Production was moving forward on the first Star Trek TV spin-off, Phase II, in the summer and fall of 1977.
Even though Paramount, in August 1977, had already decided that Phase II was dead.
To ensure that they had all of the cast contracts in place for the coming movie...and to make sure that this time, the production would move forward...the studio waited until March 1978 to tell the world about this new version of the production, Star Trek The Motion Picture.
And of course during that time, between August ‘77 and March ‘78, nobody working on Phase II knew that it was dead. They were kept in the dark.
So work on the show continued. Along with building the sets, signing the cast, and creating a new model for the Starship Enterprise...the production staff needed stories.
In the book, Star Trek Phase II, the authors Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens explain that Jon Povil, the story editor for the show, had to listen to hundreds of pitches from writers!
From those pitches, 13 emerged as the best stories that fit the show’s hour-long format, and Star Trek’s unique universe.
In this episode of 70s Trek, we tell you about six of them:
Next week, we tell you about the last seven scripts.
