One of Gene Roddenberry’s most redoubtable storytellers from the original Star Trek series has died. Dorothy Catherine “D.C.” Fontana was a supremely talented screenwriter whose career spanned decades and included Bonanza, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Waltons, Kung Fu, Land of the Lost, The Streets of San Francisco, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and more.

As a writer and a Trekkie, I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet Ms. Fontana. She was a master of her craft and someone I consider a personal influence.