Imaginary Worlds - How D.C. Fontana Helped Star Trek Live Long and Prosper

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Gene Roddenberry’s name is synonymous with Star Trek, but he relied on a team to bring his vision to life. Most of his writers were men with one exception, the trailblazing Dorothy Fontana. Professionally, she went by D.C. Fontana to counter the belief that women couldn’t write genres like war, Westerns or sci-fi. Fontana became story editor and wrote some of the most beloved episodes of The Original Series, became the de facto showrunner on The Animated Series, and helped launch The Next Generation. She excelled at building character relationships and alien species – especially Vulcans – and worked closely with Leonard Nimoy to develop Spock. I talk with writers and podcasters Jarrah Hodge, Ian Spelling, Brian Drew and Laurie Ulster about how Fontana quietly shaped a franchise and influenced generations of fans through Star Trek’s 60th anniversary. Special thanks to The Writers Guild Foundation Archive for clips of D.C. Fontana from their series, The Writer Speaks. This episode is sponsored by Mizzen + Main. Our listeners get 20% off their first purchase at mizzenandmain.com using the promo code IMAGINARY20. To support Imaginary Worlds, you can donate to the show on Patreon and receive bonus extras, or buy the cool merchandise at our online store! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. For a while, we got used to the idea that groundbreaking movies or TV shows were created by singular geniuses. George Lucas in Star Wars, Stan Lee in Marvel Comics, or Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek. Over time, fans have come to realize that these creators relied on a lot of time. a lot of talented people who made huge contributions to the point where those worlds wouldn't have been the same without them. And when it comes to Star Trek, the original series, there is one particular writer that

fans have been praising for years, Dorothy Fontana. Professionally, she went by D.C. Fontana. Jara Hodge is a blogger and podcaster who covers Star Trek. She was a trailblazer for women in Hollywood. She also was involved in the Women's Committee of the Writers Guild, trying to support more women writers. She was a writing professor, so bringing up the next generation of writers. No pun intended.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, D.C. Fontana was also involved in the creation of Star Trek The Next Generation. Ian Spelling is another journalist who cover Star Trek. He interviewed Fontana years ago. I asked, what was she like? Interesting, smart, tough. She didn't suffer fools lightly. She was a woman in a time when there weren't a lot of female writers.

And when she died, there still weren't a lot of female writers. And when she was in between, there were never a lot of female writers. She was a pioneer, man. Lori Ulster is also a journalist who covers her. Star Trek. Women who wrote in TV or in entertainment in that day were doing comedies and soaps. She was very interested in action adventure. That was her thing.

Lori says Dorothy Fontana wanted to be a writer since she was a kid. She moved to Los Angeles after college, and she got a job in the secretarial pool. That was an easy way to get one foot in the door, and Dorothy took advantage of it. That's how she learned everything. reading script, she was reading everything that crossed her desk, and going and exploring and seeing how every, seeing how shows were made, sets, scoring stages, and edits so that she knew all about production and she knew who all the agents were. But she told everyone she was a writer, everyone, so that they knew that that's where her aspirations were. Just in terms of the name thing,

like it was when she tried to submit stories to a show called Combat. And she was a big military history buff, and she knew a lot about that stuff. But because her name was Dorothy, they would not even read them. So that's why she changed to D.C. And she was like, they'll read it. And then later, if they find it, I'm a woman, that's their call. In the 1960s, she was working as a secretary for producer on a show called The Lieutenant.

The man who created that show was Gene Roddenberry. And Jean's secretary had appendicitis and was out for a bunch of time. And Dorothy moved into that role just temporarily and then went back to hers. But during that time, that's when Jean learned that she was reading the scripts that she was typing. And she was paying attention and she had a lot of good ideas. This is Dorothy Fontana from an interview with the Writers Guild in 2012. She said, Jean Roddenberry gave her the script to the pilot of Star Trek. because he wanted her opinion.

And she said, I liked that Vulcan first officer. And I said, when I brought the pages back, I said, I really like this, who's going to play Spock? And Gene slid a picture across the desk at me of Leonard Nimoy, who had been a guest star on the lieutenant. And I said, I know the guy. It's fine. That's wonderful.

Dorothy started working on Star Trek as a secretary, and she also wrote scripts herself. At one point, they needed a new, story editor. A story editor oversees the other writers and helps guide the creative direction of the show. And Gene Rodenberry turned to me and said, okay, I'm going to give you a rewrite. If you can rewrite this script to my satisfaction and to NBC satisfaction, you can be my story editor because, as always, you've been there from the beginning and you know the show. And that was the big rewrite in that particular script that sold everybody that I could be the story editor on Star Trek. And I started

of the next week. I talked with Lori Ulster and Brian Drew at the same time, since they both appear on podcasts for trekmovie.com. Brian says the brain trust for Star Trek was pretty small. It was Gene Roddenberry, two other men, and Dorothy Fontana, who was only 27 years old when she became story editor. If you go through the old memos, the four of them would just bounce ideas back and forth.

This isn't really Star Trek. This isn't quite work. You know, like, and Dorothy's voice was equal with the other three. Like, everybody was just bouncing ideas back and forth. You know, that, and that was probably pretty rare. Does that speak well about Roddenberry in terms of his sense of his character as a person that he empowered her? And she felt that it sounds like it was a writer's room where she didn't face a lot of sexism? I don't think she did in that, in this setting.

I mean, for all of Gene's reputation with women, he did not. have any issues with Dorothy whatsoever. I think he treated her with respect and knew that she was really vital to Star Trek. Ian Spelling says, on one hand, it's great that she was treated as just another writer on the show. The downside is the writers weren't always happy with how they were treated. She was one of the writers and she did the job and I think he got a lot of the credit for work other people did. Like a lot of writers, she bristled at that, particularly over time as Star Trek became this phenomenon and he got all the credit. If that's the case, where can we see her influence on the show?

When you're watching an episode written by DC Fontana, where do you see Dorothy in that script? The first original series script that she got credit for is called Charlie X. The crew discovers a teenage boy on a planet. He's emotionally unstable, and he has a superpower. He can manifest things with his mind, whether it's turning a crew member into an iguana, or forcing Spock to recite poetry. Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary. Very nice, Mr. Rears.

I can make him do anything, whirl around, laugh, anything. That's enough, Charlie. Don't you think he's funny? I think he's funny. Leave my crew alone. In that one, you can look at it as like, oh, it's a story about this crazy kid and he was given superpowers. But it's a story about an orphan and it's a story about loneliness and being a teenager and being confused and not knowing how to handle it. And the end could have been written as a win when they get rid of him.

And instead, it's a tragedy. In the end, the alien race that gave Charlie his powers. takes him back. Don't let them take me. I can't even touch them. Janice, I can't feel. Not like you. They don't love.

D.C. Fontana was good at establishing lore, whether it was about the Federation or different alien species. But she was always focused on the human elements, even if the characters weren't human. Brian says you can clearly see those themes in her writing when she rewrote somebody else's script. Dorothy rewrote an episode from the second season called The Ultimate Computer. Now, the ultimate computer at its core is basically another trope from the original series

of a computer running amok and taking over the enterprise and causing a lot of problems. But that's not really what that episode's about. It's not what makes that episode interesting. What's interesting about that episode is the struggle that that machine causes two people, Jim Kirk and to Richard Daystrom as well. Richard Daystrom is the name of the scientist who creates the computer. The computer can do your job and without all that. You'll have to prove that to me, doctor.

That is what we're here for, isn't it, Captain? Daystrom could have easily been a cartoon character that was just this, you know, scientist that doesn't see the downsize of his technology. When it turns out that Richard Daystrom is very motivated for very personal reasons to prove himself as being something more than a, like a, one-hit wonder. And I think that is Dorothy's greatest calling card as a writer was her gift with character. Programming includes protection against attack. Enemy vessels must be neutralized. But these are not enemy vessels. These are Federation starships. You're killing. We're killing.

Murdering. Human beings, beings of our own kind. When I watch the more recent Star Trek shows, I often think those uniforms look so cool. If only they were was a real-life company that could make outfits as well as the Federation. I found that clothing line with Mizzen and Maine. If somebody taps their comms and says, Sh-Sht, Malinsky, you're needed on the bridge, I could throw on one of the zip-up pullover shirts that I got from Mizan and Maine. And their button-down shirts are made of this stretchy material, which I've never encountered in any other shirt. It is really comfortable, but not baggy. It looks crisp and smooth, without dry cleaning or even ironing.

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What would you like changed? And she got a lot of really helpful feedback that then she, wrote into the Bible with Gene's blessing. But one thing was she wanted to give McCoy a son. And DeForest Kelly said, how about actually we make it a daughter? She thought that was really interesting. It wasn't what she initially assumed because DeForest Kelly being like a Southern gentleman type that she thought, oh, that's interesting. That wasn't what I would have like stereotypically expected. Brian says the actor she worked with the most was Leonard Nimoy. I mean, outside of Leonard Nimoy, there is no one on planet Earth that knows Spock better than Dorothy Fontana.

She just had an affinity for that character and his struggle. A lot of what they established about Spock and Vulcan culture was picked up in later forms of Star Trek when other actors played Spock and his parents, Sarik, who is a Vulcan, and Amanda, who is human. Spock's parents were first seen in an episode that Dorothy wrote called Journey. to Babel. Spock's father is a Vulcan ambassador. As soon as you're settled, I'll arrange a tour of the ship. Mr. Spock will conduct you. I prefer another guide, Captain. As you wish, am I said.

Again, here's Jara Hodge. Sarek's father is pretty icy with Spock because Spock spurned his, what his father saw is his duty to go to the Vulcan Science Academy and instead he went to Starfleet. And then when Sarak's life is in danger, the only option is that Spock has to do a risky medical thing to try to save him. But at the same time, there's a situation happening on the ship. And so Spock is torn between his duty to the ship and his duty to his father. His mother, Amanda, has this scene where she talks about how, you know, you were tormented.

When you were five years old and came. home, stiff-lipped, anguished, because the other boys tormented you, saying that you weren't really vulcan. I watched you, knowing that inside the human part of you was crying, and I cried too. That emotion is so powerful, and you do not see that in some of the, even the more like serious drama scripts that DC Fontana didn't write or like didn't concept because she's so focused on where's the family relationships where is the love in this story and she talks about love being her theme not just like romantic love but family love and love between friends and can like

pinpoint the places in those episodes where she incorporated some of those pieces because of how obvious the emotion and the love is in that moment. Star Trek became famous for using science fiction to discuss political and social issues. But Laurie says Dorothy would use sci-fi as a metaphor to talk about personal and emotional issues. For instance, the way she described that episode where Seric disapproved that his son Spock had joined the Federation. She said it was a story about the generation gap, which was the expression they used. at the time. But she said that's what it's about. It's about parents not getting along and not understanding their child. Like that simple.

D.C. Fontana also wrote a script called This Side of Paradise. The crew lands on a planet where there are flowers which spray spores and those spores make people feel uninhibited. Jara says the story was originally pitched by another writer who imagined Sulu would be affected. Dorothy argued it had to be Spock. And also on this planet, there happens to be Laila Colomi, who has been in love with him, as former acquaintance of his, he hasn't been able to freely experience love. And he is happy. And the reason that it's so successful compared to the original concept is that it's not a shock to see Sulu telling someone he loves them.

because that's not part of his character that he can't do it. I love you. I can love you. But Spock returns to being Spock, as we know him. Brian Drew. There's a great scene near the end of this side of paradise. It's one of my favorite scenes in the series, because it encapsulates Spock very well.

When Leila Comini comes on the Enterprise after Spock's been freed of the spores, and he tells her that he has a responsibility to them on the bridge. And he says, I am and I am, Leila. And if there are self-made purgatories, and we all have to live in them. It can be no worse than someone else's. I have lost you, haven't I? That to me is Spock's struggle right there.

Like he knows what his lot in life is, at least at that point in his life, how he saw himself, as having to live within a box. I did see an interview with her where she said she thought it was, or heard interview where she thought it was fascinating, fascinating to use a Leonard Nimoy eyebrow race, that a lot of women were writing in the show saying that they found Spock to be a sex symbol, you know, somebody they were very attracted to, which definitely, I'm sure, did not make William Shatner happy.

No, but it made Leonard Nimoy happy. Yes, there was a huge thing about Spock being hot. Hot Spock. At the time, there was a rivalry between Shepard. Shatner in Nemoy about who is the real star of the show. But, of course, the actors and the characters eventually became great friends. Lori says, Dorothy saw the potential in that friendship from the beginning. I was noticing in my recent binge that every time Spock is in any kind of, every time one of them is in any kind of danger, the other one has the reaction of a spouse.

It's different level of agitation and concern and worry, even though Currie. feels grief when something happens to anyone and when McCoy's in danger or whatever. But there is something about that friendship that is in every episode. Jara thinks that Dorothy's interest in complicated family dynamics and found families came from her own childhood.

Her father left her family when she was quite young and she had two younger brothers and her mom worked full time and she basically took care of her younger brothers while her mom was at work. So, for example, in the original series episode, Charlie X, it didn't work out exactly like she intended it, but she did talk about how she thought about her brothers when she was writing that. You know, when you talk about like the alienation of Spock from his father, having that situation where, you know, she also didn't have her father around growing up.

And he left the family and went and he was having an affair and then started another family. He did buy them a TV, though. And then they basically never talked again. But they were watching all these shows that were on and particularly Westerns. And so she started telling stories with herself and her friends all in them. So I think it was that combination of telling stories and experiencing the joy of consuming stories, but also being aware enough of the fact that this is why the story is so compelling is that it speaks to something that people are experiencing and then being able to

draw in from her own experience the importance of love and family and connection and how it can be beautiful but also messy and heartbreaking. Lori says there's another episode from the original series which was personal to Dorothy. It was called Friday's Child. So Friday's Child, which was heavily rewritten and she wasn't happy with the ending, but she, as someone who chose not to have kids, and so she wanted to write this female character who Julie Newmar played, as someone who, a woman who was so ruthless that she also didn't care, she wasn't interested in being a mother and she didn't care about her child. And that's why she wasn't happy about the end, where she kind of comes

around and and likes the child because she wanted her to be, she wanted to say they're women who aren't mothers. Say to yourself, the child is mine. The child is mine. It is mine. Yes. It's yours. Oh, you've got it all wrong. Yes. Makoi, it's yours. In the 1970s, Star Trek came back to TV, sort of. Gene Roddenberry was able to get an animated series made

with most of the original writers and actors. It's widely acknowledged that DC Fontana was running the show. She didn't have a background in animation, and the show had that cheap style of 1970s cartoons, but the actors and writers took it very seriously. Everyone I talked with mentioned an episode that she wrote, wrote for the animated series called yesteryear, Spock goes back in time and ends up befriending himself as a child. Adult Spock tells everybody that he's a long-lost cousin. If you remember

in Journey to Babel, Spock's mother talked about the time that Spock was taunted as a child, we get to see that scene. And so does Spock. He sees his younger self getting bullied. You could never be a true Vulcan. That was not true. My father, your father brought Shane to Vulcan. He married a human. The climax of the episode is the death of Spock's childhood pet. It's a creature called a Selot, which looks like a saber-tooth bear.

His name is Aichaya. But the death of Ichaia was not supposed to happen. Spock accidentally altered his timeline by showing up in his own. past. And he has to mentor himself through this loss. Jara Hodge. It is another one that will make you cry, bring Kleenex, and it's another one that tells us a bunch of stuff about Spock and about Vulcan that continues to live in his canon today. But it is really another great example of taking the audience seriously and finding another

way to connect with their feelings and to show another form of love, which in this case is Spock's love for his pet. I wanted only to help Eichaya. He was my father's before he was mine. To lose him. A Vulcan would face such a loss without tears. How? By understanding every life comes to an end when time demands it.

Loss of life is to be mourned, but only if the life was wasted. I chires was not. I still cry at that one. Ian Spelling. It's just an absolutely beautiful origin story. It's an absolutely beautiful father-son type of story. It's got one of these Star Trek creatures that they humanize beautifully. And it's so in keeping with what we saw in the 1960s and with what a little bit 60s and with what,

a little bits of what happened in the JJ movies at the very beginning, when we kind of got that little bit of the younger Spock there. He's talking about the 2009 Star Trek reboot movie. This is your 35th attempt to elicit an emotional response from me. You're neither human nor Vulcan and therefore have no place in this universe. Look, yes, human eyes. It looks sad, don't they? Perhaps an emotional response requires physical stimuli. The show Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel to the original series,

also referenced that episode about Spock's childhood pet. Now, D.C. Fontana didn't just write Star Trek. She wrote for a lot of popular shows at the time, like Bonanza, the $6 million dollar man, the Waltons in Dallas. In the 1980s, Gene Roddenberry asked Dorothy to work with him on Star Trek The Next Generation. She wrote the pilot episode and fleshed out the backstories

of the characters and their relationships. although her script was rewritten by Roddenberry. Ian says her experience in the next generation was nothing like the original series because Roddenberry was in a different state of mind. He was bitter because he had lost control of the Star Trek movies. Roddenberry wanted control again. Remember, this is a man who had created Star Trek, became kind of a god among the fans,

when Star Trek the motion picture came out and did just fun. by the way. It nevertheless had that taint on it that it was a very troubled production and that fell on Roddenberry. So he tried to reinvent the wheel by building out the same wheel he had originally. I think time caught up with him. I think the entertainment business caught up with him. And I think Star Trek the next generation became so unwieldy. It was a mess. Jerah Hodge says there are other issues with Roddenberry as well. He was aging and not in great health. So he arranged for his lawyer Leonard Maislish to be around the set.

And even though he didn't really have a key role, he basically spent a lot of time, according to the people that were working there about making everyone else's enemy. And so he would like review the scripts. he would take credit for things that weren't his. D.C. Fontanaire said that the last straw for her was when she caught Leonard Mase Lish rifling through her desk one night, but that overall it was just a really toxic atmosphere. And I think that that did sour her relationship with Jean. I don't know whether there was a specific interaction, but just that fact that this man was being trusted to be the caretaker of Gene's legacy.

and then kind of putting these people that Gene had previously worked respectfully with, putting them in the crosshairs, and then almost all those people ended up believing. And it left a really sour taste in people's mouths. I asked everyone I interviewed if she and Gene Roddenberry ever reconciled before he died in 1991. Nobody knew the answer. She lived until 2019 and never stopped working. that universe. She co-wrote an episode of the series Deep Space 9, which fleshed out a major character's backstory, in solidified details about an alien race called the Trill, which ended up

becoming one of the main alien species in the franchise. She wrote for Star Trek video games, a comic book, and she wrote a novel called Vulcan's Glory, which was about Spock. She judged a Star Trek fan fiction contest, and she even wrote a script for a fan fiction. fan-made production of Star Trek. I actually talked about that in my 2020 episode about amateur fan films. Brian and Lori said her relationship with the fans was a big part of her legacy. She was involved in fanzines, the early fanzines. While the show was on the air, she was interacting with the fans and the fan community through fanzines.

And then when the conventions became a thing, Dorothy was a major presence at those early 70s, early to mid-70s. conventions, Dorothy was a major, major part of that. And this was the time, by the way, when I, a lot, the idea of being a Treki was a pop culture joke that everybody who's anyway, not a loser is going to laugh at. And it sounds like she was just absolutely like, nope, these are our, even well after the show ended. She sounds like she had a lot of respect for the fans. Yeah, I think she did.

And I think that that is an attitude that has stuck with Star Trek. you know, for all these years that I think they've realized. I think there was a time even after that where it was super uncool. And people did try to distance themselves, but she never did. And now you see people. Now everybody who comes into the franchise understands like, you got to embrace this because it's going to be a beautiful thing in your life. And look, I went into TV because of Star Trek and the Mary Taylor-Mor show.

But it was, I was a TV producer for a long time. But I was reading those books, The Making of Star Trek, the World of Star Trek, the world of Star Trek, those things that were like, this is how they make TV, which I didn't see other books at the time. And she's in those books for sure. Whenever I talk with fans of the original series, I'm always amazed that they sound like they have a PhD in Star Trek. They can practically tell you what everybody on the set had for lunch on some particular day in 1967. So they know what Dorothy contributed. And Ian thinks one of the reasons why she gave so much love back to the fans was because they respected her, first and foremost, as a writer. She loved the fans because if

she walked down the street, most people wouldn't recognize her, but Star Trek fans might. And that is not at a Star Trek convention. That would be out on the street. I think that even non-Star Trek fans are aware of Spock. I mean, she helped create a character and a species, for lack of a better phrase, that people talk about 60 years later as if it's a member of the family. I think she knew when she passed away that I would say, you know, D.C. Fontana, Star Trek writer. She was very proud of that.

She was very proud of giving real life to Spock and to Starfleet and the Federation and all of that. I know she was. I mean, that much she told me. My guess would be like any writer, you don't want to get pigeonholed. You don't want to be associated with one thing forever. On the other hand, there are a lot worse things to be associated with. And I think she knew that. And my guess is she'd be the first to say she wishes she got to do more,

I'd be the first to say I wish we could have seen even more work from her. Star Trek is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. although it's kind of an awkward year for a celebration. The future of the franchise is in doubt. Nobody knows what Star Trek movies or TV shows will be happening in the future, and fans have been debating whether the recent shows and movies have betrayed or honored Gene Roddenberry's vision. Every version of Star Trek looks to previous versions for inspiration. But instead of callbacks and references, I like it when Star Trek uses DC-Fes,

Fontana's approach, of treating sci-fi as a metaphor to explore relatable human issues. Sometimes the best way to boldly go where no one has gone before is to keep one foot firmly planted on the ground. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Lori Ulster, Brian Drew, Jera Hodge, and Ian Spelling. Extra thanks to the Writers Guild Foundation Archive for permission to use clips of DC Fontana. from their series The Writer Speaks.

My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. If you like this episode, text it to a friend, share it on social media, or leave a nice review wherever you get your podcasts. There is no shortage of previous episodes you can listen to that cover Star Trek, but you might particularly enjoy two of my early episodes, which were called The Canon and Why Ron Moore killed Captain Kirk. In 2018, I interviewed the creator of the Klingon language in an episode called Do You Speak Con Lang? And in 2022, I interviewed two of the

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