American writer and producer who led The Next Generation's writing staff from its third season and co-created Deep Space Nine and Voyager.
Michael Piller, an American television writer and producer, joined Star Trek: The Next Generation at the start of its third season after co-writing the episode Evolution. As head writer and later executive producer, he stabilized a writing room that had churned through staff in the first two years and opened the series to unsolicited scripts from outside writers, a policy that launched several later Trek careers.
Piller wrote or co-wrote many of the series' best-known episodes, including both parts of The Best of Both Worlds, which turned Picard's assimilation by the Borg into one of television's most famous cliffhangers, and the Unification two-parter featuring Leonard Nimoy's Spock.
He co-created Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with Rick Berman and co-wrote its pilot Emissary, then co-created Star Trek: Voyager with Berman and Jeri Taylor. He wrote the screenplay for Star Trek: Insurrection and later co-created The Dead Zone television series. Piller died in 2005.