Fred Frieberger, producer of the original Star Trek during its third and final season, passed away this past Sunday. He was 88.
Trek fans of the old-school stripe tend to blame Frieberger for the third season’s failures but give him none of the credit for its successes. I find this behavior both unfortunate and deplorable. Were it not for Frieberger, had he not taken the reins of production, episodes such as “The Enterprise Incident” or “The Tholian Web” might never have happened. At the same time, episodes such as “Spock’s Brain” and “Requiem for a Martian” were produced under his watch, episodes that plumbed the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality and storytelling. But the proportion of failures to successes that third season was no different than in previous seasons, and Frieberger deserves to be just as lauded for those third season successes as Roddenberry was for the first and second seasons’.
Thank you, Fred Frieberger. Were it not for “The Tholian Web” I doubt I would be the person I am today.