Remember the idea was to envision what TPTB might have done had the show gone on the air as planned in February 1978. To do that you have to set aside 30+ years of tastes, fashions, and sensibilities and place yourself in the time. Disco was still very much in full swing, and its influences permeated practically every aspect of pop culture. Even the "23rd century" designs for Phase II were heavily influenced by the styles and designs of the day; ever seen Mike Minor's concept art for the PII bridge (with Kirk basically sitting in a white "capsule" chair straight out of the decade), rec room, and the Starfleet casual attire that was actually produced (and ultimately ended up in the PII fan production)? Also, the series had to appeal to more than just hardcore Trek fans, so it follows that the creators might take theme music cues from other dramatic shows of the day (e.g. the aforementioned
Dallas). And painsticks didn't exist back then either!
And whoever said that Phase II was going to be a low budget show?
Without going into
too much detail (and not to get too far off-topic), with the 2-hour pilot initially budgeted at approximately $3 million (certainly a lot of money for the day), that had to go a long way:
1. All of the development costs for prior aborted Trek projects (ala TMP) -- estimated at about $500,000
2. Elaborate standing sets that were designed to be durable enough for a multiple-year series run
3. Multiple pay-or-play actor salary committments (with a pretty fair chunk undoubtedly going to Shatner)
Had the series gone to production, costs would have been kept in check (whether intentionally or otherwise) through:
1. Extensive use of Doug Trumbull's Magicam video-compositing process to (rather convincingly really) insert actors into miniature environments, drastically cutting set construction and location filming costs (interesting to note that this would have doomed PII to standard definition video only like TNG et al today, although this would not have been anticipated in 1977 like it could have been in 1987, but I digress)
2. No salary for Nimoy (and I firmly believe his planned non-participation in PII was all about money or lack thereof -- another discussion entirely, but notice how fast he jumped aboard once Paramount settled his lawsuit and PII transformed into a big-budget theatrical release?
I Am Not Spock indeed!)
3. The Decker character, which was designed to either force Shatner to take a pay cut or be replaced with a less expensive actor
4. Admittedly dated miniature construction and non-motion control VFX techniques (that by all accounts had to be drastically upgraded for TMP)
5. Extensive use of stock footage (this WAS Star Trek after all)
So much like
Battlestar Galactica at the time, where the budget was heavily front-loaded to create elaborate sets and to rent John Dykstra to create a stock library of visual effects, the PII post-pilot per-episode budget would probably have been much closer to, say,
Six Million Dollar Man. Interestingly both
Galactica and PII had also planned to recoup their upfront costs via domestic and/or international theatrical releases.
I guess the point is that although
Star Wars had hit, at the time the suits were not yet convinced that its success could be duplicated. They were persuaded by
CE3K, but it is unlikely that even at that point Paramount was of a mind to spend unlimited cash on PII (which they ended up doing with TMP of course thanks to problematic management but that's another story).
*looks* then keeps on dancing and calls for a Female EMH for sojourner ^__^
