Star Trek Phase II was an early attempt to revive the series in the 1970s, and if it had gone forward, it likely would have drastically changed the direction of the franchise.
What Is It?
The voyages of the U.S.S. Enterpise continue with Captain James T. Kirk back at the helm along with Dr. McCoy, Mr. Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and most of the rest of the original crew. New to the bridge are Commander Willard Decker as well as the alien Ilia and the Vulcan Xon. They again boldly travel to the final frontier to discover strange new worlds and seek out seek out new life and new civilizations.
Aired: Never Aired
Starring: William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, David Gautreaux, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig
Created By: Gene Roddenberry
Why Didn’t it Fly?
The original Star Trek was infamously cancelled by NBC in 1969 due to low ratings and the high cost of production (as well as multiple other reasons, all of which you can read about in Marc Cushman’s excellent These Are the Voyages books). But despite the cancellation, the show lived on in syndication where it became a huge success and built up a massive fan following. Paramount, which owns the rights to the series, took notice and put plans into development for a Star Trek movie in the early to mid 70’s. But the movie failed to move forward (you can read more about the first attempt Star Trek: The God Thing at this link and the second attempt Star Trek: Planet of Titans at this link) and plans for the franchise eventually morphed into a continuation of the series on television. Paramount wanted to start up a fourth broadcast network and decided to use the new Trek series as its flagship show.
All of the original cast was signed to return to the show, including Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand (who had departed after the first season), with the exception of Leonard Nimoy who had no interest in returning to Trek (the Vulcan character Xon was created to replace him). Gene Roddenberry would also be back onboard as executive producer and would have full creative control of the show. There were concerns that William Shatner’s salary would be too expensive for a television budget (not sure why because he wasn’t doing much at that time), so the character of Commander Willard Decker (the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine”) was created as a possible replacement down the line. Also joining the series was the new alien character Ilia, and her and Decker acted as prototypes for the Deanna Troi and William Riker characters who would later appear on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Production moved forward on the series and a pilot script titled “In Thy Name” was written by Alan Dean Foster (who had previously novelized the animated series episodes across ten books) along with a dozen additional scripts or story ideas. But it was at that point that the franchise changed course yet again. The producers decided that Foster’s script would work better as a theatrical film, and the success of Star Wars paved the way for the Trek movie getting a higher budget than the aborted films from earlier in the decade. In addition, plans for the Paramount Television Service started to unravel which would leave the series without a network commitment. The pilot episode went through some rewrites and eventually became 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture which also saw Leonard Nimoy returning as Spock, and the TV continuation was scrapped.
Would It Have Worked as a Series?
This is an interesting question, and if the Phase II series had gone forward, it could have drastically changed the direction of the franchise. Sci fi shows typically did not perform well in the ratings, especially during the 1970s, and while Trek brought a built in audience of millions of fans, there is no guarantee it would have been a hit in Prime Time. The show would have been expensive to produce, and there would have been pressure to draw a large audience to justify the cost. If the show did indeed become the flagship for a new Paramount network, it probably would have received some leeway and had a better chance of lasting multiple seasons. But since the plan for that fourth broadcast network fell apart, if they had carried on with the show, it likely would have landed on ABC, CBS, or NBC, and network execs there were not very fond of sci fi entries. My guess is that it would have charted a similar course to what we saw with Battlestar: Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century where both drew high ratings at first, but those declined throughout the season. And considering the cost of the Phase II, it could have been cancelled after one or two seasons, just like those shows. And that would have put a damper on the franchise, perhaps ending any chance of it finding a second life on the big screen. But since the series did not move forward, the movie helped revive the Star Trek franchise in a big way as it led to multiple sequels over the next decade and ultimately set the stage for Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: DS9 and the other television continuations that are still going today.
Where Can You Watch It?
Phase II never got to the point of filming the pilot (in fact, they had not even cast the Decker and Ilia characters), so there is nothing to see from this era other than a few early production photos and some concept art. The original story planned for the pilot morphed into Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so you can get an idea of the direction the show might have taken from that. Decker and Ilia were written out with that film because Shatner and Nimoy were back onboard the franchise, but they would have remained as regular characters if the show had gone forward. There were two story collections published in the 1970s titled Star Trek: The New Voyages, and I believe those adapted some of the Phase II stories (feel free to confirm or debunk that in the comments below). Then in the ’90s, the book Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series was published covering the full story of the failed revival attempt and that has several of the scripts that were produced for the series.
Read about more Sci Fi TV pilots that did not fly at this link.
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