A Brief Guide to Star Trek

audience: the fans were out there, and they were hungry for new stories. It was time to make the most of this previously neglected studio asset.
    Roddenberry recruited two key staff members: production executive Robert H. Goodwin (filling the practical producer role previously held by Robert Justman) and creative producer Harold Livingston, who would be responsible for developing the scripts. Roddenberry attempted to poach designer Matt Jefferies, who had worked on the original
Star Trek
series and had originated the look of the
Enterprise
, from his job on
Little House on the Prairie
. Jefferies managed to briefly work on both projects, before recommending his old Desilu assistant Joe Jennings for the art director role. Jefferies rapidly updated the old
Enterprise
design for the new series, while retaining many of its distinctive features.
    While scripts were being devised and a series ‘bible’ created,Paramount had to negotiate once more with
Star Trek
’s main cast members. Most had been signed up, paid and released in relation to
Planet of the Titans
, so the hope was that an offer of a pilot TV movie plus an initial thirteen-episode television series would be attractive to actors whose careers had not exactly blossomed since
Star Trek
. The sticking point this time was Leonard Nimoy. Fearing that the actor – who had perhaps been the most successful of the
Enterprise
crew post-
Star Trek
– would not want to commit to a full-time series, Roddenberry offered him the pilot and guest appearances in two episodes. It was hardly surprising he turned that offer down. It looked like
Star Trek: Phase II
would launch without Spock, so Roddenberry devised a new Spock-like replacement. A Vulcan named Xon with many of the characteristics later echoed in
The Next Generation
’s android Data would feature instead.
    Similarly, although William Shatner was happy to sign up for the new show, Paramount feared they would not be able to retain the expensive actor for subsequent years if the series was to take off. As a form of insurance, Roddenberry devised a second-in-command character who could become a replacement captain if need be. Commander Will Decker was put in place as the
Enterprise
’s number two (anticipating the creation of Commander Will Riker for
The Next Generation
in the 1980s). Meanwhile, Shatner reportedly feared that his role of Captain Kirk would either be reduced to cameo guest appearances in a handful of episodes or dispensed with altogether through the dramatic move of killing off Kirk.
    While a new six-foot fibreglass
Enterprise
model was being constructed,
The Original Series
costume designer William Ware Theiss was back on
Star Trek
, developing new uniforms for the crew of the revamped 1970s
Enterprise
. Roddenberry, Livingston and Povill had all contributed to the new series bible and writers’ guide. ‘The challenge was coming up with things that weren’t repeats of ideas already explored [in
The Original Series
]’, said Povill. ‘We were definitely striving for things that were different, fresh and also
Star Trek
.’
Phase II
was now readyto recruit a new team of storytellers to add to Roddenberry’s growing universe.
    Among the writers signed up for the new show was USC screenwriting tutor Alan Dean Foster. He’d adapted the animated
Star Trek
series episodes into short stories for the
Star Trek Logs
paperbacks (just as James Blish had adapted the majority of the live-action
Star Trek
episodes into short story form). Foster was hired to adapt an old story idea from Roddenberry into a
Star Trek
outline. Entitled ‘Robot’s Return’, the story was originally planned for the aborted
Genesis II
series. Alan Dean Foster adapted it into a script entitled ‘In Thy Image’.
    Originally intended as the first of the regular one-hour episodes of
Phase II
, ‘In Thy Image’ brought the action back home to twenty-third-century Earth, a place never visited by the original
Star Trek
series. The action of
Phase II
was to take place in a period after the conclusion of the original ‘five-year mission’, prompting a visit by the
Enterprise
to Earth for a complete overhaul. In developing the project, it was felt that Foster’s story should become the basis of the two-hour pilot movie, which would begin with the
Enterprise
refit just being completed in Earth orbit. The crew reunion aspects of the ori -ginal planned pilot (drawn from Roddenberry’s
The God Thing
movie idea) would be merged with