Gene Roddenberry in the 1970s

Gene Roddenberry in the 1970s - Part One
Gene Roddenberry After Star Trek - Genesis 2 & Planet Earth
Gene Roddenberry's Questor & Spectre

The decade between the cancellation of the original Star Trek series in 1969 and the debut of Star Trek, The Motion Picture in 1979 was a lean one for television producer, writer, and Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

Though he made valiant efforts, he only got one series off the ground during that time, the Saturday morning cartoon version of Star Trek in 1973.

A massive letter-writing campaign organized by fans (but secretly instigated by Roddenberry himself) got Star Trek renewed after NBC cancelled it in 1968. When the network moved the show to the Friday-night-at-ten death-slot, Roddenberry issued an ultimatum: restore the program to an appropriate timeslot or he would quit. Having just proven there was a vocal audience for his work, Roddenberry was surprised when the network didn't back down and he was forced to walk away from the show he created and nurtured for two years. This resulted in a dreadful last season for Star Trek.



For the 1968–69 season, Roddenberry hoped to move from the stars to the vines with a new version of Tarzan. The last TV Tarzan (Ron Ely) didn’t make much of an impression cavorting around NBC’s jungle just two years earlier, so Roddenberry intended instead to concentrate on the Lord Greystoke side of the apeman’s personality. This project made it to script but not to film.