Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky

Episode 317. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Released 30 April 2025

Today we watched two contrasting episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We kicked off with an episode from the fifth season, the celebratory romp Trials and Tribble-ations in which the 24th century crew revisits the action of the classic original series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Pretty much all the senior writing staff had a go at this one. The story is credited to Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe and the teleplay to Ronald D Moore and René Echevarria. It was directed by Jonathan West, and it was first shown on 4 November 1996.

We followed this up with In the Pale Moonlight from towards the end of the sixth season, airing on 15 April 1998. The story is by Peter Allan Fields and the screenplay is credited to Michael Taylor, although Ronald D Moore heavily rewrote it. It was directed by Victor Lobl and it earned the full five stars from me (in fact, both episodes did).

These and hundreds more episodes are covered in the second volume of my Star Trek chronicle which is now available from all the usual places, including…

• From the publisher https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Star-Trek-Discovering-the-TV-Series-Hardback/p/51781
• UK Amazon https://amzn.to/4lzI1hN
• US Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Discovering-Voyager-1993-1999/dp/1399034995
• UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/star-trek-discovering-the-tv-series/tom-salinsky/9781399034999
• US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/star-trek-tom-salinsky/1146305492?ean=9781399034999

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