This continues the plot of part one, with most of the episode consisting of Spock, Kirk, commodore Mendez and the crippled Pike (played by another actor, not Jeff Hunter) seated in a conference room watching movies of one of Pike's past missions. This may sound quite boring, but viewers had the opportunity to see how two separate suspenseful plots would conclude - the one with Pike in the past and the one with Kirk and Spock. This doubled impact was especially true if a viewer had never seen the original pilot "The Cage." Footage from "The Cage" dominated this second part, consisting of about 70% of this episode (whereas this was the case for the wraparound portion in the first part).
There was at least one unexplained delay during the showing of these space home movies as the 3rd act ended, as the images stopped being transmitted. This allowed the script to throw in some more jeopardy as Spock was found officially guilty by the 3 ranking officers as they waited for the show to continue. Yep, things still looked pretty grim at this point: Spock still seemed to have betrayed his current captain - Kirk - and faced a death penalty (I do wonder how it was done in the 23rd century - death by phasers? That would probably be painless). But, to Roddenberry's credit, he managed to throw in a little whammy towards the end of his wraparound tale which probably surprised the audience and made complete sense in view of what kind of aliens Pike had faced during his past mission. I think Kirk forgave Spock a bit too quickly as the episode ended and all the 'death penalty' threats evaporated too easily, but Pike's final scene and final fate here is about as good as science fiction gets.
There was at least one unexplained delay during the showing of these space home movies as the 3rd act ended, as the images stopped being transmitted. This allowed the script to throw in some more jeopardy as Spock was found officially guilty by the 3 ranking officers as they waited for the show to continue. Yep, things still looked pretty grim at this point: Spock still seemed to have betrayed his current captain - Kirk - and faced a death penalty (I do wonder how it was done in the 23rd century - death by phasers? That would probably be painless). But, to Roddenberry's credit, he managed to throw in a little whammy towards the end of his wraparound tale which probably surprised the audience and made complete sense in view of what kind of aliens Pike had faced during his past mission. I think Kirk forgave Spock a bit too quickly as the episode ended and all the 'death penalty' threats evaporated too easily, but Pike's final scene and final fate here is about as good as science fiction gets.