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STAR TREK: #1 The Cage 1964/5
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Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Dir.: Robert Butler
Music by: Alexander Courage
Captain Christopher Pike: Jeffrey Hunter
Number One, First officer: Majel Barrett
LT. Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Dr. Phillip "Bones" Boyce: John Hoyt
Vina: Susan Oliver
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The starship Enterprise comes from a mission
exploring Rigel VII. The ship needs repairs, the crew needs rest and recreation.
They are heading for the nearest starbase. Captain Pike has reason to believe that
another starship has crashed on Talos IV and decides to investigate.
When Capt. Pike beams down with Number One, Lieutenant Spock and Navigator Jose Tyler,
they find a survivor camp built from spaceship parts and meet survivors under the
lead of Dr. Theodore Haskins, who tells them that they have crashed 20 years ago.
Captain Pike seems to be attracted to one of the survivors: Vina, a young woman.
The action of the crew and especially Pike's reaction is monitored by aliens viewing
the actions from inside the nearby mountain.
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Vina asks Pike to come along, she wants
to show him how they managed to survive and leads him to an entrance into the mountain.
Spock and Tyler hurry to the place when they see aliens approach and take their captain
with them into the mountain. The entrance closes before they can get there.
Pike soon finds himself in a cell, a cave which is separated from the others parts
of the inside by an impenetrable transparent wall. The aliens regard him as one of
the other species they keep in these cages – animals, but detect more intelligence
with him than they have found with any of the other animals. Pike understands because
they communicate by telepathy.
Suddenly Pike finds himself back on Rigel VII where he has to fight to free Vina
from danger. And suddenly he is back in the cell with Vina. She explains to him
that she is the only one who has survived the crash of the S.S. Columbia.
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Pike
lives through a number of incidents where he encounters Vina. She dances for him
as a slave, she is his wife.... Captain Pike’s interest in her is now giving way to
his curiosity for how to understand what happens to him.
Meanwhile a landing party is ready to beam down onto the planet again to find their
captain.
To the astonishment to everyone only the women materialize in the captain's
cell ... because the Talosians figure that he might be more interested in one of
these Ladies than in Vina. Vina is desperate. She wishes to try on to gain his love,
but is given no more chance. But Pike and the others are interested in getting out.
They find Number One's laser empty.
Now Pike gets more and more assured that all is based on illusion. He fires the phaser aiming at the wall – nothing happens. But he is sure, that this is an illusion, too, and drops the weapon near the place the Talosians have made a hole where they have passed through things like food to him. He has discovered that the Talosians cannot read his mind when anger prevails and puts himself into a rage. As they pretend to be not attending Pike sees a hand reaching for the phaser and quickly pulls in the Talosian. He grabs him at his neck and strangles him while the Talosian changes into a wild beast. Pike holds onto strangling him, telling him that it is still his neck, independent of the appearance. He forces him to show reality and the hole the phaser shot into the wall is seen. They take the Talosian hostage and head for the elevator which had brought Pike down. Number One sets the phaser on self- destruction.
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Now the Talosians tell them that they never wanted them as slaves and tell them their story: After a war they have sought refuge inside the mountain and developed the ability to make illusions true. Living with these
"true" illusions they have lost the ability to handle certain necessary machines.
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Vina is the only one who can do this and they are in need of more human assistance. They have hoped that Pike and Vine would provide new humans for them to live with them.
The Talosians see that it is not possible to keep them on their own free will and bring the women back to the Enterprise. Now they show Pike Vina's real appearance: She's heavily deformed because the Tolians did not know the correct appearance of a human when they resembled the parts they found in order to save her life and older than she looks as the illusion. Vina is happy to live on in the body given to her as an illusion.
Pike does not share his experiences with the crew when he is back on the Enterprise.
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Pictures courtesy of www.trek5.com
