Sad news for 'Star Trek' fans
Only real geeks would have any idea who Michael Piller is. Along with Rick Berman, he became an executive producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and later, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. He was not involved with Enterprise.
Michael Piller died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 57. Many Star Trek fans liked Piller better than Rick Berman, whom they felt didn't exactly understand the Star Trek universe (at least I know that Larry Garfield of E Pluribus Forum has nothing but hate in his heart for Rick Berman). When Rick Berman became more involved in the creation of Star Trek: Voyager, Piller took over operations at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, keeping the series in its Dominion War plot arc, but making the stories more humanistic. Piller, I feel, is responsible for making the writing on Deep Space Nine the best of any Star Trek series.
Comments
Sad news, Mark. I have to correct you on a few points, though.
1) I actually didn't like the Dominion War arc, particularly later on. That wasn't humanist, it was "I wanna be cool like Babylon 5". And it failed miserably, whoever was responsible for it.
2) EPF was stillborn. :-( Neither of my co-conspirators ever got back to me on it, so it's now dead and the site isn't even there anymore. However, I do have my own technology-focused blog now, which is linked from my name in this comment. :-)
3) Yes, Rick Berman represents all that is wrong with Hollywood today and should burn in the deepest pits of hell for what he did with Star Trek. :-)
Posted by: Larry Garfield | November 5, 2005 12:16 AM