TVSquad

Sometimes TV writers and producers aren't well known to fans by name. But this one was.

Larry Hertzog was actually one of the more well-known producers and writers on television. Besides creating and producing the cult favorite Nowhere Man, Hertzog also worked on many other shows over the past 30 years, including Stingray, Painkiller Jane, Seaquest DSV, Raven, Hardcastle and McCormick, Mrs. Columbo, 1-800-MISSING, Hunter, Profiler, La Femme Nikita, Hart to Hart, Missing, Walker, Texas Ranger, and many others. He also wrote an episode of 24, and creator Joel Surnow even named a character "Larry Hertzog" in honor of him.

Recently, Hertzog hosted a podcast with a friend called Drinks with Larry and Lauren. You can still listen to the many podcasts in the archive. He also kept a blog at that site but it hasn't been updated since 2007.

Hertzog died of cancer at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles last Saturday. He was 56.

[Thank you to Noam for letting us know about Larry.]

The Nowhere Man himself has joined the big-screen Star Trek movie.

Bruce Greenwood will play Christopher Pike, the eventually-wheelchair bound first captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.* You might remember the character of Captain Pike from the original pilot of Star Trek (before William Shatner joined the show), and then the two-part episode made from the original pilot, "The Menagerie." By that time, Pike was in a wheelchair, trapped on some planet led by aliens with giant heads. Jeffrey Hunter played him on the TV show.

UPN ended its broadcasting this past Friday. Now we'll have to get used to the new CW network and that awful logo.

More often than not, UPN had some terrible shows on the air (Homeboys in Outer Space, The Bad Girl's Guide, Shasta McNasty, Hitz, The Love Boat remake), but it also happened to have some gems in there (and, no, I'm not talking about either Star Trek: Voyager or Enterrprise). Here are five great UPN shows that we can all sit back and reminisce about.

1. Nowhere Man: Bruce Greenwood as a famed photographer who goes into the men's room of a restaurant one night, and when he comes out his wife claims not to know him, his credit cards no longer work, and people are trying to get him. This was a clever, moody show, sort of like The Fugitive (the great 60s show, not the terrible Harrison Ford flick), only with a conspiracy behind it. You can get the complete series on DVD.