Trek On: THE MENAGERIE Part I and II

Title: The Menagerie Parts I and II

Airdate: 11/17/1966 and 11/24/1966

Plot Summary

Spock risks his career to kidnap his former captain, commandeering the Enterprise to do it. He ends up in a court martial that will dive deep into the Enterprise’s past and its former Captain, Christopher Pike.

Risk is our Business

Kirk’s loyalty to Spock gets tested to its limit, including the limits of a shuttlecraft he uses to chase the Enterprise. He’s also completely conflicted and mystified about how he could be so wrong about Spock.

Logical

Spock really shows how much of a badass he is, easily taking over the Enterprise and setting up a bunch of fake orders to do so. He also shows his utter loyalty to Pike, though he simply will not cross the line that might’ve meant Kirk’s death in a shuttle. This loyalty was reversed in the movies when everyone shredded their careers and risked prison to rescue him from Genesis.

He’s Dead Jim

McCoy mentions that because Spock is Vulcan, he is incapable of telling a lie. This really gets fleshed out over the decades that it isn’t the Vulcans are incapable of telling lies but are simply loathe to. In most situations, lying is not logical. Spock however will lie many times, most notably telling the Klingons he was a simple merchant in Errand Of Mercy. Here he lies a ton to accomplish the mission.

Canon Maker

The commodore wears a different insignia than the delta we’re all familiar with. In fact originally, the delta was specific to the Enterprise crew, we’ll see other crew have different insignias. Later on, it would become the defacto insignia for all of Starfleet. In universe, this was explained mostly because Kirk’s missions were so famous and historic that the rest of Starfleet decided to use it as their official symbol.

We also meet Pike for the first time and establish him as the previous commander of the Enterprise. Clearly it had a refit in the intervening years as the bridge looks significantly different.

Canon Breaker

Shuttlecrafts seem to have a lot less range than they should. While there is very little else that would “break” canon, Pike’s introduction here eventually leads us to Strange New Worlds which seems to wipe its ass with canon every chance it can get.

Starfleet’s only remaining death penalty is to go to Talos IV but why? While I can see why the Federation wouldn’t want people to go based on Pike’s experience, there are plenty of places that probably fall under the category of “don’t go, you’ll get captured, killed, or worse” that don’t warrant a death penalty. It’s all there to create this court martial for a framing device to show the original pilot episode, The Cage.

While I like The Menagerie, more on that later, it does require one to buy the idea that they would put the death penalty in place for basically a no-trespassing law.

Man It Feels Bad To Be a Red Shirt

No one dies. In fact you could say someone comes back to life, so to speak.

Technobabble

Spock seems to be able to fake Kirk’s voice using the computers with no trouble. I find it interesting in today’s day and age that AI is able to say anything in a person’s voice very convincingly.

I Know That Guy

Malachi Thorne provided the voice of the Talosian Keeper in The Cage and played the role of Commodore Mendez in The Menagerie. This was convenient as he was able to record a few lines in the epilogue played over some older footage from The Cage. He would later come back to Pardek in TNG’s episode, Unification, which would also reunite him with Nimoy.

Sean Kenney would play the disfigured wheelchair-bound Christopher Pike in a pretty thankless role. He gets to return fully ambulatory in Arena and A Taste Of Armageddon as DePaul.

And of course, we also have the entire cast of The Cage in flashback form. Jeffrey Hunter plays Pike, Susan Oliver as Vina who would be indelibly linked to Trek as she was always the green Orion shown in freeze frame over the credits in many episodes.

Majel Barret played Number 1, and of course, would return to Trek as Nurse Chapel and later Lwaxana Troi.

What It Means To Be Human – Review

The Menagerie is an excuse to finally air the pilot episode. I really like that the framing story actually has some stakes to it as opposed to Kirk and Spock just reminiscing into a lazy flashback. If you can accept the setup, it’s a great little courtroom drama.

The biggest issue with The Menagerie is all the canon and lore that comes after. A death penalty for visiting a planet? Maybe one that held the Genesis device and they don’t want someone finding it or some other doomsday weapon that could destroy the quadrant. But for Talos? Why?

If it’s so important to keep people out, then why the hand wave at the end with Starfleet saying, “Oh ok. You just are trying to take care of Pike. Case dismissed.” That was too neatly wrapped up with a bow. It’s the biggest issue with this entire episode: the circumstances and the wrap-up.

But again, if you can get past those two issues, the execution through it all is great. You really are trying to understand why Spock is doing this and what the mystery of Talos is. It’s also great seeing The Cage, especially at a time when it would’ve been unthinkable to be able to see a failed pilot.

But there is so much great character development with Kirk and Spock. We really understand at the end that Spock is unwaveringly loyal to his captains. He goes through an elaborate ruse to try to keep Kirk out of trouble. Of course, he does all this to save his previous captain from a life of pooping in a bag.

Kirk and McCoy trust Spock in turn so much that it’s inconceivable to them that he did all this until it’s basically right there in their faces with Spock saying “Yeah, I did it.” Even then, they are flabbergasted. It does a great job of really cementing their relationship and how Spock is regarded on the ship. Nice touch with Uhura just basically slack-jawed when Spock admits the whole thing.

While I do see the flaws of The Menagerie, I appreciate the difficulty of being confined by the nature of the episode they are trying to retell and make something compelling about it. I wouldn’t call it a grand slam home run but a solid triple.

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