The Cage had an important role in the history of the Star Trek as the prototype for the immensly successful series. The first draft of the story dated from September 8th 1964 and included many of the key elements which would make Star Trek so successful. The strength of Star Trek's characters and its vision of the future shone through the rough draft and Roddenberry was given the go-ahead to begin production on The Cage. He chose Jeffrey Hunter to portray his starship's Captain - initially called Captain James Winter in the above script, but in the final production renames Captain Christopher Pike. Pike's first officer , the mysterious Number One was played by Majel Barrett, who would later return to the Enterprise as Nurse Christine Chapel, and the Ship's science officer Spock was played by , Leonard Nimoy. Vina another principal character in this episode was played by Susan Oliver. In the story, Captain Pike from the Enterprise decides to investigate signs that a spaceship may have crashed on planet Talos 1V. A landing party from the Enterprise including Pike discover survivors from the crash, one of whom is a beautiful young woman called Vina. Vina is in reality a prisoner of the Talosians who have lured the Enterprise to their planet so that Pike can serve as a mate for Vina, enabling the Talosians to breed a stronger race. Their plot fails and the Enterprise crew are freed, Vina however despite her affection for Pike preferred to remain on Talos 1V as without the Talosians illusions she was ugly and deformed from the crash which had stranded here there.

The Cage became the pilot for the Star Trek series but was only adopted as an episode The Menagerie after some changes were made to the storeyline. The Menagerie was aired on November 17th and 24th 1966 and was the only two-part episode in the history of Star Trek. (See Alan Asherman The Star Trek Compendium Titan Books, 1987 pp.11-15 and Bijo Trimble The Star Trek Concordance Ballantine books, 1976 p.42)