1965: First Pilot: The Cage

These incidents and more are described in detail in _The Making of Star Trek_ by Stephen E. Whitfield, Gene Roddenberry, published by Ballantine Books.

The first draft of plot story outline for The Cage was finished by Gene on 29-JUN-64, and by this time, the ship is renamed USS ENTERPRISE, and Captain is renamed Christopher Pike. Gene finally finished the script in September, and NBC liked it.

All estimates showed that Gene and Desilu will need over half million dollars for the pilot alone, and here comes all the zillion little details. They need to design a starship, design all the interiors, design all the uniforms, backgrounds for all the crew, and much more. At the end, they spent $630,000. Desilu could have provided more assistance at the time, but not. The soundstage for Star Trek was built right next to the Men's Restroom, and it has ruined MANY shots due to extra noise of flushing. Eventually Gene had the Restroom locked with an armed guard standing at the entrance, with orders that NO ONE is to enter while shooting, a gesture that does not win him any points for charm.

Gene later was known as "Crazy Gene" for six months due to an incident with the resident greensman, who keeps the plants. When Gene asked for alien-looking plants, he supplied normal stuff. Finally Gene pulled one of his plants out of the pot, turned it upside down, stuffed it back into the pot, with its roots sticking into the air. "There! That's an alien-looking plant!" The Greensman looked at Gene, shook his head, then walked away exasperated.

There are many other humorous incidents during shooting of "The Cage". One of them goes like this. Susan Oliver, who was playing Vina, had to dress as an Orion, which means GREEN skin. To test the green makeup, Ms. Oliver was filmed with the makeup on, then Gene waited to see the developed film the next day. It came back looking just normal! Normal pink skin! They try again the next day. STILL normal! Finally they figured it out: the developer of the film didn't know the shot was SUPPOSED to show green skin and kept correcting the color back to normal.

Later during the filming, Ms.Oliver felt very fatigued, and a doctor was summoned to give her a vitamin shot. Unfortunately, no one told the doctor that she's in full makeup. The doctor knocked on the makeup room of Ms.Oliver, and was greeted by a fully GREEN woman! It took the poor doctor five minutes to calm down and administer the shot he was called for.

Not all incidents were good though. There were some concerns about having an integrated crew, something that TV producers claim the audience is not ready yet. Gene stood by his decision, which left only one problem: Spock's pointed ears. It's interesting to see women being attracted to Spock like a magnet, really. Plenty of Network execs are worried that the pointed ears was too much a reminder of devil, but Gene stood by his choice.

Finally the pilot was completed, and delivered to NBC.

It was rejected.

 

To learn more:

See Classic Trek section, such as Judy Fabian's TOS.

 

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Well, now what? Gene Roddenberry