F. Freiberger - decent writer

[DWF]

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda[/I], another show that suffered badly when taken over by a new showrunner who just didn't get it. There are plenty of others.

The reason why Tribune fired RHW was because they didn't want his version of Andromeda. Bob Engles was there to take the show in a different direction.

 

[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.

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.

I doubt if anyone is going to look at a post here and use it for a college term paper or as a thesis for a Masters Degree. Need a source? Consult the hard copy.

 

[Harvey]

Happy to. Have a page number?

 

[Spock's Barber]

Happy to. Have a page number?

Yes. Volume 32, Section 12G, paragraph 13, sentence 21, words #4-7.Or was it Volume 33?

 

[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.

I doubt if anyone is going to look at a post here and use it for a college term paper or as a thesis for a Masters Degree. Need a source? Consult the hard copy.

I don't think proper sourcing is limited to college. I think it's just good practice so that people producing content get credit for the work they've done. This is off-topic though so I'm dropping myself from the convo.

 

[Ssosmcin]

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

It's all subjective, but I always felt the first batch of episodes of the second year were actually very good. There was a dip mid-year, particularly when they would split the cast to save money and time by simultaneously shooting some episodes, plus the over-reliance on monsters, which according to Gerry Anderson was due to Abe Mandell at ITC saying that's what Americans wanted (according to his interview in the Space:1999 Documentary). Once they ditched the monsters (again, once Mandell said "monsters are out" in the US), the series picked up again. Then, it all ended.

Love the series, BTW. Both years.

 

[Gassy Man]

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.

If you've ever worked doing anything remotely creative or intellectual in a corporate environment, you know there are many cooks in the kitchen and many egos and agendas to be addressed. The textbooks I've written or co-written have generated millions in revenue for the publisher over the past two decades, yet each time an editor or executive changes, I have to fight some new battle over content or whatever. I once just stopped working on a revision because of such and let deadlines pass until the powers at be realized that as much as they would like to get rid of the writer, they actually still do need him or her. I can only imagine how inane and frustrating it must be when the stakes are so much higher and the personalities even more colorful.