Poll The Cage or The Menagerie

Apologies if this has been done recently, but what is everyone's preferred way of watching The Cage material...As the original pilot, or the re-framing?

Personally my favourite is The Menagerie's take. The drama, the stakes and the courtroom device, all make this my preferred watch. (Although I'm working on an edit incorporating more of the pilot into the Menagerie... )

 

Both have their merits. The framing plot ultimately doesn't make sense, but is interesting enough for that to be overlooked.

 

I took a few friends who hadn't really seen TOS to the remastered screening they had some years ago, and the non-fans were confused about the story-in-a-story format XD

 

Curious... I don't disagree but what do you mean by the teaser being deceptive?

 

The Cage is better, the framing story of The Menagerie feels unnecessary.

 

I prefer The Menagerie with the regular cast sort of involved in the Talosian's deal with Captain Pike!
JB

 

"The Menagerie" for me

 

I haven’t tested this yet, but in theory, “The Cage” between DSC Seasons 1 and 2, “The Menagerie” when rewatching TOS (either in airing or production order). You want to see both but in different contexts, to avoid duplication.

 

“The Cage” is suppose to be about 2 years before “Discovery”’s Season 1.

But for me personally, I prefer watching “The Cage” by itself. “The Menagerie” kind of has all the “Cage” footage stuffed into the last 15 minutes of Part 1 and then Part 2. And of course some of the interesting stuff got cut out. Maybe the should’ve made a Part 3, then they wouldn’t have needed to cut out any of it.

 

I voted for "The Cage", although I like both.

 

I was thinking of the best placement in viewing order, not chronological order. They run into Enterprise in the S1 finale, and that’s when you screen “The Cage” to put S2 into context.

 

I never really thought about that too much. I just assumed that part 2 started after a recess can wherein Spock had been in custody overnight or something.

Kor

 

Even after reading everyone's thoughts I'm still conflicted.

• The Cage is a decent standalone adventure but that's all we ever get for most of those characters.
• Menagerie Part 1 is very suspenseful, adds depth to Spock's character and opens up the Star Trek universe more than ever before! However, Menagerie Part 2 is just a bunch of guys watching TV for 45 minutes.

 

I struggled to suspend disbelief that the Talosians were sending images to their viewscreen, and the crew just watched it like a TV show in the middle of a crisis. At the end the Talosians even said they created the illusion of the commodore and provided the images to distract the crew from solving the problem of their ship being hijacked. Kirk should have locked Spock up from the very beginning on his authority as captain and held a trial as soon as the crisis was over. It also seems like Kirk would have insisted on the exact details of how the video record was being transmitted.

Possible Explanations:

• Maybe Kirk held the trial out of curiosity.
• Maybe Kirk trusted Spock and on some level hoped he would get to Talos.
• Maybe Kirk assigned teams of officers and crewmembers to work the sabotage problem and thought the work wouldn't proceed any faster with the Kirk looking over their shoulders.

As a clip show designed to save money by reusing old footage it works. As a kid, I totally bought that the design of the ship was 13 years older, like how pictures from the 1970 looked ancient to me when I watched this in 1983. But esp now that you can watch clips any time on streaming video, this show feels forced, like they shoehorned the first pilot into an episode. I'd much rather watch the original episode.

 

Ah yes I see what you mean. You said Part One teaser which confused me as I thought you were referring to the teaser at the beginning of Part One, not at the end.

 

"The Minagerie" adds a cool framing story and all our favourites to what was IMHO a rather drab pilot.

Having then-present Spock and a noticeably younger looking version of him in the flashbacks, as well as different uniforms and sets really gave an epic feel to what was happening.

 

I would never view in the fictional order of spinoffs and re-imaginings. As with Star Wars, it's too obvious that bigger-money, higher-tech productions made decades later do not come before the glorious originals. The newbies are afterthoughts, to be enjoyed for what they are and that's it. They should not be allowed to impinge on the original writing, intent, and artistic vision.

 

"The Menagerie", because it features Captain Kirk. Everything's better with Kirk.

The really neat thing about "The Menagerie" is that by setting the Captain Pike flashback sequences 13 years before the "present day," it immediately gave the Trek Universe a tangible history. Even though "The Cage" pilot was shot just two years before the series proper, it felt noticeably older than the adventures of the Enterprise we were watching every week. It was cool to have that more Forbidden Planet-flavored era as part of the Trek Universe worldbuilding.