Star Trek’s Best Story Only Exists Because Of Pizza

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 15 seconds ago

In every way that counts, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was ahead of the curve. In a time of strictly episodic adventures, it introduced ongoing stories to the franchise that, years later, made it Trek’s most bingeable show. The series tested the boundaries of network TV with same-sex romances and queer-coded character relationships. The show even went against the grain of Trek’s peacenik roots with a showstopping Dominion War arc that left audiences on the edge of their seats from beginning to end.

Deep Space Nine is, without a doubt, Star Trek’s greatest show, and it is filled with some of the greatest episodes in television history. But to hear showrunner Ira Steven Behr tell it, the show’s absolute best story is one that happened offscreen. It all goes back to when he and the show’s best writers were brainstorming ways to make “Trials and Tribble-ations,” the Original Series crossover episode, a reality. Behr had just mentioned the need to bring back guest star Charlie Brill to bridge the two shows. As if by cosmic kismet, he then noticed Brill was in the same restaurant ordering pizza, a coincidence the showrunner later described as “the best story of seven years at Deep Space Nine.”

Just For The Brill Of It

Ira Steven Behr elaborated on this when he appeared on Trek Talks, the annual livestream telethon that donates its proceeds to Hollywood Food Coalition. First, he dropped the surprising knowledge that it was Rick Berman who wanted to do a Star Trek 30th anniversary episode, and that the DS9 team was very “lukewarm” about making it. Eventually, they got excited about splicing their own actors into a vintage episode of The Original Series. The episode they chose was “The Trouble With Tribbles,” but there was just one problem: they couldn’t afford to bring any of the core TOS cast back, and most of that episode’s guest stars had passed away. 

One day, Behr and several writers (including Ronald D. Moore, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and Hans Beimler) were puzzling over this problem at a nearby pizza restaurant. Over a long lunch, Behr mentioned standup comedian “Charlie Brill … who played Arne Darvin, the Klingon, who is undercover as a human being.” Since he played a relatively prominent role in “The Trouble With Tribbles,” Brill was a natural choice to appear in Deep Space Nine’s “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Best of all, because Behr’s wife had recently written a pilot that Brill would appear in, Behr knew the comedian was still alive.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Fuzzy

The writers nodded along with the idea and expressed how they “vaguely [remembered]” who Brill is. That’s when something truly fantastic happened: Behr looked up and noticed that Brill was in the restaurant, ordering himself some pizza! He told the other writers, all of whom believed their boss was making a joke. But the showrunner pointed Brill out, and once the writers saw him, “They suddenly realized it … what were the chances that we would be talking about this old TV episode from 30 years ago, and the guy who we were talking about to bring back on the show would be standing there ordering a slice of pizza?”

It was a sign from the universe that Behr had the right idea for “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Behr certainly thought so, as he later joked on a Deep Space Nine commentary track that this incident proved God was a Star Trek fan. He and the writers struck up a conversation with Brill, who became a pivotal part of Deep Space Nine’s most ambitious episode as a villain determined to blow Captain Kirk up with a weaponized tribble. Many fans consider that episode the show’s best story, but Behr doesn’t agree with them. As he told everyone via Trek Talks, he believes that running into Charlie Brill at this exact moment was “the best story of seven years at Deep Space Nine.”

Is Behr correct that God is a Star Trek fan? Maybe, maybe not. From where I’m standing, all of this seems more like the will of the Prophets!