Paramount Considered Launching An Entire TV Network Centered On A Star Trek Series
by Witney Seibold · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
The origins of a Paramount TV network stretch all the way back to 1948. According to the book "Boom and Bust: The American Cinema in the 1940s," Paramount Pictures was one of the main partners in the DuMont Television Network, one of the very first networks in the United States. In 1948, the Paramount Television Network launched and became one of the earliest players in a soon-to-boom medium. Sadly, it wasn't particularly successful, shuttering in 1956.
Paramount seemingly had the itch to relaunch its network for decades thereafter, and eventually scratched that itch with the debut of the UPN (or United Paramount Network) in 1995. It had been 45 years, but Paramount was finally back on TV. On its very first night in operation, on January 16, 1995, it premiered the hit sci-fi series "Star Trek: Voyager." It might have been the UPN's greatest hit show, as the network infamously floundered during its time on the air. Look up a list of programming from the UPN, and you'll find a litany of one-season wonders. "Voyager's" first season was fine, though.
This network didn't last too long either. In 2006, corporate restructuring by Viacom took the UPN out from under Paramount and merged it with The WB to form The CW. But it was a valiant effort, and the culmination of a long-held dream.
Between 1950 and 1995, however, Paramount did make another large, earnest effort to launch its own TV network. As one can find in a 1977 issue of the New Times, Paramount planned to use the then-in-development TV series "Star Trek: Phase II" to kickstart the so-named Paramount Television Service, or PTS, in 1978.
In 1978, Paramount wanted to use Star Trek: Phase II to lanuch a network
Trekkies can likely tell you all about "Star Trek: Phase II," and we have written all about the series in the pages of /Film in the past. The idea was that "Star Trek" gained a huge amount of popularity when it was airing in reruns in the 1970s, and show creator Gene Roddenberry felt the time was right to get the series back on the air in the form of a spinoff. When he heard that Paramount was going to launch the PTS, he leapt. The new "Star Trek: Phase II" was to see the return of the USS Enterprise and a reunion of the entire original series cast (sans Leonard Nimoy, since Nimoy and Roddenberry were angry at each other at the time over some legal disputes). A few new characters were invented for the show, including a Deltan named Ilia (Persis Khambatta) and a Vulcan named Xon (David Gautreaux).
As all Trekkies know, "Star Trek: Phase II" was eventually reworked into "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979. In 1977, though, Roddenberry seemed to be hopeful that his sci-fi series would make a proud return to the airwaves, and on a new network, no less.
Barry Diller, the president of Paramount at the time, didn't like the phrase "fourth network" (as there were only three in 1977), but he was ambitious. In the New Times, he expressed some optimism, saying: "We won't be erecting a building on Sixth Avenue and 58th, but we're in competition ... because of the rise in broadcasting advertising revenue. There is now enough to support more than three networks."
The New Times made explicit that "Phase II" was to be the PTS's flagship show.
Not everyone was looking forward to a Paramount Network in 1978
Not everyone was optimistic. "Phase II" was to be terribly expensive, for one, costing a then-unprecedented $2 million for a two-part opening episode, and half a million for each episode thereafter. It was to run for 20 episodes. Because Leonard Nimoy wasn't going to come back, the franchise's best-known character, Spock, would be absent, immediately sparking outrage. According to the New Times, the unmade series was already being boycotted by Trekkies as early as 1977. It seems that people were writing letters to Paramount, saying that a Spock-less "Star Trek" would lack the necessary integrity to keep Trekkies interested. Of course, "Star Trek" wouldn't be "Star Trek" if there weren't Trekkies complaining about it somewhere.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, "Phase II" mutated rapidly. It was difficult to get the series together, and the project was eventually canceled in November of 1977, less than a week before production was to begin in earnest. That same Hollywood Reporter article pointed out that Paramount started to have some serious doubts about the viability of launching an actual "fourth network," so "Phase II" was phased out ... and so was the PTS. In March of 1978, it was announced that Paramount was moving forward on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The rest is history.
What would the PTS have looked like? It's hard to say. Would Paramount have become a major player in television? We can only speculate. Barry Diller took his network idea over to 20th Century Fox and created the Fox Broadcasting Company instead. Paramount, as mentioned, got their wish with the UPN in 1995.
In 2017, they also debuted "Star Trek: Discovery" on their streaming service, CBS All Access. The pattern continued.