Character Insight No. 292: Number One

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we cover Number One, the original first officer of the Enterprise from the TOS pilot episode The Cage, and a character who will appear again in the next season of Discovery, just like Captain Pike, who we covered last week.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp292 

In The Cage, Number One is a female human Starfleet officer who serves as a second in command to Captain Pike on the Enterprise.  In addition to her first officer duties, she also serves as the helmsman in this episode.  In this manner, she sets the mold for future characters like Sulu who take similar joint roles in Starfleet.

Number One is a lieutenant, but she is described to be one of the most experienced officers on the ship, perhaps knowing more about ship operations and equipment than even the Captain.  As we learn from the Talosians who capture her and the Captain during The Cage, she has exceptional intelligence and rationality, and she rarely shows emotion.  These qualities of the first officer were transferred into the character of Spock when that character was promoted to the role of first officer in episodes following the pilot episode.  To this end, the Spock that we know is a bit of a hybrid between the original Spock from The Cage and the Number One character.  So she sets the character mold for another major character in this way.

In The Cage, Number One is in command when Pike is kidnapped by the Talosians.  She uses a number of options to try and rescue him, but she ends up being kidnapped herself.  The Talosians wanted to mate her with Pike to keep a race of humans as their slaves.  Number One sets a laser pistol to overload to kill all of them to prove humans will not be kept as slaves anymore, which was a strong commentary on real world events when The Cage was airing.

QUOTE - from The Cage

"It's wrong to create a race of Humans to keep as slaves."

The name Number One is a naval slang term used by Captain Pike to refer to his first officer, and it is not the character's real name.  Indeed, because this character was dropped from the series following the pilot episode screenings, we never learn her real name.  But the moniker Number One would live on, as Picard refers to his first office William Riker as "Number One" frequently, and Michael Burnham is also referred to this way by Captain Georgiou in the initial episodes of Discovery.

And that brings us to last week's news about Discovery season two, where Captain Pike and Number One will be playing a big role in that new season.  It will be interesting to see if Number One finally receives a name in canon this time, and whether the Spock-like qualities originally associated with this character are carried over from The Cage.

Majel Barrett played Number One in The Cage, and this footage also appears in The Menagerie episodes later in TOS.  In addition to her numerous roles on Star Trek series, she is also known for playing Miss Carrie in the original 1974 movie version of Westworld, which has recently been converted into a big sci fi HBO series.  Rebecca Romijn, who is probably best known as a model and in her Mystique roles of the original X-Men movies, will take over as Number One in the new season of Discovery.

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Character Insight No. 291: Christopher Pike

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we cover Captain Christopher Pike, a character who has appeared in TOS as well as the Abrams movies and will now be taking a big role in Discovery Season 2, according to the preview trailer this week.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp291 

Christopher Pike is the Captain of the Enterprise for 11 years, spanning from 2254 to 2265, which is when Captain Kirk takes over that ship.  We see Pike in the original pilot episode The Cage, as this character was intended to be the lead of the show at that early stage.  However, the actor Jeffrey Hunter backed out of the role after screenings of the first pilot, and Gene Roddenberry then turned to William Shatner and a new captain for the show we came to know and love.

In The Cage, we see Pike lead a landing party to Rigel VII, and the crew is attacked by the Kalar with several killed and others captured.  This weighed heavily on the captain and made him question whether he was fit to continue as a starship commander.

QUOTE - from The Cage
"I'm tired of being responsible for two hundred and three lives. I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't. And who's going on the landing party and who doesn't. And who lives...and who dies."

Later in the first season of TOS, Captain Pike plays an important role in The Menagerie two part episode.  We see in this episode a more detailed account of the Captain's capture by the Talosians from the earlier episode The Cage.  The Talosians were a telepathic race that can create any number of tempting illusions to keep trapped their subjects in a zoo-like setting.  Pike resists the allure of these illusions and saves himself and a couple of female crewmembers who the Talosians were trying to make mate with Pike, again, much like a zookeeper would.

Pike again convinces himself in this mission that he is very fit to be in command, and he goes on to have one of the most decorated careers in Starfleet, including having awards and discovered places named after him.  It is in this successful command period on the Enterprise where the USS Discovery runs into Pike and that's where we will pick up Season 2 of Discovery, apparently.  Thus, this character is about to become a lot more fleshed out than has been done previously.

Pike was promoted to fleet captain in 2265, which is when Kirk takes over the ship.  A few years after this, he is crippled by delta-particle rays when saving cadets on a training vessel from an accident where a baffle plate ruptured on the ship.  We see his wheelchair-bound form in The Menagerie.  His Abrams timeline colleague turns command over to Kirk as well, while serving as more of a mentor to Kirk this time, but he also suffers a grisly fate at the hands of Khan in the movie Star Trek Into Darkness.  

Christopher Pike was played by Jeffrey Hunter, who played in a number of movies in the 1950s and 1960s before appearing on the Star Trek pilot.  His career took a downturn following his decision to leave the show, and he sadly died three years later at the age of 42 due to complications from two strokes and a fall.  Sean Kenney plays the disfigured wheelchair version of Pike in TOS, Bruce Greenwood played the role in the Abrams movies, and Anson Mount will take the role this year for Discovery.

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Character Insight No. 290: Ensign Wright

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we cover Ensign Wright, a crew member and recurring character from TNG.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp290 

Wright is a background character who is seen in multiple roles on board Picard's Enterprise, specifically as a nurse and also as a flight controller or general bridge crew.  When serving on the bridge as a flight controller, he wears a red uniform and an ensign pip.  Meanwhile, when serving in sickbay as a nurse, he wears the sciences blue uniform and is seen without the rank insignia.  He's kind of a predecessor to Tom Paris, in this dual role regard.

All of his initial appearances were as a nurse, and he serves in the first two seasons of the show as an active support for both Beverly Crusher and Katherine Pulaski, Darrell's favorite doctor.  We see Wright help treat Doctor Paul Manheim when the ship rescues him in the episode We'll Always Have Paris, and we also see him revive several cryogenically preserved humans in the episode The Neutral Zone.

QUOTE - from We'll Always Have Paris

The highlight of his medical career definitely comes when Dr. Pulaski chews him out for all her problems, including the biobeds not working and having 35 emergency calls staggered across 12 decks during the Iconian program contagion of the Enterprise.  As she storms off, ensign Wright shakes his head and walks away.  Just another day in the life serving under Dr. Pulaski.

The next year he moves into the red uniform and command division roles on the bridge.  He has his bridge console explode in the episode Evolution but he avoids being harmed in this incident.  He also mans the conn in other episodes, serving alongside the main crew members on the alpha shift.

Ensign Wright is not a critical background character by any stretch, but he does show that role changes and career development can happen while serving on a deep space exploration vessel.  Wright probably swore off medicine after serving with Dr. Pulaski a year, and we can all understand that.  

Ensign Wright was played by David Eum, who was uncredited in these appearances.  He played some other background characters in the early seasons of the show, but this is his only known acting credit of note.  

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