Star Trek: The Cage

The USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, receives a radio distress call from the fourth planet in the Talos star system. A landing party is assembled and beamed down to investigate. Tracking the distress signal to its source, the landing party discovers a camp of survivors from a scientific expedition that has been missing for 18 years. Among the survivors is a beautiful young woman named Vina.

Captivated by her beauty, Pike is caught off guard and is captured by the Talosians, a race of humanoids with bulbous heads who live beneath the planet's surface. It is revealed that the distress call, and the crash survivors, except for Vina, are just illusions created by the Talosians to lure the Enterprise to the planet. While imprisoned, Pike uncovers the Talosian's plans to repopulate their ravaged planet using himself and Vina as breeding stock for a race of slaves.

The Talosians try to use their power of illusion to interest Pike in Vina, and present her in various guises and settings, first as a Rigellian princess, a loving compassionate farm girl, then a seductive, green-skinned Orion. Pike resists all forms, so the Talosians lure Pike's first officer and yeoman — both women — down from the Enterprise to offer further temptation. By then however, Pike discovers that his primitive human emotions can neutralize the Talosians' ability to read his mind, and he manages to escape to the surface of the planet along with his landing party.

The Talosians confront Pike and his companions before they can beam up, but the captain refuses to negotiate, even threatening to kill himself and the others rather than submit to the Talosians' demands. Frightened at losing their only hope in their future, the Talosians analyze the Enterprise's records and realize the human race is far too "violent" to be of adequate use to them.

Faced with no other options, the Talosians let the humans go. The others beam up, but Pike remains behind with Vina, urging her to leave with him. Vina then claims she is unable to leave the planet. It is discovered that an expedition had indeed crash landed on Talos IV, and Vina was the sole survivor. She was badly injured however, and left horribly disfigured, but with the aid of the Talosians' illusions, she is able to appear beautiful and in good health.

Realizing that the continued Talosian illusion of health and beauty is necessary for Vina, Pike is ready to return to the Enterprise, but in an act of goodwill, the aliens show him that Vina sees an image of Pike next to her, and they walk up to the entrance that takes them into the Talosian habitat, and then Pike beams up after the Keeper's closing words, "She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."