Star Trek (actual) Episode 1: The Man Trap

Gone are the strong female characters and loose tongued doctor. We now meet the "real crew" that we will follow for the next 46+ years. The second pilot is yet to come (It aired as the third episode) and so I do not yet have a direct comparison between the old and new format.
Some changes are obvious already:

• The teleporter no longer takes an hour and a half. Maybe they were trying to make it believable, by not letting it be too quick and easy, but I'm glad they made it quicker and easier. The special effects were not worth it.
• These skirts! I used to watch the show and think "that's how women dressed then (the 60's, not the future) so I can't blame them" or "Maybe Uhura just dresses like that and I haven't seen any other women" But they all wear them! Its a good thing there are no stairs on the ship! I now know that they considered dressing the women like the men and giving them seemingly equal treatment. They tried it in the pilot and then decided to scrap it. 
• The crew in general has had many changes. My wish that Pike had stuck around and the weird old doctor was still there has already been expressed. I wish they kept a female helmsman (helmswoman?) but I am not going to begrudge the addition of George Takai. Speaking of...

I feel like the relationship between Sulu and Woven-Beehive-Lady is one of gay and fag hag, foreshadowing Takai's exit from the closet almost 40 years later. She is being sexually harassed by all of her other colleagues, and  then seems to take sanctuary in his room. Either he's playing the long game, they are showing us just what a gentleman he is (since apparently, men of the future have evolved to think primarily with their penises) or he's gay.

As for the episode plot, it seems odd to open with a back story about a character who is not Kirk, (ensemble cast, I know, but the captain is the lead if we're pressed to declare one. I'm sure Shatner would agree) I don't think they are really setting up McCoy's character for future episodes. I feel like this may have been misleading, but I wasn't born yet, so I can't be sure.
The big moral issue or question about humanity here is grazed over: the twisted fact that the scientist falls in love with the salt eating creature who killed his wife. Seems disturbing, but if I'm honest... Yeah. I would too. 
So on the whole planet, there are only me and Shawn. Then Shawn dies and I have a new Shawn, or at least something that looks and tries to act like Shawn. Even if it is just a broken volleyball with a hand print on it, I have already been convinced I would love it after a little while. The real question is: why did the salt creature care enough to keep the scientist alive? He's essentially livestock to her. He is not her species, and unlike her, he cannot make himself look like her species, so falling in love already involves jumping the inter species dating hurdle, then there is the fact that he is edible and she is hungry. He claims that she craves affection, but they don't really ever back that up. I think the back story here is a beautiful tale of love between a man and a salt monster (from the salt monster community's perspective).
And why do we call it a creature instead of an alien? Who gets to decide which word applies?

Pet Peeves and inconsistencies:

• The first kid to get de-salted and die has so little tact that he tells a superior officer's old flame "hey, you look just like a hooker I had once" (paraphrased) I feel like maybe they would screen potential astronauts (liaison's to new cultures) for this level of intelligence/social competence.
• I saw a lot of people dying in this episode without the proper death attire. Lots of yellow and blue shirted cadavers...  
• The Captain's log repeatedly shows a knowledge of things that the captain did not yet know by the time of writing. For example in his second entry during the first day he mentions that they were each seeing different women. I don't know if this is a president which will be maintained, but now I am on the lookout.
• The salt eater displays the ability in her first scene to appear as different people to different people. This is way cooler than what she does later when she is on the ship. There is no reason to sneak into Bones' room and then transform into his lost love, if she could just always appear as Mrs. Crater to him.
• The monster costume which is the shape shifters true form has a net-like piece of clothing. If you live your life never showing anyone what you really look like, why get dressed? And if you do, why wear a crotch net? While we're at it, unless a shape shifter has difficulty maintaining an alternate form (foreshadow: Odo) there is no reason to have a "true form" I think that this is sort of humans projecting our reality on another people. It is sort of like having a "true hairstyle" Every morning, a woman decides how to style her hair that day. She can also choose to cut or dye it at any point, so is her "true hair" down? grown in? unbrushed? bald?
• Ok WHAT is Sulu's deal? He is a pilot who is obsessed with muppet plants? Or is "muppet plant expert" part of his job? 
• We have an alien who lives off of salt, but we do not explain where she has been getting salt for the vast majority of her life. They have a little jar of salt tablets which are clearly insufficient as she eats the salt out of ~5 people and then is still so hungry at the end that she blows her cover in front of McCoy. Again, how has she not eater her "husband" before now?

 So I just have to make sure we get to the third episode in time for me to remember the pilot and be able to compare.
A final note: Shawn seems to disagree with wikipedia on the episode numbering. I was not going to give the pilot a number, since it did not air first, but Shawn said it was episode 1, so I numbered it. Then I look up the list on wikipedia and see that they agree with me, so I am calling this episode 1 and numbering from there, unless of course the boss (Shawn) tells me to quit it.

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!