Deep Space Nine nearly didn’t get its classic 30th anniversary “Trials and Tribble-ations” without a key blessing from Leonard Nimoy. Before the DS9 team could stitch their cast into footage from “The Trouble with Tribbles,” executive producer and showrunner Ira Steven Behr had to pick up the phone and ask Spock himself if revisiting that era of Star Trek was okay. Behr said while attending this year's Trek Talks via TrekMovie.com:
“I guess at that moment in time, Rick [Berman] and and Leonard were not exactly [on the] same page about some things, and and so he said, ‘Call Leonard.’ So I call Leonard — and Rick had prepared me like it was going to be a very prickly phone call."
Behr continued by saying:
"And so I said, ‘We’re thinking about doing this episode, taking the tribbles and blending it in with with our show.’ And there’s a long pause, and he goes, ‘What took you so long?’ And I thought, ‘Whoa, Rick, what are you setting me up for?’ This is beautiful, man. What do you know, it’s like, ‘Absolutely. Yes. I’m all for it.'”
Behr was asking for Nimoy’s informal permission to weave the DS9 crew into classic TOS, using archival footage and digital trickery to make it look like Benjamin Sisko and company had always been on Deep Space K-7 with Captain Kirk and the tribbles.
The producers saw DS9's “Trials and Tribble-ations” as both a love letter to TOS and a difficult technical challenge, and Nimoy’s enthusiastic “What took you so long?” signaled that one of the franchise’s defining icons was not just tolerant of the idea, but genuinely delighted by it.
The quote perfectly captures the cross‑generational handoff that defines modern Trek. Nimoy’s response reframes the episode from a risky nostalgia stunt into something closer to a blessing, permitting DS9 to play in TOS’s sandbox while still being its own show.
It also crystallizes why “Trials and Tribble-ations” works so well: it isn’t parody or fan‑service for its own sake, it’s a conversation between eras, with Nimoy’s “What took you so long?” standing in for the original cast welcoming a new generation of storytellers to keep the tribbles, and Trek itself, alive.
For more Star Trek content, visit the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.