Ronald D. Moore

Directly contributing to what he was able to accomplish with Battlestar Galactica, Moore began his television writing career on the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the late 1980s. He worked his way up to script editor, then co-producer, and ultimately, producer. Moore has written or co-written a total of 27 episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation before moving on to be supervising producer for Star Trek: Deep Space 9 in 1993 and then co-executive producer in 1995 for the beginnings of Star Trek: Voyager. Moore also co-wrote Star Trek: Generations, released in 1994 as the seventh major motion picture in this Paramount Pictures franchise, and Star Trek: First Contact, released in 1996 as the eighth. As the 1990s ended, creative differences motivated Moore to separate from Star Trek.

Born in 1964, Moore was only 2 years old when Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy first beamed onto the popular culture scene on NBC in the original Star Trek in 1966. Mainstream media outlets started to notice Moore’s Battlestar Galactica and helped propel the series to increased popularity and higher ratings, setting it apart from the 1978 television series on ABC, which lasted only 21 episodes. That version of Battlestar Galactica was playful and fun in ways very similar to Saturday morning cartoons.
 

That Was Then, This Is Now

In stunning contrast to the 1978 version, the 21st century incarnation of Battlestar Galactica was decidedly and deliberately sophisticated and mature, most notably in how its storytelling embeds political and religious themes together with intelligent and witty character development.

The updated methods that were used for marketing Battlestar Galactica were noteworthy as well. Ron Moore proved to be on the cutting edge of social media use in the early 2000s–podcasts and blogs, especially, that all gave deep details behind the scenes in the making of the series. This social media use pushed the marketing of Battlestar Galactica into then-uncharted territory.

How did Moore know this strategy would work? Perhaps he didn’t know for certain. However, Moore demonstrated that he believed a large part of the audience for Battlestar Galactica would be plugged in and already using social media. So, he could invest the time, money, and energy into social media and expect a return on his investment.

Such strategic marketing was new at that time. Now, it is no exaggeration that any science fiction or horror product on television or in film MUST use social media if that product expects to have street credibility with the target audience.

Beyond using then-new strategic marketing to promote a science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica certainly will be remembered especially for its persuasive way of defining characters within compelling storytelling. Episodes deliberately depict intense realism of military engagement, never shying away from blood and battle scars. The young male and female fighter pilots, especially, are a focal point for a compelling emotional connection with the Battlestar Galactica audience.

There is a deeper message under the skin of the visually appealing characters on Battlestar Galactica. How characters live–and sometimes how they die–especially when juxtaposed with their visual appeal, is a powerful way to stimulate the audience. Because characters are visually appealing, the audience just might pay closer attention to them. This makes it possible for the producers and writers to jar an unsuspecting audience with surprising and emotionally powerful stories. What Battlestar Galactica strives to accomplish with its characters is the pinpointing and showcasing of individual and collective motivations as to why human beings keep fighting against the enemy Cylons, who always are smarter, more powerful, and are the most likely to prevail militarily.

1–Even though they have been well-trained in the military service, how can young people in a violent wartime situation be expected to behave as though they are completely civilized and have complete self-control?

2–Can the killing on the battlefield be willfully and deliberately contained or restricted to specific and limited targets such as the enemy exclusively?

These are crucial, yet unanswerable moral questions for the citizens of the U.S. regarding behaviors during wartime, especially when Battlestar Galactica and its military role models are viewed in the context of the war in Iraq.

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posted on iTunes.com:

Great Escape While Deployed in Iraq
* * * * * (five stars)

Battlestar Galactica is my favorite show and was very disappointed when I had to deploy to Iraq in the middle of the second season. When I found out about iTunes having downloads of your favorite TV shows I just had to see if they had Battlestar Galactica. Myself and one of my soldiers thank you for this wonderful opportunity that allows us to follow the series and virtually not miss a beat. The show is awesome. Thank you.

Bob on the FOB
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The Reinvention of the Science Fiction Television Series

Ron Moore was hired by producer David Eick to reinvent Battlestar Galactica as a television series for Sci-Fi, but Moore had a very specific goal to reinvent the science fiction television series. “Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science fiction television series. We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera with its stock characters, techno double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre.” [David Bassom, The Official Battlestar Galactica Companion, (London: Titan Books, 2005), p. 8.]

The 21st century edition of Battlestar Galactica started first as a late 2003 miniseries, running 3 hours (minus commercials). This U.S. television series (produced and filmed in British Columbia, Canada) is owned by NBC Universal and was aired on their Sci-Fi Channel. High ratings directly led to the production of 13 original episodes that began airing in early 2005. A second season in 2006 featured 20 more episodes. A third season in 2007 with 20 additional episodes was produced, followed by a fourth and final season that started in early 2008 and concluded in 2009.

In 1966, Gene Roddenberry’s famous Star Trek Guide safeguarded that production against straying from the format by adhering to one essential directive:

Science fiction is no different from the tales of the present or past. Our starship central characters and crew must at least be as believably motivated and as identifiable as character we’ve all written into police stations, general hospitals, and Western towns.

Clearly, Battlestar Galactica under Ronald D. Moore embraced these “tricks of the trade” that had been pioneered 40 years earlier for Star Trek while injecting or embedding discernible themes and messages about politics and religion for the audience to ponder. Moreover, the 9/11/01 attacks and the subsequent 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq provided the political and cultural context for the series enabling producers and writers to inject urgent and controversial questions of military and political significance for viewers to ponder.

Since the word battle in its title, nobody should have ever been surprised that this series was going to explicitly deal with warfare and conflict between political and cultural opponents using the science fiction format. What may have surprised everyone, however, is that Battlestar Galactica attempted to compel viewers to evaluate difficult and challenging questions about their core beliefs and values.

Wanting More

The producers chose to end Battlestar Galactica after completing the development of story arcs and characters to their satisfaction. This decision can best be understood if you consider that famous show business warning: “Always leave the audience wanting more.” I believe that the business of writing and producing network television programming may not enable the most conducive environment for writers and producers to convey difficult and challenging questions about the audience’s core beliefs and values. Perhaps that persuasive effort survives and flourishes best in the business of writing novels.

The Intersection of Politics and Religion

But, since the audience for network television programming is much larger than that of novels–and so are the revenue generating possibilities of television–it is easy to understand why there may always be attempts by writers and producers to persuade television viewers by using compelling themes and messages about politics and religion. Battlestar Galactica would have been a much richer experience for its audience had the writers and producers had been given more time to develop the story arcs and characters pertaining to the intersection of politics, organized religion and associated beliefs and values. This is especially true because we live in a world where politics and religion have a considerable presence in the daily consciousness of many people. No other genre of writing in the English language today can better examine politics and religion on planet Earth compared to science fiction. The writers and producers of the 21st century edition of Battlestar Galactica were highly savvy in their awareness of this inherent power. However, Battlestar Galactica skirted one provocative question: Was God created by mankind?

On Battlestar Galactica mankind created the Cylons, and the Cylons developed an organized religion to worship one, true God. Meanwhile, the chosen religion of mankind was that of multiple gods rather than just one. This significant disparity of religious beliefs between the human race and the human-created race of Cylons emerged as the most compelling storytelling element of Battlestar Galactica. Imagine how the worldwide audience would be stunned if Battlestar Galactica chose at its conclusion to present “the big reveal” similarly as did The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and friends started to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

Season three of Battlestar Galactica went boldly where polite society would not. The first 3 episodes of the third season started opening a curtain behind which there certainly may be religious mysteries, and perhaps even evidence of the existence of the Almighty. This is science fiction storytelling at its very best.

“There is no God but God” is the English translation of what is arguably the most famous Arabic Islamic phrase from the Muslim religion. The phrase in Arabic, Assalamu `alaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu, is found prominently inscribed on The Dome of The Rock in Jerusalem but more importantly, that phrase is the first and foremost thing that Muslims believe about God (Allah).

Should viewers of any faith be surprised to find the phrase “there is no God but God” uttered in episode 3 of the third season with crucial prominence in the story? The phrase was spoken by an alien leader whose organized religion holds a single deity as central to her life and to the lives of her fellow aliens.

Note that the word aliens in this context must be understood to mean the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons are frequently referred to by human beings as machines, and sometimes even Cylons refer to other Cylons as machines. But, this is not accurate. The most accurate term is synthetic life form–that is, Cylons are a life form that was created by human beings deliberately; Cylons most definitely do not occur, and would not occur, in nature without being manufactured by someone. Cylons, of course, learned how to manufacture additional Cylons because they have not (yet) learned how to sexually reproduce.

Due to their industrial origins, the humans have a nasty habit of referring to the Cylons as toasters. This pejorative term originated from the fact that the first Cylons manufactured by humans looked decidedly like shiny and silvery robots whose outer skin is reminiscent of how a toaster looks. When a human calls a Cylon a toaster, it is a very prejudicial thing. It is meant to convey great disrespect. Yet, the word toaster has come to be interchangeable with Cylons, both the humanoid variety and the shiny, silvery robotic kind.

Despite the fact that these alien life forms were created by humans, the Cylons nevertheless developed their own organized religion that differs substantially from the organized religion of the humans. Does it follow that the one held to be known as God by the Cylons is also a toaster?

How can a machine, or, excuse me, a synthetic life form, have its own organized religion? Does is not seem at first glance that the synthetic life forms merely created their own deity? Did the Cylons invent a toaster God?

Not surprisingly, the humans on Battlestar Galactica mock the organized religion of their creation, the Cylons. In contrast to the Cylons’ one true God, the humans on Battlestar Galactica believe in many gods as did the ancient Greeks and Romans on our planet. The humans on Battlestar Galactica scoff at what they do not understand, so it follows that they would mock the one true God as well. And they do.

But, it seems true that Battlestar Galactica is saying to us that the synthetic life forms most likely had to create their own God, who most likely is going to turn out to be as synthetic as they are. How can life forms create their own God? And why would they do so? Why do sythetic life forms need a deity at all? Does it not make the whole concept of deity rather suspect?

Equally puzzling is why do the humans on Battlestar Galactica, who are shown to be smart with advanced technology, insist on believing in many gods instead of the one true God? How smart or advanced can someone be who insists on believing in many gods? On the other hand, how smart or advanced can Cylons be since they apparently had to create their own God?

These are all deep and troubling questions that season three of Battlestar Galactica started asking the viewers to ponder for years to come.

Sex, Religion, Politics

The writers and producers of Battlestar Galactica deliberately chose to tell stories that violated the foundational rule for polite behavior while attending parties: Never talk about sex, religion, politics. This choice made Battlestar Galactica memorable and distinctive in comparison to other contemporary television series that chose much safer storytelling paths. Battlestar Galactica chose to pay attention to the sexual side of what it means to be alive: A central theme in the series was sexually aggressive and highly attractive females who pursued hidden agendas linked to politics and religion in their conquest of males that proved powerless against the pleasures of the flesh. But, equally significant is how Battlestar Galactica posed and answered questions about what happens when people are thrown together in cramped military quarters during the heat of battle. Males and females in Battlestar Galactica were depicted sharing unisex toilets and shower facilities as the norm. Unlike in our world, Battlestar Galactica showed no evidence of shame or other emotional hang-ups relating to nudity or sexuality. Their universe certainly was one where males and females felt sexual heat for one another minus labels pertaining to heterosexuality or homosexuality. A more explicit depiction of sexual activity would have benefited the storytelling greatly, but it would only have been possible had Battlestar Galactica been on HBO or Showtime instead of Sci-Fi Channel. That’s something to fantasize about in the middle of the night when you cannot sleep!

Seeding the Earth

The use of the Bob Dylan song “All Along The Watchtower” in Battlestar Galactica propelled us to the plot twist in the 2009 series finale: Our Earth in our timeline was seeded by the humans and Cylons during prehistoric times. This, of course, is not a new idea. The 1968 book Chariots of the Gods: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past by Erik von Daniken famously ran this up the flagpole to see who saluted. Few did. But, this plot device worked well for ending Battlestar Galactica in a credible way.

So What Next?

The Battlestar Galactica question as to whether law and democracy can survive in an ongoing war is perhaps the most compelling of all the questions asked by this series. Without any doubt, at the very essence of Battlestar Galactica storytelling across most of its episodes is the basic conflict between the behaviors necessary for victory in battle versus the behaviors necessary to maintain a lawful and democratic society. The injecting of this question into the series into science fiction storytelling–along with the various answers that viewers must inevitably find for themselves–is one of the most noteworthy accomplishments of Battlestar Galactica. But, now that Ron Moore asked that compelling question in Battlestar Galactica, what will he do next? While he asked a good question, he didn’t provide a definitive answer in Battlestar Galactica. Perhaps he will pick up on this question in his future works now that he accomplished his mission of reinventing the science fiction television series.

Ron Moore’s Legacy

‘The New York Times published an op-ed written by Ronald D. Moore on September 18, 2006 in which he addressed the subject of politics in science fiction space adventures. That commentary hinted at the legacy of Ronald D. Moore as a writer and producer of science fiction television.

He wrote that Star Trek literally changed his life. He addressed the swagger of Captain James T. Kirk: “His mission was to explore the final frontier, not to conquer it. He was moral without moralizing. Week after week, he confronted the specters of intolerance and injustice, and week after week found a way to defeat them without ever becoming them. Jim Kirk may have beat up his share of bad guys, but you could never imagine him torturing them.”

Moore addressed the criticism has received in the early part of the decade that Battlestar Galactica was too realistic and too dark: “Nowadays, it may appear that I’ve turned a blind eye to my lodestar as the crew of the battlestar Galactica behave in ways that would’ve been unthinkable in the Star Trek universe that Gene Roddenberry created. But Battlestar Galactica remains very much informed by the lessons I learned from that slightly paunchy man in the gold pajama top on the good ship Enterprise. My characters may not have all the answers (sometimes they’re not even aware of the questions) but they contain kernels of both good and evil in their hearts and continue to struggle for salvation and redemption against the darker angels of their natures. Their defeats are many, their victories few, but somehow, some way, they never give up the dream of finding a better tomorrow.”

But, now that J.J. Abrams has at last released his reinvented Star Trek movie, the difference between Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek is very clear. And so is Ron Moore’s legacy:

Battlestar Galactica was given a sharp realism by Moore through its’ depictions of the darkness that genuinely exists in human behavior. In contrast, Star Trek from Roddenberry through Abrams was given a brighter, more upbeat perspective that assures us that there is an optimistic outcome for mankind some day in the future. This writer believes that Ron Moore taught us a valuable lesson: Science fiction on television is especially compelling when it allows us in the audience to hope for an optimistic outcome, but realistically shows us how mankind can often be quite beastly and therefore undeserving of happy endings.

Science fiction exerted a profound influence upon me. This is no exaggeration, either. I was a just entering my teenage years when I first started to read science fiction. I was especially drawn to the writing of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), the Russian-born American author who is beloved as one of the great masters of science fiction. Asimov’s Foundation trilogy captivated me completely during the early 1960s before there were any space adventures on television.

But it was Asimov’s 1955 time travel novel, The End of Eternity that changed my life. As I thought about the concept of eternity while reading Asimov in the 1960s, I came to reject my Roman Catholic upbringing regarding the promise in the afterlife of either eternal reward in Heaven or eternal punishment in Hell.

A young kid under age 13 certainly cannot be expected to grasp the concept of eternity, so he likely will accept the concept of the afterlife on faith alone. At that age, when I read Asimov’s The End of Eternity, doing so helped me begin to understand time and human mortality.

More importantly, I also began to appreciate the mathematical scope of eternity compared to the lifespan of a typical human being thanks to Asimov’s descriptions of time travel. Credit or blame Asimov for opening my mind with science fiction.

The simple outcome was I stopped believing in an afterlife that lasts an eternity.

Instead of being motivated by organized religion’s vague promises of an afterlife of rewards amid winged angels and heavenly streets payed with gold, I began to accept the personal responsibility for living a moral and unselfish life. Similarly, I became responsible for living as a decent and giving person minus what I saw as the false motivation of religion’s fear-based threats of an afterlife in the dark, hot hellishness of the underworld. Simply put, studying time travel in science fiction stories as a youngster enabled me to attain emotional intelligence with regard to organized religion. I grant that many people need organized religion in their lives to feel that life has meaning, purpose and direction, but that’s not who I am.

My very deep affection for the science fiction subgenre of time travel continues in my life today. I believe that well-written science fiction in print or on screen about time travel provides one of the most enjoyable intellectual stimulation possible for a person to have. Here are some examples of what I mean:

The Time Machine, a 1960 Hollywood film based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name, inspired and amazed me. In many ways, this George Pal film is better than the 2002 remake, especially for setting the standard so high during the 1960s for credible storytelling and special effects regarding time travel.

When Star Trek the original series appeared on national television in the late 1960s, no surprise that the time travel subgenre was employed in selected episodes. The most famous example of time travel on Star Trek is episode #28, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” which was originally broadcast on NBC on April 6, 1967. This celebrated episode is a very clear example of one central facet of many time travel stories: The world’s timeline is imperiled by time travel from the future into the past that somehow changes the course of history.

Today, this intricate and complicated science fiction storytelling about time travel–complete with immutable rules and irreversible consequences–is found very frequently in film and on television. A stunning example is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1984 film, The Terminator along with its sequels and television spin-off, The Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Star Trek: The Next Generation, particularly the two-part episodes “Time’s Arrow” (1992) and “All Good Things” (the 1994 series finale) deserve to be mentioned in this context as well. The rules and consequences of time travel are what drives the 1995 film Twelve Monkeys and the 2001 Jet Li film, The One. These theoretical constructs based upon advanced mathematics and physics are brilliantly demonstrated in the sophisticated 2004 film Primer, and these constructs are essential to the 2005 film, A Sound of Thunder, based on a famous Ray Bradbury short story.

Science fiction helps the audience grow more keenly aware of such theoretical constructs as the rules and consequences of time travel. So, even though actual time travel may remain merely science fiction, thinking about such rules and consequences helps to stimulate and bolster a person’s ability to accept responsibility for their emotions and behaviors in the real world.

One of my proudest career accomplishments was creating a radio documentary series that had a very unusual format. During the 1970s, a standard practice was to isolate blocks of radio programming such as documentaries, news analysis, and religious programming to early Sunday morning time slots. The thinking was that fewer people are listening to radio early on Sunday mornings, so why not just stick all those blocks of programmings where they will probably not be heard by most listeners.

The executive management at KIQQ-FM in Hollywood wanted me to create an alternative format. Their concept was for public affairs programming in a radio documentary format to be presented in short segments that could be aired in between music and radio commercials.

I built upon their vision and created what was then a revolutionary, short-format approach to radio documentaries. You can listen to how this sounded by using the links before to three episodes from my radio documentary about Star Trek. Note that the technical quality of these recordings has diminished over the many years since these productions were originally completed.

Listen to the very first episode of “The Universe of Star Trek”” radio documentary (MP3 — 2:50) originally broadcast on KIQQ-FM in Los Angeles in 1973.

Listen to “The Universe of Star Trek” radio documentary series episode featuring science fiction writer David Gerrold (MP3 — 1:28) Especially famous for writing “”The Trouble With Tribbles,”” this Los Angeles writer allowed me to interview him in his home in the San Fernando Valley.  When I arrived at his front door, I was surprised to be greeted by a Vulcan female.  The young girl had the obligatory pointed ears and a Spock-like costume.  No, I never asked David Gerrold who she was and what she was doing in his home.

Listen to “The Universe of Star Trek” radio documentary series episode featuring Bjo Trimble (MP3 — 2:17) It was a real trip, indeed, to visit the Los Angeles home of this campaigner who worked tirelessly to save Star Trek from cancellation. Her living room was filled with Star Trek memorabilia that seemed to propel her to boundless levels of personal energy.

Listen to my interview with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Only small portions of my Roddenberry interview were ever broadcast.

This section of NeonFunJungle.com is here because of my love for science fiction. It all started with time travel. No, not that I claim to travel in time! My interest in science fiction stories about time travel began during my teenage years when I read a classic novel by Isaac Asimov.

Years later, I was very fortunate to meet and interview Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry when I worked in Hollywood rock and roll radio.

If there is any person who has earned the right to be called “the next Roddenberry,” it is Ron Moore. He is another of my television heroes in Los Angeles. He was responsible for the Battlestar Galactica series (2003-2009) on NBC Universal’s science fiction cable channel now known as Syfy.

If you, like me, are a devoted follower of science fiction, you will love what I’ve got for you here. The word trekology is used on more than one website, but notably it was used since the 1990s on my website named Trekology.com.

The science fiction television and movies commentaries and analysis I wrote about brave people and their courageous adventures in space formerly appeared on that site and on BeyondOneFarStar.com. My commentaries on these subjects are now available all in one place here at NeonFunJungle.com instead.

I intend for the word trekology to mean the study of Star Trek. This word is similar to other coined words appended with the suffix “ology” to signify “the study of…” as in cosomology, the study of the origin and nature of the universe. This Trekology section of NeonFunJungle.com explores science fiction television and movies, not just Star Trek.

If you respect Star Trek as much as I do, you will want to watch Trek Nation, the 2011 documentary about Gene Roddenberry and his creation made by his son. I believe that this is the very best documentary about Star Trek ever produced.

Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek vs. Space: 1999

For those who want to dig deeper into the subject of the power of science fiction on television and in movies to persuade audiences, I am making available my original research work that I completed at Indiana University Bloomington in fulfillment of the academic requirements for my doctoral degree in communications. The original 1979 copyright was renewed. Copyright © 2005. All Rights Reserved. You can view all pages of my research as pdfs that display quickly right here on your screen.

My research study compared the original Battlestar Galactica series (1978 – 1979) with the original Star Trek series (1966 – 1969) with the British sci-fi series Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977). I discovered that of the three, only Star Trek showed evidence that the producers and writers had employed the necessary ingredients to succeed in transmitting persuasive idea content to change the opinions and values of audiences. The original Battlestar Galactica and Space: 1999 were designed to emphasize entertainment only, and therefore they both lacked the powers to influence and alter viewpoints of audience members as the original Star Trek series did so well.

The 25-page introduction to my original study in 1977 is here: chapter 1
My Star Trek chapter (60 pages) is here: chapter 2
My Space: 1999 chapter (46 pages) is here: chapter 3
My chapter on the original Battlestar Galactica (46 pages) is here: chapter 4
And, the conclusions that I reached (6 pages) is here: chapter 5
My list of sources for this research is here: bibliography

I certainly welcome your comments about my research. Thank you!

Most people who watch dramatic enter­tainment programming on television would have little trouble admitting they believe such programs have the ability to con­vey arguments within stories which can persuasively address particular viewpoints. Most would probably believe that since it is so relatively simple to watch television programs. any­one should be able to understand what is being argued in them. However, just as in a speech it may not be apparent what the speaker is doing to persuade the audience, or just as in a novel or a play it may not be easy to understand what opera­tions of persuasion are being employed to attempt to achieve the adherence of the audience, so it must certainly be true of the visual mass media such as television.

Those who conduct research about television and its pro­cesses and effects, however, thus far have not provided spe­cific guidelines for people to know how or where to look for persuasive or rhetorical arguments jn dramatic entertainment programs on television. One can argue how television research is too new to have yet developed principles about what makes for persuasive communication like those that exist concerning speechmaking and written persuasion.

My 1978 research study while I was in a doctoral degree program at Indiana University, Bloomington, then, was intended to show a particular way in which one can look for persuasive arguments in dramatic en­tertainment programming. It was not an attempt to prove that only one method exists which can answer the many complex ques­tions about how persuasive arguments can be advanced in enter­tainment programs. Rather, the study was designed to suggest hypotheses about the overall operations of persuasion in television programming that could, in future studies, be examined further, expanded upon, revised, and even tested, since such fundamental hypotheses thus far have not come out of several years of television research.

Unlike much television research, my study has incorpor­ated into the scholarship process an appreciation for the rich heritage of theories about effectively persuasive human com­munication. This particular approach was taken specifically to allow for critical analysis of the rhetorical or persua­sive communication in television programs. It was based on the belief that if critical analyses of rhetorical operations in entertainment programming are undertaken, a clear and strong sense of direction for future research about the persuasive influences of entertainment programming on television will be possible. The value of taking such critical analyses of en­tertainment programming is that we may someday learn to under­stand the persuasive or rhetorical influences of programs whose primary purpose is to entertain, to get high ratings, and to be a vehicle for commercial advertisements.

I am sincerely grateful to several people for contribu­ting to my ability to complete this project: my dissertation director, James B. Andrews, for his guidance, patience, and calm; my research committee, Dennis S. Gouran, Raymond G. Smith, and Brien B, Williams, for interdisciplinary perspec­tives on inquiry and critical analysis in the scholarship pro­cess.

You can read my entire research study here.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry agreed to be interviewed by me in Burbank in 1973. Only small portions of the recordings I made of his comments were ever broadcast anywhere. You can listen to several episodes of the radio documentary series I produced about Star Trek.

As you listen to what Roddenberry says, you will travel deep inside the series and learn from him what was done and why. You will share the experience of hearing his soothing vocal tones, his intense personality, and his strong passion for Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry

One significant (if unusual) aspect of Roddenberry was that even though he was a television producer, he much preferred books. And he was sure that his appetite for reading directly influenced his writing and producing of Star Trek.

He credits starting out at Lucille Ball’’s studio, Desilu (later sold to Paramount Pictures) because the studio was willing to spend “more than an ordinary amount of money” to make Star Trek work.

When he was writing the original format for Star Trek, when he did not have science fact to rely upon, he improvised.

Roddenberry created the basic concept of Star Trek from the ground up, but told me that he wanted to share credit with others, including Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, and others, saying Star Trek was “a creation of many people“

A woman was second in command in the first version of Star Trek, Mr. Spock was fourth in line, and none of that survived the development of the series because NBC demanded changes.

The economics of mid-sixties television production today seem more implausible than faster-than-light space travel.  But the original Star Trek pilot—–the one that NBC did not like–cost a little over $600,000.

He explained how he worked as a producer, fostering joint contributions from everyone on Star Trek.

And he gave a clear picture of how the writing on Star Trek was carefully crafted to give the storytelling a high degree of believability.

Because of censorship restrictions, Star Trek producers and writers concealed intended messages within stories of action and adventure in space.

He explained that he promoted a casual atmosphere that included practical joking to relieve the pressures of production on Star Trek.

He declined to name any favorite episode.

In what would be the final season of the original series, Roddenberry’s world changed. He backed out of producing the third season (but he got screen credit as executive producer) after failing to convince NBC not to schedule Star Trek in what Roddenberry felt was an unfavorable time slot that will hurt the popularity of the series.

Roddenberry says NBC made a business decision to cancel the marginally-rated series in 1969 and noted it was ironic that the network discovered too late the demographic power of Star Trek.

And he insisted on maintaining the quality of the original Star Trek series as producer of the animated series for NBC because he did not want to insult viewers.

He did not think Star Trek necessarily had long-term value in predicting how life may actually be in the future.  But, he was proud of the idea content within the storytelling that persuaded people to have hope because ““there is a tomorrow.”

Roddenberry told me that he would hate for mankind to go “barging around and getting involved in other societies and civilizations” in the cosmos. He explained that he believed humanity had not yet attained the necessary wisdom to handle extraterrestial contact.  But he clarified that he did not “hate mankind” and believed that our species had begun to reach out of childhood a little bit.”

In Los Angeles during May 1965, radio station KHJ redefined rock and roll radio. What people could hear on the radio in those days was very unlike what you can hear today. Radio programming on KHJ prior to May 1965 was a variety of individual shows such as live remote broadcasts from the home of popular entertainer Steve Allen. He had originated the Tonight show on NBC Television in New York City in 1954 and then hosted variety television shows bearing his name until 1964. RKO Radio (which no longer exists) was the corporation that owned KHJ in those days. The leadership at RKO Radio was not satisfied with the ratings that KHJ was achieving in Los Angeles. That lack of satisfaction ushered in a time of significant change at KHJ.

Los Angeles is the second largest radio market in the United States behind New York City based upon the size of the available listening audience and the number of broadcasting stations. In 1965, Los Angeles had far fewer stations on the air compared to today, but, the business reality was the same then as it is today: Any commercial radio station on the air needed to make money by selling advertising time to sponsors. Then as now, if a commercial radio station failed to attract a sufficiently large listening audience, that station was unsuccessful in the sales of advertising time on the air. If this failure to succeed in advertising sales occurred, the normal business response in those days was to change how the radio station sounded to the listeners. The business reason was simply to create some other, more appealing advertising platform so that the station could have a chance to make money.

I was not in Los Angeles in May 1965 to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears what was happening. At that time, I was a high school kid who was not yet 15 years of age. I was so far off the beaten path that I could not see the path at all. I lived 200 miles north of Los Angeles in the small town of San Luis Obispo, where life was never as glamorous or exciting as I imagined life in Hollywood to be. San Luis Obispo has the nickname of “S­‐L­‐O” and as a kid, I learned that if you pronounce the three letters as a word, you unlock the not-so­‐secret fact that this is, indeed, a slow town. But, I was not interested in living a slow and relaxed life. I longed for a faster pace that I knew was only possible if I lived in Los Angeles.

San Luis Obispo’s physical location was too far geographically from Los Angeles to be able to receive radio station KHJ or most other Los Angeles radio stations. San Luis Obispo area residents could never listen to KHJ on the air even if they wanted to. This is because KHJ was assigned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadcast at an amplitude modulation frequency of 930 kilocycles using a relatively low effective radiated power. The common abbreviation of AM stands for amplitude modulation–one part of the radio spectrum that is still used today, but primarily for stations that present spoken word programming (such as talk shows and news) as compared to musical programming. AM signals are limited by our planet’s terrain, weather conditions, and other physical factors beyond the control of mere mortals. The KHJ radio signal just was incapable of traveling very far outside the limits of the Los Angeles radio market and never reached listeners where I lived on the Central California coast.

Additionally, the FCC had assigned San Luis Obispo a local AM radio station that broadcast at a frequency of 920 kilocycles. The comparatively primitive radio receivers in those days were incapable of tuning into signals that broadcast on adjacent frequencies. In short, you could only hear the most powerful AM stations that were near to where you happened to live. There were no hand-held devices that enabled you to control playback of the latest music at your convenience. There was no Internet, no iTunes, and no satellite radio. How did anyone survive in those days without personal copies (or cloud copies) of music that you could carry in a small device in your hands? In my teenage years, I felt that living in San Luis Obispo was the equivalent of isolation far from what I imagined was the magic of Los Angeles media.

The motivation for me to move from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles probably was created in me when I was only five years old. That was the glorious year when the ABC Television network started broadcasting an exciting new series named Disneyland.

Millions of American kids like me were utterly defenseless against the persuasive powers of Walt Disney and the magic kingdom that he created in Southern California. I was six years old when my parents took me on my very first visit to Disney’s now‐famous theme park in Anaheim. For me, there just was no turning back. That trip from San Luis Obispo to the Los Angeles area and to Disneyland was a significant turning point in my young life. It was at that early age when I made an important decision: As I sat in the back seat of my parents’ station wagon, gazing out the window with wide eyes at the wonders before me, I vowed that when I grew up, I would live and work in Los Angeles.

KHJ at 930 on the radio dial was on its way to becoming the number one radio station in Los Angeles in the summer of 1965. But, I was stuck in a far less enchanting world. The slow little town of San Luis Obispo did not have radio stations that sounded at all like Los Angeles radio stations sounded. The hottest thing on radio at that time in San Luis Obispo was a country music show hosted by “Mac the Scotch Hillbilly” on the dominant local radio station, KVEC at 920 on the radio dial.

 
In reality, Mac was a wonderful radio personality whose real name was Don Macleod. Mac was the first “radio celebrity” that I can remember becoming aware of during my youth. I imagined that maybe someday I could grow up to be on the radio like him. I developed a love of “cowboy songs” as a result of many years of listening to him on the radio. To this day I find it difficult to accept that anyone has written or performed better “cowboy songs” than Hank Williams (1923­‐1953). From repeated exposure in those formative years of childhood, I will forever remember Mac’s choice of a theme song for his highly successful “Ranch House Jamboree” show–Spade Cooley’s rendition of Steel Guitar Rag. This unforgettable instrumental helped to solidify the crucial importance of the steel guitar to Western swing music of the early Twentieth Century.

By 1970, what was now known as Boss Radio 93/KHJ in Los Angeles had worked for five years proving to be a huge ratings success and a big moneymaker for RKO Radio. That was the year I started as a journalism major at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. In those days, frequency modulation (abbreviated as FM) radio stations in small radio markets like San Luis Obispo were far fewer in number than the more established AM radio stations. Because FM radio stations could broadcast in stereo with clearer, static-­free sound, FM ultimately became the dominant radio spectrum for music programming.

Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo had one of those early FM radio licenses in the days when few stations even used the FM spectrum. The call letters KCPR (for Cal Poly Radio) were not too well known in and around San Luis Obispo because the noncommercial college radio station operated at about 10 watts of effective radiated power and was on far fewer than 24 hours a day. But, in 1970 I became news director and eventually station manager at KCPR and I considered this a major career turning point in my young life.

Many of us in college radio listened to unedited recordings made of the programming on 93/KHJ and, of course, we would fantasize that someday we would get to work in Southern California in what KHJ referred to as “Boss Angeles.” We felt a strong lure to move to the sprawling metropolitan area of Southern California to be in a more exciting social and cultural environment. Most of us had visited Los Angeles many times by our late teens and early 20s since the drive took only about four hours from San Luis Obispo and a gallon of gas only cost around 30 cents! While the lifestyle of LA–swimming pools, movie stars–certainly may have been exaggerated and satirized by 1960s television shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, the City of Angels was an intense magnet nonetheless for small-town boys and other dreamers, then as now.

College radio instilled in my colleagues and me a motivation to become good enough to have a career working in Los Angeles radio. But, few of us could do more than dream it would actually happen since making it to Los Angeles radio seemed completely out of our reach. We felt stuck in a small radio market hundreds of miles away. We might as well have been living on some other planet. At KCPR, we college boys came to understand the reality that very few people would actually end up working in the Los Angeles radio market. What KCPR did for us, however, was give us the chance to develop our skills and talents on the air.

When I was involved at KCPR, the music programming on the station, and how the station sounded across seven days a week, deliberately emulated successful commercial radio stations. College radio for us in the early 1970s at KCPR was the exact opposite of free form radio, where the person on the air has the freedom to play or say whatever he or she wants. Free form programming on FM–particularly on noncommercial college radio stations–was very common in the 1970s.

Young people in their college years may tend to measure the value of their life experiences in terms of freedoms. If you mature emotionally, however, you may learn how shortsighted is the preference for freedom to do whatever you want on the air on a radio station. Without careful guidance from professionals who have worked in the real world of broadcasting, a college radio experience can become little more than a time of escape and play for people who may never intend to pursue professional careers in radio. That’s fine if you’re young and you just want escape and have freedom to put stuff on the air without the discipline of a format. But, all that essentially can be an unwise misuse of time, taxpayers’ money, and university­‐owned facilities.

If you’re smart and worth anything professionally in communications, you should be able to sharpen your skills and talents while attending college, get your undergraduate degree, and then get into a professional career in a top twenty media market. Accomplishing that would be solid proof of your skills and talents.

Even if you don’t remain in the broadcasting field, ending up with a professional career in a top twenty media market will speak volumes about what you’ve got to give. Choosing to stay working in smaller markets below the top twenty is fine if that’s really what you want for yourself. Yet, there always will be much more for you to accomplish in larger markets not to mention potentially larger compensation for you.

In the early 1970s, KCPR was a proving ground where some of us deliberately emulated real­‐world, commercially successful strategies and techniques for how a station should sound. Our announcer voices may certainly have not been as cool as the announcers of KRLA, but we believed that we should shoot for having presentational styles like theirs. Doing so prepared some of us for careers in larger radio and television markets outside of San Luis Obispo. Learning from and emulating those who are successful in radio and television has great value when you are just starting out so that you can incorporate professional standards into your very heart and soul. I wonder whether college radio enthusiasts today across the United States are being given a proper real­‐world context and an appropriate audience adaptation mindset to prepare them for top twenty market careers in radio or television broadcasting after they graduate.

[For more, see my eBook.]

I met Roddenberry when the NBC television network was launching an animated Star Trek. Publicity people from Burbank connected me to Roddenberry so that I might produce radio documentary coverage that would publicize the new series.

Gene Roddenberry

My interest in the inner workings of science fiction can be traced back to my youth. Star Trek was being broadcast on NBC in 1966 when I was a student at Mission Central Catholic High School in San Luis Obispo, California. My English teacher assigned me to watch Star Trek, write an essay about it, and do an oral report in class. Mercifully, nothing survives the passage of time from those days, so you are spared the unexpressable agonies of reading what I wrote. Similarly, I am afforded the rich opportunity to fantasize about how eloquent I certainly must have been as a 16 year-old boy.

When I met Roddenberry, he was struggling to keep Star Trek alive as either a television or motion picture franchise four years after the original Star Trek starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Deforest Kelley had been canceled by NBC. What we all know today as “the Star Trek phenomenon,” that huge and unexpected international popularity of a canceled science fiction television series from the 1960s, had not yet happened. I met Roddenberry before all that. In fact, in 1973 Roddenberry seemed deeply disappointed that his creation had not become a gigantic financial success like he had hoped it would.

Roddenberry was resistant to talking with me. He admitted over the phone that he very much disliked being interviewed. He told me that he had been “burned” by the media previously. So, I came up with what I thought was a clever idea to use two tape recorders simultaneously while interviewing him at his office in Burbank. I assured him that if I used those two tape recorders, I could then hand him his own copy of the taped interview before I even left his office so that he would have the original source recordings in the event that I somehow were to edit him to misrepresent his statements.

I was, of course, thrilled when Roddenberry finally agreed to allow me to interview him. Gaining access to someone of his stature was an accomplishment that I could never have dreamed of when I first chose journalism as my major in college. Only small portions of the recordings I made while interviewing Roddenberry were ever broadcast on Los Angeles radio.

He was very complimentary of my work [see Roddenberry letter] and because of him, I subsequently was able to convince other Star Trek people to participate in taped interviews—notably writers D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold, and actors DeForest Kelley and Walter Koenig. I also tried to convince Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan to meet me for audio interviews. Nimoy’s very protective assistant kept me away from him completely. I did speak with Doohan on the phone, but he declined to be interviewed after I explained that my interviews were a journalistic effort in which the interviewees were not compensated.

From this modest start in the early 1970s as a writer/producer of LA radio documentary segments, my behind-the­‐scenes journalistic efforts concerning Star Trek extended into the future. I remained in contact with Roddenberry over the years because I hoped that I could write a book about him and Star Trek.

I went on to write my doctoral dissertation at Indian University, Bloomington starting in 1977 about the persuasively embedded idea content in the original Star Trek.

In 1982, I had received a faculty grant from the University of New Haven and that same year I introduced Roddenberry to a large crowd in New Haven, Connecticut when he was on the lecture circuit. See a pdf of the local newspaper coverage of my research and Roddenberry’s appearance.

Loose lips of an entirely different nature can be found in 2012 in radio programming in the United States. I am referring specifically to nationally syndicated radio talk show personality Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh spoke out on the air during one of his talk radio shows using language that disparaged and diminished a particular woman who had advocated for government-funded birth control. Listen here for more details.

Just being real honest here, if any male over the age of 10 chooses to use specific derisive or scornful or mocking words (such as “slut”) to describe a female, he should never be surprised at angry responses from females to what he said.

Limbaugh is not a young person. He is 61. He has had employment in the profession of radio talk show entertainment for many years. He would have by now learned from a long career in radio talk show entertainment that what one says on the radio can produce angry responses.

Limbaugh could have chosen to be tight-lipped about the Congressional testimony that advocated in favor of government-funded birth control. There are plenty of other topics from which Limbaugh could have chosen to discuss on his live radio show. But Limbaugh chose instead to disparage and diminish a woman he didn’t know and never had met. Limbaugh chose to use specific language that any mature male or female would know in advance was so harsh and hurtful that it likely would cause an angry response.

This is not a First Amendment issue. I may have missed it, so please email me to educate me about the specific words contained in the First Amendment that guarantee everybody the right to have and maintain a professional career in commercially-sponsored radio talk show entertainment. I can’t wait to hear from you.

Limbaugh does not deserve to be forgiven by anyone whom he offended with his harsh and hurtful language over the air during his radio talk show. He chose deliberately to say what he said. Scores of commercial sponsors have withdrawn their financial support of this specific radio talk show entertainment. That is perhaps the most significant lesson learned from this. Commercially-sponsored radio talk show entertainment can risk losing revenue from sponsors if the radio talk show entertainment does not align with what the values of the sponsors.

UPDATE: Limbaugh minimizes the impact of the loss of sponsors. He chose a fast food metaphor to describe a minimal loss of advertising revenue: “That’s like losing a couple of french fries in the container when it’s delivered to you at the drive-thru.” I think Limbaugh has high credibility as someone whose body shows obvious evidence that he has eaten quite a few french fries.

Other radio talk show entertainers have brought similar loss of advertising sponsors upon themselves. Laura Schlesinger comes to mind specifically. She transitioned her radio talk show entertainment from terrestrial broadcast radio to satellite radio. Limbaugh should seriously consider the same exact transition so he will be unregulated and can be as unrestrained as he chooses to be.

ANOTHER UPDATE: After I published the original post on March 7, 2012, I saw a post online written by Michelle Malkin. You should read her post here: http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2012/03/07/malkin-the-war-on-conservative-women/.

Malkin’s point is that her particular partisan side (conservative Republicans) have been so maligned over many years by the opposing partisan side (liberal Democrats) that nobody should get too upset over what Limbaugh said on his talk radio show. Malkin goes into detail about the kinds of disparaging and diminishing names that she, personally, has been called. She also gives examples of hurtful names that have been used to disparage and diminish other prominent conservative Republican women such as Kay Bailey Hutchison and Condoleezza Rice.

Malkin’s post is very persuasive in convincing readers civility in partisan politics officially is dead and gone. She does not seem to mourn the loss of civility at all. But, nothing that Malkin wrote changes my belief that Limbaugh should transition from terrestrial radio broadcasting to satellite radio where Howard Stern and Laura Schlesinger presently work. There Limbaugh would be utterly free to be as uncivil in his partisan political discourse as he pleases while having no annoying regulations to muzzle him.

ONE MORE UPDATE: I need to jump in here with yet another update because this story keeps on going like it just won’t stop. I want to call readers’ attention to an informed and intelligent commentary written by Skip Mahaffey, a broadcaster and media coach. This is a must-read in my opinion.

Mahaffey points out something that I had not considered: Mahaffey believes that Limbaugh has “milked this” story to benefit himself and to attract new listeners and new sponsors. The reality is, as Mahaffey clearly and persuasively expresses, Limbaugh does what he does on talk radio to be controversial and the whole point of being controversial is to generate buzz so that more people will tune in to his talk radio show. Any anger at Limbaugh only serves to feed the controversy, which only serves to attract more attention to Limbaugh. Any commentary (such as mine) only serves to bring more attention to Limbaugh, which is exactly what he wants to happen.

A major lesson learned is that Limbaugh does not have “loose lips.” Limbaugh is quite calculating. Limbaugh’s words are intentional. Limbaugh is an entertainer–a professional performer who gets paid to perform before a very large audience. Limbaugh generates controversy through the use of his spoken words. A famous quote from 1984′s science fiction film The Terminator says it best: That’s what he does! That’s ALL he does! You can’t stop him!