It seems to take too short an amount of time for Spock to leave the briefing room and reach the transporter room.

The woman beam back up one by one without anyone operating the transporter. This by Talosians who couldn't even fix their elevator in 11 years?

There's the problem as well in that the endig of this ep is different to the cage. In The Cage, the Talosians create an illusionary Pike for Vina. In this ep, its the real Pike. So, the original endingto the Cage never happened, or what?

Doesn't the HEAD Talosian remind anyone of Dr. Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie?

Can't be. The Talosians were all played by women.

The Founder leader reminds me of the Talosian leader.

You mean Dr. Bellows was played by a WOMAN??????

I know it wasn't Dr. Bellows, but you're right--it did look a little like him.

Thanks. Someone took me too seriously.

In the Classic Trekkers Guide Phil lists as a great moment, Kirk, Spock and Mendez against a black backdrop, but Phil is the same person who questions the hows and whys of various Captain's Logs? I would expect him to apply the same standards to this scene. Sure it looks nice, but is it standard Starfleet protocol to stand in front of a black backdrop, staring into space like actors in a Swedish film and repeat information, just before restarting a court martial?

Spock just leaves the room with Captain Pike, when The Keeper, contacts Kirk and shows him Pike on the planet. Just how fast did Spock run to the transporter room and beam Pike down anyhow? (Or is the whole scene an illusion for Kirk's sake, since the Talosians are obviously showing him a rerun from the end of The Cage.)

The big question is did the Talosians contact Spock or did Spock contact the Talosians? Did the Talosians hear about Pike's accident and make this offer, or did Spock hear about his former Captain's accident and realized that he would prefer the illusion of an active life to vegetating in a wheelchair? For that matter, could the Talosians have used their powers of illusion to create the accident in the first place? If Starfleet could detect transmissions from Talos IV, why didn't they catch the one which must have happened between Spock and Talos IV before this story began?

In airdate order this two-parter aired well before Court Martial, therefore a number of nits, such as the two different Commodores, can be explained by assuming these changes took place between these two shows, but when seen in production order, even more nits appear. First is just simply the oddity of one ship having two Court Martials back to back, not an impossibility, but curious. However, when shown in production order Kirk and Spock are at Starbase 11 first in Court Martial and absolutely nothing is said about Fleet Captain Pike being there. The Enterprise then leaves and comes back to Starbase 11 so Spock can kidnap Captain Pike. Supposedly subspace radio has been filled with talk about what happened to Pike, but when Kirk is at Starbase 11 to be court martialled nobody bothers telling him about Pike?

Is that guy in the fur Valkyrie-type get up that attacks Pike the same actor that played Jaws in the Bond films?

The closing credits feature yellow/orange letters with a black background. On one "page" of credits the colored part appears before the black background. (Look for the name M. Leigh Hudec.)
***
Phil has stated he doesn't like clip shows. Since "The Cage" is now shown as a stand-alone episode in syndication and on the sci-fi channel, doesn't that make "The Menagerie" a clip show? Does that mean Phil doesn't like it now?

Is that guy in the fur Valkyrie-type get up that attacks Pike the same actor that played Jaws in the Bond films?

No, the Kaylar was played by Mike Dugan, Jaws was played by Richard Kiel.

Isn't the medieval battle scene set on Rigel VII (or some Rigel planet)? I thought that "Journey to Babel" established that Rigellians had a Vulcanoid physiology. That big dude sure didn't look Vulcanoid to me.

Correct, however in Shore Leave McCoy has two showgirls from Rigel II 'constructed'. Granted they look human, and they might be simply Earth girls working on Rigel II, so the true inhabitants might look a little more Vulcan.

Rigel apparently has several Class M planets, so it is possible the Rigellians come from one of the other Rigels. Rigel IV & V & XII have also been mentioned, and I think Rigel III, but I couldn't find it in the Star Trek Omnipedia.

Also since Rigel means Foot you will actually find a number of stars with Rigel or Rigil in the name. Alpha Centauri is also known as Rigil Kentaurus.

Geordi La Forge (and Leah La Forge and their kids) are from Rigel III in "All Good Things..." Geordi looks rather human, but the "natives" could look Vulcanoid.

No, they just LIVE on Rigel III. That's a big difference.

Yeah, just like Kirk is from Iowa, he only works in outer space.

is this Chris Nyberg`s only posting which has nothing to do with minor cewmembers? Well, this posting does!

In the "Bridge to commander" scene Phil refers to the first shot is of the helm and navigator from the back. The scene shows Hadley (the helmsman/navigator who often repalces Sulu and Chekov in season two) at the helm and Leslie (the guy who`s often at the engineering console on the bridge) at the nav. But before and after this someone named Hansen has been the helmsman with no navigator. And when we instantly cut from the scene of Hadley and Leslie you can clearly see Leslie in the background! (Of course, maybe the Enterprise really DOES have lots of crewmembers who look like Eddie Paskey!) What`s more, you can see that the "helm" console is really the navigation console, presuambly the creators flipped a stock scene so that a goldshirt could be at the helm!

Hey, I've posted to alot of boards. For example... eh... I can't think of an example...

At the end, Was the wheelchair-confined Pike in this episode an illusion?

It sure seems like it, one minute he's being pushed out the door by Spock, a few seconds later he's down on Talos IV.

Or did Pike have "warp drive" capability on his wheelchair?

If so, that would explain why his hospital room has an old fashioned door---complete with doorknob.

Maybe Pike isn't on the planet yet? Maybe the whole scene on the viewscreen is an illusion for Kirk's sake? Especially since the Talosians are obviously showing him a rerun from the end of The Cage. ;-)

At the end of the "film" of Pike's voyage to Talos IV, he orders to engage the HYPERDRIVE.

HYPERDRIVE? I suppose their engineer is a 6 ft. tall hairy ape-like creature that rips droids arms out of their sockets if they lose to 3-D chess.

Cap'n, I've poured the entire pot of coffee in. The drive is as hyper as she's gonna get.

Vina is a lucky girl!
She has 2 Pikes now!

At the end of "The Cage" the real Pike watches her walk away with an illusionary Pike into the cave.

NOW in "The Menagerie Pt 2" she gets the real Pike!

Talk about women's fantasies!

I suppose the illusionary Pike was a stand-in until the real one arrived.

NIT:

Scotty is nowhere to be seen in pt.2...he was in pt.1

For those who don't know, M. Leigh Hudec is Majel Barrett. However, why don't they list her as such in the closing credits for "The Menagerie"?
She was known as M. Leigh Hudec in "The Cage".

RUMINATIONS:

This is the ONLY 2 part episode in the Original Series.

At the end of both parts, they include the original credits from "The Cage" along with the credits for "The Menagerie".

I don't recall seing Scott in pt.1 either.

My copy of "The Cage" tells me her name was "Majel Barrett".

Wasn't Scotty operating the projector in Part One?

To Chris Thomas:

That's a big "10-4" on your message.
Scotty also beamed up Kirk & Mendez from the shuttlecraft. But like I said he wasn't in pt.2

To Christer Nyberg:

You must have the newest release of "The Cage" and they must have fixed the credits. (See? They do try and get it right)

Ok, I just don't recall Scotty being there. I thought it was very strange that Hansen had such an important position all of a sudden, that I figured Scotty wasn't there.

I don't know if it's the newest release. It's on the 3-eps/per tape set with introduction by James Doohan.

This 2-part episode marks the one and only time the laser cannon is ever used.
I must say that the protective goggles everyone wears look very simular to the ones used during the atomic blast in "The War of the Worlds" (1953)

CONTINUITY ERROR...near the end when the Talosians wish to show Pike the true appearance of Vina, she begins by wearing a dress with a plunging neckline, when her true appearance is revealed, the outfit has changed...it has no plunging neckline..and when she is restored again....the plunging neckline returns....

Wouldn't it had made more sense for the Talosians (or the producers for that matter) to keep Vina in the same outfit during the whole morphing sequence? Granted it was an illusion but.....it looks kinda silly.

Yes, it looks silly, but Pike morphed from his Star Fleet uniform into his picnic/horse-riding costume. I suppose that when we see Vina in her true self, her cleavage isn't worth a look.

After showing Pike and the women escaping from the cage, the Talosians end the transmission. Spock pleads for more time, but to no avail. Mendez, Pike, and Kirk all vote Spock guilty. Apparently all three of them forgot that Spock already pleaded guilty at the beginning of the trial.

Has anyone besides Pike and Garth ("Whom Gods Destroy") achieved the rank of "Fleet Captain"? And is this different from "Commodore"?

I don't know if there is a rank of "Fleet Captain", but the rank of "Commodore" in the navy is sometimes given to the captain that has charge of the group of ships movements during a military maneouver, or a planned strategy. This is a temporary rank, and ends when the planned strategy is completed. I feel that "Fleet Captain" is a similar rank. To allow Pike to retain a rank of "Fleet Captain" must be honorary. Garth must have dissapeared while holding that rank, and as such was refered to as a "Fleet Captain".

M. Lee Hudec is Majel Barret's real name (Majel Lee Hudec.)

>>>I don't know if there is a rank of "Fleet Captain", but the rank of
"Commodore" in the navy is sometimes given to the captain that has
charge of the group of ships movements during a military maneouver, or a
planned strategy. This is a temporary rank, and ends when the planned
strategy is completed. I feel that "Fleet Captain" is a similar rank. To allow
Pike to retain a rank of "Fleet Captain" must be honorary. Garth must have
dissapeared while holding that rank, and as such was refered to as a "Fleet
Captain". <<<

I don't think so. Kirk said he met Pike when they were both being promoted, Kirk to Captain and Pike to Fleet Captain. That sounds like an actual change in rank, not a temporary assignment.

Okay, I only mentioned it because (I think) British navy has commodore as a temporary rank. But, it WAS a valiant try at a cerebral answer, even though I've never served in the military and only have my great uncle's Blue-Jacket's manual (1946) for a reference.

Opening Captain's Log: Pike's Enterprise had received a distress signal from Talos IV and found survivors of a vessel that crash-landed. Only to find it was all an illusion ... no survivors ... no encampment. It was all a trap set by a race of beings who could make a man believe he was seeing anything they wished him to see.

It is evident (although unknown to Kirk at the time) that there WERE survivors (namely Vina). In that vein, it is presumptuous for Kirk to assume there is a race of beings that "can make anyone believe anything". It would have been better to say "they can, either by mechanical or mental processes, or other unknown means, make a man believe he was seeing anything they wished him to see."

If Kirk REALLY believed what he said in his opening Captain's Log, he should have ended the farcical proceedings at once. (but, if that would have bypassed the rest of "The Cage")

RUMINATION: This episode snagged the coveted Hugo Award in 1966.

NIT: When Spock & the others are preparing to beam down, there's a man in the party with a very large band-aid on his neck. If the man was one of those injured on the Rigel planet, wouldn't it be smarter to keep him on board until he's fully recovered? An injured person in a combat situation isn't exactly a brainy idea.

^^^Spock is also wounded -- he limps. Jose is injured as well -- his hand is bandaged. So Pike actually took three wounded people with him.

Sir Rhosis

LESLIE ALERT: Mr. Leslie appears once again at the Engineering Station on the Bridge

Isn't the medieval battle scene set on Rigel VII (or some Rigel planet)? I thought that "Journey to Babel" established that Rigellians had a Vulcanoid physiology. That big dude sure didn't look Vulcanoid to me.

RIgel V was the planet with the Vulcanoid inhabitants, Rigel VII was the planet in this episode.

The Talosians didn't say they were going to try to use Pike to create a human community at the end of this episode (as they originally intended), but they may have a problem anyway. If Vina was an adult crewman on the Columbia, she was presumably at least 18. At the time of "The Cage," she would be at least 36. This episode was 13 years later, making her at least 49. Probably too old to have children (and she would have to have at least one of each gender to start a community). Of course, maybe the Talosians have some other humans there by now and Pike could advise them. But he wouldn't be too happy about it if they were abducted like he was.

Actually, I wonder if the radiation that disfigured Pike didn't sterilize him, too. IIRC, sterility is a result of radiation sickness, isn't it?

Correct.
Actually, for all their big heads, the Talosians don't have alot of brains.
Their plan is for Vina (a middle-aged cripple) and Pike to mate and create a workforce to restore Talos IV. She'd be lucky to produce a single child, let alone twins, once a year. And it would be a good 12 to 14 years before the kid, providing he or she developed normally, would be useful to the Talosians.
However, there's a starship up there with 203 healthy males and females, and on the surface are possibly more (or many, many, many more) Talosians that could control them enough to bring them all down. If the ship had 50 females that's a chance for the Talosians to gain 50 to 80 kids.
Sure, Pike rejects Vina, and won't make a move on Number One or the Yeoman, but with sufficient effort the Enterprise crew would have been at the mercy of the Talosians and not even known it.

They're even more idiotic than that. Regarding their reconstruction of Vina; fair enough, they had never seen a human before so didn't know what one looks like (the Guide classes that as a nit, but not necessarily; Vina was barely alive, a "lump of flesh" and perhaps they can only read conscious minds, not barely alive ones in terrible pain) but surely they could have worked on the assumption that humans, like themselves, are bilaterally symmetric.

Also, Vina says "everything works". Well, clearly her organs function, but her mobility is rather poor.

IOW, if you're about to have surgery and discover the surgeon is Talosian, make your excuses and leave

Technology is just too inconsistant in this episode. 23rd century Earth can build faster-than-light ships and transporters, but they can't build a decent wheelchair for Pike. Or cosmetic surgury hasn't advanced enough to allow Earth doctors to do decent reconstructive work on Pike? These are nagging questions when watching this ep.

When Mendez asks Pike, "Guilty--yes or no?" Pike beeps "Yes" and for some wierd reason, he decides to put his chair into reverse. (and out of the picture)

Am I the only one who thinks Spock got off really easy? He falsified log entries, stole a starship, and took it to a planet for which contact was punished by the death penalty. "Gee, they'll take care of Pike, so never mind."

Regarding their reconstruction of Vina; fair enough, they had never seen a human before so didn't know what one looks like...
Maybe the Talosians watched old Jerry Lewis movies. Susan Oliver was in two of them. (The Disorderly Orderly and Hardly Working.)
When Mendez disappears at the end, he just fades away. When the rest of the illusions created by the Talosians ended, they shimmered.
IMDB states the Talosians were voiced by Vic Perrin. This page also specifies the "scpipt supervisor" errors.

Adam Bomb: This page also specifies the "scpipt supervisor" errors.

Yeah...that was ME who noted that on IMDB.

I'm a "celebrity" now

Congratulations, John. You've earned a bit of immortality.
On the new Season One DVD set, the detail is incredible. Thers's stuff I've never before noticed. Like this one - you can see flesh colored spots on Susan Oliver when she's dancing as Vina. Either the green makeup wasn't applied correctly, or just wore off. This wasn't noticeable when you're watching it from TV, or maybe even a VHS. However, with the clarity of DVD, you can't help but notice.

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


The phaser cannon is one of the coolest shots of the whole series. The flashes around the sky have a nice effect of indicating that immense power has been unleashed.

When Number One and Yeoman Colt attempt to beam down inside the Talosian community, the loud "zum-zum-zum-zum-zum" sound of the transporter is absent. It returns when the Talosians control it to beam Colt, Number One and Pike back up.

When the Keeper lets Pike & co. see his latest blast hole, why do they not also let them see the two blast holes made by Pike when he fired Colt's and Number One's phasers right after he grabs them from the two new arrivals? Add more blast holes.

Throughout the first part, Pike keeps on beeping "no". He clearly doesn't want to go Talos IV. At the end of Spock's trial, he beeps "yes", pleading him guilty. Yet, at the very end he suddenly WANTS to go there.

It's as if seeing the events from the past on the viewscreen convinced him. Doesn't he know what happened to him from the very beginning? Not a nit really but a strange inconsistency, if you think about it.

GCapp, it was a laser cannon, not a phaser cannon (pick, pick, pick!)

Who is the 'pirat' slave trader looking at Vina's dance with Cpt. Pike? Harry Mudd?

After Mendez asks Pike, "Guilty...yes or no?" Pike beeps once then courteously puts his wheelchair into reverse and backs up so the cameraman can zoom in on Mendez and Kirk. A real thoughtful gesture!

Must you mention nits 4 or 5 times in every episode?

Anonymous, he has mentioned it only twice and has added something in the second mention, that wasn't included in the first.

My apologies. I forgot that I posted that nit earlier.

I've just realized how Number One was able to set her laser to explode; she took Pike's advice about keeping hate in one's mind to block the Talosians telepathy. As a result, the Keeper didn't anticipate her plan. Hopefully, when they returned to the ship she got some credit from Pike for outsmarting the Keeper.

I think Pike was having a hard time deciding whether or not to condemn Spock. He inadvertently imagined sort of a halfway Yes/No answer, which his chair had trouble interpreting, so it came out as an unusually long Yes followed by the chair suddenly going into reverse and bumping him back up against the wall. The others were too polite to make a fuss, so Spock wound up being found guilty.

Again.

See, it all makes sense. There are no problems in Star Trek. Ever. It can all be explained...

I saw the theatrical presentation of the remastered episode this evening. I was surprised how well it held up when blown up to movie-screen size. I was expecting to see a lot of flaws in the sets and makeup, but it looked really good.

I picked up a few extra details. Number One wears a ring along with her blue nail polish. The scene of the rebeautified Vina seems to loop -- she kind of rolls her eyes back and forth. I think they did this to stretch the shot. In "The Cage", she took hands with the illusionary Pike, but they couldn't show this at this point in "The Menagerie".

I was a bit disappointed in the sound. It was still the rather flat mono mix from the original episode. After the show there was a promo for the season 2 remastered DVDs, which used reorchastrated cues from "The Corbomite Maneuver". That sounded great.

Star Trek always looked good when projected on a large screen. I was at many conventions in the 1970's, and the organizers always got prints from Paramount; they had a projection room set up to screen them.
As far as the sound goes, I feel there's not much they can do with what was recorded over 40 years ago. As for rings, I never noticed DeForest Kelley's pinky ring until I saw Star Trek VI in 1991.
There's two shows tomorrow night, at 7:30 and 10:30. If you nitpickers haven't got your tickets, I hope you're not out of luck.
I'm going at 7:30 tomorrow night. Thanks for the heads-up, Alan. I know I'll enjoy this.

hey the closest theatre for the Enhanced Menagerie is 100 miles northb from where I live. I can use a Tos transporter..


I saw some of Trek in the 70s at the conventions in La..they always laugh when the screen showed Place Commercial Here.

I did go last night, and I enjoyed it immensely. Although the multiplex used one of its bigger screening rooms, the crowd wasn't very big. The theater itself was quite comfortable, with large reclining seats. The show began promptly at 7:30. The introduction by Gene Roddenberry Jr. was sweet - a thank you to us fans for all our support over the years. (I'm old enough to remember when Majel was pregnant with Rod; IIRC she was expecting when Gene and Majel came to the Feb. 1974 NYC convention.) Then the plug for the HD-DVD/DVD release of Season One of the enhanced Trek came. I liked how they showed the re-mastering process, and the comparisons with the old prints and new. The DVD set has interviews with Bob Justman (who looks the same, but older) and Bill Blackburn (who looks totally different.) Blackburn took home movies on the set, and I wish they were included on the original DVD releases. He also had good words about Bill Shatner, saying that he was very professional on the set.
The showing itself was awesome. I didn't notice many flaws in the sets or makeup either. The sound quality didn't bother me; it sounded as good as it ever will. Some additional sound effects have been added to the bridge scenes, such as when Hanson is saying how it feels funny without a navigator. One nitpick I never noticed before, even after a million viewings - During the briefing room scene, when Spock and the principals are finished discussing Capt. Pike's abduction and getting up to leave, the drawing of the Talosian is on the screen. The part when Spock discusses the Talosians, and put the drawing up on the screen, was cut when the pilot was integrated into the two-parter.
When the sheet of paper was coming out of the library computer, the detail on the buttons was so clear, I could almost read what was on them.
A great experience. In fact, I almost would buy the re-mastered DVD's, if I could afford them. If you nitpickers missed the screening, you missed a real treat.

I saw the screening of "The Menagerie" on Tue. night. I bought my ticket on Fandango, thinking that it would be sold out. I was rather disappointed that the theater was only about 25% full.

The audience laughed at several parts, but sometimes at things that were unintentionally humorous:

Mendez says, "They say no human male can resist them [Orion slave girls]," then we see Kirk staring at the screen.

McCoy's line: "I keep wondering who could be after us in a shuttlecraft."

Miss Piper: "Captain Pike, he's gone!"

I noticed that when the survivors disappeared, a rippling effect was added, similar to when Vina disappeared right before that. The original episode was inconsistent.

In the original episode, when Pike and Spock touched the vibrating plants, the background sound effect noticeably changed, indicating that the plants were making the sound and grabbing the leaves made them stop. But in this version, the difference in the sound is barely perceptible. I wonder why they would change that.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENT

Everytime an illusion vanishes, we see the same "wavy effect" seen in "The Cage"...including when Mendez vanishes from the Enterprise....which didn't happen in the original filming.

The remastered "The Menagerie" part II airs next weekend. The following week is "Errand of Mercy".

Since I didn't comment on the original airing....
Aside from the new space shots, there was a new picture of Talos IV on the briefing room's slide projector.

The Rigel VII matte was touched up a little, mainly to fix some continuity errors in the long and close-up shots.

The Mojave backdrop is replaced with a similar but much more realistic-looking backdrop.

Also noticeable is the remastered color. Footage from "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was particularly faded in the syndication prints and the original DVD editions. The difference in the Mojave scene is dramatic. The grass is now actually green, and you can see Vina is wearing a peach-colored dress. It looked white in the old prints.

NBC's push to an all-color schedule around this time is probably why the sets and costumes got more colorful. The original black and grey bridge would have looked good on a B&W TV.

Also, the rebeautified Vina seems to be an outtake from "The Cage". I looked through the shots of Vina at the end of the original, and it isn't there. As I mentioned above, I thought they had taken a scene and "rocked" it (ran it backwards and forwards a bit to stretch it out), but there isn't an exact match. She blinks, and there's only one other scene where she blinks and that isn't it.

They use the same clip twice, for both shots of her.

At the end of the episode, Uhura reads a message from (the real) Commodore Mendez, stating that General Order 7 (which forbids contact with Talos IV on penalty of death) has been suspended on this occasion. Everyone acts as if Spock is free to go at this point. However, he should be facing a host of other charges, including mutiny, theft of Federation property, (the Enterprise), sabotage of Federation property (the Starbase computers and the Enterprise), kidnapping, and assault and battery on Chief Humboldt.

bela okmyx - Haven't you ever heard the phrase 'extenuating circumstances'?

Who Threw That?

When the Enterprise's crew try to blast through the elevator's doors with the full power of the ship, the Talosians create the illusion that the door resists the assault. We are later shown the real damage the elevator sustained. The Talosians should instead have created the illusion that the laser canon was aimed at the door while it was really aimed at the sky, or even the illusion that the canon was firing while it really was not. It would have avoided damaging the elevator in a way they were no longer able to repair.

Speaking of illusions, Pike fires several laser shots at the transparent wall of his cage. The Talosians create the illusion that the lasers are empty. Pike tells the Keeper that he thinks the lasers are really fine and threatens to test his hunch on the Keeper's head, at which point the illusion is broken and reveals a large burned hole in the wall. Pike fired more than one shot though, the corridor and elevator beyond the transparent wall should also have sustained damage, but they are intact.

I always assumed that the laser hit the glass and melted a big, expanding hole in it, the same way Kirk and Spock melted the wall of Landru, but didn't damage the computer inside.

But, you're mostly right about aiming the laser cannon into the sky. I suppose they spared the Enterprise crew's lives in anticipation of using more of them for breeding stock, if Pike and Vina worked out.

Of course, you can't start a whole race from just two humans, not unless you want some Bubba Joe and Bobbie Sue's a few generations down the line.

In the briefing room, Boyce ascertains that the Talosians can create illusions based on a persons thoughts, memories, experiences, even their own desires. How does he know all of this? He must have have some detailed conversations with the fake survivors on Talos, because those four things cover a lot of territory, instead of just saying 'illusions based on one's thoughts and experiences'.

Vina says, (re. the Talosians) "You just sit, living and reliving other lives, left behind in the thought records." That pretty well describes all of us watching the same reruns of TV shows, living and reliving other (fictional) people's lives!

Why was Yeoman Colt added to the rescue team to get Pike back? Wouldn't an extra security guard have made more sense? I guess the Talosians were influencing somebody's mind to get another female, other than Number One, down on Talos IV.

Pike and the Keeper have a conversation, and the Keeper says, 'Now to the female." indicating that she's in another cage.
But wait a minute...
After the Keeper leaves, Pike is immediately sent into another illusion, this one on Earth for a picnic with Vina. That's immediately followed by the Orion dance experience. Then it's interrupted by Number One and Colt beaming in.
Now Pike is in his cage with Number One, Colt...and Vina. How? Is there a secret entrance somewhere? Is her cage next door to his? While he was in an illusion trance, I suppose the Talosians snuck Vina in.
But to do that, that would mean that she was sitting down at the picnic, or dancing on Orion in her mind, but her body was moved from her cage to Pike's,

The same goes for when she talks too much and the Talosians punish her then make her disappear. Was she really in his cage, and then made to appear to disappear, or was her first visit there an illusion?

It's possible that Vina was there, but the Talosians projected an illusion that Pike was alone in the cage.

I think "Now to the female" meant the Keeper was changing the topic of conversation.

Yeah, that is exactly what the Keeper meant.

What I meant was that the Keeper was projecting an illusion of Pike's cage to him, minus Vina, making it look like she wasn't there.

BTW: Vina was the late Fay Wray's (the Canadian actress from the 1933 King Kong movie) actual first name (Fay was her middle name).

Actually, the Keeper was turning away from Pike as he said, "Now to the female.", as if she was in a different cage.
But I think Tim and I are right-- Vina's in there with Captain Pike, but a subtle illusion is making them think they're separate. Vina could even be experiencing an illusion, herself, unaware she's in the same cage as Pike.
It all goes back to Vina leaving with Pike, Number One, and Colt-- she HAD to be inside Pike's cage or the surface scene doesn't make sense.

The illusions can fool scanners. They can easily fool humans.

Did the Talosians have different plans for Pike when he returns to Talos IV? It was stated quite clearly that his initial captivity was for the purpose of making him "breeding stock." (And don't you love how the Talosians had their illusionary Mendez hammer that point home just in case the "real" people didn't miss it?).

So, to continue with my point, the injured Pike will be living on Talos IV with Vina. If the purpose is still to have them breed new humans, I'm skeptical as to how it's going to work. I have two points here.
1) Vina was on the planet for several years before the Enterprise first came along (the illusionary scientist said she was born almost as they crashed, but that is apparently not true, as her later story seems to indicate she was a fully grown women when the Talosians attempted to put her together). Now another thirteen years has passed. Is she even capable of having many children now?
2) More to the point, how exactly is this going to work for Pike? He may have the illusion of having a healthy able body, but in fact he can't move a muscle. How exactly is he going to impregnate Vina? I suppose the Talosians can take a sperm sample from him and do the job that way, but I'm just very skeptical about the whole thing.

The Talosian gave up of using humans to help them reclaim the planet's surface. They consider them too violent and dangerous for that purpose.

Couldn't 23rd Century medicine have helped Vina? Why didn't Pike bring her home? She might have loved ones who would be happy that she's alive.

How difficult was it for Spock to push Pike's chair off the transporter platform and down the stairs, and then back up the stairs and back onto the platform? Hopefully there's an anti-gravity switch on the chair, or else Spock is going to hurt his back pushing it up and down-- it looks pretty heavy!

Tim - "Couldn't 23rd Century medicine have helped Vina?" I already covered this is 'The Cage' thread (ie she didn't want to live a real-life existence of pain and deformity, when she could experience any illusion without pain), but then I thought about Pike.
I was going to say why couldn't 23rd century medicine fix Pike's deformities, but then I thought how do we know he's not in the process of repairing his face? Maybe his injuries were even worse than we saw, and they could have regenerated enough 'good skin' on his face, so that he looks the way he does, and isn't blackened and scarred over 75 % of his face, rather than about 30 %.

Could be, I guess.