Screen Plays : How 25 Scripts Made it to a Theater Near You - For Better or Worse Written by two - time " Star Trek " script writer David S . Cohen , Screen Plays : How 25 Scripts Made it to a Theater Near You – For Better or Worse delves into the development and creation of some of the most famous – and infamous – movies ever made . With interviews from the writers , directors and production staff , Cohen attempts to find out the perfect recipe for a box office success . While " Star Trek " itself is not discussed in the main , Cohen does speak candidly about his own involvement in and his experiences working with the production team on the episodes and , in the book ' s introductory chapter . Writing for " Star Trek " . " Destiny " . In his introduction for the book , David Cohen describes , among other things , his experiences of writing as a child and how the " sci - fi geek " inside of him led to him contacting the writers of one of his favorite episodes of , . " " It turned out the script had been written by two APA clients , Hans Beimler and Richard Manning . " " Cohen recalled . " " So I called their agent in the LA office and told him how much I ' d enjoyed the episode . He said to call them and tell them . I called their office at " Star Trek " . Their assistant said , ' When are you coming out here to visit ? ' . Visit ? Visit the Paramount lot ? Visit the " set " ? So that December , despite a nasty case of bronchitis , I got on a plane for Los Angeles . Got to watch part of an episode being shot ( ) . Came back feeling itchy to be part of it . Began to tumble around an idea for a " Star Trek " story I wanted to see . " " After returning home and watching another " Star Trek " episode that was as bad as " Who Watches The Watchers " was good , Cohen thought to himself " " I can do better than that " " . A few days later , Cohen then contacted his old school friend Martin Winer and asked him if he wanted to co - write a " Star Trek " script . Winer agreed and the two of them submitted a spec script for " The Next Generation " , flying out to Los Angeles to pitch their idea to the producers . Though initially enthusiastic about their idea , the " TNG " staff then realized that Cohen and Winer were taking their story in a direction they didn ' t want to go with the show and the script was rejected . Following that disappointment , Cohen and Winer set about working on another script , this time for the new " Star Trek " show " Deep Space Nine " . Enthralled with the premise Sisko as Emissary , Cohen decided to write a story about prophecy , a prophecy which Sisko must fulfill even at the behest of Starfleet . They called the script . It was soon bought by the studio and before long both Cohen and Winer were meeting with showrunner Michael Piller who praised them on producing " " the best spec script ever " " . However , Piller saw a number of changes he wished to make to the script and asked the duo to rewrite it . But no matter what they did to it , the producers just didn ' t think it was ready . In the end , it received a rewrite from a staff writer and aired a few months later . Cohen was disappointed with the final version . " " Not a word of our dialogue made it in , " " he recalled . " " . . . they kept the basic " A " plot and some of our characters . For some reason , though , they mentioned the prophecy but somehow left out the information that the Emissary had a role to play in the prophecy , so as far as I ' m concerned the story basically makes no sense . Buncha guys running around trying to stop Sisko doing something , without ever saying why it matters whether he does it or not . I still get a headache when I watch it . " " " Crossover " . During rewrites of " Destiny " , Cohen and Winer were asked to look over a script the staff writers had written that dealt with the mirror universe , the episode that was to become . Initially titled " Detour " , Cohen and Winer thought the script " stunk " and read like a parody . With just five days before shooting , they stayed up all night and developed an outline they were happy with before submitting it to Ira Steven Behr . Behr looked it over , gave his thoughts on the outline and then asked the two of them to have a go at writing the script . In just a few hours , Cohen and Winer had produced the first two acts . But the script wasn ' t well - received and despite further attempts , the producers just weren ' t satisfied with it and the script was passed to somebody else to finish .