Discussion of 1970s STAR TREK "Phase II" Series Sequel That Never Happened
The Star Trek franchise has traveled a long successful road. It has brought us years of entertainment, several TV series, and feature film productions. But along the way there have been attempts to create other Star Trek projects that never saw the light of day. You can read about some details here on Bryan Singer's Star Trek: Federation series, and there was another Star Trek sequel series called Phase II that was in development in the late 1970s. We previously posted some concept art for that series that you can see here. That series was eventually turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but now some new details have surfaced for it.
io9 posted an article on TV shows that were never made, and a discussion started in the comments that I thought was really interesting. They offer some theories about what an alternate history might have been like for the franchise if the "Phase II" series was actually made.
There are also some details on how a few of the stories and characters created for the series eventually ended up in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I didn't know much about this Phase II series, so as a fan I found a lot of this stuff fascinating. Maybe you will too.
Sean Kelley
As the biggest Star Trek fan in the world, this may sound like a weird one, but Star Trek Phase II. Mostly because I love TNG so much and I'm not sure TNG would've come into existence if Phase II had been a thing.
lightninglouie
Someone theorized that if Star Trek Phase II had gotten off the ground and lasted a year or two, we would have never gotten the "classic" movie franchise of the '80s or The Next Generation... but there might have been a big-budget movie reboot (a la Abrams Trek) circa 1996 or so.
It's probably worth pointing out that many of the characters created for Phase II did end up appearing in greatly modified form on TNG. Xon, the emotion-free Vulcan, inspired Data, Commander Decker became Riker, Ilia became Troi, albeit with very elaborate hair instead of a bald head. And a couple of Phase II scripts ended up being repurposed for TNG during the 1988 Writers' Strike, so in a number of ways the abandoned '70s series lived on through its official and hugely popular descendant (not to mention the 1979 movie).
It's a statement of fact. Some Phase II scripts were even repurposed for TNG during the writer's strike, with Decker changed to Riker and Ilia changed to Troi.
Brawl2099
That's an interesting alternate reality of Trek fandom. I would bet that it would have been a TV reboot rather than a movie reboot though. Execs would have said "There's no way this is marketable on the big screen." Then Ronald D Moore or JMS would have exec produced a TV show reboot.
lightninglouie
During the '90s, every other show from the '60s and '70s was getting a big movie adaptation. It's highly possible that Paramount would have considered Star Trek as a candidate, with an A-list director and cast, thanks to its fanbase.
Lorin
We also probably would not have gotten Wrath of Khan.
Chris
It's funny, I was watching an OLD SNL from the 70s... maybe 1979, and there was a stand-up comedian doing a bit and his whole thing was about how excited he was for Star Trek Phase II because Star Trek was about the only show that was on wherever he went and he was sick of seeing the same 79 episodes over and over again. I never realized how close that show came to being real until I saw that.
Do you have any insight to the series, or just any other thoughts on the matter to add to the discussion?