Ira Steven Behr

Ira Steven Behr (born October 23, 1953) is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his work on Star Trek, especially Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, on which he served as showrunner and executive producer. He was the executive producer and showrunner on Crash, executive producer on Syfy's Alphas and a writer and co-executive producer on Outlander.

Biography Behr was born in New York City to a Jewish family. He studied at Lehman College in New York City. After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career writing comedies for television and film.

Behr is married to Laura Feder, who is credited as choreographer on three episodes of Deep Space Nine and one episode of Voyager.

Career Early work Behr's first writing job was on the dramatic series Bret Maverick. He remained good friends with Michael Piller and wrote the season 4 episode "Qpid" as a freelance writer. Piller persuaded him to join the new series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a supervising producer.

Behr wrote or co-wrote some of the most important episodes in the Dominion arc, including "The Jem'Hadar", "The Search", "The Way of the Warrior", "Broken Link", "Apocalypse Rising", "In Purgatory's Shadow", "By Inferno's Light", "Call to Arms", "Sacrifice of Angels", "Tears of the Prophets" and the final episode, "What You Leave Behind".

Developing the Ferengi Behr also had a significant role in the development of the Ferengi alien race during his work on Deep Space Nine.

Post-Star Trek

Behr left Star Trek following the completion of Deep Space Nines seventh season in 1999. He again worked with René Echevarria on season two of Dark Angel (2000) as a consulting producer. Behr served as writer and executive producer on the short lived series Bob Patterson (2001), which was created by and starred Jason Alexander. He returned to Paramount for the revival of The Twilight Zone (2002) as writer and executive producer. It aired on UPN directly after Star Trek: Enterprise, and ran for a single season of 42 episodes. Behr described the fast production turnaround as insane but, despite the difficulty he found the camaraderie and the dedication in the writer's room rewarding, and said that almost all of the writers would have been willing to do it again for another season if they had been given the chance. He thought UPN did not really want the show, and that it was not a good fit for the network.

In 2017 Behr produced the feature film Lucky starring Harry Dean Stanton. After his disappointment at the cancellation of The 4400, people were surprised that Behr chose to join the struggling show. He saw it as an opportunity, as they would be more open and willing to do things differently than if it had been a more successful show. Lead actor Dennis Hopper died in May 2010 and the series was not renewed for a third season.

Outlander From 2014 to 2016, Behr served as writer and co-executive producer on Outlander, alongside fellow Deep Space Nine contributor Ronald D. Moore.