If at first you don't succeed, save the footage because it may become iconic later on. That's exactly what happened with the "Star Trek" pilot episode, "The Cage."

The show introduces the U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter). Pike's crew includes Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and the first officer known only as Number One (Majel Barrett). In the episode, Pike is kidnapped by the Talosians, but he needs to figure out what the species wants from him and the Enterprise crew.




According to StarTrek.com, NBC didn't accept the pilot, but it allowed creator Gene Roddenberry to have another shot at it and take the network's notes into consideration.

Some of the non-negotiables included that Roddenberry needed to pick between keeping Spock or Number One, so the creator chose to keep Spock for the next iteration of the pilot that saw the Enterprise led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) after Hunter declined to do the series.




Parts of the footage from "The Cage" was used in the episode "The Menagerie," while "The Cage" was eventually released on home video in 1986.

In terms of the adventures of Captain Pike and his Enterprise crew, this became the basis of the series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds". It goes to show that Roddenberry's instincts weren't wrong. Instead, much like the show, he was ahead of his time.

https://www.tvline.com/2016387/tv-show-pilots-reshot-before-airing/