Star Trek: Phase II - The end of Trek?
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Watch World Enough and Time, with George Takei, and you tell me. :troll:
The OP is not talking about the current Phase II that used to be New Voyages. From context, he or she is referring to the original Star Trek sequel series Phase II planned in the 1970s, which got close to filming before the studio switched gears and made Star Trek: The Motion Picture instead.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
It would have been lucky to get a couple season based on the commissioned material, but if Povill was as good as hoped for, he could have transformed some of it into good stuff. It would have delayed movies, but not killed the whole thing, no.
However, the real crime of P2 was that it seems they cancelled Planet of the Titans to do it, if the time line is to be believed.
However, the real crime of P2 was that it seems they cancelled Planet of the Titans to do it, if the time line is to be believed.
Nothing I've seen of the treatments or the several scripts for the series that I've read suggest that it would have captured the interest of enough people to make it a success in the context of that time. Yeah, I think it would have killed the property dead. They'd have been lucky to get thirteen episodes on the air.
'Tin Man' would have been made into a hundred million dollar movie. If they brought the right people in it could have been a miraculous success. Povill comes across like a good inclusionary sincere decent guy with normal size teeth who who didn't think TOS was stupid and who was thoughtful enough to do justice to the spirit of the Franchise no matter what and be accepting of other people's talents and ideas over his own.
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A lot of people would have lost their jobs over that. 
Well, the thirteen scripts were quite raw, but "The Child" was an enjoyable Season Two opener for TNG and "Devil's Due" had some interesting stuff in, too.
It was a pity for David Gautreaux, who missed his big break after months of preparation to become ST's new Vulcan. But Xon may well have garnered a big fanbase. (Saavik certainly did, and she essentially filled a similar void, esp. if Spock had stayed dead after ST II.)
Nope. Shatner had signed for at least 13 eps, and people would still have tuned in to see Kirk, McCoy and the old gang (Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov) carry on Spockless. However, the series was slated for a brand new network, and we saw what happened with UPN (and VOY and ENT) when it finally got off the ground. Fledgling networks have to try very hard to change people's old allegiances and viewing habits.
The new eps would also have been added to the old syndication package. There was still concern at the time that TOS didn't have that magic "100 episodes" to make it a coveted syndicated show.
If anything, "Phase II" may have been top heavy with cast members, as Rand, Chapel, Decker, Ilia and Xon were also supposed to be regular characters with plenty to do!
What the heck does a 21st century fan production have to do with what would have happened if a proposed series had been made in 1978?
Phase II wouldn't have worked so well for a late-70's TV audience. That was a time when the national mood was very cynical. A TV show displaying a positive Human future wouldn't have been overly believable or interesting to the audiences of the time.
That being said, I'm actually sad the producers never re-used any of the material for that episode where the Enterprise travels to the Klingon homeworld and meets the child emperor. That could have been re-used with another species in a later film or TV series.
That being said, I'm actually sad the producers never re-used any of the material for that episode where the Enterprise travels to the Klingon homeworld and meets the child emperor. That could have been re-used with another species in a later film or TV series.
If Phase II had gone to a second season, it might have been sans-Shanter.
According to the Reeves-Stevens book on the aborted series, Decker was designed as a Kirk replacement to help reduce the hefty salary of Shatner. Apparently, Kirk's role would've been reduced or he would be written off. In any case, Decker would've stepped up to the captain's chair as the new lead of the series.
So season two might have developed a different crew dynamic with stories more focused on a new Big Three: Decker, Xon, and Ilia.
Moreover, Ilia was to move from navigation into more of a Troi-like role on board the Enterprise, iirc the Reeves-Stevens book.
I'm thinking these audiences wouldn't have been too much different from those in the sixties. The ones dealing with Civil Rights, War in Vietnam and the Constant Threat of Nuclear Armageddon.
This show would have survived and possibly thrived. Battlestar Galactica was consistently winning its time slot during the single season it was on.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Battlestar_Galactica_(1978_TV_series)
Well B5 and Stargate managed to survive well without their original leading men so it can work. It would have been better if Kirk and maybe even Spock had a guest slot or two. I rather enjoyed Sinclair's guest slots, although I'd have preferred two per season rather than just one and O'Neil's guest slotsare always nice.
Overall, most shows in the seventies and eighties were hideously cheesey. It might have worked, it might not, but it would have been fun to see Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, Rand, and Chapel get a bit more to do. I'd certainly have been up for it. The other characters including McCoy (now that Chapel could also fill his role), might not have appeared in every episode. Decker, Xon, and Ilia could have been an intriguing triumvirate though.
Star Trek fans would have tuned in to see Shatner, Kelley and the others - that does not mean that the TV series (or "fourth network" either) would have attracted enough viewers to survive beyond thirteen episodes.
In a sense, we got our answer: Paramount was unable to interest enough independent TV stations in this network concept to make it viable. A lot of these stations had been running TOS very successfully for six or seven years, at least - if the people running them couldn't be sold on "Phase II," and considering the actual extent of hard-core Trek fandom at the time, there's no reason to be hopeful about the show's acceptance by a mass audience.
And yeah, having been cancelled twice (given that the revival would have been a pretty much unheard-of experiment) would have killed Trek dead without hope of return...until, of course, it was unearthed again by the Hollywood geniuses who remade Beverly Hillbillies and Starsky And Hutch.
In a sense, we got our answer: Paramount was unable to interest enough independent TV stations in this network concept to make it viable. A lot of these stations had been running TOS very successfully for six or seven years, at least - if the people running them couldn't be sold on "Phase II," and considering the actual extent of hard-core Trek fandom at the time, there's no reason to be hopeful about the show's acceptance by a mass audience.
And yeah, having been cancelled twice (given that the revival would have been a pretty much unheard-of experiment) would have killed Trek dead without hope of return...until, of course, it was unearthed again by the Hollywood geniuses who remade Beverly Hillbillies and Starsky And Hutch.
Who knows what might have been? It never happened so we'll never know. Aesthetically speaking: I'm not sure how successful the sixties costumes would have been in the seventies - feminism was in full swing at the time and Ilia looks strangely unsettling in that publicity shot of her in a command gold mini-skirt...
...come to think of it: there's a shot of Xon in a starfleet uni that looks a bronzey-brown colour. What's up with that...?
...come to think of it: there's a shot of Xon in a starfleet uni that looks a bronzey-brown colour. What's up with that...?
The Ilia and Xon pictures were from screentests and taped auditions. You can see a clip of this on the TMP special features on Phase II.
Both Persis Khambatta and David Messina wear command mustard-avocado-gold-whatever in those tests.
The screentests from the special feature can been seen on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQh4jhQKCnE&feature=related
Other actresses and makeup tests, bald caps and such, were done for Ilia, some even wearing operations red. Those pictures can be seen in the Reeves-Stevens book.
We can guess. We can wonder. We can look back on something 20 years old with hindsight. All we can really know is what happened. For all its faults, TNG opened the door to making money on syndication, just as its predecessor had done.
L
Lord Garth
Guest
Even if Phase II had good ratings, if Battlestar Galactica is anything to go by then it would've been cancelled because of how expensive it was. Why make a cost prohibitive space show when you can make a cheap sitcom instead?
One of the key differences between TNG and Phase II is that TNG was syndicated and would air just before primetime programming. In my area, it was Saturdays at 7:00. It was out of the way. Phase II wouldn't have that advantage and would be up against whatever was popular in the late-'70s. ABC would've taken away a lot of Phase II's intended demographic.
One of the key differences between TNG and Phase II is that TNG was syndicated and would air just before primetime programming. In my area, it was Saturdays at 7:00. It was out of the way. Phase II wouldn't have that advantage and would be up against whatever was popular in the late-'70s. ABC would've taken away a lot of Phase II's intended demographic.
Very good points!
