James Duff (born 3 September 1955; age 69) is an American writer and producer who worked as executive producer on the final eight episodes of Star Trek: Discovery's second season and the first season of Star Trek: Picard.
Earlier in his career, Duff wrote the Star Trek: Enterprise first season episode "Fortunate Son". He also co-wrote two episodes of Picard as part of his development deal with CBS Studios, and wrote the story for an episode of Discovery.
Duff was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and has written plays and television screenplays for films such as the television drama Doing Time on Maple Drive (1992, starring James B. Sikking and Bibi Besch), the television movie Without a Kiss Goodbye (1993, with Gwynyth Walsh and David Ogden Stiers), the drama Betrayed: A Story of Three Women (1995), as well as for several television series, including Popular, The Agency, J.J. Abrams' Felicity (2001), and The D.A. (2004), for which he also served as executive producer.
In addition he served as producer/ executive producer for the television movies Long Island Fever (1995, with Bill Smitrovich) and Texas Graces (1996), and The War at Home (1996, with Geoffrey Blake). Duff received an Emmy Award nomination in 1992 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Miniseries or a Special for his screenplay for Doing Time on Maple Drive.
Since 2005 he served as executive producer and writer on The Closer, which he also created. Star Trek performers Gina Ravarra and Raymond Cruz are regulars on this show and James Avery, Jonathan Del Arco, and Robert Clendenin recurring guest stars. In 2007 he received an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination with fellow writer Mike Berchem for Best Television Episode Teleplay for the episode Blue Blood, which featured James Black and Spike Silver. He also directed one episode, the third season episode Next of Kin: Part 2 in 2007.
Writing credits[]
- ENT:
- PIC:
- "Remembrance" (teleplay with Akiva Goldsman; story with Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman)
- "The End is the Beginning" (with Michael Chabon)
- DIS:
- "Die Trying" (story with Sean Cochran)