Rick Berman

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For the lobbyist, see Richard Berman.

Richard Keith "Rick" Berman (born December 25, 1945 in New York, New York, U.S.) is an American television producer. He is most famous for his work as the executive producer of the Star Trek series from Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards and essentially succeeded Gene Roddenberry as the head of the franchise, until the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005.

1 Work in television
2 Work in Star Trek
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

Work in television

Berman graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967 with a B.A. in speech. From 1977 to 1982, he was the senior producer of The Big Blue Marble for PBS. His work won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Series. Between 1982 and 1984 he was an independent producer. He worked on various projects, including What on Earth, an informational series for HBO, and The Primal Mind, a one-hour award-winning special for PBS.

In 1984, Berman moved from New York City to Los Angeles, where he joined Paramount as director of current programming. He oversaw such popular shows as Cheers and MacGyver.

Work in Star Trek

In 1987, Berman was selected by Gene Roddenberry to help him create Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Initially, he had supervising producer duties shared with Robert H. Justman. After Justman changed to consulting producer duties, Berman was promoted to co-executive producer. As Roddenberry's health declined, Berman took over more and more of the daily production of the show, and was promoted to executive producer in its third season. Berman wrote the 4th season episode, Brothers, and the 5th season episode, A Matter of Time. In its final year, The Next Generation became the first ever syndicated television show to be nominated for the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series.

Berman went on to executive produce and co-create Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) with Michael Piller, Star Trek: Voyager with Piller and Jeri Taylor, and Star Trek: Enterprise with Brannon Braga. He is also responsible for the production and receives a story credit on the four TNG movies: Generations (1994), First Contact (1996), Insurrection (1998), and Nemesis (2002).

He was initially involved in developing a Star Trek XI movie based on a script written by Erik Jendresen, however when Gail Berman (no relation) took over as president of Paramount Pictures, Jendresen's script was shelved^[1]. J. J. Abrams is now part of a team developing what is to be Star Trek XI. With J.J. Abrams now taking over Star Trek on the big screen and no TV series in production, Rick Berman has reportedly left Star Trek.