How William Shatner Became Captain Kirk After The Failed Star Trek Pilot

Ask a random "Star Trek" fan who their favorite captain is, and there's a good chance they'll answer "Captain Kirk." He's the OG captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), after all, though that almost wasn't the case. Technically, William Shatner's Captain Kirk is actually the second person to command of the iconic starship, as the original "Star Trek" pilot featured a different captain, Jeffrey Hunter's Captain Pike.

The first "Star Trek" pilot, titled "The Cage," bombed hard with network executives at NBC, but they gave creator Gene Roddenberry another chance. He retooled his script, altered some characters, redid much of the narrative, and brought in Shatner to take command. The actor revealed that he was shown the original pilot when he was brought on board, and he quickly figured out what was wrong.

"I was in New York doing some work. They called me and said, 'Would you come and see the pilot?' With the idea of me being the captain," Shatner told The Hollywood Reporter. He revealed that he actually enjoyed "The Cage" a lot, but he felt that the actors were too ponderous. From Shatner's point of view, these people working closely on a five-year mission should be a bit chummier. "So I added a little lightness," he said. "Then it sold."

"The Cage" has become a cult favorite episode among "Star Trek" fans. In 1986, Paramount released the original pilot on VHS with a special introduction, and it was broadcast in full color for the first time a couple of years later. However, this wasn't the first time viewers saw parts of "The Cage" — footage from it was reused in the two-part Season 1 episode "The Menagerie," which introduced an older, battle-scarred version of Pike played by Sean Kenney.

When J.J. Abrams rebooted "Star Trek" on the big screen in 2009, he cast Bruce Greenwood as an older version of Pike who acts as a mentor to the younger James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). Greenwood reprised the role in the so-called Kelvin Timeline for 2013's "Star Trek Into Darkness," though he's in bad shape following the events of the first film, relying on a cane to get about. It wasn't until 2019 that viewers got to see a new version of Pike in his prime: Anson Mount showed up as the character in "Star Trek: Discovery" Season 2.

Mount waved goodbye to "Discovery" in the Season 2 finale, and it wasn't long before fans started calling for a Pike spin-off. That became a reality in 2022, when "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" premiered. Mount told SYFY that he wanted to show a side of Pike that made him stand out from other famous Starfleet captains. "What I said to [co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers] early on is: 'If Kirk brings boldness, machismo, whatever you want to call it, and Picard brings the brain, I want Pike to bring the heart.' I think his superpower is empathy, which is hand-in-hand with humility. And I think that's what makes him a good captain."