Hi everybody. I realize I’m asking a lot here, but… I’m writing a series of articles about all the abandoned Roddenberry series: Genesis II, Questor Tapes, Planet Earth and Spectre. While information on the pilots themselves are widely available, I’d like to talk also about the scripted episodes of each series which of course were never filmed. These are the results pf my research so far. GENESIS II: the Wikipedia page has synopsis for six approved episodes. Those come from one of the Lincoln Enterprises Catalog (which I have), and for each of these episode the catalogue offer the script. I do have “Robot’s Return” script, the one from which “The Motion Picture” originated, I’d like to find the others. THE QUESTOR TAPES: in the Justman-Solow book “Inside Star Trek - The Real Story”, it’s reported that there were 12 scripts ready. I have three: “The Surgeon Without a Heart”, “Think Love” and “Rosemary”. I’d like to find the others. PLANET EARTH: In this case I don’t believe there were any episode script ready, beside those developed for Genesis II. Even the Lincoln catalogue lists only the pilot script available. SPECTRE: also in this case I don’t believe there were any episode script ready, but the Lincoln catalogue lists, beside the pilot script, a “Spectre - Concept notes and story ideas” 30 pages booklet, which would be interesting to read. So does anybody have something more or know where to find it? Maab
I would love to read any and all of this. Very intriguing thread. I learned today about the idea of "Robot's Revenge" and its connection to TMP via a facebook thread; google brought me here. This is the first I've heard of it, and I've been following TOS since the 80s - I know old threads are frowned upon, but if anyone could give a bit more info on this Robot's Revenge situation, I would be very interested!
The Genesis II scripts that I *have* heard synopsis of sound interesting. Sounds a bit like what I've seen from the show "Otherworld" (1985).
I would've said it's probably closer to the Logan's Run TV series, which I'm currently reviewing on Patreon. Or to Filmation's Ark II. There was a vogue for post-apocalyptic weird-subculture-of-the-week shows in the mid-'70s. The Planet of the Apes series might also fit, although the cultures of the week weren't as diverse on that show, just a bunch of agrarian-level human villages with oppressive ape rulers.
I'm a bit too young to have watched any of those. (although, I think I have them downloaded on a classic sci fi drive somewhere.) I thought about Ark II when I was writing that, but since I have no firsthand knowledge, I wasn't sure if I should make the comparison, and had no idea about the other two shows.
Ironically, I'm old enough to have seen the '70s shows as a kid, but I don't think I ever saw Otherworld. It was on opposite Diff'rent Strokes and T.J. Hooker, and I don't think we had a VCR yet. The description reminds me of The Fantastic Journey from early 1977, which I previously covered on my Patreon (it was from some of the same creators who went on to the Logan's Run series, including Star Trek's D.C. Fontana as story editor).
I saw Diff'rent Strokes on occaision; I remember seeing the PSA type "contraversial" episodes as a kid. (born '78.) I never saw TJ Hooker when it was live, although I do remember first-run Knight Riders and Macgyvers and A Teams. I'm not sure if I've even heard of Fantastic Journey.... looking into it now. During today's research, I've also discovered a show called "The Wizard" (1986) for the first time, but can't find it anywhere yet. Some of this stuff is super-rare holy-grail type stuff, looking for tv-rips and vhs-rips on line......
I don't think I watched it regularly, come to think of it. I did watch the episode where Leonard Nimoy guest starred, but that was a special case. Ah, yes, with David Rappaport as a weapons inventor who had a crisis of conscience and became a toymaker, and used his inventor's skills to help Fight Crime and help people. He was paired off with a more straight-arrow FBI agent who had to get used to his eccentric ways. I recall enjoying it, mainly because of Rappaport's charisma. I think it had good theme music too. It wasn't always the smartest show around, though. The clearest memory I have was of an episode involving a girl who'd been raised by wolves or something, and Simon (I think that was Rappaport's character's name) was trying to teach her English. He taught her the word "girl," which in his London accent came out "gell," and the wild child, who'd supposedly never heard the word before, replied "girrl" in a distinctly American accent.
I found Fantastic Journey and already had downloaded Apes, Ark II and Logan's Run on a (5tb sci fi drive) but I can not find much of the Wizard. It looks like the pilot is on youtube. I will check it out, it looks interesting.
Fantastic Journey is perhaps better remembered in the UK, as the BBC ran it at least three times, repeating in the mornings during school holidays. Its short run meant it fitted nicely into two weeks, five days a week.
The only thing I really remember about Fantastic Journey (we never did get to watch it at my house) is that it co-starred that kid from Disney's "Escape to Witch Mountain", Ike Eisenman. I think we all know what he did after Fantastic Journey.