RIP Michael Piller (1948-2005)

This morning, I awoke to very sad news that television and movie producer Michael Piller has passed away, after losing his battle with cancer. He was just 57 years old.

His legacy includes :

He is credited as the major reason that Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek saga florished on TV in the 90's, when he took over the topsy-turvy "Writer's Room" of Star Trek-TNG in season 3 (hands down the series most creative year), and steadied its course. He brought on talented writers Ronald D. Moore, Ira Steven Behr and wrote the show's most popular episodes, the 2-parter The Best Of Both Worlds.

He also co-created the underrated spin-off Deep Space Nine and helped keep the saga's third series, Voyager afloat during its run, despite concept issues galore. He would go on to write Star Trek: Insurrection, the ninth Trek feature film. After leaving Trek behind, he helped to create (along with his son Shawn) the successful cable TV series, The Dead Zone, based on a Stephen King novel of the same name, that was also turned into a 1983 film as well.

Piller was a very talented writer/producer who will be missed very much...More on Piller can be found here.