some trek meta nobody asked for

nerdqueenenterprise:

isn’t the pilot of star trek tos vs the actual show really interesting?

in the pilot you have sexist, aggressive, cold captain christopher pike - in the actual show you have feminist, pacifist, soft-spoken nerd captain james t kirk. so not only is pike everything people still perceive kirk to be, but also the producers / whoever ‘authorizes’ shows were completely fooled into letting trek happen, and it’s awesome!

also what’s very interesting is the pilot vs trek’s first actual episode, the man trap. 

the pilot more or less ends on the plot twist that vina, the lovely young girl who’s supposed to be pike’s eve in creating an army of human slaves to run talos vii for the talosians, turns out to be old, ugly and disfigured. pike’s immediate reaction is disgust and pity. he has learned that vina is nice enough though, so he asks the talosians to give her back her illusion of beauty and youth so she doesn’t have to live with her real self. message: only young and beautiful women are worth something.
meanwhile, in the man trap, nancy crater appears different to everyone - to kirk she appears as elderly, therefore “not beautiful anymore” according to the pilot. except she is.
also otherwise he treats women badly - “i just can’t get used to a women on the bridge,” he says (more like yells) at his yeoman (who he belittles and ignores as much as possible). he keeps brushing over number one, physically shoves vina around.
and in direct contrast, kirk, in a later episode, answering the question of “a woman?! (on board this ship, as an officer!)” with “a crewman.”

also, in the pilot, pike’s idea on how to fight back against the talosians is hurting and killing them. now, while in the man trap there is a call to kill nancy crater (or rather, the creature posing as her) several times (which is already odd for trek), ultimately it is understood as a pitiful mistake and definitely the wrong thing to do, because she was the last of her kind. meanwhile, in the pilot, pike turns his back on the talosians. 

pike: “so that’s it? no apologies? you captured one of us, threatened all of us?”

talosian: “your unsuitability has condemned the talosian race to eventual death. is this not sufficient?”

other talosian: “no other specimen has shown your adaptability. you were our last hope.”

he does offer a very half-hearted “some sort of trade, maybe?” but ultimately shows no compassion at all.

also spock in the pilot! so peremptorily, always shouting, none of the gentle vulcan drama queen we know and love.

so apart from how christopher pike is an asshole in tos (as is philip boyce btw), and we should all be happy the pilot didn’t turn out to be the actual show, you just gotta love how they used everything trek isn’t to trick the studio and the producers into making it and how ‘fake fans’ believe that this is how trek actually is :D