Producing Star Trek
Freiberger had been interviewed as a possible producer for Star Trek prior to its first production year in 1966, but owing to a planned trip, bowed out of consideration. In 1968, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, as a result of differences with NBC, stepped down as showrunner for Star Trek, and Freiberger was again contacted and hired as producer for its third season. He was saddled with a reduced budget that made the show more difficult to produce, and a new so-called Friday night death slot which resulted in a decline in ratings for the already low-rated show. Many Star Trek fans have criticised Freiberger for being the cause of this decline but Nichelle Nichols has come out in his defense. As Nichols writes, the result of NBC's severe budget cutbacks to the third season of Star Trek, in an environment of rising production costs and escalating actor's salaries, meant that:
| “ | you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek's demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be....In the third season new producer Fred Freiberger did everything he could to shore up the show. I know that some fans hold him responsible for the show's decline, but that is not fair. Star Trek was in a disintegrating orbit before Fred came aboard. That we were able to do even what we did is a miracle and a credit to him. One day Fred and I had an exchange, and he snapped at me. Even then, though, I knew he wasn't angry with me but with his unenviable situation. He was a producer who had nothing to produce with. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Fred Freiberger
Famous quotes containing the word producing:
“Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)