While the Star Trek franchise is now one of the most iconic in sci-fi history on the big and small screen, all of its many movies and spinoffs might never have happened thanks to its misjudged original pilot episode. As much as the Star Wars franchise dominates the big screen, there can be no doubt about which franchise is the sci-fi genre’s most iconic TV creation. From The Next Generation to Picard, the Star Trek franchise has given sci-fi TV some of its most memorable shows ever.
Videos by ComicBook.com
However, the success of Star Trek wasn’t always written in the stars. On the contrary, the show’s original pilot was a disaster, dismissed by executives at NBC as too wordy and cerebral and lacking in action that viewers could get their teeth into. Not only did “The Cage” lack almost all of the memorable characters viewers would come to love, save for Star Trek’s Spock, but the original pilot also had a plot that risked ending interest in the franchise before it even began.
Star Trek’s Original Pilot “The Cage” Could Have Ruined The Entire Franchise
With a dull, muted visual palette, “The Cage” didn’t look much like the vibrant, colourful vision of the future found in Star Trek: The Original Series. However, these cosmetic changes were the least of the episode’s issues. The knotty, needlessly convoluted plot offers little in the way of exposition, making this a rare sci-fi TV show where things are explained too little, instead of too much.
However, what truly kills “The Cage” is its characters, or lack thereof. As great as Jeffrey Hunter was in the iconic Western The Searchers, his Captain Christopher Pike is a surly, boorish protagonist who is tough to root for even without addressing his almost comical sexism. Although the Star Trek franchise has its fair share of flawed characters, the main issue with the rest of the lead characters is that, outside of Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, they largely fail to make much of an impression on the viewer.
Star Trek Isn’t The Only Iconic Franchise To Reshoot Its Pilot Episode
The storyline of “The Cage” concerns a group of telepathic aliens looking for a human male to join their menagerie, and elements of this serviceable storyline were later used (alongside some footage taken straight from the unaired pilot) in season 1, episodes 11 and 12, “The Menagerie.” While this meant that series creator Gene Rodenberry was able to get around some of the pilot’s sunk cost, he need not have worried too much.
Not only did the Star Trek franchise become a historic success that has spawned over a dozen shows in the years since, but plenty of other high-profile TV hits also needed to reshoot their pilots after a tough start. Famously, both Gilmore Girls and The Big Bang Theory recast major characters after their original pilots failed to win over audiences.
However, perhaps the most notable instance of this phenomenon was when HBO spent $10 million on Game of Thrones episode 1, only to start all over again when this early version of the adaptation simply didn’t work. Like Star Trek’s original pilot episode, this was another instance where a full-scale do-over proved to be more than justifiable in the long run, to say the least.
