John D. F. Black

Who is John D. F. Black?

John D. F. Black is a scriptwriter, TV producer, and TV director. He is best known for his work on the TV series Star Trek in 1966, and its sequel series, Star Trek: The Next Generation during the 1980s.

Black was the associate producer for ten episodes of Star Trek made during the program's first season, all of which were broadcast from September 8, 1966, through December 15, 1966. Black also wrote the teleplay for and was the associate producer of one of the outstanding early episodes of Star Trek—The Naked Time. During the 1980s, Black was also given credit for the story for sequel episode, The Naked Now, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Black also received story-writing credit for one more episode in this series, Justice, under his pseudonym of "Ralph Wills".

Black also wrote for many other TV series, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Charlie's Angels, Hawaii Five-O, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, and Mannix.

In work for motion pictures, Black co-wrote the movie adaptation of Shaft, along with his co-writer, Ernest Tidyman, who had written the original novel of Shaft.