Gimme That Star Trek Ep.1: What If the Cage Went to Series?

Welcome to the newest addition to the Fire and Water Podcast Network, and just in time for Star Trek's 50th Anniversary Week, too! Join Siskoid and his guests once a month for Star Trek discussion in the mold of Ryan Daly's Give Me Those Star Wars. We start with the beginning, Trek's original pilot "The Cage", and wonder what would have happened if it had gone straight to series. Where would the Enterprise be now if its captain had been Christopher Pike for a season or more? Gene Hendricks of The Hammer Podcast  and Anime Freaks helps Siskoid answer that question.

Listen to Episode 1 by clicking HERE!
http://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/startrek1
Or you can right-click “download”, choose “Save Target/Link As”, and select a location on your computer to save the file (26 MB).

Or subscribe to Gimme That Star Trek on iTunes!

Credits:
"Star Trek Theme" by Alexander Courage, with voice assist by the Irredeemable Shagg. End theme: "Deep Space Nine Theme" by Dennis McCarthy.

Bonus clips from: Star Trek's "The Cage" by Gene Roddenberry, starring Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver; Star Trek's "Mirror, Mirror" by Jerome Bixby, starring DeForest Kelley and James Doohan; and "Lonely Man Theme" from The Incredible Hulk (green skin connection!) by Joe Harnell; and Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles" starring James Doohan.

Thanks for leaving a comment!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Goddamn, that Gene Roddenberry. I've been watching a lot of "Have Gun - Will Travel" lately, an old Western about a highly educated gunman-for-hire with a code of ethics ("a knight without armor in a savage land" as the end credits sing). If you check Gene Roddenberry's IMDB entry you'll see that he wrote a lot of HGWT, it was his biggest gig before "Star Trek" took off.

And I can usually tell a Roddenberry episode of HGWT without reading the credits, because I find myself saying "this is the most sexist thing I've ever seen". Now I know you can't judge previous eras by today's standards, but when Roddenberry's theme over and over is that willful women need to learn their manners -- and somehow the other HGWT writers managed to avoid going there -- I'm forced to think that maybe Roddenberry is the problem.

I say this in response to the pilot episode of his space epic, which resolved by putting the hero in the trilemma of which woman to procreate with. To her credit, Number One does refuse to play the game. To her detriment, Number One doesn't even get a name.
September 6, 2016 at 6:45 AM
Anonymous said…
... this morning's episode of "Have Gun - Will Travel": a strong-willed but frosty ranchowner slowly "melts" as Paladin proves himself a masterful chef, ranch hand, foreman, bookkeeper, brawler, and poetry aficionado. Goddammit Gene Roddenberry, what exactly did your mother do to you?
September 7, 2016 at 9:39 AM
Anonymous said…
... this morning is another Roddenberry episode, but this one features a chaplain named "Robert April". That's actually the second of two episodes Roddenberry wrote involving Robert April:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597565/combined

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597610/combined

Dude loves his Robert April.
September 9, 2016 at 9:38 AM
Siskoid said…
Waste not, want not.
September 9, 2016 at 10:42 AM
Unknown said…
Great podcast - I really enjoyed listening. Interesting to wonder what the show might have been like with Captain Pike et al. As much as I really enjoy The Cage, I don't think the show could have been as fun or as successful without the Hegelian triad of Spock, McCoy, Kirk. Re-tooling the concept after the first pilot resulted - by accident or design - in something just right. And Jeffrey Hunter does a fine job, but I say Gimme That Shatner!
September 9, 2016 at 7:01 PM
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