05 Playing
chesswith
Charlie,in
“CharlieX.”
06 Spock,
Bones,and
Sulu,in
“TomorrowIs
Yesterday.”depthstoSpock
withfirstseason
episode“Yesteryear.”
Didanimationoffer
youopportunities
thatweredifficult
toachieveinlive
action?
I workedclosely
withallthewriters
onthefirstseasonof
16 episodes.Many
ofthosewriterswere
oneswhohadwritten
fortheoriginalseriesbecausethere
wasa WritersGuildstrikewhenwe
beganTheAnimatedSeries. Theycould
notwriteforanyliveactionshow,
butcoulddoscriptsforananimated
seriesbecauseit wasa different
union.Animationmostcertainlygave us opportunities
that were difficult to
achieve in live action.
We could have any
planet landscape, any
spaceship, any alien.
They only had to be
drawn believably and
animated well! The
stories had a new
and more science
fiction look.
We did have to
watch one thing: our
director,HalSutherland, was color
blind,andsoa couple of times, he
approvedpinkspaceships! We had to
keeptrackofthecolors the animators
putonspacecraft,aliens, and so on, so
theydidnotcomeoff as too “kiddie-
like”ortoocartoony.“Friday’sChild”wasmyoriginal
idea.And,yes,women’srightsand
theVietnamWarwereprimaryissues
I wantedtodealwith.Myyounger
brother,Richard,wasat thattime
servingintheAirForce.Inhisfour
yearsinservice,heservedsixmonths
inGuam,sixmonthsinOkinawa,and
a yearinThailand,whereheandhis
fellowservicemencameunderenemy
fire.Sothosethingswereonmymind,
andStarTrekwasa goodplaceto
examineanddiscussthoseissues.
“ByAnyOtherName”and“The
UltimateComputer”wererewrite
assignments,butI addressedwhatever
issuestheoriginalwritershadputin
theminitially.
YouleftasStarTrek’s storyeditor
atthecloseofthesecondseason;
wasthistopursueotherfreelance
opportunities,ordidGene
Roddenberry’sdeparturehaveany
bearingonyourdecision?
I diddoit topursueotherfreelance
opportunities,butdidwriteonescript
anda coupleofstoriesforStarTrek’s
thirdseason.I becamebusywriting
westernsagain–Bonanza,TheBig
Valley,TheHighChaparral. It wasfun
toworkinthosestoryfieldsagain.
YoureturnedtoStarTrekwith
TheAnimatedSeries, asassociate
producerandstoryeditor.Once
more,youaddedpreviouslyunseen
“I was sort of the
Spock ‘developer,’
since I really enjoyed
bringing forward new
information about
him as a character.”
D. C. FONTANA0506INTERVIEW