It’s only been seven years since the streaming era of Star Trek begun and already we’ve been given a full three ring circus treatment of the franchise. Kicking off with Discovery’s story of darkness into light, we’ve had a standard planet of the week with Strangew New Worlds to character exploration in Picard right down to straight up off the wall comedy in Lower Decks. Considering the previous era which often tried to replicate The Next Generation was branded as having fatigue, it’s safe to say Star Treks future is in finding variety of the stories they can tell.
Talking to Indiewire recently, Star Trek’s lead producer and overall overlord of the current era, Alex Kurtzman spoke about the franchise’s ‘limitless potential’ and how the approach they were taking was to ensure every idea felt different from the last. Which, in fairness, isn’t a bad thing.
But not every idea will land. While in the internet age that’s often seen as failure or fuel for a Youtube channel to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war on a corporate media enterprise, it’s always been true of any franchise. Star Trek’s never been immune. From fan campaigns including bringing Captain Sulu’s excelsior to series, top a very obvious backdoor pilot in original series episode Assignment Earth, there’s more than a few near misses and false starts in Star Trek’s history…
Phase II
Star Trek has become a bit of a flagship trendsetter for networks. While the Next Generation was sold in syndication, Voyager was planned as UPN’s flagship show on their launch while All Access, now rebranded to Paramount+, would see Discovery as it’s launching pad from new start to success. Many moons before all that, Star Trek was planned to make it’s mark as the lead show for the launch of the Paramount Television Service.
Eight years after being cancelled, the subsequent success of Star Trek in re-runs was hard to ignore. With a growing fanbase, Paramount put their full faith in Star Trek’s revival. But it needed an upgrade. While the iconic uniforms would remain, new sets were built that were more in line with science fiction of the 70’s with standing consoles, more muted colours and a new engineering core developed. The Enterprise would be upgraded on the outside as well, with it’s nacelles being swept back with boxy nacelles among other tweaks to the new model.
While most failed attempts to get a Trek project up and running rarely passed the planning stage, Phase 2 was in full pre production mode. The sets were built, the models made and the cast courted with both returning and new cast members.
It wasn’t an easy process. Leonard Nimoy was approached for the pilot, and offered limited appearances thereafter. But due to a legal case, in which he objected to his likeness being used for merchandise without his consent as well as Gene Roddenberry’s lack of support during the case, he rejected all offers. William Shatner was on board to return as Kirk, but not without a struggle behind the scenes. The role would require taking a pay cut compared to others, and Shatner himself didn’t believe they’d keep him involved after the first season if the show was successful.
In comparison to Shatner being offered a pay reduction, others – including DeForest Kelley and James Doohan – were given pay increases leading all the supporting cast to sign up with the stipulation they’d be paid whether the series happened or not.
To replace Spock, a full Vulcan Xon was created, with David Gautreaux being cast in the role. Miss Universe contender and Bollywood actor Persis Khambatta was brought on board as Ilia, which required her to shave her head for the role in exchange for a five year contract.
Despite sets being built, scripts being written and everything in place, the show never happened. Paramount’s new TV network didn’t either, and instead of the shame of cancelling they ordered the pilot script – In Thy Image – to be reworked as a film. And thus, the Motion Picture was born. Using the same pre-made sets, and tweaking the contracts to bring back the old crew
While Gautreaux was given just a bit part as an ill fated Starbase commander, Khambatta would join as her Phase 2 character, a sensual Illian. And with her came Will Decker, portrayed by a now Hollywood Voldermort, the new captain of the Enterprise and her former love. Unlike Phase 2, Spock would return after a now Admiral Kirk took command and recruited his old team.
In terms of Trek that never happened, Phase 2 was the furthest along on production until the plug was pulled and strangely had the longest legacy. Aside from the sets and costumes, which would remain for a few films and repurposed multiple times over the years, it’s hard to ignore the connection to what little did transfer to screen with Ilia’s planned arc.
Several story aspects, such as Illia’s past romance, and even a few scripts would be repurposed for Troi and Riker in the Next Generation.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd
Not every writer or creator can have multiple success stories. Even when they do move on to new things, they’re always tied to that one big project that made them a writer worth hiring. The Good Place was a surprisingly good show, for example, but in the end Michael Shur will always be tied to The Office as both one of it’s top writers and Dwights weird brother Mose.
It’s not unfair to say that Star Trek was the project that made Gene Roddenberry a name worth investing in. The show that began to dominate his creative life. And with that success, he used it as a launching pad for more….
The most commonly known (and blatantly obvious!) attempt at a spin off was Assignment Earth, a back door pilot laid into an episode of Star Trek that had Kirk back in the 60’s and thrown into a classily cheesy Avengers-type environment focused around Gary Seven. The series, which Roddenberry hoped would replace Star Trek on his calendar if the show got cancelled after the second season but fell into the black hole of ideas that went nowhere.
During that time there was another spin off option on the table that went mostly forgotten over time. It was so low key that even the person that would have starred in it didn’t know until years had passed since the proposal.
Thanks tot he popularity of Harry Mudd’s appearances in the Original Series, NBC showed interest in giving the troublesome con man his own show. A show focused on a rogue space pirate in contrast to the organised military-lite Starfleet adventures of Kirk and company.
Despite the idea being floated around, Roddenberry was a notorious control freak to the point of fall outs and legal battles with writers; most famously Harlan Ellison who wasn’t shy in pointing out Roddenberry’s rewrites of his scripts. He would only approve of it if he was in charge. And with Star Trek in full swing, he didn’t have the time to commit.
“He didn’t want to let somebody take it off in a direction he didn’t approve of.” Mudd actor, Roger C. Carmel., explained, “Since he didn’t have time to handle it all, the Mudd series project died.”
Carmel would return to Trek for the animated series in the 70’s and had potential to return in the movie era. Unfortunately due to ill health, that never happened and he passed away in 1986.
Despite the Mudd series never going ahead, we did at least get more Mudd thanks to Discovery as Rainn Wilson took over the role in two episodes of the first season as well as a Mudd-centric Short Treks episode penned by Wilson. As Strange New Worlds continues that adventure in the 24th century, Mudd is still out there and Wilson is always eager to return to the character. With Trek’s current desire to reach new corners of the universe, maybe a Mudd series could end up back on the drawing board….
Best Of All Worlds
Throughout 2002 promotion for what would be the final film for the Next Generation crew was in full swing. After a disappointing third outing for the team in Insurrection, Nemesis promised to recapture the energy and tension of their far more successful First Contact.
Nemesis was an intriguing story, again digging into Picard’s personal fears as he came face to face with himself. Or at least another version of himself as the Romulans had cloned him, abandoned the project and left that clone – Shinzon – to fend for himself and lead an uprising against the government. And of course, capture the original and use him to stabilise Shinzon’s genetic degradation.
Despite the film having a good plot and having some great moments, a director who didn’t quite get what he was directing merged with some other factors led to the film being another disappointment for Paramount, failing to capture the spirit of the Next Generation, the thrill of First Contact or the majority’s approval.
On each and every poster, the tagine “A Generations Final Journey Begins” teased more to come from the crew despite it feeling like a finale. Riker finally left to become Captain of his own ship along with new wife Deanna Troi, Data was dead and Picard was ready to move on with his next adventures as Captain of the Enterprise. But that finality was just an open door for what writer John Logan wanted to do next.
“One of the ideas that John Logan and I had about what the next film would have been was a Justice League of Star Trek.” Nemesis co-writer Brent Spiner explained to Sci Fi Pulse back in 2006, “ Something would bring all the great Star Trek villains together, from Khan to Shinzon, and Picard is the only person who could stop them and he actually has to go through time and pluck out the people he needs to help him.”
Sounding a little like The Five Doctors – or any multi-Doctor episode of the British sci fi – their plan was to have Picard go back to before Data’s death, travel to the 23rd century to find Kirk and Spock and move even further back to get Starfleet’s first Starship Captain, Jonathon Archer.
“The problem with that more than anything is cost.” Spiner concluded in his interview, however there were obviously more practical problems that couldn’t be solved without Marvel-style de-aging technology or the convenience of such a contrived narrative.
It wasn’t the only “Superhero team up” idea on the table. Brannon Braga was also keen on a mixed crew experience offering an idea of a Starfleet All-Stars being pulled together. In the face of a universe ending crisis, Starfleet would have Picard put together the best of the best, including characters from Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well as the Next Generation.
Nemesis’ bad financial and critical reception being less than ideal would bring a close to, not just the Next Generation crew, but an entire era of Trek. The film franchise would be revived with an alternate universe prequel in 2009 while themes of both that and Nemesis would be followed up in the Picard series which, while not quite being the “Justice League” Logan hoped for, has had at least one member from a TNG-era show cross over as Seven of Nine joined Picard’s new motley crew.
Khan Project
Back in the 80’s, writer and director Nicholas Meyer was a huge part of why Star Trek’s jump from television to film was a success. The Motion Picture was a financial hit for Paramount, but in terms of presentation and production chaos as Roddenberry clashed with every idea that wasn’t his, it did feel a little lacking.
Meyer’s Wrath of Khan threw out nearly every aspect of wanting to be seen as “hard sci fi” and instead took things back to the heart of a good Trek story: The people. Bringing back a one time villain from the series and redesigning the look and feel of Starfleet, it’s still considered the definitive movie from the series. Years later, Meyer wanted to return to that series and give it a little more background.
Between the events of Space Seed in the Original Series, and The Wrath of Khan, the titular villain had quite an experience. His plans to settle on Ceti Alpha V with his crew and new lover from the Enterprise turned to chaos as the planet went from paradise to hellscape; making it inhospitable and killing those he held most dear.
In the early days of revising Star Trek with Discovery, Meyer was brought on board to the writing team and even had a little side project of his own. Planned for a three-night event, he completed and submitted a script commissioned by CBS All Access to tell the story of Khan’s life on Ceti Alpha V before Captain Terrell and Chekov found him again.
Alas, the project was not to be. As streaming models changed and production costs went up, a miniseries was potentially not a viable investment.
“I think what happened was that the business model for streaming was changing really fast,” Meyer speculated in an interview with TrekMovie, “What was originally commissioned as a three-hour or three-night event, by the time I finished writing it, three hours was not enough. They wanted longer stuff.”
Although listed as an unproduced series, Meyer doesn’t consider the project shelved as he believes it’s an interesting and well done trilogy that could contribute to the Star Trek Universe. With staff shake ups, Meyer was only involved in the first season of Discovery and his script fell by the wayside as the Star Trek brand expanded into various different productions.
However, all is not list and the Ceti Alpha V project might come to life. Meyers script has been committed to becoming an official audio drama and Khan’s history has already been expanded through Picard and Strange New Worlds…
Planet of the Titans
During an accident on a rescue mission, Captain Kirk surfers a weird energy jolt that drives him nuts, makes him steal a shuttle and travel to an invisible planet where he vanishes without a trace. With no way to find his commanding officer, Spock takes the centre chair and goes on his next adventure. Three years later, thing have changed a little. Spock has gone home to purge his human side and the Enterprise, having gone through an extensive refit, has a new crew commanded by Captain Westlake. The new look Enterprise and it’s flashy new Captain go back to where Kirk was lost and discover that the invisible planet was not only real, but home to the mythical Titans.
From there it gets even weirder. From Spock visualising his death to the crew finding Kirk living as a wildling with other trapped souls and crash landing the saucer of the ship to get there. Planet of the Titans was the first attempt to take Star Trek to the big screen, pre-dating the Motion Picture and even the almost, but never, Phase II series.
Originally written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott before later being rewritten by Phillip Kaufman, the opening of the story would conclude the five year mission. Despite significant differences in the script, the Kaufman version featuring an early battle with the Klingons and the Enterprise crew being implanted with knowledge of advanced technology to rebuild the Enterprise and traverse a black hole that was somehow moving towards Earth.
Between the two versions there were some interesting ideas in there. Some of which would slither into the final draft of the eventual Motion Picture, such as a sensual new companion and Spock’s need to purge his human side. Kaufmans rewrite would also include a starship graveyard with ships from the future, and an antagonist who would be revealed as the last human, altered by genetic self experimentation.
Bryant and Scott’s initial version was a painful labour of love for them both. Working with Gene Roddenberry on the script after their pitch was accepted, the story was constantly tweaked and rewritten to the point none of them liked the end result causing a huge delay in submitting the final works.
In their pitch that was approved by Paramount, the Enterprise would find it’s way intop the invisible planet to retrieve the lost Kirk and discover the Titans were extinct and their planet overrun by a new life form. In the end the crew would be thrown back in time and discover that they were the Titans all along, creating a loop where they would be the template for early human life on Earth.
Through all the rewrites and constantly changing story and it’s differing direction, Paramount ended up rejecting the script and shut down production. What the story eventually became barely resembled the one they approved and wanted, and with costs rising they cut the cord by May of 1976 and instead offered to reluctantly work with Roddenberry to try for a second TV series. Meanwhile Star Wars was about
Even though the script was binned and never revisited, the film had already began pre-production for a planned shoot in England. Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie were hired to create concept art for the film with Adam redesigning the Enterprise both inside and out. Derek Meddings, best known for his work on James Bond and Thunderbirds, was the model maker and created several study models from Adam’s design which was a massive departure from the original Matt Jeffries Enterprise. Retaining the saucer section and neck, the planned refit would replace the cylindrical Engineering section for a wide triangular hull with a massive shuttle bay and warp nacelles on vertical pylons. Internally several concept pieces show a massive open section inside the saucer and even plans to redesign the entire bridge with a window at the front of the saucer.
McQuarrie’s renderings of Adam’s design would become the most popular legacy legacy of the film. They often pop up in art books and groups as a forgotten oddity in Star Trek history. Several prints would remain in the art department for years, while the study models were put to work. One was used as background filler for The Search For Spock’s Spacedock scenes, while another would appear as wreckage at Wolf 359 in the Next Generation as well as joining a Starship Graveyard along with other study models for the Excelsior.
But the one piece that caught the imagination of fans was McQuarrie’s paintings of one version of the peculiar redesign being rebuilt within a converted asteroid. That image would stick with one fan in particular, Bryan Fuller, who would make that painting the basis for the USS Discovery when his show was in development.
Taking heavy inspiration from the McQuarrie paintings, Discovery’s early design concept used the harder lines of the triangular hull and open bay to create a distinct and unique look for the Discovery. Well before the ships design was refined to what we saw debut in the shows third episode, Fuller gave the world a sneak peek at what to expect from the next instalment of Star Trek. And that peek was a fully realised scene based on the asteroid refit artwork.
Despite the changes between that concept model used to promote Discovery and the final model (even the refit model!), despite the Titans film being abandoned, it was nice to see one scene revisited for that short promo and that it’s design finally had a chance to make an impact in the Star Trek Universe.
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