After Gene Roddenberry's death, Majel Barrett took material from his archives to bring two of his ideas into production. This series was one of them while the other was Earth: Final Conflict (1997). According to Kevin Sorbo Roddenberry reached out to him personally with the proposition to star in the show.
The basic premise of the series - a man from an earlier era piecing civilization back together - was the subject of three earlier Gene Roddenberry pilots: Genesis II (1973) starring Alex Cord and Planet Earth (1974) and Strange New World (1975)"starring John Saxon. None of the three pilots became a series.
The show's premise was pieced together from various notes that Gene Roddenberry had written in 1976.
According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, in a series of tweets on 25 July, 2019, the reason he was fired was that Kevin Sorbo (lead and producer) thought the scripts were too complicated and philosophical. Tribune & Fireworks wanted the show to be more action-filled, less thoughtful, and have more sex. Wolfe objected to some of these changes and the producers wanted someone more cooperative. He also said one of the Tribune execs wanted to direct an episode despite having no directing experience & wasn't Canadian. Directors had to be Canadian for a tax rebate. Wolfe said no and the exec didn't like that.
The reason for writer/executive producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe leaving the show was due to the network wanting a "less complex" story line and heavily focusing the series on Kevin Sorbo over the supporting characters.