Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to Starbase 11 for a big Starfleet cheese and wine party only to be informed that there is no party and that no invitation was sent.
The landing party learn that Pike, the former Captain of the Enterprise has had a terrible accident, leaving him looking like the ugly brother of Davros, and only able to communicate by flashing a light once for yes, twice for no and three times for I’m a hideous mutant – kill me now!
Spock reveals privately to Pike (his former Captain) that he is working on a plan. Pike realises what Spock is up to but seems reluctant to play along.
Meanwhile, Kirk argues with Mendez, the head honcho of the space base, about the cheese and wine message he believes they received. Kirk was looking forward to a nice Sauvignon Blanc and Dairylea triangle. What Kirk doesn’t know is that Spock sent the invite and is now sending messages to the Enterprise ordering the crew on a top secret mission using co-ordinates he is locking into the ship’s computer. Spock sends a message (in Kirk’s voice) ordering the crew to do whatever he tells them. Time for a ship-wide Mexican wave, Mr Spock?
Mendez tells Kirk about a secret mission to the planet Talos IV by Pike and Spock. This mission forbade anyone from ever going there. More on this later.
After being informed that the Enterprise has left without him, Kirk and Mendez jump in a shuttle craft in hot pursuit (a little like using a bicycle to catch a Ferrari). When it becomes apparent that the shuttle will become stranded Spock presents himself for arrest and collects Kirk and Mendez. In Spock’s situation, I would have also glued a fish to my face and started bellowing the lyrics to “Desperado” in preparation for an insanity defence, but it never occurs to his logical mind.
Spock’s co-ordinates are locked in. The Enterprise is heading for Talos IV and nobody can figure out how to reset the computers (“Try switching it off and on again, Mr Sulu”). Spock goes on trial for Mutiny.
His defence begins with footage of the Talos IV mission. Spock looks a lot younger, more eyebrowy and acts more emotionally than we are used to. Pike looks less melty and more heroic. Hey, isn’t that Nurse Chapel? No, apparently it’s ‘Number One’, the second in command. The similarity is striking.
As any Star Trek fan will tell you, the footage being shown is actually the pilot episode. The good people at Star Trek Studios found an incredibly clever way of using a pre-filmed story with only one member of the current cast, and transforming it into a two-part story with Kirk’s crew. It really is done exceptionally well.
Pike, Spock and the crew receive a distress signal from Talos IV. They beam down to help and meet a group of scientists and their attractive space girl friend Vena. She leads Pike to an underground bunker, where he is abducted by aliens with heads shaped like buttocks.
Meanwhile, back in court, the drama is heating up. Spock’s video evidence is being beamed from Telos IV, in direct opposition to the law. Kirk will be fired for this, and worse, he’ll lose his Captain’s hat, cape and travel iron.
As the trial continues, more footage is shown. Pike wakes up in a glass cage while an alien with a large buttock-shaped head communicates telepathically with him. It seems they can predict his every move.
Pike finds himself sharing various illusions with Vena, killing Space Vikings to defend her, becoming an Orion Slave Trader while she dances (with green skin) and even on Earth having a picnic with his old horse Tango.
In one envious part, two female crew members are kidnapped and put into Pike’s cell. He is to be used as ‘breeding stock’ with whichever girl he wants. Vena with her prettiness, Number One with her superior mind or the young space girl with her “unusually strong female drives” (shoe shopping? watching soaps? celebrity gossip? Oh, wait, I get it now.)
Eventually Pike figures out that the buttock-heads cannot read primitive thoughts and manages to capture one. With phaser in hand, he blasts out of the cell. At that moment, more buttock-heads appear and inform the crew that they have finishes assimilating information from the ship. The humans have an unusually high resistance to captivity and so would be no use to them. They are free to go. This revelation, basically, makes all Pike’s efforts redundant. He’d have been better off enjoying the fantasies.
We learn that Vena cannot leave the buttock-headed people because she was hideously disfigured and her beauty is an illusion maintained by the aliens. Although, I’m pretty sure disfigured people would be able to roam around space, and would probably fit in quite nicely with some of the more unusual looking extra-terrestrial life out there.
And so, it becomes obvious why Spock had kidnapped the Enterprise and his former Captain. It was so that Pike could live the rest of his life in Vena’s fantasy world. It seems preferable to being Mr Flashy-Light.
The story wraps up with Spock getting away with the charges against him. Not because of the compassion of the Commander, but because the Commander was also an illusion. This makes me wonder why the aliens needed somebody on their planet at all. If they can project illusions so far away, surely they could get what they need as well. Just a thought.
The Menagerie is a fascinating episode. The way the pilot episode is recycled and weaved into a new story is very cleverly done. If you weren’t aware that this was what they had done, you could easily believe that this was how the episode was written from the outset.
Vena is an amazing character and manages to be at the same time vulnerable, smouldering, persuasive and tragic. While in the original pilot episode, she ends up with an illusion of Pike, in The Menagerie, she actually gets her man. It all works out beautifully.
When the original series was re-mastered, one of the cinemas in Edinburgh showed a special screening of The Menagerie with all-new special effects. My friends and I went along. It was great to see a classic episode on the big screen. The new effects looked incredible (especially the scene where the camera zooms from outside the Enterprise into the bridge). There’s one scene in which the female crew members are abducted in front of Spock’s eyes. Spock over-dramatically shouts “The Women!” and the whole audience laughed! It was this screening which planted a seed in my mind that would ultimately grow into the Girls in Space project you are currently reading. So, this is an important episode for me personally, and one which I will always thoroughly enjoy.
Cast:
William Shatner as James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
DeForest Kelley as Leonard H. McCoy
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
Guest Cast:
Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike
Malachi Throne as Com. Jose I. Mendez
Sean Kenney as Injured Pike
Julie Parrish as Miss Piper
Susan Oliver as Vina
Meg Wyllie as Keeper
Malachi Throne as Keeper’s voice
Majel Barrett as Number One
Peter Duryea as Lieutenant Jose Tyler
Laurel Goodwin as Yeoman J.M. Colt
John Hoyt as Dr. Phillip Boyce
Creative Staff:
Director: Marc Daniels
Written By: Gene Roddenberry
Official Episode Guide
