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Episodes viewed: “The Cage,” “The Man Trap,” “Charlie X,” “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “The Naked Time”

The most intimidating aspect of tackling the original Trek is that it’s not a series bent on setting and obeying rules. It’s essentially the Greek mythology of the franchise – the characters are often reckless and deeply flawed, serving more as a moral base for the viewer than as an example to be acknowledged and followed. The Zeus of the USS Enterprise, Captain James T. Kirk is a man undeniably deserving of respect – but still one who can, and does, succumb to the same passions and foibles that all humans do.

A question that immediately arose was the order in which the series should be viewed. The episodes follow an established chronology but were aired out of order, due in large part to the more blasé attitude toward serialized television in the 1960s. I ultimately chose to use the original airdates as a guide, primarily because this is a viewer’s project rather than a scholar’s project, and how the country saw the show unfold in the ’60s is more important to me than the show’s (very limited) continuity.

Captain Christopher Pike, of no relation to the author of
The Last Vampire 5: Evil Thirst.

What’s particularly interesting about Trek’s genesis is that the show has two beginnings. The first of these is the series’ official pilot, “The Cage,” featuring Jeffrey Hunter at the helm of the Enterprise as Captain Christopher Pike. Pike has Kirk’s bravado but none of his swagger – he’s a strong leader but a crushingly bland personality, best left alone as a towering figure in the Trek mythos. The episode itself shows the series already exploring what would become familiar ground, with Pike being held captive by a race of aliens with superior mental abilities on a planet that, as far as I can tell, appears to be Earth:

Talos IV from space. Note the presence of Florida, South America.

The legendary Mr. Spock is the only character who wasn’t nixed by the producers for the show’s second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” commissioned because “The Cage” was deemed too cerebral for television audiences. While the episode’s plot isn’t as striking as its predecessor’s, it provides a nice counterpoint by keeping the action confined to the ship itself, with a rogue crewmember gaining godlike abilities and threatening the safety of the crew, et cetera. With a couple of exceptions, the gang’s all here now, and they’ve brought along a whole cadre of other boring crew members:

Third from left is Dr. Mark Piper, notably less awesome than Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy.

The characterization is unusually strong at this point, even compared with modern critical golems such as The Sopranos or later, more sophisticated Trek incarnations such as Deep Space Nine. With the exception of the midlife crisis, Kirk is every bit the winking leading man at this early stage as he is in the Trek movies, with the added bonus that he feels a lot less like a caricature. Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is particularly well-realized right off the bat, his gruff demeanor coming off almost like a character from one of Hollywood’s more thoughtful Westerns (think Ride the High Country) than as a faceless physician serving on an intergalactic military vessel.

The only other really interesting characteristic is that the show doesn’t really take itself very seriously at this point, which is a blessing when compared with Captain Kathryn Janeway’s fun-free, draconian regime on the USS Voyager. More importantly, the chances of a surreal sequence interrupting the action are a lot higher. In the episode “Charlie X,” the crew takes a break from the action so that Lieutenant Uhura can serenade the ship’s rec room, backed by Mr. Spock on a Vulcan lyre. In “The Naked Time,” nobody actually ends up getting naked, but Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, bitten by a mysterious disease rendering him free of inhibitions, gets about halfway there:

Helmsman of the USS Enterprise, future captain of the USS Excelsior.

I’d held a prejudice against the original Trek for years as the dull, hopelessly dated one, but to my delight I’m already being proven wrong. The series was little more than a goofy science-fiction swashbuckling tale set in space at its inception, but there’s a fluency of the television medium and genuine creative drive on display here that shows that when tackling a subject as weighty as humanity’s final frontier, Gene Roddenberry didn’t have it on his agenda to pander for ratings.

Notable upcoming episodes: “The Enemy Within,” “Mudd’s Women,” the two-parter “The Menagerie.”