Pilots (1964–65) Star Treks
pilot episode, "The Cage", was completed between November 1964 and January 1965, and starred
Jeffrey Hunter as
Captain Christopher Pike,
Majel Barrett as
Number One, and
Leonard Nimoy as
Spock. The pilot was rejected by
NBC as being "too cerebral" among other complaints. Jeffrey Hunter chose to withdraw from the role of Pike when creator
Gene Roddenberry was asked to produce a second pilot episode "
Where No Man Has Gone Before". A slightly edited version with the same title aired in 1966 as the third episode of the new series. "The Cage" never aired during
Star Treks original run. It was presented by Roddenberry as a black-and-white
workprint at various
science fiction conventions over the years after
Star Treks cancellation but was not released on
home video until 1986 when
Paramount Home Video produced a "restored" release of "The Cage" (a combination of the original black-and-white footage and color portions of the Season 1 episode "
The Menagerie") along with an introduction by Gene Roddenberry. On October 15, 1988, Paramount Pictures aired a two-hour television special, hosted by
Patrick Stewart, called
The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next, which featured, for the first time, a full-color television presentation of "The Cage". It was later included on the final disc in both the original and "remastered" season 3 DVD box sets listed with its original air date of October 15, 1988. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in its original form (production number 02a) had been forwarded to NBC, but only a re-edited version was aired, not as a pilot but as the third episode of the series (production number 02b). The original version was thought to be lost, but later appeared on bootleg VHS tapes at conventions, until a print of it was discovered in 2009 and subsequently released on home video under the title
"Where No Fan Has Gone Before" - The Restored, Unaired Alternate Pilot Episode as part of the TOS season 3 box set on Blu-ray; it has not been released on DVD.
Season 1 (1966–67) After Roddenberry's second pilot episode, "
Where No Man Has Gone Before", received a more favorable response from
NBC, "Where No Man...", which eventually aired in a re-edited format as the series' third episode, retained only
Spock as a character from "The Cage" but introduced
William Shatner as Captain
James T. Kirk,
James Doohan as chief engineer
Scotty, and
George Takei as physicist (later helmsman)
Sulu. Also joining the cast were
DeForest Kelley as ship's surgeon Dr.
Leonard "Bones" McCoy and
Nichelle Nichols as the communications officer
Uhura in "The Man Trap", the first aired episode of the series. Although her character of Number One was not retained from "The Cage",
Majel Barrett returned to the series as a new character, nurse
Christine Chapel, and made her first of many
recurring appearances in "
The Naked Time".
Grace Lee Whitney appeared in eight episodes as yeoman
Janice Rand, beginning with "The Man Trap". Whitney left the series after "
The Conscience of the King", but would later make minor appearances in the
first,
third,
fourth, and
sixth Star Trek films as well as
one episode of the companion series
Star Trek: Voyager.
Star Treks first season comprised 29 episodes, including the two-part episode "
The Menagerie", which includes almost all of the footage from the original pilot, "The Cage". Other notable episodes include "
Balance of Terror", which introduces the
Romulans; "
Space Seed", which introduces
Khan Noonien Singh and serves as the basis for
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; "
Errand of Mercy", in which the
Klingons make their first appearance; and the critically-acclaimed,
Hugo-Award-winning episode "
The City on the Edge of Forever", guest-starring
Joan Collins, which features Kirk, Spock, and McCoy traveling into the past through the
Guardian of Forever.
Season 2 (1967–68) The show's 26-episode second season began in September 1967 Led by fans
Bjo and John Trimble,
Trek viewers inundated NBC with letters protesting the show's demise and pleading with the network to renew the series for another year. The president and vice-president of the television network, Don Durgin and Mort Werner, said in an interview that they received 115,000 letters, but that cancelling the show was "never our intention," and that it would be on the schedule in the favorable timeslot of Monday at 7:30p.m. The network later changed the schedule so that
Trek would air in the so-called "
death slot"—Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. In addition to the "mismanaged"
Star Treks final, 24-episode season began in September 1968 with "
Spock's Brain". The third season also includes "
The Tholian Web", where Kirk becomes trapped between universes; this episode would later be revisited by
two 2005 episodes of the
prequel series
Star Trek: Enterprise. The last episode of the series, "
Turnabout Intruder", aired on June 3, 1969, but
Star Trek would eventually return to television in
animated form when the
animated Star Trek debuted in September 1973. ==Production order==