The Piller Effect

A great showrunner can make all the difference on a TV series. Carlton Cuse, Chris Cantwell, Dave Filoni, and well, Ronald D. Moore (spoilers for later, I guess), are all names that come to mind when I think about head writers who do an amazing job of keeping great shows on track and can make them transcendent. For me, Michael Piller belongs on that list.

Ugly bag of mostly water

Piller joined the writing staff of The Next Generation at the start of season three on a one year contract. His first episode is the S3 premiere, "Evolution." Besides being the first episode to feature the "better" looking TNG uniforms, there was a noticeable jump in the quality of the writing. It was as if Piller showed up and said, "I'm going to write one of the best episodes of this show so far, and to prove how great I am, I'm going to make it a Wesley episode." Five episodes in, he was promoted to showrunner, encouraging the staff to find ways for characters to change and grow. Season 3 would go on to feature some all-timers regardless of which series you're watching, and the coup de grace would be the finale, "Best of Both Worlds Part One." 

BoBW could've been a hell of a mic drop, but Gene Roddenberry himself would ask Piller to come back for the fourth season before he himself would retire. After this, Piller's influence over the show would grow, and he'd develop Deep Space Nine and Voyager, plus write a couple of the movies. 

Now think back to where TNG was after season two: good, but still not great. After a janky first season and a second season partly marred by a writers' strike, the show was most likely going to continue for another year or two, but it just took one guy joining the team to turn things around and put the show on the right track. All these years later, people still watch these shows, talk about them, and write dumb blog posts. I wish Mike was still around to see where Trek is going these days. I think he'd get a real kick out of Lower Decks.