Original Star Trek Pilot: The Cage

Star Trek: The Cage
1966 | Color | 1 Hour 4 Minutes | Sci-Fi | PG | Paramount Pictures
Director: Robert Butler

Writer: Gene Roddenberry

Stars: 

Jeffrey Hunter

Susan Oliver

Leonard Nimoy

This is the pilot to the series that would star William Shatner. Only in this version, there is different Captain, Christopher Pike, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew. Now it begins when the Enterprise receives what appears to be a distress message. But when they get to the planet where the message was sent from, they discover that the supposed survivors were nothing more than illusions created by the inhabitants of the planet, for the purpose of capturing a mate for the one genuine surviving human, and Captain Pike is the lucky winner. While Captain Pike tries to cope with the experiments and tests that the aliens are conducting on him, his crew tries to find a way to rescue him. But the aliens' illusions are too powerful and deceptive (at first).

From Sven:

This is a little bit of a departure from our usual show- but MeTV was given this rare opportunity to show the rejected original pilot in full-color form, in which it has never been aired. Please note that this is a one-time only showing- and, is NOT planned to be repeated for our local Chicago viewers the following Saturday on our sister station, WCIU.

“The Cage” starts at 10 pm eastern/pacific, 9 central, or check your local listings for channel and time where you are (or , check that at www.metv.com). Our Chicago viewers get a second look at the “Frozen Ghost” (with the premiere version of the “Svengoolie Stomp”) at 11 am on WCIU.

I'm so desperate to see this I asked a co-worker who has an antenna and a VCR to record it for me! If anybody has a way to record this digitally and would like to share a copy with me that would kick butt!