Flash the bridge. Put all decks on the alert!



If you regularly follow the Trek news sources like TrekToday you've already seen this. But if not, and if you're a serious fan of the original series, you'll enjoy this. It's a few brief video snippets that didn't make it into the version of the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."



There's a good article at Trekweb that has some screen captures and a good text description of the video footage, for those who have problems with video on their computers. The actual footage is at Trek Brasilis. The text of the latter page is in Portuguese, but the links to the video files (.avi format, a few megs each) are easy to find.



Here's what you get: First, a new intro scene with a shot of the galaxy and a Kirk voiceover setting up the episode and leading into a different set of opening credits with different music (if you have the soundtrack album for "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before," you've heard this). Second, the opening scenes from the first act with a few scenes of the various crew members making their way through busy corridors to the turbolift (including a cute bit of business by Gary Lockwood). Third, a different set of closing credits. About two or three minutes worth of video in all.



Okay, so these aren't revelatory lost scenes. I can imagine some people being completely uninterested in them. But for a lot of us longtime TOS fans, this is pretty neat stuff. I'm almost as keen to burn this to VCD as I was to burn my VCDs of Starship Exeter's "The Savage Empire" episode and "Come What May", the first episode of Star Trek: The New Voyages. But this is real Trek, not fan Trek, so even if it's only a couple of minutes instead of a full episode... well, excuse me for geeking out.



(Now playing: UNKLE, "Safe in Mind (Please Get This Gun From Out of My Face)," Never, Never Land.)