Why The Huge Gap Between TMP & WOK?

[Christopher]

I was just saying that TMP is the closest thing to Phase II that we ever saw.

Well, so was TNG to a degree. Roddenberry just took the Phase II characters and reworked them for TNG -- the more mature Kirk became Picard, Will Decker became Will Riker, Ilia became Troi (and I just now realized that was probably a pun on Ilium as the poetic name for ancient Troy), and Xon was merged with the title character of The Questor Tapes to become Data. And of course "The Child" and "Devil's Due" were adaptations of Phase II scripts.

 

[locutus101]

... (and I just now realized that was probably a pun on Ilium as the poetic name for ancient Troy),

Good call! I myself, are a big fan of Greek Mythology, or even Mythology in general.

and Xon was merged with the title character of The Questor Tapes to become Data. And of course "The Child" and "Devil's Due" were adaptations of Phase II scripts.

"Devil's Due" wasn't very good. I hope the other Phase II scripts were a little better.

 

[Christopher]

"Devil's Due" wasn't very good. I hope the other Phase II scripts were a little better.

I've read summaries of them, and there were a fair number that... well... hopefully would've gotten a few more rewrites if the show had gone to series.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

"Devils Due" wasn't very good. I hope the other Phase II scripts were a little better.

Pick up a copy of the Reeves Stevens book, they're all covered in there, it's a great book.

 

[locutus101]

I've read summaries of them, and there were a fair number that... well... hopefully would've gotten a few more rewrites if the show had gone to series.

They didn't tap into that well anymore, though. It may have been preferable to shows like Shades Of Grey.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Ilia/Troi play on words has been pointed out on the board before. Apologies, but I can't remember who posted it right now. Someone who studied Greek, IIRC.

Edit - It was @Orphalesion who I was thinking of, in this post, with a comment on the spelling just downthread.

 

[locutus101]

The Ilia/Troi play on words has been pointed out on the board before. Apologies, but I can't remember who posted it right now. Someone who studied Greek, IIRC.

That seems quite plausible. Plus there was the infamous Elaan of Troyius .

 

[Christopher]

They didn't tap into that well anymore, though. It may have been preferable to shows like Shades Of Grey.

That wouldn't have been an option in that case. There's a widespread myth that "Shades of Grey" was a result of the '88 writers' strike, but that was a year earlier, affecting the end of season 1 and the start of season 2 (which is why season 2 opened with "The Child"). "Shades of Grey," like all clip shows, was done due to a shortage of money, not a shortage of scripts. (Indeed, that's why the myth makes no sense, because writers' strikes are rare, but clip shows happen all the time in television.) The production had gotten permission to spend extra money on a couple of episodes (including "Q Who"), in exchange for which they had to agree to do a money-saving episode that could be shot in only 3 days. The usual way to do that in television is to do a clip show and pad the rest of the running time with stock footage. None of the Phase II scripts would've worked for that, because none of them was intended to be shot on a reduced budget and schedule.

 

[locutus101]

That wouldn't have been an option in that case. There's a widespread myth that "Shades of Grey" was a result of the '88 writers' strike, but that was a year earlier, affecting the end of season 1 and the start of season 2 (which is why season 2 opened with "The Child"). "Shades of Grey," like all clip shows, was done due to a shortage of money, not a shortage of scripts. (Indeed, that's why the myth makes no sense, because writers' strikes are rare, but clip shows happen all the time in television.) The production had gotten permission to spend extra money on a couple of episodes (including "Q Who"), in exchange for which they had to agree to do a money-saving episode that could be shot in only 3 days. The usual way to do that in television is to do a clip show and pad the rest of the running time with stock footage. None of the Phase II scripts would've worked for that, because none of them was intended to be shot on a reduced budget and schedule.

Yes, that makes sense.

 

[Warped9]

In a sense TNG is much alike what was planned for Phase II.

 

[Christopher]

In a sense TNG is much alike what was planned for Phase II.

And not just in content, but in a more functional way. Phase II was meant to be the anchor of a new Paramount TV network, and was turned into a movie project when the network plans fell through. It was hoped that it would be the vanguard of a new outlet for TV programming. TNG was the pioneer in first-run syndicated live-action drama, the beginning of the first-run syndication boom of the late '80s and '90s. So it ended up being the same kind of trailblazer that Phase II was meant to be, more or less. (We've seen the pattern repeated since -- Voyager was the anchor show of UPN, and now Discovery is the anchor show for CBS All Access's attempt to become an original content provider.)

 

[Tomalak]

"Devil's Due" wasn't very good. I hope the other Phase II scripts were a little better.

I love that one! Patrick Stewart is a hoot and it's a really entertaining episode. It does feel like a throwback to TOS in some ways.

 

[locutus101]

I love that one! Patrick Stewart is a hoot and it's a really entertaining episode. It does feel like a throwback to TOS in some ways.

Patrick Stewart is ok. It's the script that's not good.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Ilia became Troi (and I just now realized that was probably a pun on Ilium as the poetic name for ancient Troy)

Wow, I never got that before. That's pretty neat.

 

[locutus101]

Wow, I never got that before. That's pretty neat.

Troi never said a word about her vow of celibacy though.

 

[publiusr]

Simple explanation: Admiral Morrow is an ass.

Wasn't he supposed to have been Cartwright in TUC?

No, the Godzilla continuities are not branching in the sense that they diverged from the same original timeline. they're utterly different realities -- but the events of the 1954 film still happened in all of them,.

The way I've looked at Trek, is that you'd have to be at the Guardian of Forever to see all the adventures, written or filmed.

Maybe in each trek-verse, only a few stories happened at a time--and the rest of the Five-Year Mission(s) were boring

 

[Tomalak]

Wasn't he supposed to have been Cartwright in TUC?

The Admiral in the Voyage Home script was Morrow. Robert Hooks wasn't available, but they got lucky with Brock Peters, and Cartwright was born.

 

[locutus101]

The Admiral in the Voyage Home script was Morrow. Robert Hooks wasn't available, but they got lucky with Brock Peters, and Cartwright was born.

Cartwright, who became a traitor in TUC.

 

[USS Firefly]

Wow so Morrow and Saavik would be traitors in TUC?

 

[Tomalak]

Well yeah, I suppose so, if Morrow had appeared in TVH as planned. It would have depended on Meyer, he might have wanted to cast a different actor as the Admiral. Brock Peters is so good in that role.