Ronald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer. He is best known for his work on Star Trek, as well as on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, for which he won a Peabody Award, and on Outlander, based on the novels of the same name by Diana Gabaldon. In 2019, he created and wrote the series For All Mankind for Apple TV+.
Early life
Moore was raised in Chowchilla, California. He describes himself as a 'recovering Catholic' and is agnostic. Moore dabbled in writing and drama in high school. He went on to study government at Cornell University, where he was Literary Secretary of The Kappa Alpha Society, originally on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left during his senior year in the spring of 1986 after losing interest in his studies. He later completed his degree through Regents College. He served for one month during the summer of his freshman year on the frigate USS W.S. Sims.Moore spent the next three years drifting between various odd jobs and temporary work. As Moore himself recounted in the book, Star Trek: The Next Generation 365, by the fall of 1986, he was "less than a year into my career as a college dropout... working as a medical records technician at an animal hospital, all the while telling myself that I was actually a professional writer simply awaiting my inevitable discovery."
Career
''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1988–1994)
In 1988, he toured the Star Trek: The Next Generation sets during the filming of the episode "Time Squared." While there, he passed a script he had written to one of Gene Roddenberry's assistants, who helped him get an agent who submitted the script through proper channels. About seven months later, executive producer Michael Piller read the script and bought it; it became the third-season episode "The Bonding." Based on that script, he was offered the opportunity to write a second script titled "The Defector" and that led to a staff position as a script editor. Two years later, he was promoted to co-producer, then producer for the series' final year.Moore wrote a number of episodes that developed the Klingon race and culture, starting with "Sins of the Father" which introduced the Klingon home world, the Klingon High Council, and the Klingon Chancellor, continuing with "Reunion," "Redemption, Part 1 and 2," "Ethics," and "Rightful Heir." He is credited with writing or co-writing 27 Next Generation episodes.
He co-wrote several episodes with Brannon Braga, developing a successful working relationship that led to them being offered the chance to write the series television finale, "All Good Things...". The series also received an Emmy Award nomination in its final year for Outstanding Drama Series, losing to Picket Fences. The pair also wrote the screenplays for the Next Generation crew's first two big screen appearances, Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact.
''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1994–1999)
Moore then joined the production staff of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for its third season as a supervising producer, being promoted to a co-executive producer position for the series' final two years. During this time he also worked again with Braga on the script for the second Next Generation motion picture Star Trek: First Contact and on a draft of the Mission: Impossible 2 script that was re-written by Robert Towne for which they received a "story by" credit.During his time on Deep Space Nine, he continued to write episodes that expanded on Klingon culture such as "The House of Quark", "Sons of Mogh", "Rules of Engagement", "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places", "Soldiers of the Empire", "You Are Cordially Invited..." and "Once More Unto the Breach". He also wrote episodes that dealt with controversial subjects such as genetic engineering, co-wrote the episode that featured Star Trek's first same-sex kiss and killed off another popular character, Vedek Bareil Antos.
During his time on Deep Space Nine, he also made an effort to engage with fans, frequently posting on AOL forums where he would answer fan questions or address their concerns about the show, a practice he continued with Battlestar Galactica through his weblog and in his podcasts.
''Star Trek: Voyager'' (1999)
With the end of Deep Space Nine in 1999, Moore transferred to the production staff of Star Trek: Voyager at the start of its sixth season, where his writing partner Braga was executive producer. Moore left Voyager weeks later, with "Survival Instinct" and "Barge of the Dead" as his only credits. In a January 2000 interview for Cinescape magazine, Moore cited problems in his working relationship with Braga for his short stay,Moore and Braga can be heard talking together on the commentary tracks for the DVD release of Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact.
Post-''Star Trek'' career (2000–2003)
After leaving Voyager, Moore briefly worked as a consulting producer on Good vs Evil before joining Roswell as a co-executive producer and staff writer at the start of its second season in 2000. Moore and series creator Jason Katims jointly ran Roswell until the show ended in 2002. Moore wrote some of the show's most popular episodes, including "Ask Not" and the series finale "Graduation," which he co-wrote with Katims. He also wrote the episode "Cry Your Name."During this time, Moore also developed a pilot based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern for The WB, but production on the project was halted due to 'creative differences' between Moore and the network. The network tried changing the story until it no longer resembled the original book series. Moore was an original fan of the books and refused to continue working on the pilot with the changes being made.
In 2002, David Eick approached Moore about a new four-hour Battlestar Galactica mini-series for Universal. Moore developed the mini-series with Eick, writing the scripts and updating the old series, also developing a back-story that could work for a regular weekly series should the mini-series be successful. At the same time, Moore was approached by HBO about running a new television series called Carnivàle; however, they decided to offer the position to Henry Bromell instead and offered Moore a consultant position on the writing staff. He accepted, but Bromell left soon after production started and Moore became showrunner. While Moore worked on the first year of Carnivàle, Eick ran the day-to-day production of the Galactica mini-series in Canada. Galactica aired in 2003 and became the highest-rated miniseries on cable that year and the best ratings that year for any sci-fi show. After Carnivàle reached the end of its first season and the Sci-Fi Channel ordered a thirteen-episode weekly series of Galactica, Moore left Carnivàle to assume a full-time executive producer role on Galactica.
''Battlestar Galactica'' (2004–2009)
The weekly Galactica television series debuted in October 2004 in the United Kingdom and January 2005 in the United States and Canada. Moore wrote the first two episodes of the new series, with the first episode "33" winning the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, the second that Moore has received during his career. In 2007, Moore was nominated once again for an Emmy Award for writing the episodes "Occupation" and "Precipice," which aired together as the third season opener.In April 2006, Battlestar Galactica was among the winners of the 65th Annual Peabody Awards; Moore was among the writers and producers cited for "plotlines that are deeply personal and relatable, while never compromising their affinity and passion for science fiction."
Moore was quite vocal about the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, as his Battlestar Galactica series was one of the major flashpoints leading to the strike. Starting in August 2006, the Writers Guild ordered production to cease on the Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance series of webisodes which had been produced as a link between the show's second and third seasons. Tension over this would last throughout the third season. Battlestar Galactica was, along with other popular series such as Lost and Heroes, one of the shows at the forefront of the debate over "new media" revenues, as the series was extensively downloaded from iTunes and recoups much of its production costs from high DVD sales as opposed to direct ratings. It was also among the most time-shifted series on television, which the Nielsen ratings system does not count.
Moore's directorial debut was scheduled to be the first episode of Battlestar Galactica following the final season's mid-season cliffhanger, which he would also have written. Though the writers' strike halted production on the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica, work resumed and the show concluded on March 20, 2009. When the Writers Guild began their strike, Moore felt it was wrong to continue to communicate to fans using the "official" blog he maintained on the Scifi Channel website. As a result, he chose to start a personal website and blog, , so that he could continue to freely comment on the situation without violating the terms of his membership in the Writers Guild. When the strike ended, Moore continued his commentary via his personal web site and blog.