It's well known that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, after a long fight to bring the adventures of Captain Kirk, Spock and the rest to the air, eventually stepped back from the day-to-day running of the original three-season classic series. Many books and articles have been written, interviews given, and theories thrown around regarding how important Roddenberry was to The Original Series beyond the first season, with the general consensus being that he had essentially faded from the picture by the final (weakest) year.

Gene Roddenberry

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But according to the show's star, William Shatner, Roddenberry wasn't involved much at all after the first half of Season 1. While talking to IGN recently , Shatner said that Roddenberry "had little to do with Star Trek after the first 13 shows."In the first half of the first season, Roddenberry worked with associate producers Robert Justman and John D.F. Black. When Black left the show in August, 1966, and facing exhaustion himself from the workload, Roddenberry brought in Gene Coon to replace Black, while also transitioning himself to the role of executive producer. And in fact, Coon is largely credited with bringing many of Star Trek's most famous elements to the series (including the Klingons, the Prime Directive and much of the character humor of the show). Coon would also take over most of the rewriting of scripts that Roddenberry had largely handled previously, though he too would eventually leave the show in the following season. Still, in contrast with Shatner's above statement, Roddenberry has always been portrayed as having remained involved in the show through its second year -- it's just a question of to what degree.When asked about his relationship with Roddenberry, Shatner told IGN that "Gene was a typical writer in that he lived in his head a lot. It's my view that people write -- professional writers, people who do a lot of writing, sit in their office, their chair, wherever they're writing, and are by themselves and living in their head. And they may do so because they're not adept at dealing with people. So they make fiction. Then, when they become hyphenates -- which they did in those days -- so the writer became a producer, writer-slash-producer. The fit may not have been exact, if I could be -- if I could put it that way. ... And so it was with him. He was a… he was a cool customer. He had his own way of doing things, and needed… no, I'd better not go there."Roddenberry often clashed with Star Trek network NBC, with his writers, and with his staff. Which, to some degree, is the sign of a good producer trying to make a good show. How much this affected the show positively or negatively is perhaps lost to the ages (if only we had a Guardian of Forever to travel back in time with and find out for ourselves). Roddenberry would go on to create Star Trek: The Next Generation two decades after the original show, and he produced the first Trek film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. However, after the production and budget troubles of that project, he was essentially cut out of the process on Wrath of Khan and the sequels that followed and is generally believed to have served in a more honorary capacity as an advisor on the films.And yet, in the end, this is the guy who created Star Trek. Whatever his connection to it as it morphed over times, there's no denying that we wouldn't have it without him.Read our full interview with William Shatner right here

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