D. C. Fontana

Dorothy Catherine "D. C." Fontana (born March 25, 1939 in Sussex, New Jersey) is an American television script writer and story editor, best known for her work on the original Star Trek series.

Work with Gene Roddenberry

Originally Gene Roddenberry's secretary,^[1] she has written for Star Trek from the outset, starting with Star Trek (The Original Series) (TOS) from 1966 through 1969. 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".

Under the pen name Michael Richards, Fontana wrote "That Which Survives" and "The Way to Eden", both from the third season of TOS. 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.

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.

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.

Between Star Trek assignments, she wrote the novelization of another Roddenberry project, The Questor Tapes. In 1989, Pocket Books published her novel, "Vulcan's Glory," which concerns Spock's struggle to reconcile his Vulcan heritage with his obligations to Starfleet and his duties to family — and his own heart's desires.

Other screenwriting work

Fontana has written scripts for other science fiction shows such as The Six Million Dollar Man (episode "Straight on 'till Morning" and episode "Rescue of Athena One" starring Farrah Fawcett-Majors) in 1974, Logan's Run in 1978 (also serving as story editor for the short-lived series based on the movie), Babylon 5 in 1994 (episodes "The War Prayer" and "Legacies" in season one, and "A Distant Star" in season two), 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 the Beast Wars episode "Crossing the Rubicon". She co-wrote "Where No Sprite Has Gone Before", a 1997 episode of the CGI television series ReBoot.

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 Walter Koenig reprising his role of Pavel Chekov in TOS.

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]

Fontana and Chester also wrote for IDW Publishing's comic line Star Trek – Year Four. They were involved with the second miniseries titled The Enterprise Experiment.

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 science fiction 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

1. ^ Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana
2. ^ Star Trek Games - Bethesda Softworks

External links

• D. C. Fontana at the Internet Movie Database
• D.C. Fontana at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

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Name	Fontana, D. C.
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Date of birth	March 25, 1939
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