Jeri Taylor

Jeri Taylor (born June 30, 1938) is a television scriptwriter and producer, who wrote many episodes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager series. Early life She is an alumna of Indiana University, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She also received her M.A. in English from California State University, Northridge, in 1966. Star Trek screenwriting Taylor wrote scripts for television series like Little House on the Prairie and The Incredible Hulk, then served as a producer and director on Quincy, M.E. and Jake and the Fatman. While working on Jake and the Fatman, Taylor and her producer partner David Moessinger hired J. Michael Straczynski (who would later go on to create Babylon 5) as an executive story consultant, giving him his first experience working on an hour-long show. Taylor was recommended to the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Lee Sheldon, with whom she had worked on Quincy. Taylor joined The Next Generation staff at the beginning of the fourth season as a supervising producer, co-writing the second episode to go into production, "Suddenly Human". After two years, Taylor became co-executive producer with Rick Berman and Michael Piller and served as executive producer/showrunner for the (final) seventh season of The Next Generation. During this time, she received credit on a number of episodes, including Wil Wheaton's final episode as a regular character, "Final Mission"; the episode that introduced the Cardassian race, which featured heavily in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "The Wounded";, the first of a two part episode featuring Spock, "Unification", and the script she has said she is most proud of, "The Drumhead".