Phase II - Your Opinions?

[Praetor]

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concepts for a second Star Trek series that eventually morphed into TMP, the characters of which were somewhat cannibalized for TNG. (If not, I'd read here.)

What are your opinions of it? Would you have liked it, and if so what specifically makes you think so? Would you have preferred it to what we got? Would it have been successful? Would Shatner and Nimoy have come aboard, and would either have stayed? And, what shape would the franchise have taken had it been successful?

Personally, I think it had some intriguing story concepts (particularly their approach on the Klingons) and seeing the TOS crew in a new series would have been good. I am also intrigued by the Xon character although I feel that Decker and Ilia would have ended up a lot like Riker and Troi on TNG. I suspect that the show would have only lasted three seasons at most and that Shatner would have probably only done the first, maybe also the second season, with Decker promoted afterward. I'm not sure if Kirk would have been promoted out, or reassigned, or killed. Depends how angry Shat made the producers. I suspect Nimoy would have guest starred as Spock at least once to boost ratings.

I also think the show would not have dated even as well as TOS did, and would feel a lot like BSG TOS and 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' in retrospect - both shows I enjoy from time to time but which aren't really 'great.' I have a feeling the show would have transitioned to TV movies after cancellation, and ultimately not have made the jump to the big screen, overall weakening the franchise, and causing the films and TNG onward to never happen.

 

[QuasarVM]

We have no way of knowing for sure, but my suspicion is that PII would have evolved very similar to the way TNG did -- a mediocre to good first season and then would have gradually improved season by season.

Another big unknown is how well the Paramount Network would have done at that point in time. I think a lot would have hinged on that.

The problem with a lot of 70's science fiction series is that they weren't given more than a couple of seasons at best. NO series finds it's legs in two seasons.

The first season is usually the actors and characters getting familiar with each other...the second further develops those characters and storylines...and from what I have seen, a lot series star to hit there prime during the third season. TOS is an exception to this but I blame that on the budget cuts and departure of Roddenberry.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Would Shatner and Nimoy have come aboard, and would either have stayed?

Shatner was already signed, guaranteed for first 13 episodes, a half-season. Nimoy was not signed, hence David Gautreaux's character of Xon. Everyone else from TOS was signed, including Persis Khambatta and Grace Lee Whitney. No one had been cast as Willard Decker, before "Phase II" was morphed into TMP.

Billy Van Zandt (Rhaandarite ensign, TMP) once told me that the bridge extras of TMP sometimes used to joke around about what the ongoing series would be like. They were fairly convinced TMP would spawn TV episodes using all the sets, costumes - and extras.

 

[trevanian]

I think they'd've had to junk a decent number of scripts, because a few are just awful. And if HL bailed out (as he would have from exposure to GR), there's a possibility that suddenly phase II universe becomes the PovillVerse where JP really does get to be Gene L. Coon and turn Phase II into something fantastic.

Something else to consider ... people like Fontana and Gerrold who were tied up on an early aborted version of BUCK ROGERS at the time would have gotten freed up very quickly. I think you'd have had a tremendous talent pool to draw upon if they had started soliciting more stories.

I think the show would have been most dated not by hairstyles, but by the use of Magicam, which GR was I recall very committed to (I'm talking about the chromakey process, used in COSMOS and elsewehre, not the modelbuilding facility.) You'd have had great vistas unachievable in TOS, but you'd have that video EDGE on everything. Would have been painful.

IF they had gotten a second batch of 13 ... big if ... that is where the show would have taken off. For me, I think the war games episode written by Ambrose and Kitumba by Lucas would have been strong enough to keep me watching through some of the others (not all of them, though!)

 

[Gary7]

It's a very hard call to make... so many factors. My first instinct is that it would have been mediocre. The 1970's was not a good decade for sci-fi TV series. Yes, Phase II would have attracted the fan base of ST:TOS, but I wonder if it would draw in enough new fans.

TMP suffered in the characterizations... all so stiff. And this despite Roddenberry's influence. Maybe the movie format was partly to blame. But if this was a sampling of how things would have gone, I couldn't see them bringing in enough ratings to survive more than 2 seasons. Yes, we had WOK to follow 3 years later and now the crew was hitting their stride. THIS was what I would have hoped to see in Phase II.

But getting Phase II going in 1978? Nah... I don't think it would have turned out very well. Not bad, but not great. And that would have put a big dampener on what was to follow. I really wonder if they might have tried again 8 years later, with TNG.

In a way, I think the 18 year void between TOS to TNG made for a hungry TV audience... and the late 80's was good timing. Nice big strides in technology were afoot.

 

[Praetor]

Would Shatner and Nimoy have come aboard, and would either have stayed?

Shatner was already signed, guaranteed for first 13 episodes, a half-season. Nimoy was not signed, hence David Gautreaux's character of Xon. Everyone else from TOS was signed, including Persis Khambatta and Grace Lee Whitney. No one had been cast as Willard Decker, before "Phase II" was morphed into TMP.

Well I knew Shatner was signed, but I wasn't sure if he was going to stay for number 14. Wasn't that part of the point of Decker?

Billy Van Zandt (Rhaandarite ensign, TMP) once told me that the bridge extras of TMP sometimes used to joke around about what the ongoing series would be like. They were fairly convinced TMP would spawn TV episodes using all the sets, costumes - and extras.

Wow, that's... kinda sad in retrospect.

I think they'd've had to junk a decent number of scripts, because a few are just awful. And if HL bailed out (as he would have from exposure to GR), there's a possibility that suddenly phase II universe becomes the PovillVerse where JP really does get to be Gene L. Coon and turn Phase II into something fantastic.

Something else to consider ... people like Fontana and Gerrold who were tied up on an early aborted version of BUCK ROGERS at the time would have gotten freed up very quickly. I think you'd have had a tremendous talent pool to draw upon if they had started soliciting more stories.

I think the show would have been most dated not by hairstyles, but by the use of Magicam, which GR was I recall very committed to (I'm talking about the chromakey process, used in COSMOS and elsewehre, not the modelbuilding facility.) You'd have had great vistas unachievable in TOS, but you'd have that video EDGE on everything. Would have been painful.

IF they had gotten a second batch of 13 ... big if ... that is where the show would have taken off. For me, I think the war games episode written by Ambrose and Kitumba by Lucas would have been strong enough to keep me watching through some of the others (not all of them, though!)

I tend to agree with everything you've said here, trevanian. I'm just not so convinced that it would have taken the good form that it could have taken...

It's like the setup is there for potential gold, but the laws of entropy just scream 'crap.'

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Generally pretty bad, and short-lived to boot.

 

[trevanian]

Billy Van Zandt (Rhaandarite ensign, TMP) once told me that the bridge extras of TMP sometimes used to joke around about what the ongoing series would be like. They were fairly convinced TMP would spawn TV episodes using all the sets, costumes - and extras.

Wow, that's... kinda sad in retrospect.

When I read that, I thought about all the ND types in the background of Blue Moon Detective Agency in the first few years of MOONLIGHTING. By the time the show limped into its last season, they were actually giving these same people lines! (esp two of the girls.) So they had a steady paycheck, and some career growth as well. The TMP extras may have been doing blue sky thinking, but they should have been thinking blue moon!

 

[QuasarVM]

I think they'd've had to junk a decent number of scripts, because a few are just awful. And if HL bailed out (as he would have from exposure to GR), there's a possibility that suddenly phase II universe becomes the PovillVerse where JP really does get to be Gene L. Coon and turn Phase II into something fantastic.

Something else to consider ... people like Fontana and Gerrold who were tied up on an early aborted version of BUCK ROGERS at the time would have gotten freed up very quickly. I think you'd have had a tremendous talent pool to draw upon if they had started soliciting more stories.

I think the show would have been most dated not by hairstyles, but by the use of Magicam, which GR was I recall very committed to (I'm talking about the chromakey process, used in COSMOS and elsewehre, not the modelbuilding facility.) You'd have had great vistas unachievable in TOS, but you'd have that video EDGE on everything. Would have been painful.

IF they had gotten a second batch of 13 ... big if ... that is where the show would have taken off. For me, I think the war games episode written by Ambrose and Kitumba by Lucas would have been strong enough to keep me watching through some of the others (not all of them, though!)

Ugh. Magicam...effects (not models). I remember a GODAWFUL pilot for a "War of the Worlds" TV series they worked on called "Space Watch Murders". It was...I mean...horrible...horrible...horrible!!! They even stole a viewscreen shot from The Lights of Zetar -- you know, the animated graphic of the blinking light moving towards Memory Alpha?

Well, they STOLE that and used it for something stupid in that movie, but they flipped it upside down! The rails in front of the Enterprise viewscreen were on top!

I shit you not.

I couldn't tell you one thing about the plot to that attrocity, but I do remember the awful effects. They made Bran Ferren's look good -- if you can imagine that.

Anyway, yeah, I agree some of the plots were lame. But I think In Thy Image would have played better (assuming the visuals were convincing) on TV than on the big screen. I'll echo what others have said and agree that Kitumba would have been worth seeing.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Could've gone either way. Granted, the late 70's wasn't exactly a golden age for televised sci-fi, but keep in mind that most of that stuff was crap from Glen Larsen, so consider the source. If Bob Justman, Dorothy Fontana, and some other key players could've been brought back into the fold, and kept Roddenberry from fully believing his own hype (still a possibility in '78, whereas by '87 he was too heavily invested in his own myth to be objective), then it might very well have been something special.

The real stumbling block to the whole thing was Paramount going so hot and heavy for a new network of their own. If they'd developed PII for sale to one of the big three or gone for first run syndication (no, TNG didn't invent the concept, a lot of classic tv shows were syndicated from the get-go), it might very well have run for ten years or more. Or crashed and burned after six episodes. Who knows?

Either way, it's tough to see a scenario where TNG and all the rest happen, even in some altered form. Whether PII ran for a half season or fifteen, that last episode probably would've been the end of televised Star Trek and we'd be back to fanzines, novels, and comics. Maybe fan films.

 

[RAMA]

The plots aren't all that great. There are maybe 4-5 good stories in there, and only two great ones. It wouldn't have done too well.

RAMA

 

[trevanian]

The plots aren't all that great. There are maybe 4-5 good stories in there, and only two great ones. It wouldn't have done too well.

RAMA

Yeah, but the more I think about it, you can say the same or worse about the whole first season (and most of the second) of TNG. I mean, WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE bought the show about three months worth of watching stinkers for me, but I can take or leave at least 22 out of 26 that first season.
And except for MATTER OF HONOR and Q WHO , I don't think any second season shows are even watchable except some of the Melinda Snodgrass ones.

P2 wouldn't have gotten a 2 year stay out of cancellation free card like TNG, so it would have HAD to get better fast, and since there was talent out there at that point to do it (and GR's lawyer wasn't yet the huge 'creative' force he was a decade later), I still think it had a better chance to turn things around.

 

[trevanian]

I remember a GODAWFUL pilot for a "War of the Worlds" TV series they worked on called "Space Watch Murders". It was...I mean...horrible...horrible...horrible!!! They even stole a viewscreen shot from The Lights of Zetar -- you know, the animated graphic of the blinking light moving towards Memory Alpha?

I remember my stepdad and I watching slackjawed as SPACE WATCH played out (in rerun?) latenight on ABC. I had told him about the whole thing being done chromakey, and we were interested to see how it worked technically ... but the show was so stunningly dumb, I don't remember much at all (not even the ZETAR thing!) I remember thinking it was clever to have setpieces covered in bluescreen so the actors could walk behind stuff, but the real impression was that Tisha Sterling (who had looked downright smashing in an early episode of GET SMART) was no longer looking quite the same a decade later. Kind of the Carol Lynley effect, for those of you unfortunate enough to catch the canadian THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, which has a barely kitbashed K7 AMT model standing in for a hero spaceship.

 

[Praetor]

I remember a GODAWFUL pilot for a "War of the Worlds" TV series they worked on called "Space Watch Murders". It was...I mean...horrible...horrible...horrible!!! They even stole a viewscreen shot from The Lights of Zetar -- you know, the animated graphic of the blinking light moving towards Memory Alpha?

I remember my stepdad and I watching slackjawed as SPACE WATCH played out (in rerun?) latenight on ABC. I had told him about the whole thing being done chromakey, and we were interested to see how it worked technically ... but the show was so stunningly dumb, I don't remember much at all (not even the ZETAR thing!) I remember thinking it was clever to have setpieces covered in bluescreen so the actors could walk behind stuff, but the real impression was that Tisha Sterling (who had looked downright smashing in an early episode of GET SMART) was no longer looking quite the same a decade later. Kind of the Carol Lynley effect, for those of you unfortunate enough to catch the canadian THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, which has a barely kitbashed K7 AMT model standing in for a hero spaceship.

Dear... God...

 

[Gary7]

{snip}... and kept Roddenberry from fully believing his own hype (still a possibility in '78, whereas by '87 he was too heavily invested in his own myth to be objective), then it might very well have been something special.

Can you elaborate on that? About "Roddenberry hype" and "his own myth". Or is there an existing thread somewhere that discusses the subject in useful detail? I'm just curious. I've heard bits and pieces here and there about him "getting in the way" of good Star Trek. And that there are those who think others got in his way to delivering good Star Trek. I've no opinion either way... don't know enough.

Actually did find a little something... TheLonelySquire. ElScoob.

I bring this up, because wouldn't Phase II rely a lot on Roddenberry? Would Justman, Fontana, Coon, etc. all be on board and help pull it together? Some say Roddenberry a bit full of himself to not take better suggestions from others or appropriate them without due credit, calling them his own. Did he start a great idea, fumble with it, but had the luck of talented people around him to make it work? Then he imagined himself as the source of success without those who helped him, thinking he could do it all? This seems to be the more prevalent take on things... That being the case, Phase II success could be anybody's guess.

 

[Michael]

I think it might have been pretty good. But only with James Cawley as Kirk and Jeffery Quinn as Spock.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Seeing as Cawley was in junior high at the time, I don't think so.

 

[QuasarVM]

I remember a GODAWFUL pilot for a "War of the Worlds" TV series they worked on called "Space Watch Murders". It was...I mean...horrible...horrible...horrible!!! They even stole a viewscreen shot from The Lights of Zetar -- you know, the animated graphic of the blinking light moving towards Memory Alpha?

I remember my stepdad and I watching slackjawed as SPACE WATCH played out (in rerun?) latenight on ABC. I had told him about the whole thing being done chromakey, and we were interested to see how it worked technically ... but the show was so stunningly dumb, I don't remember much at all (not even the ZETAR thing!) I remember thinking it was clever to have setpieces covered in bluescreen so the actors could walk behind stuff, but the real impression was that Tisha Sterling (who had looked downright smashing in an early episode of GET SMART) was no longer looking quite the same a decade later. Kind of the Carol Lynley effect, for those of you unfortunate enough to catch the canadian THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, which has a barely kitbashed K7 AMT model standing in for a hero spaceship.

If you held a phaser to my head, I couldn't tell you what SPACE WATCH was about... It was that mind-numbingly bad. Yes, the use of miniature sets was interesting...but as you say, poorly executed. I must have seen the same broadcast of it you did -- because I remember it was a "late niter".

I remember that Shape of Things to Come...it had Barry Morse in it. The effects in that were laughable too...on the order of one of those Italian science fiction films like The Adventures of Stella Starr or something...just bad. But I gotta say, even those were better than SPACE WATCH.

Still, under the direction of Richard Taylor and Doug Trumbull, Magicam did some great model work on the TMP models. And I think -- for TV -- the PII models would have been OK. I get confused on those though because I know Brick Price Movie Miniatures did some PII/TMP work as well. They also worked on props and spacesuits.

 

[KirksFlyingFist]

I can't help but feel it would be lackluster.

Phase II was supposed to have a change of cast and new characters wasn't it? I don't think I would have been able to get into it. Maybe.

 

[QuasarVM]

Could've gone either way. Granted, the late 70's wasn't exactly a golden age for televised sci-fi, but keep in mind that most of that stuff was crap from Glen Larsen, so consider the source. If Bob Justman, Dorothy Fontana, and some other key players could've been brought back into the fold, and kept Roddenberry from fully believing his own hype (still a possibility in '78, whereas by '87 he was too heavily invested in his own myth to be objective), then it might very well have been something special.

The real stumbling block to the whole thing was Paramount going so hot and heavy for a new network of their own. If they'd developed PII for sale to one of the big three or gone for first run syndication (no, TNG didn't invent the concept, a lot of classic tv shows were syndicated from the get-go), it might very well have run for ten years or more. Or crashed and burned after six episodes. Who knows?

Either way, it's tough to see a scenario where TNG and all the rest happen, even in some altered form. Whether PII ran for a half season or fifteen, that last episode probably would've been the end of televised Star Trek and we'd be back to fanzines, novels, and comics. Maybe fan films.

I don't know...the one constant in entertainment (as with anything else) is that if it's successful then people want more more more. If it had been broadcast and was a ratings failure and cancelled then that probably would have been the end of Trek for a while at least.

But, I think eventually it would have come back as a film -- just as it did.

But, again, who knows?