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The crew of the Land of the Lost (1974-1976) had a large number of writers:

Land of the Lost writers

In fact, there were almost as many writers as all the other crew members combined. Is this normal? Why would the series have so many different writers?

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  • Dammit, now I'm going to have that theme song in my ear all day.....
    – PoloHoleSet
    Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 21:55
  • Perhaps some got lost.
    – iMerchant
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 13:29

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This is/was entirely normal.

It's likely that the writers were only responsible for writing perhaps a single episode or two...or perhaps just consulted on script/story re-writes.

See the same list on IMDB

enter image description here

Individual writers would often pitch or be contracted for a single episode. If you are a SF reader you'll recognise many of the names on the list of contributors.

...the same was true of Star Trek-TOS

Recall that these episodes are usually written for a weekly broadcast and were pushed out at a remarkable rate and number. It just makes sense that you field the largest "team" possible.

Single episode writers wouldn't have been "on-staff"...they would have been contracted. There would have been a core of staff writers who would take the submitted scripts and fit them into the show format.

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    Ok, but what is the rationale? Why not just simplify things by having a small number of writers that focus on the show?
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 18:47
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    Because you take ideas from anywhere and fit them into the show format. Added more to the answer.
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 18:51
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    DC Fontana and Walter Koenig were both involved with Star Trek, in fact. Probably more, but I recognize those 2 right off the bat. Koenig wrote and played Checkov, of course.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Nov 16, 2017 at 19:10
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    @JohnnyBones David Gerrold wrote The Trouble with Tribbles. Norman Spinrad: The Doomsday Machine. Larry Niven wrote an episode of the animated Star Trek series... and that's just off the top of my head.
    – James McLeod
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 0:31
  • Also Sturgeon was a noted sci-fi writer too, and he held the rights to a character he created for an episode for example that caused an issue later on when ST: Ent was being written. Iirc he contributed to at least two stories, and was known as a bit of a slow writer
    – blobbymcblobby
    Commented Feb 12 at 17:18

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