Gene Roddenberry wouldn't find post-Star Trek success until after he passed away

Star Trek would not be here today without its creator Gene Roddenberry. He envisioned a concept so spectacular that it's lasted and grown for nearly 60 years. It's stretched beyond the original concept, a 1960s sci-fi series draped in the trappings of moral discourse, and became a worldwide phenomenon that sees the show tackle important conversations against the backdrop of a science fiction-infused drama.

It was so creative and so exciting that you'd think Roddenberry was making hit after hit. He wasn't. While Star Trek wasn't the first thing he lent his proverbial voice to, it was the most successful. Yet, after it ended, Roddenberry went through a nearly decade of duds.

His first big swing was a Rock Hudson film that he wrote and produced called "Pretty Little Things" which dived into eroticism of all things. It failed, and Roddenberry pulled back from doing theatrical screenplays to made-for-television films. Science fiction flops like "Genesis II", "The Questor Tapes", and "Planet Earth" came and went. With none making a fraction of the impact that Star Trek did.

He would go off book, so to speak, with "Spectre", a British made-for-television film about the occult, which also ended up being a ratings dud. Aside from some writing he did for other shows that were already being produced, like "Alias Smith and Jones", if it wasn't Star Trek it wasn't a hit.

At least, not while he was alive. Star Trek was his calling card, but it turns out that if you took his creative control away from him, he could turn out some ideas that had some potential. The first was a 1997 syndicated series called "Earth: Final Conflict". A series that lacked the budget to be taken seriously at the time, but had enough fan support to command five seasons.

While "Earth: Final Conflict" was in syndication, another Roddenberry-created series was brought to television in the Kevin Sorbo-led "Andromeda". A show with slightly better visuals than its contemporary, but still nowhere near as good as what fans were getting on Star Trek: Voyager.

These were arguably Roddenberry's best creations other than Star Trek, though he had little to do with them creatively. A sad case for his work, as most of the best incarnations of Star Trek took little or no notes from the creator himself. Films like "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Undiscovered Country" were not created with much of Roddenberry's involvement, if any.

The best seasons of "The Next Generation" came after Roddenberry passed on. Sadly, for as great of a visionary as he was as a producer, as a writer he didn't seem to have that next level that was needed very often. It's why he's not very well regarded outside of the original series of Star Trek, which was a no-doubt home run series. A true feather in any cap.