David's Reviews > These are the Voyages: Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the 1970s, vol. 2 [1975-1978]

I finished reading Marc Cushman’s “These Are the Voyages: Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the 1970s Volume 2 (1975-1977)” (which was just released this past summer), checked out from the public library. As the title says, this is volume two of a three-volume series covering the works of Roddenberry (and the history of Star Trek) over the course of the 1970s, the ten year period between the cancellation of the original “Star Trek” television series (1966-1969) and the release of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979).

Cushman previously released three volumes simply titled “These Are the Voyages”, covering the original television series, season one being covered in volume one, season two in volume two, and season three in volume three.

I really liked the first volume in Cushman’s 1970s trilogy (his original intent had been to cover the 1970s in just two books but then found enough material to make it three) as it covered a lot of Roddenberry’s lesser covered projects such as the making of the film “Pretty Maids All in a Row” and his pilot films for “Genesis II”, “The Questor Tapes”, “Planet Earth”, and “Strange New World”, as well as the development and production of the 1973-1974 “Star Trek: The Animated Series”, plus the sudden surge of Star Trek’s popularity when it went into nationwide syndicated reruns and the start of the Star Trek conventions.

That was all in volume one (1970-1974). This second volume covering 1975-1977 is more Star Trek heavy as it follows Paramount’s waffling back and forth over whether to bring Star Trek back as a movie, a made-for-tv movie, or as another tv series. Roddenberry and the others hired to produce these projects went through multiple story outline approvals and script rewrites, only to keep having that particular project shelved in favor of a different one.

There was Roddenberry’s “The God Thing” movie script that was being developed from spring to summer of 1975, followed by scripts submitted by various other writers at Paramount’s request from August to December 1975. Roddenberry tried again (along with co-writer Jon Povill) in 1976 with a time travel/altered history storyline. Various other movie script false starts followed in rapid succession (including the Allan Scott and Chris Bryant “Planet of the Titans” script).

Interspersed with all of this are chapters on what all was happening with “Trekmania” at the time: the Star Trek conventions, the various Star Trek books and comic books released during this time, the opening of an all Star Trek retail store in New York City called the Galactic Trading Post, parodies of Star Trek like the one on “Saturday Night Live”, and also information about the various stars of the original Star Trek during this period, what film and television work they were getting as well as comments made in interviews at the time regarding if Star Trek would be returning and if they would be part of it if it did.

There are a few non Star Trek projects discussed in this volume, another pilot film of Roddenberry’s titled “Spectre” (this one a horror themed film timed to take advantage of a brief upsurge in interest in horror and the paranormal, ala “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”; the “Spectre” was actually shot starring Robert Culp and Gig Young and aired as a TV movie of the week but did not go to series because Culp turned in down) and the truly odd situation of Roddenberry being hired to write a feature length screenplay (titled “The Nine”) for a “secret organization” named “Lab-9” which claimed to have made contact with extraterrestrials via channelers and astral meditation. Roddenberry also developed another series proposal, “Battleground: Earth”, for 20th Century Fox, which didn’t get made but which much later on (after Roddenberry’s death) was turned into the “Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict” series.

The entire second half of this second volume is centered around “Star Trek: Phase II”, Paramount’s planned revival of Star Trek as a television series which would be the centerpiece of a brand new “Paramount TV Service” (a three-hour block of programming that Paramount would sell to independent television stations, the first hour being the new Star Trek series and the other two hours being original made-for-tv movies).

Now, there have been other books covering “Star Trek: Phase II” (including the excellent “Star Trek: Phase II: The Making of the Lost Series” by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (1997)). So, I’m not going to go into much about “Phase II” here. Those already knowledgeable about Star Trek in the 1970s already know that after a year of development, including the purchasing of stories and scripts for up to sixteen episodes, Paramount then changed their minds yet once again, cancelling their plans for the Paramount TV Service and for “Star Trek: Phase II” as a television series in favor of doing “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” instead.

Cushman covers “Phase II” in his typical in depth manner, just as he did in his previous “These Are the Voyages” books. However, I must admit that for the first time I found myself pushing myself through parts of the book. Part of it may be simply because I was already pretty familiar with a lot of the “Phase II” stuff. However, I was not as familiar with the “God Thing”, “Planet of the Titans”, and other scripts, yet I still found that sections a bit hard to get through. I think it’s because there wasn’t much actual film or tv production going on on these chapters (or during this period of Roddenberry’s career), instead mostly pre-production work. I found reading about the various executives at Paramount and the producers and story editors working with Roddenberry (and especially the “Trekmania” chapters) to be of more interest frankly than reading long summaries of various story outlines and screenplay drafts for the aborted Star Trek films and “Phase II” episodes”. What was so interesting to me in the first three “These Are the Voyages” volumes about the original television series, the detailed accounts of all three phases, preproduction, production, and postproduction/reception of each and every episode, are by necessity missing here because very little of Roddenberry’s projects got past the scripts phase (until “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, which will be covered in volume three).

The other thing that I found a bit disconcerting (and even at times outright annoying) was Cushman’s increasing tendency to step in to defend Roddenberry when others had negative comments about him or their experiences working with him, and also at times editorializing regarding *his* opinion of certain screenplay drafts and story outlines. At one point, Cushman says, “Comedy is subjective and this story [a story outline written by Theodore Sturgeon for “Phase II” titled “Cassandra” that Sturgeon apparently never submitted a finished script draft of] was intended to be humorous, so we’ll let you decide whether it works or not”. I may simply be forgetting but I don’t remember Cushman editorializing like this or using “we” like this in the first three “These Are the Voyages” books, or even very much in the 1970s volume one. This seems to me to be a shift in tone with this volume, one I don’t particularly care for as it takes me out of the more objective “this is everything that was happening at the time” mindset to “this is how Marc Cushman feels about it”.

That said, I did still enjoy much of this massive 600 plus page long book and I imagine that anyone who has already read the previous “These Are the Voyages” books will feel likewise. I give this a three out of five stars on GoodReads.

Cushman’s third volume covering 1978-1980 and the making of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” came out either at the same time or immediately after volume two, so it’s already out, too. I’ve requested that my local public library try to order it as well, just as I did for volume two. (The Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library Cooperative is awesome at trying to get books that they don’t already have upon request. That’s how they added most of the “These Are the Voyages” books to their collection, upon my requesting them to, although I did already also have the first three TOS books as ebooks purchased from Amazon.)

I look forward to reading it should they be able to get it in, even though the making of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” is a subject I have already read quite a bit about in other books (including another that I’m in the middle of reading right now, “Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture” by Preston Neal Jones).