Star Trek Episode 1: The Cage

This episode is the pilot. That means that certain characteristics of the show are not yet evident in this initial trial episode. It may be that before the network would buy the show, there was a discussion about what they liked and disliked and what needed to be changed in order to make it sell. I imagine this conversation going something like this:

TV-Executive-With-Cigar: I love it! I love how the model of the ship doesn't really look like its moving! I love how the captain treats women as sexual objects and cannot be professional around them to save his life (literally) and I love Nimoy. Keep him. Everyone else has gotta go, and can we color code this crew?
Desperate Producer: Yes of course, we'll get a black lady and an Asian guy...
TEWC: I meant shirts, I can't tell them apart in their grey away-team pajamas.

All in all though, its a great pilot. I can see why it got picked up. I find myself wanting to know what would have happened if they had kept this original crew. They are setting up relationships that of course never get fleshed out. I want to know what's with the alcoholic doctor, and what's wrong with the yeomen? Something is wrong with her, but I can't put my finger on it.
The episode storyline is a great start. They set the tone of asking big moral questions right from the get go. At the end, we are left to wonder whether the woman made the right choice by staying with the aliens and her fake captain-looking holo-mate.
She is happy, because she has been carefully conditioned for the past 18 years to think this is exactly what she wants. But she was a astronaut-scientist before that. She certainly had dreams other than a house a dog and 2.5 children at some point in her life and she might be able to remember those dreams if given a chance.
We also know that she realizes at the core of her being that she is not what she appears and that this pains her. It does not hurt as much as it would if she reentered the world, but maybe in time she could be happy again, and find her family and pursue old dreams... Maybe she would never find peace. It is accepted that true ignorance is bliss. The thesis statement here is that feigned ignorance is bliss.
The captain does not agree for himself, but he manages to see from her perspective that she can be happy here in her false world, even though he is unable to. He drinks the nutrition-in-a-goblet without making it an ice cream sundae, so we establish the truth is more important to him. But he has come to know her and knows that for her, this is better. He goes as far as to announce that he agrees with her choice.
This is not what Kirk would have done, and I think Kirk is worse for his overly strong moral compass. Kirk's enterprise (Not to mention Voyager under the ever-pushy Janeway) would have beamed her up as soon as they got back to the ship and forced her to face her demons. More on this when we meet 7-of-9
Ok, pet peeves and inconsistencies:

• Spock can tell from the size of the aliens heads that they are powerful psychics?
• They don't know (because they have never seen a human before) that people don't have one shoulder up higher than the other and a line down the center of their faces. Why not default to making her look like them and giver her a big old lumpy bald skull?
• She is vain and has obviously had a hair cut in the last 18 years, but she cannot brush her hair?

Not too long a list. I almost considered the following an issue, but I changed my mind.
I'm going to note, as an interesting point about human minds that people in the show are unable to act on knowledge that is contradicted by their hallucinations. When they blast a hole in the wall, they cannot just feel for it, they need to SEE it to use it. Spock suspects that they may be able to blast down the door and just not see that they have done it, but they don't even attempt to pass through, or check if it is open. It is nice that they never use their "extra special human will power" or anything. They are actually at the mercy of their senses and can only see what they are allowed to see. Its refreshing.
We're off to a good start!