Profile of Michael Piller on Famous Like Me

Michael Piller (born May 30, 1948) is an American television and cinema screenwriter.

Michael Piller was born in Port Chester, New York, United States. Michael went to school in New York before taking a creative writing course. The professor for this course told everyone, "There are enough bad writers out there. There needn't be anymore". Michael recalls that the professor would rip up his writing and he would be so broken-hearted. This professor eventually chased him into journalism where Michael won two Emmy Awards for his work as a news producer.

Michael went back to New York for a few years before seeing a "Chorus Line" show and deciding to pursue his writing career. He originally came back to Los Angeles, California as a censor for CBS in the late 1970s. He eventually started writing spec scripts for such TV series as Simon & Simon and Cagney & Lacey before landing a role as a producer on Simon & Simon.

He worked his way through the producer ranks and jumped from series to series before being called in by long-time friend Maurice Hurley who was, at the time, writing and producing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael wrote a few episodes for season three (1989-1990) before becoming a full-fledged executive producer. Instead of the old science fiction formula which worked on the original series, he made Star Trek: The Next Generation more about the characters and less about the cool gadgets of the future.

In 1992, Piller and Rick Berman (who was also executive producer) decided to create a new series based in the Star Trek Universe. Thus, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) was created. Piller oversaw the writing, casting and budget for two seasons before Paramount called him in again to create a new series after production of Star Trek: The Next Generation ended in 1994. Star Trek: Voyager debuted in 1995 as the flagship for the new United Paramount Network (UPN) and ran for seven years.

Piller withdrew from day to day production to a creative consultant role on Deep Space Nine and Voyager in 1996 after seven years of working in the Star Trek franchise.

He created the ill-fated but critically-acclaimed western for UPN called, Legend (1995) starring Richard Dean Anderson and John de Lancie. In 1996, Piller successfully sold his first feature film script called Oversight. The script set in a congressional sub-committee, is about the passing of control ... from one generation to the next set, inspired by Piller's relationship with his son Shawn Piller.

In 1993, Piller was approached to write one of two prospective scripts for the first Next Generation feature film, with the other written by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga. He declined. In 1997 he was approached again to write a Next Generation feature film, collaborating with Rick Berman to write Star Trek: Insurrection.

In 2001, Piller was approached by Paramount to develop a television series from Stephen King's novel The Dead Zone. The series The Dead Zone debuted June 16, 2002 on the USA Network. As of 2005 the fifth series of Dead Zone is currently in production.

In 2004, Piller was yet again contracted to develop another series, this time for the ABC Family network. He and his son, Shawn, developed "Wildfire" a series about a horse ranch in California, which reunited Piller with his former DS9 star Nana Visitor. The series debuted on the network on July, 2005 and set record highs for the network's ratings.

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