Celebrating 20 Years of DS9

[JME2]

So, it's 20 years to the day that "Emissary" premiered, setting the third live-action series into motion.

It's hard to believe it's been that long. But the passage of two decades hasn't altered my opinion: DS9 remains my favorite Trek series and my favorite show. I love it and I miss it, but I'm glad to have watched it.

[Spice Runner]

Wow it has been a long time. DS9 is my favorite Star Trek series. I've been re-watching the series recently and damn the stories were good and characters were memorable.

[Havok]

Triple ditto. By far my favorite series, even having re-watched it all last year I didn't feel like it lost anything over the years.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I am young enough to have missed it when it was on live so I only started watching it about three years back. Even to someone of my generation that is jaded by special effects it stood up very well indeed, both visually and as a story.

Although I think Istill prefer TOS for it's sheer cheesiness, I'll watch DS9 any day.

[Alferd Packer]

I agree that DS9 has held up the best of all the series, to be honest. At the time I watched them all; TNG, DS9, Voyager, because I was a Trekkie and that's what Trekkies do. I identified myself as such. Questions like "Is this actually any good?" never factored into it. Then I discovered pussy and promptly stopped caring about Star Trek.

Now, years later, with Star Trek back on Netflix, I have the luxury to pick and choose. And I almost always go for a DS9 episode, because there are so many excellent ones. There a plenty of excellent TNG episodes, but they're fewer in number. And Voyager...are there any excellent ones? The Year of Hell, maybe? I dunno, I haven't bothered. I'd rather watch all of DS9 first, because the overall quality is that much higher.

[Stofsk]

I still remember watching the premiere of 'Emissary' late at night, with a shit tv that had it's own aerial, with static fucking up the display. I would years later watch the show on VHS hired from a nearby Blockbuster, and marvel at how clear the image was. Good times.

[darth_timon]

There's no question for me that DS9 was the best of the Trek shows. Great characters, good setting, good stories.

[Thanas]

Indeed. It has held up very well to the test of time (unlike TNG, which has great stories as well).

[Alyeska]

I've been rewatching DS9 over Amazon Prime (totally worth it) and have absolutely loved the series. It has well stood the test of time.

I can go back and rewatch TNG episodes. They are pretty good. But after one or two episodes, thats enough.

Then Spike TV started to air DS9. And they started with DS9 sequentially and I kept watching it. The carrying over plot. Not exactly serial in nature, but with continuing stories. It really grabbed you. I missed most of DS9s first and second season when it first came out. Just didn't watch it. But on watching the Spike TV airings, the destruction of the Odessey is incredible.

I really got into DS9 when Worf showed up. I saw a fair amount of season 3. The Defiant was pretty damn cool. But starting a war with the Klingons and bringing in Worf really launched the show. As Chuck put it, they relaunched DS9 with Worf. I remember watching the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th seasons religiously. Missing very few episodes. Always catching the important episodes. Somehow missing the really bad ones (Profit and Lace).

Watching DS9 10 years later on Spike TV, the magic was still there. Watching DS9 over the last year on Amazon, the magic is still there. It is very entertaining to watch. Real drama. Decent action. Special Effects that stand the test of time.

[Enigma]

DS9 was the best Trek series by far. When it first aired, I watched it as much as I could but when Babylon 5 came out, it got the lion's share of my attention even though I tried to watch as many DS9 eps as I could. But I do believe I have seen most of DS9 with the exception of the first two seasons.

[Thanas]

I think what struck me the most about DS9 were the performances by the actors and the cast chemistry. As well as the great guest stars which IMO were far better than DS9. See for example Duet, or the entire run by Dukhat.

DS9 felt part of a larger universe.

[Havok]

the destruction of the Odessey is incredible.

This was a moment to me that defined DS9. It's almost as if they wrote the episode as a big middle finger to TNG.
The Odyssey's captain is a Picard-esque type. Arrogant and fully confident that his ship and crew are superior to anything out there. The DS9 crew makes sure they evacuate the civilians before they go into through the wormhole as a foreshadow that the Dominion isn't fucking around and then they just get bushwacked. As if to say, this ain't the Ferengi, Romulans, Klingons or even the Borg, this is the Dominion and they are an actual real threat.

the entire run by Dukhat.

The Cardassian arc itself was great. DS9 rises above the rest, IMO, because of Dukhat, Garek, Dumar and the interactions between the Bjorans, Kira and the various Cardassians.

[JME2]

Yeah, I've always liked how DS9 took what started out as a TNG villain of the week and made the Cardassians one of the most complex cultures in the entire franchise. Dukat, Garak, and even Damar to an extent were a large foundation for that transformation and success.

Speaking of Damar, I still love how the guy started out as basically an extra in Season 4 and by the time you got to the closing episodes, was one of the most important characters.

[Nephtys]

Damar got a lot of development, and became one of my favorite characters. It was just beautiful to watch his militaristic stoicism and sense of duty slowly turn into resentment and secret spite, before becoming outright sabotage and a swell of surprising guts and sacrifice.

Of course, Garak was the best character and In the Pale Moonlight was the best episode of any Star Trek.

[Stofsk]

DS9 really pushed the envelope for what a Star Trek show could do. There were multiple plot arcs, developed over several seasons, with a degree of intricacy that hadn't really been attempted before other than maybe a few of the Ron Moore written TNG stories. Character arcs had real growth to them, real development of friendships between characters like Bashir and O'Brien. Kira at the start being distrustful of Sisko and Starfleet, then warming to him and eventually becoming friends. Extras turning into full-fledged characters as everyone else has already observed.

Watching 'The Jem'Hadar' and 'The Die is Cast' gave a real palpable sense of 'shit just got real'. Kind of like how 'Best of Both Worlds part 1' did but without the letdown that part 2 brought; the Dominion were a threat, they were scarily competent, but they weren't 'here one day, gone tomorrow' which is what you'd expect from a weekly adventure show. No, they were here to stay.

[JME2]

Damar got a lot of development, and became one of my favorite characters. It was just beautiful to watch his militaristic stoicism and sense of duty slowly turn into resentment and secret spite, before becoming outright sabotage and a swell of surprising guts and sacrifice.

That's why Damar's death in the finale is such a punch in the gut. You had seen this transformation over 3 years and like Garak, come to believe that he might just be the best hope for a new, peaceful Cardassia.

Then he ends up like Sonny Corleone and, combined with the Female Changelings' final solution, you wonder what hope there is for Cardassia now.

[Alyeska]

This was a moment to me that defined DS9. It's almost as if they wrote the episode as a big middle finger to TNG.
The Odyssey's captain is a Picard-esque type. Arrogant and fully confident that his ship and crew are superior to anything out there. The DS9 crew makes sure they evacuate the civilians before they go into through the wormhole as a foreshadow that the Dominion isn't fucking around and then they just get bushwacked. As if to say, this ain't the Ferengi, Romulans, Klingons or even the Borg, this is the Dominion and they are an actual real threat.

TNG made us feel that the Galaxy class was big and powerful. It stood toe to toe with the Romulans and the Klingons. Both capable warfighting societies. And the battle itself was well done. The captain was arrogant. But not stupid. He adapted to the situation immediately and used what resources he had available.

And we watch those three Jem'Hadar ships utterly smash the Oddessy to pieces. The suicide ram finished the deal and showed us what a danger the Dominion really was. The most powerful ships fielded by the Federation was defeated by three "scouts" that were willing to fight to the death purely to prove a point.

And my first time watching that episode was 5 years after DS9 had finished. This was my impression on watching the episode way out of order. I can't imagine what it felt like to the people watching it at the end of Season 2.

[Dalton]

I think you've all said it all. I recently finished the entire run of the series on Netflix, which I watched over the last 4 or 5 months of 2012. I was very impressed with how well the series held up, and it reaffirmed why I consider it the very best Trek series. There were no magic resets. Actions had consequences, and storylines were threaded through multiple seasons. Even the most annoying character (Nog) came into his own.

[Waddles McGee]

Aside from some truly bad Ferengi episodes and the occasional stinker which isn't uncommon to a run of Star Trek, Deep Space 9 was good, and had a more mature tone overall I think (Star Trek TNG's aesops were lame 99% of the time and by season 5, rote). I loved seeing Deep Space 9 go serial; something is almost fatiguing about a bottled universe where by the time the credits have rolled, nothing of importance has happened. (In fact going back to watch TNG almost feels like a waste of time for this exact reason)

Poor Worf and O'Brien, though. The only 2 TNG carryovers to become main characters and they get tortured: Worf gets his wife killed (again) and every other week O'Brien is being abducted by someone and imprisoned for something.

And finally can't forget to mention that Star Trek Deep Space Nine had lots of characters, but more than that it had good ones you could actually give a damn about, as opposed to maybe half the main cast being likeable and the rest getting one good episode the entire show. I remember reading somewhere that Garak wasn't supposed to be a prolific character, but was so fun to have in episodes that he ended up going to some 37 shows (re-watching the show now, but "The Wire" has to be one of his best episodes).

Don't mean to me-too, but I just watched it this year and it's hard to understand why I never gave it proper due until now.


PS, screw Ronald Moore and his "disappearing character it was god hurp" endings, I accepted it in Battlestar but I just couldn't in Star Trek.

[DaveJB]

Ron Moore had little if anything to do with that - and because it seems to be a common misconception, he was never the head writer on DS9 or any other Trek series. Ira Steven Behr was the guy in charge of DS9 (from the third season onwards) and the co-writer of the finale episode, which was actually just going to end with Sisko and Dukat killing each other in their final struggle. Several important people objected to that though (including Rick Berman and even Avery Brooks himself) and so they decided at pretty much the last minute to rewrite it into a Jesus allegory and keep the basic story structure, but have Sisko taken into the Celestial Temple and promise to return someday.

Getting back to the main thread, I recently picked up the first two seasons of DS9, having had the other five for quite some time. And yeah, despite starting and ending well, season 1 is pretty weaksauce overall; in addition to the numerous obviously warmed-over TNG stories, it seems like the writers were going for some sort of fairytale vibe, which just didn't work on any level. However, I actually think season 2 is hugely underrated. Sure, there's a run of rather bland, forgettable episodes just before the Maquis show up, but even then there's the sense that a real storyline is starting to develop, and the second half of the season is generally very good. I don't believe that it deserves to be lumped in with the second seasons of TNG, Voyager and Enterprise as being "the season before it got good" (and personally I don't think Voyager's third season was a whole lot better than the second, but that's something for another day...)

[Crazedwraith]

Well I've got seasons 4-7 on DVD. Currently reaching the end of s7 for the first time since they were on telly on the BBC.

And its really weak ending. I've not even got to the clip show parts of WYLB. Hell the entire season is pretty weak. The two most exciting/entertaining episodes have been the two holodeck episodes and they're much disaparaged for not adding to the arc. Which of course they don't.

I'm surprise that Sloan was only in 3 episodes as well considering the deal fandom makes about Secton 31.

[Alyeska]

O'Brien's suffering was intentional. The writers had decided that once a season O'Brien Must Suffer. And Colm Meaney did an incredible job with the episodes.

[JME2]

Well I've got seasons 4-7 on DVD. Currently reaching the end of s7 for the first time since they were on telly on the BBC.

And its really weak ending. I've not even got to the clip show parts of WYLB. Hell the entire season is pretty weak. The two most exciting/entertaining episodes have been the two holodeck episodes and they're much disaparaged for not adding to the arc. Which of course they don't.

I'm surprise that Sloan was only in 3 episodes as well considering the deal fandom makes about Secton 31.

WYLB still reminds of the nBSG finale, "Daybreak".

The first half of each finale is great stuff and the resolutions of the Dominion War and the Second Cylon War are perfect. What happens afterwards...not so much.

[Skylon]

And its really weak ending. I've not even got to the clip show parts of WYLB. Hell the entire season is pretty weak. The two most exciting/entertaining episodes have been the two holodeck episodes and they're much disaparaged for not adding to the arc. Which of course they don't.

Season 7 overall felt pretty weak to me. The Prophet/Pah Wraith conflict also hit absurd levels by season 7. I was also bummed that the Dominion War had so consumed the show, that when it was finally time to wrap everything up, the entire "Bajor joining the Federation" mission was forgotten.

Overall, I don't think I'll ever call out DS9 as "Best Star Trek ever!" I still do intend to give the entire series a re-watch (wow, it is now 20 years since I have seen a lot of season 1), especially since when it first aired I was probably harder on it, since I was comparing it to Babylon 5. But, DS9 at least tried. The acting was great, the characters were certainly far more compelling than TNG's cast, and some episodes were indeed among the best of Trek. But DS9 always felt uneven to me. When DS9 fired on all cylinders, it was amazing. When it didn't it was weak stuff.

But at least, unlike Voyager and later early Enterprise, it tried to push the envelope with Star Trek, and in doing so, gave us some of Trek at its best. And it deserves praise for that.

[Alyeska]

Just watched "The Sound of her Voice". That episode still gets me, even to this day.