Star Trek: Phase II

But yeah, so Paramount owned the rights to War of the Worlds from the movie they'd made in '53.

Uh, George Pal, who made that, had pitched a series based on it to them in the '70s, and they'd said, "Nah, who's gonna want TV series based on old franchises?" But then a few years later, w- when they started knocking around with bringing The Next Generation back, this, it was, yeah, Greg and Sam Strangis, a father and son team, were originally pitched to do a new Star Trek, to do Star Trek Phase II, 'cause Gene Roddenberry wasn't interested.

But then when he did get interested, they booted them off that and said, "Go, go see who else is in the cupboard." And they found this, and they're like, "Oh, we like that movie.

We'll do that.

The Marvel comics began with a three-issue adaptation of Star Trek The Motion Picture, followed by a regular monthly series.

The stories were set during the second five-year mission that started as the planned Star Trek Phase II television series before becoming the motion picture.

Writers included Marv Wolfman, Mike W. Barr, and Martin Pascoe.

And artists included Dave Cochran, Gil Kane, and Klaus Janssen.

Another variable that may be in play here is how much...

Roddenberry was trying to recreate what he had on Star Trek Phase 2 in the first season?

Yes.

I think with Reikner in particular, I mean, I understand the whole notion makes total sense to have an active first officer.

This idea was actually... a proposal for the original series.

Really? Yeah, not only did they propose this for the original series, they then developed it into a script for Star Trek Phase 2, which was the one that didn't come out in the 1970s.

And then most of Phase 2 was turned into Season 1 of TNG, which is why...

the season one of TNG is bad.

and they then wrote their own outlines based on that, and it's turned into one of the most extraordinary Star Trek productions of any kind.

On my live radio show, Judith and Garfield Reith-Stevens told me about a Trek that never happened, Star Trek Phase II.

So much of the next generation that was tried out in Phase II, where it was going to be the second five-year mission of the Enterprise, and Kirk was going to be the experienced captain who would stay on the bridge because he'd be too valuable to send down to the

planet.

Like Picard.

picture came out when...

Star Trek fandom, and I guess really what you're looking at is the birth of any sort of specific show fan comes in from about kind of like 1976, 77, which is why they had the impetus to try and create another TV show, Star Trek Phase Two, which is what eventually became the motion picture because of the success of Star Wars.

It was never not going to be a spectacular hit.

Just everyone agreed afterwards.

By the mid to late 70s, producers were interested in trying to cash in on that fan base and revive the property.

There were various attempts to put together a movie project or to start a new network TV series, which at one point in development was called Star Trek Phase Two.

That TV series never happened, but the idea for the unmade pilot of that series is what would eventually become the first official franchise.

which was Star Trek The Motion Picture in 1979.