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These Are the Different Voyages...

An interesting possibility for a slightly delayed Enterprise- say airing in 2003 rather than 2001- is that if the show's still going strong five seasons in, I can't help but think that the logical choice for a new Star Trek film would be using the Enterprise cast, rather than the 2009 reboot franchise.

Though of course given that Enterprise already had a temporal Cold war plot and elements like that going on, Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock on a mission from the future still feels like it would fit in plot wise.
 
An interesting possibility for a slightly delayed Enterprise- say airing in 2003 rather than 2001- is that if the show's still going strong five seasons in, I can't help but think that the logical choice for a new Star Trek film would be using the Enterprise cast, rather than the 2009 reboot franchise.

A good shout, since it might be difficult to justify a reboot if there is still a viable original version of Star Trek ongoing. On the other hand if there is still a lack of faith following Nemesis then perhaps we get some Enterprise straight-to-DVD movies akin to the Stargate SG-1 films. Might open the door for a whole new avenue of content from different series, but much like the Stargate strand it could be stopped dead by the GFC.

Though of course given that Enterprise already had a temporal Cold war plot and elements like that going on, Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock on a mission from the future still feels like it would fit in plot wise.

As I understand it the Temporal Cold War was 1) at the behest of the studio who wanted something more futuristic and 2) an original idea from Brannon Braga originally not meant for Star Trek and he later admitted it would have been better served by being its own programme. So it's possible any version of Enterprise that has a longer gestation period might not wind up with a Temporal Cold War.
 
As I understand it the Temporal Cold War was 1) at the behest of the studio who wanted something more futuristic and 2) an original idea from Brannon Braga originally not meant for Star Trek and he later admitted it would have been better served by being its own programme. So it's possible any version of Enterprise that has a longer gestation period might not wind up with a Temporal Cold War.

I can see the film execs being keen on bringing in some old cast members regardless of course.
 
Calling out @Brainbin if he's around as this is his field.
You rang?

Always nice to see an article about Star Trek, but given my proofreading tendencies, please forgive the cold, clinical nature of my critiques.

Does the author also choose which images are displayed alongside the article? No objection to any but the first, which describes "the Starship Enterprise in the Original Series". It is nothing of the kind. It is an image from TOS-R, released over forty years later. The Enterprise in the original series looked like this:

latest


Onto the meat of the article (well, the TOS stuff anyway, which is mostly what interests me):

Star Trek was never formally cancelled after its second season. Rumours of its potential cancellation were rife and many events were organized to "save the show" but it is popularly believed that such things may have been partly encouraged by the show's production team to drum up buzz for the show (partly corroborated in David Gerrold's The Trouble with Tribbles book in 1973, where he mentions cast and crew often attended "Save Star Trek" events incognito). In fact NBC announced on March 1, 1968, explicitly on-air, that Star Trek would return for a third season.

The network offering a "choice" between Number One and Spock is an assertion I've never encountered before. Roddenberry was known to joke that he married Majel and fought for Spock because he couldn't do it the other way round, but there's no evidence I can find that the network was ever open to keeping Majel as the female lead. They didn't care for her at all (she was his very public mistress - and you should read up on how Roddenberry carried himself around the Desilu lot, it's no wonder Herb Solow despised him). You do acknowledge this a bit later on but it's a moot point. Number One wasn't going to happen without Majel playing her.

Hunter probably wouldn't have been able to walk away after the pilot is picked up to series. TV contracts were ironclad even back then - it was five seasons, do or die. (They've since upped it to six seasons.) Robert Reed, for example, loathed The Brady Bunch and loudly complained about its quality, but saw out all five seasons (although his contract was up for the sixth, and there were plans to kill him off). We can only speculate on how Star Trek would have fared had it gone to air based on "The Cage", but it would have done so in 1965, not 1966, a year ahead of schedule, with Desilu's attention undivided by Mission: Impossible, and perhaps if the show is a success Lucy might not sell her studio, but that's a story (and timeline) for another time. All the women would have worn pants (Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand, took credit for the "miniskirt" look - she wanted to show off her gams - and note that there's not a miniskirt to be seen in the second pilot either), which would have been a huge change visually.

I didn't notice any flaws with the rest of the article, and for the record I would love to see a proper TL where Stewart leaves at the end of the third season (now more than ever, with this Picard show cementing his "legacy"), which means Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes seems like a delightful person and I hear he's a competent director, but by gum he's a lousy actor, or at least he's lousy at playing Riker) and First Officer Shelby. Expect love triangle (Riker/Troi/Shelby) and probably a shift back in a more Kirk-ward direction, Riker being distinguished from Picard by being more of a man of action, leading "away team" missions (over Shelby's objections - that's supposed to be her job). Losing a man and adding a woman means we're back to three female regulars, against four males when Wesley leaves (4:3, about as close to gender parity as you can get - depending on how you count semi-regulars like Guinan, Ro Laren, and Lt. Barclay tips things further.)

I will say I'm shocked that Star Trek: Phase II was not mentioned. That's quite the omission for an article about alternate televised Star Trek. The only reason we have the movies, and therefore every spinoff starting with TNG (greenlit after the smash success of Star Trek IV) is because they couldn't make a TV show work.

Still, a well-written and fun introductory article to the many potential PODs that five decades of Star Trek hath wrought! Thanks for writing :)
 
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Star Trek was never formally cancelled after its second season. Rumours of its potential cancellation were rife and many events were organized to "save the show" but it is popularly believed that such things may have been partly encouraged by the show's production team to drum up buzz for the show (partly corroborated in David Gerrold's The Trouble with Tribbles book in 1973, where he mentions cast and crew often attended "Save Star Trek" events incognito). In fact NBC announced on March 1, 1968, explicitly on-air, that Star Trek would return for a third season.

The network offering a "choice" between Number One and Spock is an assertion I've never encountered before. Roddenberry was known to joke that he married Majel and fought for Spock because he couldn't do it the other way round, but there's no evidence I can find that the network was ever open to keeping Majel as the female lead. They didn't care for her at all (she was his very public mistress - and you should read up on how Roddenberry carried himself around the Desilu lot, it's no wonder Herb Solow despised him). You do acknowledge this a bit later on but it's a moot point. Number One wasn't going to happen without Majel playing her.

Thank you for these clarifications. It's interesting to consider if Rodenberry would have been willing to recast Number One if "The Cage" got picked up.

Hunter probably wouldn't have been able to walk away after the pilot is picked up to series. TV contracts were ironclad even back then - it was five seasons, do or die. (They've since upped it to six seasons.) Robert Reed, for example, loathed The Brady Bunch and loudly complained about its quality, but saw out all five seasons (although his contract was up for the sixth, and there were plans to kill him off). We can only speculate on how Star Trek would have fared had it gone to air based on "The Cage", but it would have done so in 1965, not 1966, a year ahead of schedule, with Desilu's attention undivided by Mission: Impossible, and perhaps if the show is a success Lucy might not sell her studio, but that's a story (and timeline) for another time. All the women would have worn pants (Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand, took credit for the "miniskirt" look - she wanted to show off her gams - and note that there's not a miniskirt to be seen in the second pilot either), which would have been a huge change visually.

"The Cage" version of Star Trek in the premise of That Wacky Redhead is certainly an enticing prospect.

I didn't notice any flaws with the rest of the article, and for the record I would love to see a proper TL where Stewart leaves at the end of the third season (now more than ever, with this Picard show cementing his "legacy"), which means Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes seems like a delightful person and I hear he's a competent director, but by gum he's a lousy actor, or at least he's lousy at playing Riker) and First Officer Shelby. Expect love triangle (Riker/Troi/Shelby) and probably a shift back in a more Kirk-ward direction, Riker being distinguished from Picard by being more of a man of action, leading "away team" missions (over Shelby's objections - that's supposed to be her job). Losing a man and adding a woman means we're back to three female regulars, against four males when Wesley leaves (4:3, about as close to gender parity as you can get - depending on how you count semi-regulars like Guinan, Ro Laren, and Lt. Barclay tips things further.)

Absolutely, and to be honest this is the most exciting prospect for me of the changes mentioned. It begs the question as well of who follows Riker when either Frakes moves on our his salary as lead gets too big and they try to push him behind the camera more. Does this then give us Shelby as the first female captain? And just how long can the series last with cast changes every few seasons?

I will say I'm shocked that Star Trek: Phase II was not mentioned. That's quite the omission for an article about alternate televised Star Trek. The only reason we have the movies, and therefore every spinoff starting with TNG (greenlit after the smash success of Star Trek IV) is because they couldn't make a TV show work.

Phase II to my mind warrants a full article dedicated to it - the original film attempts, the planned television service, the new characters, the planned stories, how it might have fared, what happens after it ends and the prospects of a film and series without the original cast are still unknown.

If there's an appetite for it I'm happy to do an examination of it in another article.
 
there's no evidence I can find that the network was ever open to keeping Majel as the female lead. They didn't care for her at all (she was his very public mistress

It's a very Roddenberry thing that when he was told "you can't have your mistress as the female lead, though you can recast her", he went on to mythologise it as "the studio didn't dare have a female First Officer!"
 
Thank you for these clarifications. It's interesting to consider if Roddenberry would have been willing to recast Number One if "The Cage" got picked up.
Although I've read that the other potential casting choices for the role of Number One were names added to obscure the preordained casting of Roddenberry's mistress, there exists a memo in which Jeanne Bal (who played Nancy in "The Man Trap") and Lee Meriwether (Losira in "That Which Survives", also the Catwoman of the 1966 Batman movie, and who had a stint on Mission: Impossible) are suggested as alternatives. If NBC, early enough on, forces Roddenberry to pick someone else to play Number One, I think he'd go with Meriwether, if he could get her (she was doing a lot of episodic TV in the mid-1960s, but nothing regular). I like Jeanne Bal, but she's probably too "old" (36 during filming of "The Cage", Hunter was only 38) - recall that in "The Man Trap" they made her up to look like she was about 50 and didn't even use the Gaussian blur on her!

RyanF said:
"The Cage" version of Star Trek in the premise of That Wacky Redhead is certainly an enticing prospect.
I'm flattered :) I wanted to save Kirk and Spock (as we know him) and especially Bones, though. And Scotty, who almost didn't make it to series - another great POD. Roddenberry released him after the show was greenlit but Doohan's agent fought for him and got him 7 out of 13. I certainly don't like imagining a Star Trek without Scotty! (I'm still half-convinced Roddenberry initially eschewed a main character engineer on TNG entirely due to sour grapes from being essentially forced to include one on TOS.)

RyanF said:
Absolutely, and to be honest this is the most exciting prospect for me of the changes mentioned. It begs the question as well of who follows Riker when either Frakes moves on our his salary as lead gets too big and they try to push him behind the camera more. Does this then give us Shelby as the first female captain? And just how long can the series last with cast changes every few seasons?
1990, the year this goes down, is of course the same year that Law & Order, a show that rode frequent cast changes into a two-decade run, premiered. And we've established the precedent already that Star Trek does not necessarily mean Kirk and Spock and Bones and Scotty, so why not add a revolving door?

RyanF said:
Phase II to my mind warrants a full article dedicated to it - the original film attempts, the planned television service, the new characters, the planned stories, how it might have fared, what happens after it ends and the prospects of a film and series without the original cast are still unknown.
You make sense, although I still think it's too important to omit entirely. Even just a "that could be the subject of its own article" line would have worked.

RyanF said:
If there's an appetite for it I'm happy to do an examination of it in another article.
I'd certainly love to see one! :)

All indications are that Phase II would have been a dry run for early TNG - Decker and Ilia were basically Riker and Troi and Xon was Data. Of course at least one episode written for Phase II - "The Child" - was adapted wholesale for TNG. Kirk and Bones without Spock would have been tragic, though. It worked for Star Trek III but that's probably the most you could get out of it.

Also @Brainbin please bear in mind that the editors have a serious issue with dodging copyright vultures (as I'm sure you're familiar with from our own discussions about TWR) hence we often end up with less than appropriate images.
You raise a good point, and I do apologize unreservedly to @Gary Oswald if this was a consideration in the selection of that image.

Still, I can't help but be rankled - it's bad enough that reruns and Memory Alpha are playing Orwell (or rather Lucas), I was just displeased to see an article about the history of Star Trek followed suit. It's my own personal bugbear, I admit.

It's a very Roddenberry thing that when he was told "you can't have your mistress as the female lead, though you can recast her", he went on to mythologise it as "the studio didn't dare have a female First Officer!"
Absolutely, the man had a unique talent for self-promotion, and he never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
 
I'll be honest @Brainbin I added these pictures back in April, so I don't remember the details. I do know that the first picture I found on the Wikipedia page was copyrighted so I couldn't use that. I probably just found the first one that wasn't and called it a day.

Will try and replace it at some point.
 
I'll be honest @Brainbin I added these pictures back in April, so I don't remember the details. I do know that the first picture I found on the Wikipedia page was copyrighted so I couldn't use that. I probably just found the first one that wasn't and called it a day.

Will try and replace it at some point.
I really appreciate your candour, and thanks so much for offering to go to the trouble :) I'm blown away by how magnanimously you're handling my critique, it really speaks to the pride you take in your part in the site's articles (and rightly so).
 
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