STAR TREK
The Cage

1966 ***** 64 mins.

This is, in my opinion, the best Star Trek anything out there. I feel that, when this original pilot episode was rejected as "Too good for TV", Gene Roddenberry should have made it into a film and left Star Trek alone, rather than allow it to evolve into a never-ending conglomeration of serieses and films. Jeffrey Hunter stars as Captain Christopher Pike, who takes the Enterprise to a planet where he is taken prisoner by a race of beings who use telepathy as their primary source of power. This is a fantastic piece of television history that should never be taken advantage of. Most home video versions consist of colourized footage that was used in a later episode of the series titled "The Menagerie" mixed in with original black and white footage of the original filmed episode. Why they couldn't just release the episode in complete black and white I have no idea. I believe the DVD release also has a completely colourized version.
Not rated.