ST: TOS Phase II??

[AlexanderTheGreat]

Yes, here I go..yet another question showing how much I don't know about TOS (hey you can ask me anything about DS9 and Voy and I bet I could answer, but not TOS)   ;D

Well here's the question:
I've heard a lot about something called Series/Phase II - a series without Spock and someone called Lt. Xon in his place, which would follow after ST: TMP. Could you guys possibly fill me in on what exactly series/pase II is??

[UltimateTrekker]

I got this one.

OK, in 1970, the year after Star Trek was cancelled, they started checkin Demographics (ages and sexes of who watches what shows.)

The reason?  Well, at the time, all the money was in the hands of males between the ages of 18-34.  Who cares what an 80 year old woman watches, she won't buy what we advertise.  At this time they realised that although not a LARGE number of people watched Trek, those that did were mostly males 18-34!  NBC had cancelled it most PROFITABLE show?

So, Paramount tried the animated series in the 70's but targeted children and it didn't last long.

Then, the thought, "Time to bring Kirk back to live action."
They said, we'll make Star Trek:  Phase II.  We'll bring everyone back and it'll be big money.

But.. TV didn't sound so great.. let's make a B-movie.  Cheap to make, and maybe it'll be REAL big!  Yeah!

No wait!! Let's launch UPN!  It'll be the fourth Network (preceding Fox which showed up in the 80's) and STAR TREK will be our Flagship (sound familier... Voyager was that Flagship 15 years later).  However, Nimoy hated TV (especially with Rodenberry after his conduct during season 3)
AND, he was in the middle of SUEING Paramount for likeness rights.

The originally wrote him into 5 episodes of the first 13 (or something like that) and he said "DEFINETLY NOT!  I'd rather do 13 of 13, and don't even want that!"
So scratch Nimoy, bring on Xon.  Also, we'll add Ilea and Decker.  Decker is the son of the guy from Doomsday Machine and he'll be the first officer.  It's dumb to have the Captain risk his life.  Decker will be the XO who does that (maybe he'd grow a beard in season two??)

OK, 1977, we'll write the story that the ship is in the middle of a refit... That way if we can't get the set done in time it'll be ok.  Alright everyone... Makes sets, costumes.. we've got 13 script and lets...... WHOOOOSH

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.........

MAN!!! You mean Sci-fi can make MONEY in a theatre??

SCRAP IT ALL, WERE MAKING A MOTION PICTURE.
"The fans won't see it without Spock."
<On knees> PLEASE NIMOY?
"I'm sueing you.  NO!"
"Fine, you win, take all the cash you want."
"Hmmm (to himself) Lots of cash, only 6 months, not locked down, minimal time to complain... OK"

Let's make a movie!!! (Later, many of the Phase II scripts were adapted for TNG)

Oh yeah, just for extra reference... the moive making was such hell, they thought they'd never get Nimoy back for two so Nick Meyer said, "One more, we'll kill you.. BIG MONEY!"

"OK," says Nimoy (Oh yeah, Gene won't be working on this one )

But, 2 was such fun and so good Nimoy said,  
"Hey guys?  Can we write in something that could bring me back to life??"

;D


Questions?

[Zeph]

Well alex as UT gave you the business overview of what happened, I can add a Little bit more right now. There was actually a  whole season of plots submitted and ready to be scripted. 2 or 3 of them if I remember right were written by Richard Bach(author of johnathon livingston seagull and illusions, big books in the 70s) The pilot episode is what eventualy became ST:TMP.
    When as UT said Star wars came out all this was scrapped,
The pilot rewritten many times and blammo new movie.
   since Nimoy did not want to be in the t.v. show the science officer was recast as comander Xon, A full vulcan,played by a actor named(this is from memory but its close I think) David gastreax, you can see him in the movie as the comander of the starfleet outpost that first sees the cloud/Vger.
    During the writers strike in america of season two of TNG
out of desperation they took a few of the phase 2 episodes and rewrote the for next gen.
 One that comes to mind is "the Child" in which deanna is impregnated by a spot of light and has a baby in record time and the child grows to an adult in weeks, That was suposed to be Ilias role in phase 2.
 If I can find the book Ill find other episodes that became next gen eps.
     hope that helps

[Elric3960]

I can make additional observations to help young Alex along.  Gastroneaux, I believe that's how it's spelled, was the one who wanted out of TMP because when Nimoy was in negotiations, there was concern on the newcomer's part that Xon would be nothing more than a "baggage carrier" for Spock and not the interesting, Vegan-dieted, unemotional but not bland, character that he wanted to play, despite Roddenberry's insistence that Xon would always be considered part of the Trek family of characters, so he was replaced by another actor playing a bland throwaway Vulcan named Sonak.

Decker & Ilia were originally suppose to be regular characters but were killed off in the film instead for reasons that I still don't know and Shatner's ghostwritten "Movie Memories" doesn't make clear.

"The Child" was indeed a Star Trek II script and the TMP was based on an original script for another show that Roddenberry failed to sell called "Genesis II."  They tried to sell that concept three times under the names Genesis II, Planet Earth and Strange New World, all out in VHS somewhere out there.  The Genesis II episode that became TMP was originally called "Robots' Return" which involved a returning space probe from Dylan Hunt's (yes, the name was recycled for "Andromeda") 20th century era and ...you can figure out the rest.

I'll have to search for the material I have about the Series That Never Happened for future posts.

[AlexanderTheGreat]

Thanx for all the information everyone. It sounds like an interesting idea for a series..i wonder what it would have been like. I vaguely remember watching TMP. It did seem like Illia and Decker played quite a major role. all of you told me different things about phase II - Thanx.  

[StolenThunder]

There is some good stuff in books like the Art of Star Trek.. Actually, I have just looked, some very good information.

Phase II may have provided some of the script work for the films, but the series looked as if it would have been terrible...

[Zeph]

It just occured to me that "devils due" ep 87 was also a phase 2 show at first

[jaytkay]

I hate to add to the confusion, here....and I am working from memory, but at the Los Angeles convention that was held just prior to the release of Star Trek: TMP, Roddenberry said that the biggest consideration in NOT releasing Star Trek II was that Lucille Ball was no longer affiliated with the studio...by that time Desilu was almost gone....Lucy had always been Roddenberry's strongest fan at the studio, in fact, she funded the production costs of many of the early TOS episodes, but was confident enough of Roddenberry that she didn't accept "Executive Producer" accolades.  
 Leonard Nimoy had, long before that time, at the beginning of the second TOS season, already sued for rights to his image...this was a concept unheard of even in the 1960s...no other show's stars, up until that time, made money from their faces on lunch boxes and the like...... he did win, out of court, and did insist that the protections he won were also shared with the other "major" characters.   In the assorted biographies of the stars, he is either a bad guy or a good guy for having threatened the next season...but they are probably all eating crow on the way to the bank, still....
 According to Roddenberry's biography ("Star Trek Creator"  by David Alexander--whose name is also prevelant in the show credits....)  the script outlines for Star Trek II were complete enough as early as 1972, that it was obvious that this was more suitable for the big screen....however, if you read Walter Koenig's autobiography ("Warped Factors") little more than that outline existed even after shooting began...so if the movie looks like the plot is weak, it is!  ("Plot?  What plot?  We don't need no stinkin' Plot!")....according to that same autobiography, they killed off Ilea and Decker only because, well, they didn't know what to do next and a death scene would leave fewer questions from die-hard Trek fans.....
 And oh...they weren't trying to form UPN....they were trying to form Times-Mirror Television...Times-Mirror corp at the time only had the local Manhattan Beach and Orange County California newspapers, a few LA area radio stations and (the important AND here...) sole rights to provide cable-television services in Los Angeles and Orange Counties...trouble was, at that time there were some 20 (!) off-air channels  (if you included the foreign language channels and PBS....) in the two counties...and who could possible want/need more than that!!!!  The Times-Mirror-Warner-AOL folks got that last laugh....

[UltimateTrekker]

jaytkay said:

Roddenberry said that the biggest consideration in NOT releasing Star Trek II was that Lucille Ball was no longer affiliated with the studio...by that time Desilu was almost gone....

Actually, I had though that Paramount bought Desilu DURRING production (note the Paramount sig an the end of the third season instead of Desilu)

Time for UT research:

Yep... from the mouth of IMDB.com

Production Companies
    Desilu Productions Inc. (1966-1967)
    Norway Corporation
    Paramount Television [us] (1968-1969)

Lucy and Desi split in 60 and the company began crashing after that.

[Elric3960]

^^^And Paramount literally picked up the pieces!

I thought that was the case.  Thanks, UT, for clearing that up.