It is with a heavy heart that I must report the passing of Manuel "Manny" Hector Coto at the age of 62 after a 13-month long battle with pancreatic cancer. He passed away at home surrounded by his loved ones. Coto was born on June 10th 1961 in Havana, fleeing with his mother to Orlando, Florida.

Trek Central broke the news of Coto's passing yesterday 11:54pm BST (British Summer Time).

Manny Coto is best remembered for his work on the later series of Star Trek Enterprise after the show had been plagued with production issues and fan backlash over the direction the show was taking. He was initially brought in during the shows third season and wrote several episodes.

Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were both impressed with his work and his love of the original Star Trek tv series so much so that he was made the executive producer of Enterprises' fourth (and sadly) final season. At the time Coto took over as producer for the show, Star Trek was in a major rut with the failure of Star Trek Nemesis at the box office in 2002, fan backlash calling the removal of the senior production team which led Paramount to cancel the show after the fourth season aired.

Coto's influence on Enterprise resonated with fans, with many episodes of the fourth season being two- or three-part arcs exploring many different aspects of the Star Trek mythos, including what happened to the Augments produced during the Eugenics Wars and why the Vulcans were portrayed so differently from their Original Series counterparts.

Manny Coto as an unnamed Vice Admiral

Manny's direction of the show also led to cleverly written explanations for why the Klingons had no head ridges during the original series after a failed experiment to create their own Augments. The fourth season of the show was received well by fans and critics alike, Coto was praised for 'setting the course straight' with Enterprise.

Sadly Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled before it was greenlit for a fifth season which is reported to have featured the NX Class refit and explored the Earth-Romulan war in the latter half of the 22nd century. Coto is cited as saying that working on Star Trek Enterprise was one of the high points of his life.

Thank you Manny for the passion you brought to our beloved franchise, rest in peace.


Did you enjoy Star Trek Enterprise after Coto took over? Let us know below.

WRITTEN & EDITED BY Solace
IMAGES SOURCED FROM Trekbrasilis.org - bjornmunson.com - Trekmovie.com