ABC premieres the made-for-TV movie Planet Earth, starring John Saxon, Ted Cassidy, Diana Muldaur and Majel Barrett. Created and co-written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Planet Earth is the second attempt to build a series pilot around the story of astronaut Dylan Hunt, frozen in suspended animation and reawakened only after the fall of human civilization by an organization called PAX. For the second time, this does not result in a series pickup, though the story of Dylan Hunt will form the basis of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, a syndicated series produced in the early 2000s after Roddenberry’s death. 
ABC premieres the made-for-TV movie 
NBC premieres the made-for-TV movie 
Having been hospitalized for several weeks, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry dies in a Los Angeles hospital; his health had been declining in recent years and he had become confined to a wheelchair, leaving much of the day-to-day production duties of Star Trek: The Next Generation executive producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller. Roddenberry is survived by his son and by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who still occasionally guest stars on Star Trek: TNG as Lwaxana Troi, and fans the world over mourn his passing. Rick Berman is expected to continue assuming full responsibility for the Star Trek franchise’s production and creative decisions, a role he had already been fulfilling during Roddenberry’s recent years of ill health. TNG is currently in its fifth season.
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.