmen are helping the survivors pack up their camp, while Pike gets on the phone to tell the Enterprise they’re going to start beaming people up soon. But, like the alert professional he is, he’s distracted mid-sentence by a woman looking at him. Vina tells Pike that he appears to be healthy and intelligent, a “prime specimen.” The lead survivor next to her passes this bit of creepiness off by saying that Vina’s lived her whole life with a bunch of aging scientists. Yeah, sure, that’s definitely how scientists talk.

Boyce comes up to make a report to Pike, telling him that the health of the survivors is good...too good. The leader tells them that there’s a secret for why their health is so great, but they weren’t sure if Earth was ready for it. They seem to have made their decision now, though, because he sends Vina off with Pike to show him the truth. Naturally, Pike lets Vina lead him off alone, without anyone else in the party for backup.

Vina takes Pike to an especially big rock some way away from the camp, where she insists that the secret is, even though Pike can’t see anything. She says that he will understand, and that he’s a “perfect choice.” Then she vanishes. Back at the survivors’ camp, so do the survivors and all their equipment, leaving only a stunned landing party standing among the empty rocks.

Before Pike has a chance to react to the mysterious disappearing girl, a door in the rock slides open and the two Brainheads from before emerge. One of them holds out a little metal cylinder that sprays Pike with orange gas, knocking him unconscious. The landing party realizes something’s up and they all race after Pike, arriving just in time to see him being taken by the Brainheads, who close the door before anyone can get through it. They immediately try to take down the door with phasers, but all they succeed in doing is destroying the suspiciously plaster-like rock facade on the front of it. No matter how much they shoot at it, the door itself remains untouched.

Back in the present, the court martial attendees watch Past!Spock make a call to the Enterprise informing them of the situation, before Kirk shuts the screen off again. There’s been a message for Mendez, conveniently timed at a good stopping place. The message is that Starfleet has observed that the Enterprise is receiving transmissions from Talos 4, which is against the rules. That’s right—the call was coming from Talos 4!

Anyway, Kirk’s being relieved and Mendez is ordered to take control of the ship and do whatever he has to to turn it around. Mendez points out to Spock that by deliberately having contact with Talos 4, Spock is inviting the death penalty—not just for himself, but for Kirk too. Spock’s okay with the first part, but upon hearing that Kirk is now under the gun as well he jumps up and says that Kirk didn’t know about any of this, okay, it’s not his fault. But Mendez says that because Kirk is captain, he’s responsible for everything that happens on the ship.

Spock is ordered to return the ship to manual control, but he declines. Respectfully. Mendez puts the court in recess and everyone leaves except for Kirk and Spock, and the security guys. Kirk demands to know what the hell Spock is doing, and Spock tells Kirk not to stop him or let Mendez stop him. Both Kirk’s career and Pike’s life are on the line. Also Spock’s career and life, but whatever. He even calls Kirk ‘Jim’, so you know he’s serious.

Kirk stands there for a moment, grim-faced, obviously struggling inside, before ordering the redshirts to take Spock away. They do, and Kirk is left standing there, deeply troubled, alone in the empty room as the credits start to roll. Credits with background images that contain a couple spoilers for the next episode. Nice going, guys.

It’s difficult to really draw a conclusion here yet, since we’re only halfway through the story, so I’ll save my thoughts until we’re done.

TREK TROPE TALLY: None for this episode. As the end credits said, we’ll see this concluded next time, with The Menagerie Part II.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek season one #1.11 The Menagerie Part One #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.11 The Menagerie Part One recap

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