If Hunter Stayed...

[Broccoli]

Okay, we are going into pretend land. Lets say that Jeffery Hunter continued as Capt. Pike for the rest of the series, how do you think the events in "The Cage" would have been treated?

Now, I am assuming that the rest of the cast around him would have changed (save for Spock), just like what was really done.

Would "The Cage" have just been considered a regular episode that takes place only a few weeks before "WNMHGB" (just with a different crew for some such reason)? Or would it have later been established that the events in "The Cage" was years ago, like what was kinda done with "The Menagerie"?

In the greater Trek canon/continuity, how would "The Cage" be treated/placed if Hunter stayed on? What do you think?

 

[Winterwind]

Well, I doubt very much that the next episode would have been WNMHGB since I assume it was written as the second pilot and not an episode in the back of GR's mind if the show was picked up.

As for the cast changing, I only really see Number One "needing" to change since the network wanted both her and Spock gone and GR wanted to keep Spock.

Had Hunter stayed... hmm... I don't know that I'd have liked Trek as much. I didn't care for him as an actor... although the tortured/self-doubting aspect of the character could have lead to some interesting stories.

 

[Broccoli]

Josan said:
Well, I doubt very much that the next episode would have been WNMHGB since I assume it was written as the second pilot and not an episode in the back of GR's mind if the show was picked up.

Well, as far as I know, it was Hunter's decision not to return, not Roddenberry's. When the network execs told GR to retool the show, I'm sure that we still would have gotten WNMHGB, but with Capt. Pike.

As for the cast changing, I only really see Number One "needing" to change since the network wanted both her and Spock gone and GR wanted to keep Spock.

True. But if that was the case, how come nearly the entire cast changed between the two pilots? I highly doubt that it was a case of "If Hunter leaves, all these people have to go." I think the cast changes would have occurred anyway if Hunter stayed.

Had Hunter stayed... hmm... I don't know that I'd have liked Trek as much. I didn't care for him as an actor... although the tortured/self-doubting aspect of the character could have lead to some interesting stories.

I'm sure the character would have been slightly retooled to be more Kirk-ish.

 

[Winterwind]

I've never heard it said it was Hunter's decision not to return but I've heard many times that Hunter's wife was such a pain in the ass, making demand after demand for him, that TPTB said "screw this" and in came Shatner.

 

[Robert Treat]

I heard that on an E! special on Jeffery Hunter. According to that show Hunter's wife said her husband was a movie actor not a second-rate scifi series actor. It's too bad, because Hunter lapsed into drinking after that, and died later from a fall.

 

[TheMurph]

Well I think that some cast changes would have occurred (no #1 for instance) but that they would have most same characters and stories. I probably wouldn't have like it as much, not much a fan of Pike.

 

[Mallory]

I don't have a real strong opinion of this either way. Shatner was Kirk, Hunter was Pike and they were both different kinds of characters. I would think that while some of the stories would have stayed the same, there would have been others that played to Hunter's strengths and Pike's character. I also believe that a Pike-based series would probably have lacked the light-hearted moments that TOS often had. Pike just seemed too damned serious, but who knows?

 

[Basil]

The show would have resembled "The Next Generation" more in tone and probably wouldn't have gotten as cheesy as it did by the third season. Hunter would have carried the show better than any actor except Shatner.

 

[pookha]

a captain pike enemy within would have been interesting.
though conidering how badly he reacted to the events on rigil how would been able to handle city on the edge of forever.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Basil said:
The show would have resembled "The Next Generation" more in tone

How? TNG was very much a product (and reflection) of the decisions-by-consensus 80s boardroom mentality, and its ensemble cast was also an 80s phenomenon.

"The Cage" set up a father/son relationship between the doctor and captain, while TNG's were almost unrequited lovers. "The Cage" showed a captain who raced off into danger on landing parties, while Picard was often left back on the ship.

 

[Admiral2]

If Hunter stayed...

...it probably wouldn't have taken me anywhere near as long to get into TOS as it did.

 

[Vance]

Considering that WNMHGB was part of the original show's initial pitch, we would have gotten it previousy.

I think, too, that Pike could have carried the show a bit, if all the other changes had still happened. If they hadn't, though, the show will still be stuck with 1950s sensibilities in 1966.

"Women drivers, pfeh!"

Pike's reaction to the women in his crew was ill concieved then (several other shows had women in equal roles, after all)... to see it dragged out...

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Vance said:
Pike's reaction to the women in his crew was ill concieved then (several other shows had women in equal roles, after all)... to see it dragged out...

Oh bullshit. Even Frank Herbert's 1966 hard sci-fi novel Destination: Void questioned the suitability of women as part of a starship's active crew based on - amongst other things - the complete dismissal up to that point of even the idea of female astronauts by US bioastronautics researchers in their published journal papers and monographs. Why on Earth should Gene Roddenberry be held to a higher standard of ideological foresight than elite aerospace medical scientists and LitSF writers from the same era? Besides, when it comes to the apparent misogyny of TOS even GR's The Cage has to take a back seat to the teaser of A Wolf in the Fold.

TGT

 

[Vance]

There's a difference between a bunch of men enjoying the delights of women overtly willing and even wanting to be sexual objects (as explicitly stated in that episode), and a society saying 'women shouldn't be on the bridge'.

I pity anyone who cannot see that difference.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Vance said:
There's a difference between a bunch of men enjoying the delights of women overtly willing and even wanting to be sexual objects (as explicitly stated in that episode), and a society saying 'women shouldn't be on the bridge'.

I was actually referring to the delightfully un-PC exchange between Kirk and McCoy regarding Scotty's "resentment toward women" developed after an explosive accident(?) aboard the Enterprise, along with treatment of said disorder via shore leave on Argelius II.

TGT

 

[Trekwatcher]

Star Trek with Hunter as Pike is a very interesting question indeed. This is about as fundamental a change to the show as you can think of. It makes me wonder how they would have done the Pike/Spock/McCoy (or would it have been Pike/Spock/Boyce?) interactions. In the original series pitch, Boyce is even addressed as "Bones" and he played a similar role of confidant to Pike, so that aspect might have been retained as well with either actor as the doctor.

What would have been interesting would have been to have seen how they handled the Pike/Spock aspect. In TOS, in the first few episodes of season 1 Kirk and Spock are not very close friends (I.e. in The Man Trap, Balance of Terror, etc), in fact at times their relationship feels downright strained (I.e. Kirk's terse: "I'm delighted, Mr. Spock!"). Only later did they soften Kirk a bit and have them become great friends. I wonder if they would have gone this way with the somewhat more distant and cooler-headed Pike?

 

[seigezunt]

without The Shat?

it wouldn't have gotten out of the docking bay...

 

[GodThingFormerly]

seigezunt said:
it wouldn't have gotten out of the docking bay...

ST:TNG - a show I profoundly despise - appears to have performed just dandy in the ratings without that bloated turd soiling the captain's chair.

TGT

 

[Steven Of Nine]

The God Thing said:
ST:TNG - a show I profoundly despise - appears to have performed just dandy in the ratings without that bloated turd soiling the captain's chair.

TGT

Let's face it, that's pretty much any successful show on television, with a couple of exceptions, right?

 

[Ssosmcin]

I could imagine a completely different show. Jeff Hunter as Pike and Leo Nimoy as Spock, but an emotional Spock, as seen in The Cage. NBC didn't have a problem with a woman XO, they had a problem with Majel Barrett. Imagine Roddenberry as a different person (with morals and ethics), who says "okay, Majel's gone, let's put in Lee Meriwether as Number One." NBC might have gone for that and then you'd have a better actor in the role. So she remains the one with the controlled emotions and could very well have been the show's breakout character.

Now we'd have a more serious SF series, one with little humor. The lack of chemestry in the leads would make it a more somber experience. Would it have lasted? Nah, SF generally didn't then. As much as people may not like Shatner, without him and the relationship with Nimoy and Kelley, we wouldn't be talking about the show today.