Bridge to Captain Pike? It could have been!
On February 13, 2013
- TV History
Bridge to Captain Pike?
It could have been! In a very unusual twist, NBC ordered a second pilot of Star Trek. In the original, the captain’s name was Christopher Pike and was played by Jeff Hunter. In the second pilot, James T Kirk appeared as William Shatner was now free from obligations that prevented him from doing the first pilot. Creator Gene Roddenberry shows us some rare footage and tells the story. Below is the original Enterprise model being readied for the second pilot.
Everything on Star Trek exists today except teleportation and Klingons, I think.
This shot was probably taken on the stage at Linwood Dunn’s Film Effects of Hollywood.
Pike comes back in future episodes as a paralyzed admirial in a wheelchair
I have seen the original pilot as a stand alone feature, back at my one and only Star Trek convention in 1974 or 1975. I never knew about the second pilot. Majel Barrett’s character was referred to as Number One, in the Royal Navy manner.
Very cool. Thank s for sharing that.
There was a lot of green screen too back in the 1960s and 1970s, both in film (traveling matte) and video (chroma key). The blue channel is usually the least significant one in rendering skin tones, and in 1960s camera design, it was usually the most optically compromised and noisy. Norelco cameras used the green channel for deriving the “contour” signal, which was used for image enhancement (improving contrast) BTW.
I remember folks on camera where the background would “com through” their clothes because the color matched the blue._’
Back when it was “blue screen” as opposed to today’s “green screen”.