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John D.F. Black
John D.F. Black began his writing career in the late 1950s with the horror film The Unearthly (1957, featuring Arthur Batanides). After that, he worked on several television shows. In 1964, he won a Writer's Guild award for an episode of the television series Mr. Novak (in which Walter Koenig incidentally guested). Gene Roddenberry invited him to visit his home following the ceremony, a kind of impromptu audition that turned into a job offer. Black served as the first Executive Story Consultant, and also worked as an Associate Producer (along with the more famous Robert Justman). He met his future wife, then Mary Stowell, while working there.
His writing contribution to Star Trek: The Original Series was limited to a single episode, "The Naked Time", that was later reprised as an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He once said the hardest part of his supervisory job was dealing evenhandedly with writers – both those who intimidated him, like Theodore Sturgeon, and those he felt weren't living up to the show's standards. Black left the series when he got a big-money contract from Universal Pictures. [1]
Black was mainly responsible for the famous opening speech for The Original Series, which was developed by him and Justman from Roddenberry's original idea. (Inside Star Trek - The Real Story)
Following his tenure on Star Trek, he continued working as a writer and producer until about 1978, returning only three times after that: to collaborate on two Next Generation episodes, an episode of Hell Town (featuring Jeff Corey) and an episode of Murder, She Wrote.
In a 2006 review of "The Naked Now", Wil Wheaton complained about the lines Black provided for his character Wesley Crusher: "In fact, John D.F. Black – who I didn't realize at the time hated me – also wrote "Justice", where he gave me the awesome line, "We're from Starfleet! We don't lie!" Thanks for that one, too, Mr. Black." [2] In fact, Black got screen credit for "The Naked Now" only for his story, originally pitched for The Original Series, dated 12 May, 1967 on which the episode was based. [3]
Writing credits
- TOS:
- "The Naked Time" (written by)
- TNG:
- "The Naked Now" (story by)
- "Justice" (story by, shared with Worley Thorne) (as Ralph Willis)
External links
- Template:Brokenlink at StarTrek.com
- John D.F. Black at Wikipedia
- Template:IMDb-link