Ronald D. Moore | |
|---|---|
 Moore in 2025 | |
| Born | Ronald Dowl Moore (1964-07-05)July 5, 1964 (age 61) Chowchilla, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Screenwriter,television producer |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Genre | Drama, science fiction |
| Notable works | Star Trek: TNG Star Trek: DS9 Battlestar Galactica Outlander For All Mankind |
Ronald Dowl Moore (born July 5, 1964) is an American screenwriter and television producer. He is best known for his work onStar Trek, as well as on the re-imaginedBattlestar Galactica television series, for which he won aPeabody Award, and onOutlander, based on the novels of the same name byDiana Gabaldon. In 2019, he created and wrote the seriesFor All Mankind forApple TV+.
Moore was raised inChowchilla, California. He describes himself as a 'recovering Catholic' and is agnostic.[1] Moore dabbled in writing and drama in high school. He went on to study government (political science) atCornell University, where he was Literary Secretary of TheKappa Alpha Society, originally on aNavy ROTC scholarship, but left during his senior year in the spring of 1986 after losing interest in his studies. He later completed his degree throughRegents College. He served for one month during the summer of his freshman year on the frigateUSSW.S. Sims.[2][3]
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 (otherwise known as a receptionist) at an animal hospital, all the while telling myself that I was actually a professional writer simply awaiting my inevitable discovery."[4]
In 1988, he toured theStar Trek: The Next Generation sets during the filming of the episode "Time Squared."[5] While there, he passed a script he had written to one ofGene Roddenberry's assistants, who helped him get an agent who submitted the script through proper channels.[6] About seven months later, executive producerMichael 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 ascript editor. Two years later, he was promoted to co-producer, then producer for the series' final year (1994).
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 27Next Generation episodes.
He co-wrote several episodes withBrannon Braga, developing a successful working relationship that led to them being offered the chance to write the series television finale, "All Good Things..." (which won the 1995Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation). The series also received anEmmy Award nomination in its final year forOutstanding Drama Series, losing toPicket Fences. The pair also wrote the screenplays for theNext Generation crew's first two big screen appearances,Star Trek Generations (1994) andStar Trek: First Contact (1996).
Moore then joined theproduction staff ofStar Trek: Deep Space Nine for its third season as asupervising 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 secondNext Generation motion pictureStar Trek: First Contact and on a draft of theMission: Impossible 2 script that was re-written byRobert Towne for which they received a "story by" credit.
During his time onDeep 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 asgenetic 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, VedekBareil Antos ("Life Support").
During his time onDeep Space Nine, he also made an effort to engage with fans, frequently posting onAOL forums where he would answer fan questions or address their concerns about the show,[7] a practice he continued withBattlestar Galactica through his weblog and in hispodcasts.
With the end ofDeep Space Nine in 1999, Moore transferred to theproduction staff ofStar Trek: Voyager at the start of its sixth season, where his writing partner Braga was executive producer. Moore leftVoyager weeks later, with "Survival Instinct" and "Barge of the Dead" as his only credits. In a January 2000 interview forCinescape magazine, Moore cited problems in his working relationship with Braga for his short stay,
I have very hurt feelings about Brannon. What happened between me and him 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 fromStar Trek, which was something that meant a lot to me for a very long time, from my childhood right through my entire professional career.[8]
Moore and Braga can be heard talking together on the commentary tracks for theDVD release ofStar Trek Generations andStar Trek: First Contact.
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After leavingVoyager, Moore briefly worked as a consulting producer onGood vs Evil before joiningRoswell as a co-executive producer and staff writer at the start of its second season in 2000. Moore and series creatorJason Katims jointly ranRoswell 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 onAnne McCaffrey'sDragonriders of Pern forThe WB, but production on the project was halted due to 'creative differences' between Moore and the network.[citation needed] The network tried changing the story (without Moore's approval) 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 (whom Moore worked with onGood vs Evil) approached Moore about a new four-hourBattlestar Galactica mini-series for Universal. Moore developed the mini-series with Eick, writing the scripts and updating the old series, also developing aback-story that could work for a regular weekly series should the mini-series be successful. At the same time, Moore was approached byHBO about running a new television series calledCarnivàle; however, they decided to offer the position toHenry Bromell instead and offered Moore a consultant position on the writing staff. He accepted, but Bromell left soon after production started and Moore becameshowrunner. While Moore worked on the first year ofCarnivàle, Eick ran the day-to-day production of theGalactica mini-series in Canada.Galactica aired in 2003 and became the highest-rated miniseries on cable that year[citation needed] and the best ratings that year for any sci-fi show.[citation needed] AfterCarnivàle reached the end of its first season and the Sci-Fi Channel ordered a thirteen-episode weekly series ofGalactica, Moore leftCarnivàle to assume a full-time executive producer role onGalactica.
The weeklyGalactica 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 2005Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, the second that Moore has received during his career.[9] In 2007, Moore was nominated once again for anEmmy Award for writing the episodes "Occupation" and "Precipice," which aired together as the third season opener.[10]
In April 2006,Battlestar Galactica was among the winners of the 65th Annual Peabody Awards;[11] 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."[12]
Moore was quite vocal about the2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, as hisBattlestar Galactica series was one of the major flashpoints leading to the strike. Starting in August 2006, the Writers Guild ordered production to cease on theBattlestar 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 asLost andHeroes, one of the shows at the forefront of the debate over "new media" revenues, as the series was extensively downloaded fromiTunes and recoups much of its production costs from high DVD sales as opposed to direct ratings. It was also among the mosttime-shifted series on television, which theNielsen ratings system does not count.
Moore's directorial debut was scheduled to be the first episode ofBattlestar 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 ofBattlestar Galactica, work resumed and the show concluded on March 20, 2009.[13] 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,rondmoore.com, so that he could continue to freely comment on the situation without violating the terms of his membership in the Writers Guild.[citation needed] When the strike ended, Moore continued his commentary via his personal web site and blog.[citation needed]
With the success ofBattlestar Galactica, the Sci Fi Channel announced in April 2006 that Moore and Eick would be producing a spin-off calledCaprica with24 scriptwriterRemi Aubuchon andNBC Universal Television Studio. Moore later said in interviews that he and Eick had begun toying with the idea of a spin-off series as early as the beginning of the second season. The show was set 58 years before the events ofBattlestar Galactica and depicted the creation of theCylon race and the emergence of a terrorist group which apparently worships the same monotheistic god later worshipped by the Cylons.[14] TheCaprica series premiere was released on DVD in 2009 and began airing in January 2010. Moore contributed to the pilot made-for-TV movie, then handed off control to new head writerJane Espenson. Syfy canceled the show mid-run on October 27, 2010, before its first season had finished airing, citing low ratings. The remaining five episodes, of the twenty produced for season one, wereburned off in a marathon on January 4, 2011.
In April 2009, Moore, along with several otherBattlestar Galactica alumni, made a cameo appearance in theCSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "A Space Oddity."[15] The episode was directed byMichael Nankin (who directed a number of Galactica episodes), written byBradley Thompson andDavid Weddle (who both started their TV writing careers onDeep Space Nine, and worked as writer/producers onGalactica) and based on a story byNaren Shankar (who went to school with Moore and started his writing career onStar Trek: The Next Generation).[16] In the episode, Moore has one line of dialogue as he portrays an irate audience member at a science fiction convention, yelling at the (fictional) producer of a dark-and-gritty remake of a beloved cult series. Several of hisBattlestar Galactica colleagues includingGrace Park andRekha Sharma appear in non-speaking cameos, whileKate Vernon is a major guest star in the episode.
Moore also developed a pilot for Fox calledVirtuality.[17] It aired on June 26, 2009, and was not picked up.Virtuality was the first show developed under the banner of Moore's new personal production company, "Tall Ship Productions".[18]
Moore worked on the script for the companion/prequel film of the 1982John Carpenter film,The Thing.[19] His screenplay was scrapped late in 2009 and rewritten byEric Heisserer, writer of the 2010A Nightmare on Elm Street.The Thing began production in March 2010 and was released in October 2011.[20]
In March 2010, following the mixed reception of the first half ofCaprica's first season, SyFy channel approached Moore to produce anotherBattlestar Galactica spin-off.[21] The show was entitledBattlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, and was to feature a youngWilliam Adama's experiences in the First Cylon War. The series was originally designed as a series ofwebisodes, but with the cancellation ofCaprica,Blood & Chrome was slated to become a full television series without any direct involvement from Moore.[22]
In May 2010, Moore signed a two-year deal with Sony Pictures TV to create and executive produce series projects for broadcast and cable through his production company, Tall Ship Productions.[23] By late 2010 this resulted in two of Moore's pitches being purchased by major TV networks for potential development into pilot episodes. The first was a remake ofThe Wild Wild West purchased by CBS. The second was purchased by NBC and calledThe McCulloch, an action-adventure series about the crew of a US Coast Guard vessel as they travel the world, to be co-produced by NBC-Universal and Sony. But neither of these projects made it to the screen.[24]
In 2011, Moore was commissioned byLucasfilm'sRick McCallum to write scripts for aStar Warslive action TV series, which was being developed for ABC.[25]
Moore developed a series for NBC in 2011 which had been described as "Harry Potter for grown-ups," and it was confirmed on March 3, 2011, that the new show would be called17th Precinct.[26]Tricia Helfer,Jamie Bamber,[27] andJames Callis[26] had signed up for the new series[28][29] which would have centered around cops at the local 17th Precinct in the fictional city of Excelsior, with Moore writing the pilot.[30] On May 13, 2011, it was confirmed that NBC had decided not to pick up the series.
On August 30, 2011, it was announced that ABC bought Moore's pitch forHangtown, a Western drama series. The series was co-created by Ron D. Moore and formerCaprica writer Matt Roberts.Hangtown is described as "a Western with procedural elements" that takes place in a frontier town in the early 1900s grappling with the development of the railroad. The potential series would revolve around the town's old-fashioned veteran marshal who solves crimes by drawing on instinct and experience, who butt heads with the young new East Coast crime-solving doctor who relies on emerging forensics and rational inquiry. Added to the mix is a young female writer who has come to the west to write pulp stories about stereotyped "Wild West" crime, to send back to big city dime-novel publishers back East.[31] Tall Ship Productions announced on Twitter on October 18, 2011, thatJustin Lin had signed on to direct a potential pilot episode ofHangtown, in the event that ABC officially orders it.[32][31][33] In an interview withWire.com on September 29, 2012, Moore confirmed that hisThe Wild Wild West reboot for CBS andHangtown had been passed on.[34]
Moore had a cameo appearance in aBattlestar Galactica-themed sketch of the January 2012Portlandia episode entitled "One Moore Episode," where he plays an unknown actor who has never seenBattlestar Galactica. The episode also features a character named Ronald D. Moore who is mistaken for the TV producer.
On November 11, 2011, sci-fi news websiteio9.com ran an editorial about Moore, lamenting that "none of his post-BSG projects has really taken off. It's been a couple years since Moore's writing has appeared on our screens."[35]
In 2012, it was reported that a TV series adaptation ofA Knight's Tale was in development byAmerican Broadcasting Company, written by Moore.[36]
On January 16, 2013,Deadline announced that Moore would return to the SyFy Channel as executive producer[37] of a new seriesHelix. The project was "written on spec" by Cameron Porsandeh.Helix was described as being "about a team of scientists investigating a possible disease outbreak at an Arctic research facility who find themselves trying to protect the world from annihilation." SyFy Channel made a 13-episode direct-to-series order (i.e., without waiting to produce apilot episode), and it began airing on SyFy on January 10, 2014. While the marketing heavily billed Moore's involvement in the project, he only contributed as a consultant at the opening pitch meetings, and was not the creator or showrunner – thus his actual involvement in the project was very limited. The series was cancelled after two seasons due to record low ratings.[38]
In June 2012, io9.com reported that Moore had started developing aTV adaptation ofDiana Gabaldon'sOutlander book series.[39] On November 6, 2012,Deadline reported that the premium subscription channelStarz had closed a deal to produce and air the series.[40] The show began its first run on August 9, 2014, and was renewed for its second season which was based onDragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the eight-book series.[41] He was joined on the production by a fellowDeep Space Nine contributor,producerIra Steven Behr.
The second season, consisting of 13 episodes, premiered on April 9, 2016.[42] The 13-episode third season, based onVoyager, aired from September to December 2017. The 13-episode fourth season, based onDrums of Autumn, aired from November 2018 to January 2019. The fifth season of 12 episodes, based onThe Fiery Cross, aired from February to May 2020. The sixth season was based onA Breath of Snow and Ashes. A seventh season aired in 2023, with an eighth and final season commissioned.
On December 15, 2017, it was announced that Apple had given a straight-to-series order for a space drama entitledFor All Mankind created and written by Moore.[43]
In 2021, he signed a deal with Disney via 20th Television.[44] In 2024, before any shows finished production, he left Disney to return to Sony Pictures Television with an overall deal.[45] In October, he was hired as the new writer, showrunner, and as an executive producer for Sony'sGod of War adaptation forAmazon Prime Video, replacingMark Fergus,Hawk Ostby, andRafe Judkins due to a change in creative direction.[46]
Film writer
Television
| Year | Title | Writer | Executive Producer | Developer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989–1994 | Star Trek: The Next Generation | Yes | No | No | 27 episodes; Also script editor and producer |
| 1993–1999 | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | Yes | Co-Executive | No | 30 episodes |
| 1995–2001 | Star Trek: Voyager | Yes | Co-Executive | No | 2 episodes |
| 1999–2002 | Roswell | Yes | No | No | 10 episodes |
| 2003–2005 | Carnivàle | Yes | Yes | No | 3 episodes |
| 2003 | Battlestar Galactica | Yes | Yes | Yes | Miniseries |
| 2004 | Touching Evil | Yes | No | No | Episode "Justine" |
| 2004–2009 | Battlestar Galactica | Yes | Yes | Yes | 73 episodes |
| 2009 | Virtuality | Yes | Yes | No | TV movie |
| 2009–2010 | Caprica | Yes | Yes | Yes | 19 episodes |
| 2014–present | Outlander | Yes | Yes | Yes | 83 episodes |
| 2014–2015 | Helix | No | Yes | No | 26 episodes |
| 2017 | Electric Dreams | Yes | Yes | Yes | Episode "Real Life" |
| 2019–present | For All Mankind | Yes | Yes | Yes | 40 episodes |
Consulting producer
Actor
A belated, brilliantly re-imagined revival of a so-so 1970s outer-space saga, the series about imperiled survivors of a besieged planet has revitalized sci-fi television with its parallax considerations of politics, religion, sex, even what it means to be "human."
Writers Ronald D. Moore,Toni Graphia,David Weddle,Bradley Thompson,Carla Robinson,Jeff Vlaming,Michael Angeli, andDavid Eick take full advantage to give us plotlines that are deeply personal and relatable, while never compromising their affinity and passion for science fiction. Moore, Graphia, and Eick are the executive producers.
