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, United States) 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.

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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 along with producer Maurice Hurley 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, following the departure of Maurice Hurley. 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).

During his tenure, Berman received criticism for his approach to dramatic musical scoring[1]. Ron Jones[2], a composer who worked under Berman, noted that "Ricky Berman always considered music an intrusion, a necessary evil. I now can relate to the poor composers that were brought up before Stalin for being too creative. They were made to apologize for thinking out of the Party line."[3] Expanding on this critique, Star Trek writer David Weddle noted that he believed that the "moribund aesthetics of Rick Berman" were the "constrictions that slowly strangled the franchise." [4]

He was initially involved in developing an eleventh Star Trek 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[5]. J. J. Abrams is directing the eleventh Star Trek feature film, which is scheduled for a 2009 release. As he is not involved in the film, and as no TV series is currently in production, Rick Berman has left Star Trek.

References

  1. ^ Soundtrack Express (1998). "Next Generarion Music".
  2. ^ Memory Alpha. "Ron Jones".
  3. ^ Star Trek Soundtracks (December 19, 2002). "Ron Jones Interview".
  4. ^ Chicago Tribune (April 2005). "David Weddle interview".
  5. ^ Michael Hinman (April 12, 2006). "Star Trek XI Is Down, But It Is Not Out". SyFy Portal. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.

See also

External links







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