Fred Freiberger (February 19, 1915 – March 2, 2003^[1]) was an American film and television screenwriter and television producer, with a career spanning four decades including The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Star Trek, and Space: 1999. He appeared as himself in the short documentary Funny Old Guys,^[2] which appeared on the HBO series Still Kicking, Still Laughing in the summer of 2003, several months after his death.

Freiberger is most widely known for his work as producer of the third and final season of science fiction series Star Trek from 1968–1969.

Early life and career[link]

In the late 1930s Freiberger worked as an advertising man in New York. During World War II, he was stationed in England with the U.S. 8th Air Force, was shot down over Germany and spent two years as a prisoner of war. After the war he moved to Hollywood with the intention of working in film publicity, but a studio strike led him into script writing.^[3] He was associated with Buddy Rogers' Comet Productions and Ralph Cohn of Columbia Pictures.^[4] He was one of the four credited writers on The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).^[5] His film writing credits include 13 motion pictures between 1946 and 1958.

Television career[link]

From 1958 forward he worked extensively and almost exclusively in television. In 1960, he became producer of the popular medical drama, Ben Casey, which was followed by a stint as producer of The Wild Wild West during its first season in 1965-66. In 1968 Freiberger was hired as producer for the third and final season of Star Trek. Freiberger went on to write episodes for a number of popular early-1970s TV series, such as All in the Family, Emergency!, Starsky and Hutch, and Ironside. He even worked as a story editor at Hanna-Barbera on TV series such as The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Super Friends. Freiberger then moved on to produce the final season of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1977-78 and the short-lived Beyond Westworld in 1980. At end of his career he wrote six episodes of the 1980s syndicated series, Superboy.

[edit] Producing Star Trek

Freiberger had been interviewed as a possible producer for Star Trek prior to its first production year in 1966, but owing to a planned trip, bowed out of consideration. In 1968, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, as a result of differences with NBC, stepped down as showrunner for Star Trek, and Freiberger was again contacted and hired as producer for its third season. He was saddled with a reduced budget^[6] that made the show more difficult to produce, and a new so-called Friday night death slot which resulted in a decline in ratings for the already low-rated show. Many Star Trek fans have criticised Freiberger for being the cause of this decline but Nichelle Nichols has come out in his defense. As Nichols writes, the result of NBC's severe budget cutbacks to the third season of Star Trek, in an environment of rising production costs and escalating actor's salaries, meant that:

[edit] Producing Space: 1999

On December 15, 1975 he was confirmed both to manage the scripts and to produce the second series of Gerry Anderson's British-made science fiction TV show Space: 1999, and hired in part to make the series more appealing to the American market. To that end Freiberger reworked the show with cast and character changes, a greater emphasis on action and drama, and even ensured that signage on the show used American English spellings.^[4]

Freiberger himself wrote three episodes for Space: 1999 under the pseudonym "Charles Woodgrove" as he had done when writing episodes of the Western series Rawhide.

Negative reputation in science fiction fandom[link]

Freiberger has a dubious reputation in science fiction fandom, mostly due to his involvement in the final seasons of Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man and Space: 1999, all of which were cancelled on his watch. This has led to Freiberger being given the nickname "The Series Killer" in some circles,^[8] although he was also involved in the establishment of several other series that lasted for several seasons, such as Wild Wild West and Superboy. Both Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner refused to assign any blame to Freiberger for the inferior third season of Star Trek.^[9][10] In fact, Freiberger was a person who was repeatedly called in to "save" already-failing TV series like Star Trek and Space: 1999—and tended to give them make-overs in an attempt to do so.^{[citation needed]} However, others point out that Freiberger's involvement was sometimes instrumental in getting otherwise cancelled shows picked up for another season.^[11] Freiberger himself took some credit for getting Space: 1999 picked up for a second series because he excited the backers with his proposed changes and a new character.^[3]

References[link]

For the defunct avant-garde metal band from Kristiansand, Norway, see In the Woods...

In the Woods
Cover of In The Woods
Author(s)	Tana French
Country	Ireland
Language	English
Series	Dublin Murder Squad
Genre(s)	Mystery
Publisher	Viking Adult
Publication date	30 January 2007
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	496
ISBN	978-0-670-03860-2
OCLC Number	191864570
Dewey Decimal	823/.92 22
LC Classification	PR6106.R457 I52 2007
Followed by	The Likeness: A Novel

In the Woods is a 2007 mystery novel by Tana French about a pair of Irish detectives and their investigation of the murder of a twelve year old girl. The novel won several awards such as the 2008 Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author,^[1] the 2008 Barry Award for Best First Novel,^[2] the 2008 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel,^[3] and the 2008 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.^[4]

Plot[link]

Twenty years prior to the novel's events, twelve year-old Adam and his two best friends failed to come home after playing in the familiar woods bordering their Irish housing estate. A search is called by the families, and the police find Adam shivering, clawing the bark of a nearby tree, blood on his shoes and slash marks on his back. He is unable to tell them what happened or where his friends are. His amnesia holds to the present day, where he goes by his middle name, Rob, to avoid the attention of the media to his famous case. His friends were never found.

The plot of the novel circles around the murder of a twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, whose case Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are given to investigate. The body is found in the same woods where Rob’s friends disappeared, at an archeological dig site, and the coincidence is enough to make Rob nervous, though he insists to his partner that he is fine.

Cassie and Rob have been partners for a few years and get along famously, teasing one another and completing one another’s thoughts. There are many rumors at the station that they are romantically involved, though both of them scoff at the idea, despite the fact that they live almost like a married couple, spending a lot of time at Cassie’s cooking dinner for one another, drinking wine, and having Rob crash on Cassie’s couch across the room.

Katy’s murder takes the pair along many lines of investigation. Her death might be related to her father’s protests against the new highway meant to go straight through the dig site, or one of the students on the dig might have attacked her. She might have been abused by her father or someone else (her mother, twin sister, or older sister) in the family. She might have been previously poisoned over time. Or it might be related to the disappearance of Rob’s friends, as a hair clip that one of his friends was wearing that day appeared near the crime scene.

These possibilities are investigated, but the detectives come up frustratingly empty-handed at every turn. The case messes with Rob’s psyche as he tries to remember details about the two previous disappearances in case it would help. He tries spending the night in the woods, but freaks out and calls Cassie to pick him up. He’s afraid to sleep again, thinking that he’ll just have nightmares, so Cassie allows him into her bed. Things escalate from there and they end up having sex.

Rob feels immensely awkward after and can’t go back to their normal jokey-insult ways, but also feels that he can’t start a relationship with her. Their partnership deteriorates just as they start to uncover new leads in the case and they are unable to discuss the case and get along the way they used to.

Rob goes back to the dig site alone, where all the students are frantically digging before the site is shut down for the construction of the highway. He comes to a realization and calls in the forensics team again, who discover the location of the murder in a shed to which only three people have the key. After some heavy interrogation, one of the suspects confesses, though his motive is far from clear.

It becomes clearer when the suspect contends that he had been dating Katy’s older sister, Rosalind. When questioned by Cassie, she denies it and any involvement in Katy’s death, but also makes a comment that Cassie is obviously sleeping with Rob. Cassie takes it in stride, but after the interrogation, she has an idea of how to get a confession out of Rosalind: Go to her and admit sleeping with Rob and promise to keep her updated on the case if she promises not to tell.

Rosalind’s psychopathic tendencies get the better of her, and once she knows that she has Cassie in her debt, she brags about the whole thing and how she got the murderer to come up with the idea by telling him that all three girls were being sexually abused by their father, but that Katy liked it and was therefore their father’s favorite. Rosalind also told him that Katy told their father lies to make him beat them and would watch and laugh, that if Katy was gone, then they would be happy. She also admitted to Cassie that Katy was strong-willed and wouldn’t always do as Rosalind told her, so she had poisoned her to make her sick. After this confession, recorded on a wire, Cassie arrests her and takes her in, but because Rosalind was a few months from turning 18 (though she had told Rob previously that she was already 18), the confession is invalid. She is released with a smug smile.

The Police Captain has learned that Rob is actually Adam Ryan and confines him to desk work. He never goes back to Detective work. Cassie starts dating someone else and gets engaged. Rob is heartbroken and calls her, but it’s too late. He goes to the dig site to see the highway construction has begun, and thinks that he’ll never regain his lost memories of that night.

Reception[link]

Thomas Gaughan of Booklist gave In the Woods a starred review and hailed it as “…a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland. The characters of Ryan and Maddox, as well as a handful of others, are vividly developed… Equally striking is the picture of contemporary Ireland, booming economically and fixated on the shabbiest aspects of American popular culture. An outstanding debut and a series to watch for procedural fans.” ^[5] Publishers Weekly praised author French, saying she “… expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut” and that “Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma.” ^[5] Kirkus Reviews said of the novel, “When not lengthily bogged down in angst, a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist. It’s ultimately the confession of a damaged man.” ^[6]

Awards and nominations[link]

• Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author, 2008^[1]
• Barry Award for Best First Novel, 2008^[2]
• Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel, 2008^[3]
• Anthony Award for Best First Novel, 2008^[4]

References[link]