Broadcasting & Cable Weekly Magazine reveals that Majel Barrett Roddenberry and Tribune Entertainment have sealed a deal to produce a series first outlined by the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the 1970s, Battleground Earth. Budgeted at $1,000,000 per episode, the series will be based on a series pitch that nearly resulted in a pilot for 20th Century Fox in 1977, until Roddenberry’s attention was refocused on the impending TV revival of Star Trek for the never-launched Paramount Television Service, which then became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Then in the 1980s, Kenneth Johnson’s V, following a very similar story outline, became a hit, leaving Battleground Earth unusable for a time. This series will premiere in syndication in late 1997 under the title Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict.
