F. Freiberger - decent writer

[Maurice]

Justman was really frustrated and angry that GR turned his back on the series, and I don't blame him one iota.

Justman cornered GR one day and bluntly told him that the good ship Enterprise was in deep trouble. GR very briefly assumed command again, but then just as quickly faded into obscurity as far as production was concerned.

Sources, please.

BTW, you can fire a show's creator from their show in the right circumstances, but they still own it and they still have to be paid and credited. Them's the legal realities. Also, as I've said several times, it is commonplace for show creators to move on after a couple of seasons. They need to work on getting other shows on their air because if the current show gets cancelled, they're left holding their hats.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Justman was really frustrated and angry that GR turned his back on the series, and I don't blame him one iota.

Justman cornered GR one day and bluntly told him that the good ship Enterprise was in deep trouble. GR very briefly assumed command again, but then just as quickly faded into obscurity as far as production was concerned.

Sources, please.

BTW, you can fire a show's creator from their show in the right circumstances, but they still own it and they still have to be paid and credited. Them's the legal realities. Also, as I've said several times, it is commonplace for show creators to move on after a couple of seasons. They need to work on getting other shows on their air because if the current show gets cancelled, they're left holding their hats.

Solow/Justman Star Trek The Inside Story

 

[Christopher]

Roddenberry didn't do a single rewrite outside of inserting some merchandise he wanted to sell in "Is There In Truth No Beauty."

Out of curiosity, what as he trying to sell? The IDIC necklace and visors?

Only the IDIC.

BTW, you can fire a show's creator from their show in the right circumstances, but they still own it and they still have to be paid and credited. Them's the legal realities. Also, as I've said several times, it is commonplace for show creators to move on after a couple of seasons. They need to work on getting other shows on their air because if the current show gets cancelled, they're left holding their hats.

Right. If you see a show creator's credit change from "Executive Producer" to "Executive Consultant," e.g. Rockne S. O'Bannon after season 1 of Farscape, that means they've left the show and are no longer in charge. They still get paid, and they're sent the scripts and can offer story notes if they want to, but their input is no longer binding.

However, Roddenberry was still the executive producer of TOS's third season. Maybe that's because the executive consultant credit hadn't been devised yet, but I think it means he was still officially the one responsible for the series; he just delegated that responsibility to Freiberger, like an absentee landlord. So he didn't really move on, didn't make a clean break. It seems he tried to have it both ways, to keep the title and the salary while not actually doing the work.

 

[DWF]

Gene Roddenberry did find the time to write The Savage Curtain. But it is pretty well known that broke his agreement with NBC and stepped away from the day to day running of the show.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Gene Roddenberry did find the time to write The Savage Curtain. But it is pretty well known that broke his agreement with NBC and stepped away from the day to day running of the show.

IIRC, GR was angry at NBC because they changed the time slot for ST to Friday nights, so he more or less devoted his time to other projects.

 

[Botany Bay]

However, Roddenberry was still the executive producer of TOS's third season. Maybe that's because the executive consultant credit hadn't been devised yet, but I think it means he was still officially the one responsible for the series; he just delegated that responsibility to Freiberger, like an absentee landlord. So he didn't really move on, didn't make a clean break. It seems he tried to have it both ways, to keep the title and the salary while not actually doing the work.

BTW, you can fire a show's creator from their show in the right circumstances, but they still own it and they still have to be paid and credited. Them's the legal realities. Also, as I've said several times, it is commonplace for show creators to move on after a couple of seasons. They need to work on getting other shows on their air because if the current show gets cancelled, they're left holding their hats.

Ok great, thanks guys.

I understand he was angry at the network about the timeslot, but what about his obligation to his employer, the studio? Image what morale would have been like if he did, indeed, just pack his things and leave having a tantrum over the timeslot, which the evidence seems to suggest.

But the bit I don't fully understand is why Paramount would allow this to happen. The overhead of his salary would likely have been substantial, and the show's budget was being slashed to the point where they couldn't afford extras to populate the ship. By all means, GR was entitled to the "creator" credit and ongoing payments as creator -- but if he was being paid extra to function as an executive, this is morally pretty rubbish behaviour from Roddenberry, and a failure of management at Paramount.

But it seems, yes, he decided to have it both ways, and was allowed to get away with it : dabbling at TOS (he can't have been that far away from things - I recall twice he was involved in some pretty heavy disputes with the actors that Freiberger couldn't resolve : 1. The IDIC thing and 2. The big "Who's the star?" bust-up between Shatner and Nimoy), and working on other things (Pretty Maids All In A Row, for Solow, was one of them I believe).

I just wish there was more published material on Season 3.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Maybe the workload of the 1st two seasons burned GR out, because he seemed to lose most of his motivation for ST after the horrible new time slot was announced.

 

[ToddPence]

I was for a long time a defender of FF, but I soured on him after learning the sordid details of the sad, pathetic way in which he fired Ralph Senensky. one of television's all-time greatest directors, from "The Tholian Web".

 

[Maurice]

First of all, saying the name of a book isn't really sufficient when citing a source. People paraphrase waaaay too often and frequently add emotional overtones to stories which didn't have them. This is why I always cite verbatim quotes with page numbers.

To clarify re Roddenberry's role: as the creator of Star Trek he was going to get paid his creator's share for every program no matter what. As to his stepping back, an Executive Producer makes big production decisions, not manages day-to-day producing minutia. Back then they might get more directly involved, but they weren't required to. Paramount probably couldn't "make" him do much of anything, assuming they were even paying attention. The shows were being made on time and on budget so why would they interfere?

 

[Spock's Barber]

First of all, saying the name of a book isn't really sufficient when citing a source. People paraphrase waaaay too often and frequently add emotional overtones to stories which didn't have them. This is why I always cite verbatim quotes with page numbers.

This is a Internet forum, not a college term paper. I post my thoughts and opinions without having to worry about getting a passing grade or not.

 

[Maurice]

EDIT:
Ooops. That "rubbish" thing went in the wrong window. Sorry!

 

[PCz911]

I was for a long time a defender of FF, but I soured on him after learning the sordid details of the sad, pathetic way in which he fired Ralph Senensky. one of television's all-time greatest directors, from "The Tholian Web".

I'm not familiar with this event. Do you have a link or would mind relating the story?

 

[johnnybear]

Strange that FF takes over a show only for it to be cancelled the next year isn't it,three times running!
JB

 

[Maurice]

If he hadn't taken on Space: 1999 there might not have been a second year at all.

 

[Christopher]

Strange that FF takes over a show only for it to be cancelled the next year isn't it,three times running!

It's not really strange, because the majority of shows are short-lived. No TV series is ever guaranteed a long life. If anything, it would be more anomalous for a producer or actor to have a resume consisting entirely of long-running, successful series. Statistically speaking, it's far more likely for anyone to have a resume dominated by short-lived series, because there are just so many more of those.

 

[johnnybear]

FF did take on 1999 and the first few episodes he produced weren't as good as the original shows by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, but the last ten or twelve he did for series 2 were very good!
JB

 

[CrazyMatt]

On one of the extras on the Season Three DVD (and also on the Blu-Ray), Leonard Nimoy talks about FF in the abstract, and claimed (paraphrasing), "We had a new producer who was a nice guy but who just didn't understand what the show was about." I always thought that was strange, as by that time there were over 50 episodes in the can. Maybe Nimoy really meant that FF didn't understand him or his character.

 

[Christopher]

On one of the extras on the Season Three DVD (and also on the Blu-Ray), Leonard Nimoy talks about FF in the abstract, and claimed (paraphrasing), "We had a new producer who was a nice guy but who just didn't understand what the show was about." I always thought that was strange, as by that time there were over 50 episodes in the can. Maybe Nimoy really meant that FF didn't understand him or his character.

The thing is, people whose job is to make TV don't necessarily have time to watch TV. And even if he did watch the episodes, that wouldn't necessarily mean he understood the intentions and goals of the producers, the tone they wanted the show to have. It should've been Roddenberry's job to explain all that, to help make the transition smooth, but Roddenberry had stopped caring.

Then again, a lot of times, the new producer of a show just doesn't get what the original producers intended, or has his or her own ideas that are radically different. See Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, another show that suffered badly when taken over by a new showrunner who just didn't get it. There are plenty of others.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

FF did take on 1999 and the first few episodes he produced weren't as good as the original shows by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, but the last ten or twelve he did for series 2 were very good!
JB

I think it's more like the last four or five episodes, but yeah, the series ended on a strong note, relative to the low point that was earlier in season two. I did a rewatch a few years ago, with reviews posted here, including comments lamenting the missed opportunity on Freiberger's reign.

As for the three episodes written by Freiberger/"Charles Woodgrove", I ranked "The Rules of Luton" and "The Beta Cloud" in the worst tier, but I ranked "Space Warp" as 3/5 in the second-best tier of season two (which is relative to the best tier of the first season that was 5/5).

 

[erastus25]

First of all, saying the name of a book isn't really sufficient when citing a source. People paraphrase waaaay too often and frequently add emotional overtones to stories which didn't have them. This is why I always cite verbatim quotes with page numbers.

I'm glad someone finally said this. It'd be fine if people said the book title, summarized the story, and then added opinions. But it drives me crazy when the editorializing is mixed with the story in such a way that I can't find the line between content from the source and the poster's interpretations.