Kerry McCluggage (born 29 November 1954; age 69) is an American television entrepreneur who was president and chairman of Paramount Television for more than ten years, starting in 1991. During his tenure, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise all entered production. He was also a co-founder of UPN, alongside Lucie Salhany among others.
Many Star Trek actors and production staff have credited McCluggage with being a strong supporter of the franchise during his time at Paramount. [1]
During production of "Caretaker", McCluggage voiced concerns to Rick Berman about leaving open the possibility of Voyager returning from the Delta Quadrant, should the need arise. This culminated in the plot point about the Caretaker having had a partner who had left him. Berman remembered, "Frankly we made a concession to finally finish the sales job... we put the one-armed man out there – which is the other entity that we met in the pilot." The existence of the missing Caretaker's partner was conceived as a viable "out," meant as potentially a convenient method of returning USS Voyager's crew home, if viewer response indicated the series had to make a fundamental shift in its premise and setting. (Star Trek: Voyager - A Vision of the Future, pp. 191-192)
Before the launch of Enterprise, Scott Bakula waited until after he, McCluggage, and Garry Hart had read the script of series pilot "Broken Bow" before Bakula accepted the role of Jonathan Archer. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 9, p. 12)
In 2005, McCluggage was an alleged collaborator with Rick Berman, Jordan Kerner, and Erik Jendresen in developing Star Trek: The Beginning.
As former executive franchise protector, McCluggage was interviewed by former Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr for his 2018 documentary, What We Left Behind.