Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ Captain Christopher Pike may have command of the newest Trek series, but he goes back nearly six decades to the franchise’s very beginning. As played by Anson Mount, Pike is one of Star Trek‘s most highly-regarded, well-loved captains, but that wasn’t always the case.
Before Strange New Worlds and Bruce Greenwood’s portrayal of the character in the first two Kelvin Timeline films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness, the character was kind of a deep cut, known only from two episodes of the Original Series.
Originally played by Jeffrey Hunter, Pike begins “The Cage” burned out, tired, and overwhelmed by the weight of command.
Those episodes, though, went back the very beginning of Star Trek, when Christopher Pike was going to be the captain of the Enterprise in the original conception of the series. Those two episodes, “The Menagerie, Part I” and “The Menagerie, Part II” were originally a 1964 pilot episode called “The Cage,” which was rejected by NBC, a move that could have ended Star Trek before it began.
After an unheard-of second pilot was greenlit thanks to then Desilu executive Lucille Ball, Star Trek with James Kirk as captain was picked up and began broadcasting in 1966.
Those two episodes, “The Menagerie, Part I” and “The Menagerie, Part II” were originally a 1964 pilot episode called “The Cage,” which was rejected by NBC, a move that could have ended Star Trek before it began.
But that first version of Star Trek with Captain Pike, unseen in its original form until a special broadcast in 1988, was always a tantalizing hint of what could have been. Originally played by Jeffrey Hunter, Pike begins “The Cage” burned out, tired, and overwhelmed by the weight of command.
Having recently led a mission that resulted in the loss of crew members for which he felt personally responsible, the captain tells his trusted friend and the Enterprise’s chief medical officer Dr. Boyce that he’s ready to resign.
Even though the drama of the character’s situation certainly reflects similar struggles faced by later captains, it was not the most inspiring introduction for the skipper of a starship, let alone the lead of a TV series.
Over time, however, Star Trek fans’ interest in Captain Pike grew, inspiring a short-lived comic book series Star Trek: New Voyages and the character’s later presence and eventual promotion to admiral in the Kelvin Timeline.
But there was always more potential in the character and when he was introduced in Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery to lead the crew of that ship for a season, it was always with the hope that he would get his own series.
Fan response to Anson Mount’s Pike, not to mention Rebecca Romijn’s Number One, Ethan Peck’s Spock, and the glimpse they got of the Enterprise eventually led to a greenlight for Strange New Worlds, now set to become the flagship series of the franchise after the forthcoming final season of Star Trek: Discovery.
In Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, Captain Pike visits a Klingon monastery on Boreth where he comes into contact with a sacred object that gives him a vision of his future—how he is injured attempting to save people’s lives and how he ends up as an invalid.
This takes knowledge the older Star Trek audience already has about the character and acknowledges it, putting it into the character’s head and using it to inform his development. So, our positive, hopeful Pike is so in spite of a vision of his future that still haunts him.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also develops Pike in other ways, allowing us to see how he interacts with his crew and showing him to be one of the most inspirational, compassionate, and clever leaders in franchise history.
He also knows how to cook, using his culinary skills to welcome new crew members and even to get his ship back from space pirates. Yes, he cooked his way out of being captured by interstellar marauders.
As a franchise, Star Trek has been enormously successful, but its first captain, Christopher Pike, has waited a long time to get his due, with Greenwood’s performance as a hint of what was possible. Strange New Worlds, picking up the concept that began with “The Cage” brings Trek full circle in a way, with some joking that it’s the longest gap from a pilot to a series greenlight in TV history.
But the important thing is that the character is being carried with enormous grace and is demonstrating his thoughtfulness, emotional intelligence, leadership skills, negotiation prowess, and love for his crew on a weekly basis.
He also knows how to cook, using his culinary skills to welcome new crew members and even to get his ship back from space pirates. Yes, he cooked his way out of being captured by interstellar marauders.
As portrayed in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Christopher Pike has been transformed from a burdened, burned out captain and later a severely debilitated man into a beacon of hope and perhaps the quintessential Star Trek captain.
He does this, not ignoring the complexities, struggles, and awful fate that awaits him, but facing those things head-on. In so doing, he demonstrates a singular ability to rise above adversity, a core principle of Star Trek if ever there was one.
It’s a wonderful time to be a Star Trek fan, seeing its original captain, Christopher Pike, at the helm of the Enterprise as he has always deserved to be. As a captain, Pike listens thoughtfully to his crew, embraces and values the diversity of their experiences, personalities, and backgrounds, and inspires them to push the boundaries of their own limitations, even as he seeks to do the same.
There is hardly more we could ask for in a Star Trek captain and we hope he’ll be boldly going for a good long while.
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