Jeri Taylor, Co-Creator of Star Trek: Voyager, Dies at 86

Star Trek has had a number of prominent creative voices over its 58-year run and across its various TV shows. Earlier this week, one of those voices—Jeri Taylor, an executive producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation and a co-creator of its eventual successor Star Trek: Voyager—passed away at 86 years old.

Born June 30, 1938, Taylor got her start in TV writing scripts for Little House on the Prairie and The Incredible Hulk, and would later produce and direct episodes of Quincy, M.E. and Jake and the Fatman. Lee Sheldon, who she’d worked with on the former, recommended her to the Next Generation producers, and she joined the show as a supervising producer on season four. During her time on the show, she was promoted to executive producer, became showrunner for the final season and penned several episodes, including Wesley Crusher’s (Wil Wheaton) final appearance as a series regular, and “The Wounded,” the first Star Trek episode to feature the Cardassians, who would become a major faction in ’90s Star Trek in Deep Space Nine.

Taylor later worked with her fellow Next Generation co-EPs Rick Berman and Michael Piller to develop Star Trek: Voyager, and helped bring Next Generation production staff over to the new show. In addition to being an executive producer for the first four seasons, she became showrunner for seasons three and four before retiring, though still acted as a consultant for her successor Brannon Braga. But before that point, she also wrote a trio of Trek novels: a novelization of her Next Generation episode “Unification,” the 1996 Voyager prequel Mosaic, and 1998’s Pathways, and the events of both have been referenced in Nickelodeon’s Star Trek: Prodigy.

Several Star Trek have eulogized Taylor on social media. Braga called her “a great writer and showrunner and to me, a cherished mentor. I would not have a career without Jeri’s intricate guidance. Her memory will live on in many ways, but perhaps most of all in the character of Captain Janeway, who reflected the best dimensions of Jeri herself.” Prodigy EP/co-head writer Aaron J. Waltke attributed his career to the scripts she’d donated to Indiana University Lilly Library, saying “I learned to write studying her. I wouldn’t be here without her. Thank you, Jeri. For everything.”

David Zappone, a film producer behind several Star Trek documentaries, said Taylor will be a “major part” of an upcoming documentary focused on Voyager, and that her accomplishments and contributions to the franchise”will never be forgotten.”

[via TrekCore]

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