Manuel Hector Coto (June 10, 1961 – July 9, 2023) was a Cuban-born American screenwriter, television and film director, and producer on various films and television programs.
Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of Star Trek: Enterprise in its final season, and executive producer of four seasons of 24. He was an executive producer and writer for the fifth season of the Showtime television series Dexter.
Career
Coto graduated from the American Film Institute and has experience in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. In 1990, Brian Helgeland and Coto sold a script, The Ticking Man, for $1 million, but the film was never made. He wrote and directed an episode of the animated Tales from the Cryptkeeper series and also wrote and produced an episode for The Outer Limits when it was revived on Showtime in 1995. He was given the chance to create and write a series for Showtime after The Outer Limits was cancelled. The resulting series was Odyssey 5 and starred Peter Weller (Coto would later cast Weller in roles on Enterprise, 24 and Dexter).
Coto joined the writing crew of Enterprise in 2003, when the show was in its third season; his episodes include "Similitude", "Chosen Realm" and "Azati Prime". He became a co-executive producer later that season. In the fourth season, he became executive producer of the show, alongside series creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. According to his bio on StarTrek.com, he was a fan of Star Trek all his life and once wrote a Star Trek comic book.
After that he became executive producer on the fifth, sixth, seventh and the eighth and final season of 24.
Coto married Robin Trickett on December 27, 2004, in Venice, Italy.
Coto died of pancreatic cancer on July 9, 2023, at the age of 62.