TV AH: Trek Phase 2 goes through

WI Gene and co. went ahead with Star Trek phase 2, and a new series of Star Trek, with many of the original enterprise crew, arrives on america's TV screens in the 70s. This, one might say, was the peak of the public's hunger for trek. While they wouldnt get Nimoy, at least initially, would the show have been successful? Would the star trek feature films still happen? How good would the show be? The scripts ive looked through looked decent enough. Would TNG still happen? How would this change the franchise as a whole?

In my mind, it would make the original series less of a tv martyr. Yes, it was brilliant, and yes, it was cancelled in 1969--but in this case, like the proverbial phoenix, it rose again. Perhaps the original series would be seen as less brilliant and groundbreaking, if it had a followup?
 
Star Trek Phase Two looked a lot like early TNG crossed with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Slow, kind of boring, and the fun is gone.

Now of course the original cast has way better chemistry than the TNG cast but I can certainly see Gene exerting his strong sense for what is boring over Phase 2 as he did TNG (the federation becomes communist, horrible uniforms, that kind of thing).

That said, as happened IOTL with Star Trek I & II, the bosses will kick Gene off the day-to-day and hopefully someone better winds up in charge. Ideally we'd get a show that looks like Star Trek II (& VI) but in episodic form. Fun stuff, but not as cheesy as original Star Trek nor as boring as TNG.

However, odds are it probably stays the same TNG/Star Trek I weird mix that it was heading towards.
 

Thande

Donor
As EM says, Phase 2 had a lot of stuff later reused for the Next Generation: the theme, Decker/Illia being the prototype for Riker/Troi, Xon was basically a proto-Data, and so forth.

It would basically be the Next Generation, but with Kirk.


...actually, that sounds like it would rock.
 
Back to one of the original questions, what are the chances for Phase II to be successful? And how successful?

Would a successful phase II first season lure Nimoy away from his stage theater antics to the show? And if Nimoy didnt come to the series, wouldnt this pretty much damn him to obscurity, as the Vulcan who got away?
 
If "Phase II" went ahead, then there's basically no chance of there being a Star Trek film. They tried to get a Star Trek film greenlit several times before "Phase II" was picked up by Paramount - if a Star Trek film failed repeatedly in the 1970s (which, as you say, was the peak of the public's hunger for more Star Trek) then it'd probably be universally reckoned that Star Trek only works on TV. You wouldn't have TNG either - "Next Generation" recycled a lot of things from "Phase II", and was basically Gene Roddenberry's pet project which was influenced by how much he hated the Harve Bennett films. But after "Phase II" finishes you might get "Phase III".

Back to one of the original questions, what are the chances for Phase II to be successful? And how successful?
Very, very successful. Just look at "The Motion Picture" - that was absolutely horrible, and it's still the highest-grossing Trek film to date (adjusted for inflation). People then were so eager for new Star Trek they would've watched anything.

Would a successful phase II first season lure Nimoy away from his stage theater antics to the show? And if Nimoy didnt come to the series, wouldnt this pretty much damn him to obscurity, as the Vulcan who got away?
Doubt it. Nimoy was really bitter with Star Trek at this point, and wouldn't have come back for Phase II under any circumstances. The only reason he signed on for "The Motion Picture" was because of the threat of bad publicity if he didn't show up for the feature film revival of Star Trek, and the only reason he signed on for "The Wrath of Khan" was because Spock would die so he wouldn't have to play the character again. And anyway, Nimoy was really famous at this point so I think there's no way he could be "damned to obscurity", as you say.
 
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Nimoy would indeed end up obscure without continued involvement with Trek unless he could find some other role to keep him in the spotlight. Jumping around with a horse mask on a stage wont cut it.
 
I feel like mentioning something...at the end of ST: The Motion Picture, Spock is lying in bed, having come back from his encounter with V'ger, and he's smiling and being emotional, because V'ger had all this knowledge and experience but didn't have any joy or enjoyment or whatever, and you get the idea Spock was rejecting his logic and lack of emotion. Spock was now being more human.
Then they completely forget all that for the next movies and TNG, and none of the other Vulcans seem to know about it. I wonder if that's another scene Nimoy approved of so he could drop the Spock character and go do other stuff.
But I suppose with Phase II we wouldn't have V'ger at all.
 
To make matters worse, according to his most recent biography with Mind Meld, Leonard Nimoy was suffering from alcoholism at the time, which had him passed out before noon in his trailer. In Nimoy's biography he states, "I loved going to the theater in London because they allowed you to drink before the show and during intermission". William Shatner was also beginning to despise the fans (see Saturday Night Live, 12/20/1986). George Takei was still in the closet about his homosexuality. Grace Lee Whitney (a.k.a. Yeoman Rand) was suffering from alcohol and diet pill addiction, and even was arrested for prostitution. With all of this in play, any of the problems could have seriously brought down the franchise....
 
But I suppose with Phase II we wouldn't have V'ger at all.

Sure we would. IIRC, the movie script was adapted from the originaly pilot for Phase II: "In Thy Image". It might not have been the same V'ger, but the concept is still there.
 
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