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Dorothy Catherine "D. C." Fontana (born March 25, 1939 in Sussex, New Jersey) is a television script writer and story editor, best known for her work on the original Star Trek series.
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Work with Gene Roddenberry
Originally Gene Roddenberry's secretary1, she has written for Star Trek since the onset, starting with Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) from 1966 through 1968. During that time she wrote such episodes as "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "Friday's Child", "Journey to Babel", "This Side of Paradise", and "The Enterprise Incident." She wrote several episodes in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation starting with the 1987 pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", and the episode "Dax" of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993.
She also wrote the episode "Yesteryear" for the Emmy Award winning Star Trek: The Animated Series, the only episode of that series which contained material considered canonical.
Between Star Trek assignments, she wrote the novelization of another Roddenberry project, The Questor Tapes.
Other screenwriting work
Fontana has written scripts for other science fiction shows such as The Six Million Dollar Man in 1974, Logan's Run in 1978 (also serving as story editor for the short-lived television series based on the film), Babylon 5 in 1995 (the episodes "A Distant Star", "Legacies" and "The War Prayer"), and Earth: Final Conflict in 1997.
Her writing credits include children's shows such as the 1970s series Land of the Lost — which also featured other Star Trek veterans — He-Man and The Masters of the Universe in 1983 (episode "Battle Cat"), and Beast Wars in 1996. She co-wrote "Where No Sprite Has Gone Before", a 1997 episode of the CGI television series ReBoot.
Fontana also wrote under the name J. Michael Bingham. This pseudonym was used for the story and teleplay credits for "The Naked Now", an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The story credit was shared by John D. F. Black, who had written "The Naked Time", the TOS episode to which "Naked Now" was an homage.
Fontana wrote under the pen name Michael Richards as well; "That Which Survives" and "The Way to Eden," both from the third season of TOS, were written under this name.
An episode of the Internet-based fan-made Star Trek series Star Trek: New Voyages, "To Serve All My Days," was also written by Fontana and features a guest appearance by TOS veteran Walter Koenig reprising his role of Pavel Chekov.
Bethesda Softworks reports that Fontana, along with her partner Derek Chester, wrote the storylines for the video games Star Trek: Legacy and Star Trek: Tactical Assault.2
Non-science fiction shows she has written for include TV series such as Dallas and The Waltons.
Tributes to Fontana
The makers of Deep Space Nine have said that the character of science fiction writer "K. C. Hunter" (played by Nana Visitor) was inspired by Fontana.
Her name was "spoofed" as the name of the character "D. C. Montana" on the short-lived sci-fi television series The Highwayman; the character was portrayed by Tim Russ, who would later play Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager.
Personal
Fontana is also a long-time member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, having served as Mistress of the Lists for the Kingdom of Caid under the SCA name Miranda Douglas of Schiehallion, as mentioned in The Crown Prints, the Kingdom newsletter of the time (early 1980s).
References
External links
- D.C. Fontana article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 20 November 2008, at 16:20.
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