‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Succeeds by Going Back to Basics: TV Review
variety.comZack Handlen For the first 40 years of “Star Trek” history, the character of Christopher Pike was little more than a footnote in the franchise’s lore.
Captain of the Enterprise in the failed original NBC series pilot “The Cage,” Pike, as played by Jeffrey Hunter, wound up as the dry run for William Shatner’s James T.
Kirk, a square-jawed hero doing square-jawed hero stuff who fell a few inches short of being right for the job. Gene Roddenberry, ever the environmentalist, recycled scenes from that unaired pilot for a two-part episode of the original series called “The Menagerie,” which allowed for, until 2009, Pike’s greatest contribution to popular culture: his transformation into a hideously scarred burn victim who lived in a large black box that beeped whenever someone asked him a question.
It’s not much build off of, but Pike has become increasingly important to “Trek” as the franchise looks to its past to build a future.
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