On The Eve Of Discovery, A Look Back At Star Trek’s First Pilot(s): Shuttle Pod 42 Enhanced

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This Sunday, the sixth live-action Star Trek television series will make its debut. For the subsequent week, Star Trek: Discovery will be judged on this two-part pilot episode alone. Pilots are important to any series. They set up the premise of the show while introducing us to the people who will guide us through a brand new world over the coming years.

Discovery, of course, comes on the heels of over 50 years of Star Trek. But, the entire franchise was at one time judged on just two episodes. The original pilot, “The Cage” looks today like some kind of distant relative of the TOS we came to know. The episode, which starred Jeffrey Hunter as captain of the Enterprise, didn’t quite sell the show to the network, and so “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was created, a second pilot to appease the network’s desire for more action and a less broody lead.

Listen as Kayla, Brian, Matt, and Jared take a look back at the first two pilots in Star Trek history and discuss what worked, what didn’t, and how the episodes set up what Star Trek was to become.

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[kgreenbaum]

I may be remembering it wrong, but I seem to recall that Pike had been at the end of a long string of very challenging missions by the time we met him in the Trek pilot, which explained -- for me -- the weariness that the character displays.