Roddenberry Pilots Now on DVD

Star Trek fans have long known that the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, tried out a bunch of other concepts in the 1970s without success, a few of them making it as far as having a pilot produced. But these efforts have been difficult to track down, until now.

Warner Brothers has come out with new digital masterings of two feature-length TV pilots, Genesis II and Planet Earth, representing Roddenberry's first efforts to return to series television after Star Trek went off the air, available for download or as manufactured-on-demand DVDs.

Genesis II (1973) starred Alex Cord in the role of Dylan Hunt, an astronaut from the 20th Century who awakes to find himself propelled forward 200 years into a post-apocalyptic society.The 74-minute pilot is directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (who directed several episodes of Mission: Impossible, Mannix, The Saint, and many other series) and stars Alex Cord (later better known as the eyepatch guy from Airwolf), Harvey Jason (Felix from "The Big Goodbye"), Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth from "All Our Yesterdays"), Percy Rodrigues (Portmaster Stone from "Court Martial"), and Ted Cassidy (Ruk from "What Are Little Girls Made of?"). Genesis II features pacifist, militaristic, and mutant societies in the wake of a future world war. Roddenberry completed almost an entire season's worth of scripts before learning that CBS would not pick up the series

Roddenberry revamped the idea the following year with Planet Earth, which aired on ABC as a made-for-TV movie in 1974. Planet Earth had swifter pacing, a different style, and a very different leading man, John Saxon, in the role of Hunt. This pilot, also 74 minutes, was directed by Star Trek veteran Marc Daniels and starred Diana Muldaur (Dr. Miranda Jones in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" and Ann Mulhall/Thalassa in "Return to Tomorrow"), Ted Cassidy, and John Saxon (Nightmare on Elm Street). Planet Earth emphasizes the matriarchal aspect of this future society, with men subjected to the women.

After these two related projects failed, Roddenberry reverted to Star Trek, which was by this point building up a considerable cult fan base, and began work on Star Trek Phase II, a new series that was itself scrapped in favor of what eventually became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The name Dylan Hunt, however, later resurfaced when Majel Roddenberry sold one of her late husband's other concepts as Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

If you're interested, you can visit the links below, and upon purchase, a manufacturing on demand (MOD) system creates a made-to-order DVD. The system places the DVD into a hard plastic case with custom artwork, and ships the finished package to the customer for arrival in approximately five days. The cost per title is $19.95, plus shipping. Alternatively, consumers can purchase digital downloads for PC or broadband connected TV. The cost for a digital download is $14.95 per title. (Apparently, of these two titles only Planet Earth is available for download.) In both cases there is a short video clip you can watch as a sample.

• Warner Archive page for Genesis II
• Warner Archive page for Planet Earth