Twilight Zone Star Trek and New Sci-Fi From Marc Scott Zicree

Marc Scott Zicree has spent decades thinking about science fiction. Where it’s been, where it’s going, and how you actually get it made.

For generations of fans, Marc is perhaps best known as the author of The Twilight Zone Companion, the landmark guide to Rod Serling’s classic series that helped establish serious episode-by-episode scholarship about The Twilight Zone.

But Marc is also a veteran television writer whose credits stretch across genre television, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he originated the story for “First Contact,” and Deep Space Nine, where he wrote the story for the acclaimed “Far Beyond the Stars.”

In recent years, Marc has put that experience into building his own science-fiction universe with Space Command, creating and producing ambitious independent productions such as Space Command: Redemption and Space Command: Forgiveness outside the traditional studio system.

And now he’s taking that idea even further with a new Kickstarter campaign for The Showrunners Network - a creator-led effort designed to produce original science-fiction television and films independently of the major studios and networks.

The campaign is built around six original stories, bringing experienced filmmakers and actors together with the goal of proving that ambitious genre entertainment can reach audiences through a very different production model.

So we’re going to talk about the lessons Marc learned from The Twilight Zone, his years writing television and Star Trek, the long road of making Space Command, and whether independent, fan-supported production might offer a real alternative for creating the next generation of science-fiction.