From Amazon.com
As if guided by the frugal wisdom of schlockmeister producer-director Roger Corman,
Trek creator Gene Roddenberry found a clever way of using, instead of losing, extensive and costly footage from the then-unseen, discarded
Star Trek pilot, "The Cage." Roddenberry's solution was to integrate pieces of "The Cage" into a whole new story context, and the fascinating and surprisingly moving result was the two-part drama "The Menagerie." First, a bit of background: "The Cage" starred film actor Jeffrey Hunter (
King of Kings,
The Searchers) as Christopher Pike, the original captain of the
Enterprise. Among Hunter's costars was Leonard Nimoy as Science Officer Spock, who eventually carried over, of course, into the reconfigured series starring William Shatner. Rather than write off "The Cage," Roddenberry conceived of a story line in which Captain Pike would reappear on the show in a badly disfigured, paralyzed, and mute form--the result of a terrible accident in which the character saved a number of lives but took a pounding in the process. In "The Menagerie," Spock hijacks the
Enterprise to transport Pike to a secret destination. During court-martial proceedings for this crime, Spock's defense is presented via archival footage of an old, pre-Kirk mission aboard the
Enterprise. That footage, of course, is a reedited "Cage." A must-see for
Star Trek fans, "The Menagerie" is a stellar example of Roddenberry thinking on his feet.
--Tom Keogh
From the Back Cover
Spock hijacks the
Enterprise and risks death to help his former captain, Christopher Pike, who has been paralyzed and disfigured in a horrible accident.
TREK TRIVIA
In 1965, the Star Trek series was approved, but the pilot "The Cage" was rejected. Rather than seeing "The Cage" washed, Gene Roddenberry wrote this "envelope" story around it to introduce the new cast. Spock was the only remaining character from the original pilot and became the link between the two stories.
The original series' only two-parter, "The Menagerie" was the winner of science fiction's coveted Hugo Award.
