Joe Menosky is a writer and producer who worked in those roles on four different Star Trek series.
Menosky started his Star Trek career as executive story editor during the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was promoted to co-producer for the fifth season. He worked as producer, supervising producer, and co-executive producer on Star Trek: Voyager, and as co-executive producer on the first seven episodes of Star Trek: Discovery.
During his time with the franchise, he moved to Europe for three years. There, he wrote and developed television pilots for studio Gaumont in France, while continuing to write scripts for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and then Star Trek: Voyager, on a freelance basis. When he came back to the United States, Menosky joined Star Trek: Voyager in its third season as a writer and producer. Menosky is probably best known as the writer who started inserting the number 47 into his scripts, a tradition carried on by Braga, Ronald D. Moore and others. He is also well known for writing "high-concept" scripts. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, 2nd ed., p. 295)
Menosky commented on the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters: "You can see right away they're not the perfectly engineered Humans of TNG. They seem more real. I don't know if that makes them as attractive to viewers or not. But they are really different, and they represent a different way to tell a story. And it was definitely a conscious choice to create that potential for conflict". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. ?)
In addition to Star Trek, Menosky sold a feature screenplay co-authored with Brannon Braga to director James Cameron called "Real Time".
Menosky had been a journalist before working in film and television. He used to be science editor and reporter for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Articles and essays of his have been re-printed numerous times in The Economist, The Washington Post, and MIT's Technology Review, among others.
He joined the writing staff of Michael Piller's The Dead Zone, starring Nicole de Boer and worked on the series as executive consultant until 2003. He also wrote the stories for three episodes in 2002 and 2003.
In 2016, Menosky started working on Star Trek: Discovery as writer and co-executive producer, but left the show for The Orville in 2018. For the latter series, Menosky wrote the episode "Sanctuary", which was directed by Jonathan Frakes and featured Marina Sirtis, F. Murray Abraham, Tony Todd, Victor Garber, Ron Canada, Regi Davis, and Josef Cannon.
Writing credits[]
- TNG:
- "Legacy" (Season 4)
- "Clues" (teleplay with Bruce D. Arthurs)
- "First Contact" (teleplay Dennis Russell Bailey, David Bischoff, Ronald D. Moore and Michael Piller)
- "The Nth Degree"
- "In Theory" (with Ronald D. Moore)
- Season 4 – Executive Story Editor (26 episodes)
- "Darmok" (teleplay, story with Philip LaZebnik) (Season 5)
- "Hero Worship" (teleplay)
- "Conundrum" (teleplay, uncredited)
- "Time's Arrow" (teleplay with Michael Piller, story)
- "Time's Arrow, Part II" (story) (Season 6)
- "The Chase" (teleplay, story with Ronald D. Moore)
- "Suspicions" (with Naren Shankar)
- "Interface" (Season 7)
- "Masks"
- "Emergence" (teleplay)
- DS9:
- "Dramatis Personae" (Season 1)
- "Rivals" (teleplay) (Season 2)
- "Distant Voices" (story) (Season 3)
- "Time's Orphan" (story) (Season 6)
- VOY:
- "Cathexis" (story with Brannon Braga) (Season 1)
- "The Thaw" (teleplay) (Season 2)
- "False Profits" (teleplay)
- "Remember" (story with Brannon Braga) (Season 3)
- "Future's End" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Future's End, Part II" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Alter Ego"
- "Darkling" (teleplay, story with Brannon Braga)
- "Distant Origin" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Scorpion" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Scorpion, Part II" (with Brannon Braga) (Season 4)
- "The Gift"
- "Year of Hell" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Year of Hell, Part II" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Concerning Flight" (teleplay, story with Jimmy Diggs)
- "The Killing Game" (with Brannon Braga)
- "The Killing Game, Part II" (with Brannon Braga)
- "Living Witness" (teleplay with Bryan Fuller and Brannon Braga)
- "Hope and Fear" (teleplay with Brannon Braga, story with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga)
- "Night" (with Brannon Braga) (Season 5)
- "Drone" (teleplay with Bryan Fuller and Brannon Braga)
- "Timeless" (teleplay with Brannon Braga, story with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga)
- "Latent Image" (teleplay, story with Eileen Connors and Brannon Braga)
- "The Fight" (teleplay)
- "Dark Frontier" (with Brannon Braga)
- "11:59" (teleplay, story with Brannon Braga)
- "Equinox" (teleplay with Brannon Braga, story with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga)
- "Equinox, Part II" (teleplay with Brannon Braga, story with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga) (Season 6)
- "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy" (teleplay)
- "Dragon's Teeth" (teleplay with Brannon Braga and Michael Taylor)
- "The Voyager Conspiracy"
- "Blink of an Eye" (teleplay with Scott Miller)
- "Good Shepherd" (teleplay with Dianna Gitto)
- "Muse"
- "Unimatrix Zero" (teleplay with Brannon Braga)
- "Unimatrix Zero, Part II" (teleplay with Brannon Braga, story with Michael Sussman and Brannon Taylor) (Season 7)
- DIS:
- "Lethe" (with Ted Sullivan)
Producing credits[]
- Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Redemption II" – "Time's Arrow") – Co-Producer
- Star Trek: Voyager ("The Chute" – "Hope and Fear") – Producer
- Star Trek: Voyager ("Night" – "Equinox") – Supervising Producer
- Star Trek: Voyager ("Equinox, Part II" – "Unimatrix Zero") – Co-Executive Producer
- Star Trek: Discovery ("The Vulcan Hello" – "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad") – Co-Executive Producer