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For other people with the name Ronald Moore, please see Ronald Moore (disambiguation). Ronald Dowl Moore (born 1964 in Chowchilla, California) is an American screenwriter and television producer who is known for his work on Star Trek and is currently executive producer of the new Battlestar Galactica series.
Background Growing up in Chowchilla as the son of a teacher and school superintendent who moonlighted as a football coach, Moore dabbled in writing and drama in high school. He went on to study Government at Cornell University, originally on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but failed his senior year after losing interest in his studies. He was then disqualified from Navy service due to a high school knee injury. Star Trek: The Next Generation In 1988 he managed to arrange a tour of the Star Trek: The Next Generation sets through his girlfriend. While on the tour, he passed a script to one of Gene Roddenberry's assistants, who liked the script enough to help him get an agent who submitted the script through the proper channels. About seven months later executive producer Michael Piller read the script, bought it and it became the third season episode "The Bonding". Based on that script he was offered the opportunity to write a second script 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 (1994). Moore developed a reputation as the Klingon expert on the writing staff, being responsible for writing a number of episodes that developed the Klingon race and culture, starting with "Sins of the Father" which introduced the Klingon homeworld, the Klingon High Council and the Klingon Chancellor and continuing with Reunion, Redemption, Part 1 and 2, Ethics and Rightful Heir. During his time on The Next Generation, he was credited with writing or co-writing 27 episodes. A number of times he co-wrote 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...", and the Next Generation crew's first big screen appearance, Star Trek: Generations. Their script for the series finale "All Good Things..." won the 1995 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The series also received an Emmy Award nomination in its final year for Outstanding Drama Series, losing to Picket Fences. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 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 II script that was re-written by Robert Towne for which they received a "story by" credit. Moore proved to be one of DS9s more popular writers. He was also popular among fans because of the frequent internet postings where he would answer fan questions or address their concerns about the show, a practice he has continued with Battlestar Galactica on his weblog and in podcasting. 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 (Doctor Bashir, I Presume?), co-wrote the episode that featured Star Trek's first same-sex kiss (Rejoined) and killed off another popular character, Vedek Bareil Antos (Life Support). Star Trek: Voyager With the end of Deep Space Nine in 1999, Moore transferred over to the production staff of Star Trek: Voyager at the start of its sixth season, where his writing partner Braga was executive producer. However Moore left Voyager only a matter of 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 Brannon Braga for his short stay: "I have very hurt feelings about Brannon. What happened between he and I is just between he and I. It was a breakdown of trust. I would have quit any show where I was not allowed to participate in the process like that. I wasn’t allowed to participate in the process, and I wasn’t part of the show. I felt like I was freelancing my own show. ... I was very disappointed that my long-time friend and writing partner acted in that manner, that crossed lines to the point where I felt like I had to walk away from STAR TREK, which was something that meant a lot to me for a very long time, from my childhood right through my entire professional career." • Since he left Voyager, Moore has often been suggested by fans as a possible successor to head the Trek franchise. Post-Trek 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," which he based on a personal tragedy he experienced as a teenager. While driving a car with his friend Pat, they were struck by a drunk driver. Moore exited the wreck without a scratch, but Pat was killed. 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. In 2002, after a previous attempt by Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto had failed, David Eick (whom Moore worked with on Good vs Evil) 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 then Bromell left soon after production started and Moore became show runner. While Moore worked on the first year of Carnivàle, Eick ran the day-to-day production of the Galactica mini-series in Canada and the mini-series aired in 2003 to record ratings, being the highest-rated miniseries on cable that year and receiving the best ratings for any show on Sci-Fi in 2003. 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 The Galactica series debuted in October 2004 in the United Kingdom and January 2005 in the United States. Moore's re-imagining of Galactica is noted for taking a more serious tone than its predecessor, something that was foreshadowed in the January 2000 for Cinescape interview, where he discussed what he saw as the root problem with Voyager. "The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn’t going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn’t going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at all, and it’s a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn’t act like this." • 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 one Moore has received during his career. Caprica With the success of Battlestar Galactica, the Sci Fi Channel announced in April 2006 that Moore and fellow Galactica executive producer David Eick would be producing a spin-off called Caprica with 24 scriptwriter Remi Aubuchon and NBC Universal Television Studio. This show will be set 50 years before the events of the series and deal with the creation of the Cylon race. • | ||||||||
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