Deep Space 9

It easy to have a thread in which all the people who like DS9 sing its praises. However the OP isn't truly going to have his question answered if someone doesn't "at least" try to shed some light on why "some" (obviously not all) Trek fans didn't like it.
Jeyl- (first let me thank you for respectfully calling me "Mr Burton" rather than just "Burton" ). I totally get what you are talking about, and all of that IS what made DS9 great.

However to me everything you mention could be dropped into "any" sci-fi setting or "any" genre for that matter. Provided the characters are genuine and likable, the formula you describe will work for anything.

What sets Star Trek apart from any other Sci-Fi show is that it was about learning the human condition, while going out there into the unknown. You could argue that DS9 had "unknowns" in it, but until the Defiant came along and they startred leaving the station on a regular basis, the show was about a fixed point in space. Things happened "on" the station.

But for me this was the point behind TOS and TNG- "Let's see what's out there."

Now this isn't to say that I "didn't" like DS9... well at least until the 3rd season began. There were a couple of decent episodes in the second season (Blood Oath and The Jem'Hadar) that actually managed to keep my interest long enough to get into the show. The last three seasons were by far the best.

However the one thing about DS9 is that its greatest hours were the Dominion War arc. And I loved the story... however afterwards I quickly realized this isn't quite the "Star Trek" I like best. Don't mistake what I said to mean that I all of the sudden "hated" it- I didn't.

Star Trek was founded in the 60s when the Space program was moving in leaps and bounds. The Program may have been politically motivated as a race to see who was the "best", however there was always the notion of Man leaving Earth to expand his horizons. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, he may have been American, and America got there first, but ultimately his words were timeless and universal (I don't think I need to quote him ).

Star Trek (which was around before Neil's "small step"), showed us where we "could be" 300 years from now. Earth's meager Space Program divided by borders has expanded into a fleet of ships exploring the Cosmos, untethered by Race, Creed, Nationality, Gender etc. (And please... can we avoid the "misoginy in Trek" debate. Yes it was there- we know.) The vision of Star Trek broke all those boundaries.

However no matter how much we may have advanced technologically, politically, or socially, the basic desire to explore the unknown has remained constant.

This is what the "core" of "Star Trek" means to me.

For me this is absent from DS9 (don't get me wrong- it's absent from JJTrek, and "many" iterations of Trek). That doesn't mean I "hate" them, I just don't like them "as much."

And for the record, I'm not here to try and change anyone's opinion on "which Trek is best." I'm just trying to shed some light on why some may not like one Trek over another.

One thing I will say is that with over 700 episodes, and 12 films (and counting) there is a choice of "Star Trek" available that everyone can like.


But if you don't like Star Trek... "any" Star Trek... you're dead to me. :lol


Kevin

SSgt Burton said:

Star Trek (which was around before Neil's "small step"), showed us where we "could be" 300 years from now.

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Thing that bothers me about the "Gene Roddenberry" Star Trek message is that he puts a lot of emphasis on the "us" part to the point where humanity and ONLY humanity are capable of doing great things. DC Fontana quoted him as saying "If it's not about humanity, what's the point?" And his writing in a lot of TNG episodes reflect this from Picard's constant self-praise at how awesome humanity is, the constant lecturing from Picard to aliens who don't know any better, to outright self-indulgence with Picard telling Q how humanity will be like angels and gods who will become more powerful than the Q species.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture boldly states "The Human Adventure is just beginning". What about the crew who aren't humans? Don't they have hopes and dreams for their own species and for their own sense of exploration and discovery? Will you take your "Humanity will become like angels and gods!" declaration to your crewmen who aren't humans? I don't like that kind of attitude where humanity is the only thing that matters and everyone else is there solely for our benefit. Cripes, every time someone tries to do something dramatic with Spock, especially in the two JJ films, it always involves him accepting his humanity. The fact that Kirk had to say "I'm talking to the HUMAN Spock" just rubs me in the wrong way. Are Vulcans really that unreasonable that we have to shut them out like that and just pick the side that's more aligned to our way of thinking? Where's the quest for understanding? And TNG does this sort of thing too when it comes to Data wishing to be human. Why? Why specifically a human? Why not just accept who you are and try to better yourself and your understanding of what intelligent living creatures are like? Is the message supposed to be if you have gifts that make you unique, you should abandon them and conform with someone else's idea of what it means to be alive? Or abandon wanting to be some other race because they're so inferior to us?

Deep Space Nine didn't do that. It let the aliens be their own characters, have their own stories and take part in events on their own initiative. It was less a "Humanity is so freaking great we can do anything!" and more of a show where "We are all different, and we all have problems that aren't going to solve themselves. Let's see what we can do about that."

Sisko himself said in the first episode,

Sisko: We explore our lives, day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you either with weapons or with ideas, but to co-exist and learn.

And THAT is a key theme to this show. It wanted to be more than just humanity, it wanted to explore the Star Trek universe in a way that no other Star Trek series had done before, or were even capable of doing before. Show us what makes Star Trek unique and give them the spotlight. They've made episodes with no focus on a human characters, episodes about the bartender, a fake alien clone, the sex-life of living goo, alien weddings, and they didn't generalize aliens either. The Ferengi are shown to not be all greedy, but also as seen as compassionate and brave. They may still be in it for the money, but they have a lot more diversity than the.... uh, "A KLINGON'S HONOR IS MORE IMPORTANT TO HIM THAN HIS LIFE!". Ah, yes. The TNG/DS9 Klingons. Thank you for that Ron Moore.

The thing that I've come to appreciate about DS9 in retrospect (i.e. something I didn't necessarily pick up on as a kid/teen watching the series on TV) is that the way that DS9 deals with its morality plays are much more relevant to the world we live in today.

Yes, a lot of the lessons from TOS carry over, but the show is very much a product of its time. It's so steeped in cold war archetypes that don't exist in the world today. DS9 dealt with religion in a really thoughtful way through the Bajorans and Kira mostly. The whole series dealt with the Bajoran/Cardassian post-colonial relationship which might be seen as timely to the world we live in right now (I'll let you fill in the blanks on that one).

I agree with Jeyl (shocking, I know! :lol), when he talks about the aliens having their own stories and their own worlds. Yes! The aliens finally had some agency! They weren't just a plot device to tell a human story. It made the universe seem more real, not just a contrived story to suit some morality play in the writer's heads. I know, that sounded harsh, but really, let's be honest, something like the Cherons from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," a little on the nose, no?

And then you have the moments like the "In the Pale Moonlight" clip above. Sisko's last monologue in that episode still gives me chills.

What I love about DS9 is pretty much what everyone else has touched on. The characters, both good and bad, are not black and white. There are no "knights in shining armor," nor are there any real "moustache twirling villains." Heroes and villains alike get their moments to shine. Even the Jem'Hadar, a species seemingly tailor-made to be portrayed in a stereotypical manner, have their moments where they are shown to be more than just genetically engineered soldiers.

SSgt Burton said:

The word "Trek."

"a long arduous journey"


Not much "journeying" going on with a station that stays put.


Kevin

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The character development was far superior to the other shows, expect maybe voyager.

As for taking. Trek.... Wormhole, religious gods, other dimensions, huge wars... Seems plenty of things happening!

I watched DS9 and liked it about as much as any of the series. The one thing that I've thought when I've rewatched it, is that the station seems like a set, it doesn't feel like a station. If you watch Babylon 5, the station seems alive with people everywhere, buying things, getting tickets, complaining to security, selling food, etc. DS9 may throw a group walking through or a security guy walking by and that's it. That's really my only complaint with it.

I prefer DS9 over the rest of the Star Trek Franchise. That being said, TNG is solid #2, Enterprise and VOY follow, and TOS is the last for me. Part of it is my tech side just grimaces at those comptuers and tech.

To me, it's the fact that it's NOT nice. the good guys do not always win, we have numerous casualties, they don't keep the castle forever (the station). There's money, and gambling and (virtual?) prostitution, theft, decevery, etc... this is what I foresee actually happening on a station like this.

I will give Slius a very valid point. for a station that size, you think there'd be more actions going on in terms of shipping and that kind of stuff. They did do decent when the Klingons would visit the station. but not as much as could have been. Sure I have some nitpicks, but I think DS9 really expanded the Star Trek universe by showing other options and areas.

I'll add more later.

DS9 was a slow starter, but then i guess most of them were.. the early voyager series were pretty dull as well.

im actually watching DS9 again at the moment (currently on series 5 - where odo became human) so before the dominion war.

DS9 is probably my favourite overall series just for the fact it had some truely epic ship battles that the other series never really had. the klingons, spoonheads, dominion, etc.. lots of ships, the station kicking ass (that moment when the station armed all its launchers after galron turned up with the klingon fleet was awesome)

the defiant was a properly good ship.. the 1st real war ship (fighter) in starfleet and damn it was tough (cue rikers comment in 1st contact ) with the cloaking device as well it opened up a new dynamic that you'd not seen before in starfleet ships.

lets face it, some of the actors couldn't act their way out of a paper bag (sisko) but the stories were good and the character journeys were brilliantly done. the way garak started out as a mysterious 'tailor' and ended up a key addition to their arsenal to free the world he was exiled from was great.

do like a bit of ds9. now odo has lost his shape-shifting abilities im really looking forward to the episode they find a baby changeling and he ends up getting his abilities back.. i grinned ear to ear when i 1st watched that, and still do now

my only criticism and this is true for all trek is the 'super' characters are sorely under used. odo in ds9, data in tng, 7of9 in voyager.. they're capable of so much more than us usually afforded them.

a good example was a recent episode was a jem'hadar teamup to control the gateway from some rebel jem'hadar. odo spent most of the fight in the shape of a bag over worfs shoulder then got lobbed on the floor and took out 3 of them in one swoop. they said something like 'i think its time' when odo was to join in.. why? it served no purpose for him to join in at that point and not before.. surely he would have been more useful turning into a rhino or something and just battering them all on the way in? lazy git

DS9 is my favorite. When TNG went off the air, I was finished with it. When DS9 went off, I wanted a couple more years....

I totally agree here with 500 % - that's the same thing afterwards that bothered me too. Don't get me wrong, I raised up with TNG, but DSN had better and superior story-telling. The whole thing was "human supremacy" and not very Trek-like, in retrospective I boldly say Picard was an *****-hat, regarding to the development of humankind and should have come off his high-horse pretty quickly. But I blame that on Gene. Gene might be a good idea-giver, but ha wasn't always a good storyteller.

Jeyl said:

Thing that bothers me about the "Gene Roddenberry" Star Trek message is that he puts a lot of emphasis on the "us" part to the point where humanity and ONLY humanity are capable of doing great things. DC Fontana quoted him as saying "If it's not about humanity, what's the point?" And his writing in a lot of TNG episodes reflect this from Picard's constant self-praise at how awesome humanity is, the constant lecturing from Picard to aliens who don't know any better, to outright self-indulgence with Picard telling Q how humanity will be like angels and gods who will become more powerful than the Q species.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture boldly states "The Human Adventure is just beginning". What about the crew who aren't humans? Don't they have hopes and dreams for their own species and for their own sense of exploration and discovery? Will you take your "Humanity will become like angels and gods!" declaration to your crewmen who aren't humans? I don't like that kind of attitude where humanity is the only thing that matters and everyone else is there solely for our benefit. Cripes, every time someone tries to do something dramatic with Spock, especially in the two JJ films, it always involves him accepting his humanity. The fact that Kirk had to say "I'm talking to the HUMAN Spock" just rubs me in the wrong way. Are Vulcans really that unreasonable that we have to shut them out like that and just pick the side that's more aligned to our way of thinking? Where's the quest for understanding? And TNG does this sort of thing too when it comes to Data wishing to be human. Why? Why specifically a human? Why not just accept who you are and try to better yourself and your understanding of what intelligent living creatures are like? Is the message supposed to be if you have gifts that make you unique, you should abandon them and conform with someone else's idea of what it means to be alive? Or abandon wanting to be some other race because they're so inferior to us?

Deep Space Nine didn't do that. It let the aliens be their own characters, have their own stories and take part in events on their own initiative. It was less a "Humanity is so freaking great we can do anything!" and more of a show where "We are all different, and we all have problems that aren't going to solve themselves. Let's see what we can do about that."

Sisko himself said in the first episode,

Sisko: We explore our lives, day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you either with weapons or with ideas, but to co-exist and learn.

And THAT is a key theme to this show. It wanted to be more than just humanity, it wanted to explore the Star Trek universe in a way that no other Star Trek series had done before, or were even capable of doing before. Show us what makes Star Trek unique and give them the spotlight. They've made episodes with no focus on a human characters, episodes about the bartender, a fake alien clone, the sex-life of living goo, alien weddings, and they didn't generalize aliens either. The Ferengi are shown to not be all greedy, but also as seen as compassionate and brave. They may still be in it for the money, but they have a lot more diversity than the.... uh, "A KLINGON'S HONOR IS MORE IMPORTANT TO HIM THAN HIS LIFE!". Ah, yes. The TNG/DS9 Klingons. Thank you for that Ron Moore.

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Roddenberry was just that.

The idea man, he needed other people to make his Series work

As Gene Lcoon was for TOS Trek, Piller was for TNG

Apollo said:

Roddenberry was just that.

The idea man, he needed other people to make his Series work

As Gene Lcoon was for TOS Trek, Piller was for TNG

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Sort of like Kasdan was for Lucas.

I have have been watching DS9 incessantly on Netflix.

What an absolute joy. This is some of the best sci-fi writing out there. If you have never seen it, I advise you to give it a try, even if like me, you are not a real trek fan. DS9 is a whole new ballgame!

I thought I would take time to mention a few of my favorite episodes.

"Improbable Cause"- Season 3 Episode 20- A peaceful afternoon is shattered when Garak's shop is destroyed by an explosion.
Garak is an excellent character, and we get to learn a lot more about him in this episode. DS9 characters have layers upon layers.

"Indiscretion"- Season 4 Episode 4- This is the one where Kira and Dukat are stranded on a planet together. Not only do we learn more about these characters, they grow as they learn a great deal about each other and themselves.

"Our Man Bashir"- Season 4 Episode 9- Just a really fun episode with Julian in a holosuit parodying James Bond.

"Trials and Tribble-ations"- Season 5 Episode 6- Another fun episode that mixes in scenes from TOS with special effects.

"The Ascent"- Season 5 Episode 9- This one is not a fun episode. Odo and Quark crash on a planet and struggle to survive. You may come away with a new appreciation for Quark, as does Odo.

"In the Pale Moonlight"- Season 6 Episode 19- Sisko realizes the only hope of winning the war is to persuade the Romulans to join the Federation-Klingon alliance.
Picard may be great at negotiations, and Kirk may be good in a fight, but this is where you begin to understand that it takes Sisko to win a war for you.

"It's Only a Paper Moon"- Season 7 Episode 10- After losing his leg in battle, Nog returns to DS9 to recuperate. The crew try to cheer him up, but the young ensign is struggling.
As was said earlier in this thread, the characters of DS9, heros and villains alike, go on journeys of personal change and growth and are entirely different people by the end of the series, maybe none more so than Nog.

I am only half way through Season 7, the last season, but was compelled to post my thoughts early. I'll come back later and post my thoughts on the end of the series. I'm sure I will be sad to be finished.

Please add your own favorite episodes. There are so many great ones to chose from.

Big fan of ds9. The only thing I didn't like was the dominion war.
I don't think we got to see enought of it. Yes we got 4/5 big battles with 100s of starships fighting but the rest was 1 or 2 ships fighting ,I wanted to see the risk and that they was lossing the war nothing showed me this in the 53 episodes the war was happening.
I wish with the TNG movie they would have made it about the war and what the enterprise crew was doing in this time or have a battle with the dominion.
But that's me I have several friends who think the way they showed the war was great

rodneyfaile said:

"It's Only a Paper Moon"- Season 7 Episode 10- After losing his leg in battle, Nog returns to DS9 to recuperate. The crew try to cheer him up, but the young ensign is struggling.
As was said earlier in this thread, the characters of DS9, heros and villains alike, go on journeys of personal change and growth and are entirely different people by the end of the series, maybe none more so than Nog.

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was just thinking about that episode, any big band music always has me thinking of 'vic' the hologram nog ended up staying with whilst trying to deal with his PTS.

im watching them through on syfy when i get a chance (sky+) and they've not long started the war. i think the next episode is sisko attempting to get the station back, so vic should arrive on the scene soon

trials and tribble-ations has to be one of the best DS9 episodes.. awesome editing work and love the simple comment worf makes when they realise all the klingons just look like tanned 'russians'

In the Pale Moonlight is perhaps one of my favorites... mainly because I can see myself doing the same thing in that situation... right down to telling my entire soul out in the log and then... I think it really showed Sisko's thought process and how they managed to get him to basically narrate the whole story, yet not make it feel like it was being narrated. you didn't feel as though he was breaking the 4th wall, even though that was basically exactly what he was doing.

Big fan of "The Visitor"

Some say it was the best Trek Episode ever written.

For me it is in the top ten.

Nice to see Tony Todd out of the turtle head and give a great performance and good to see Andy "Garek" Robinsons daughter do a show!

Apollo said:

Big fan of "The Visitor"

Some say it was the best Trek Episode ever written.

For me it is in the top ten.

Nice to see Tony Todd out of the turtle head and give a great performance and good to see Andy "Garek" Robinsons daughter do a show!

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That is a good one too!

I also forgot to list "In Purgatory's Shadow" where we find out a changeling has been impersonation Julian, Worf impresses even the Jem'Haddar with his determination, and Garak is at his fathers deathbed.

You guys forgot "Duet"...S1 E 19 which really shows the strength of the writing team on DS9. No big special effects, no action sequences. Just Kyra confronting a Cardassian war criminal in his cell. And it showed DS9s potential right out of the gate, and how good the cast really was.

Voyager never came close to that level of quality writing.

tgreco said:

You guys forgot "Duet"...S1 E 19 which really shows the strength of the writing team on DS9. No big special effects, no action sequences. Just Kyra confronting a Cardassian war criminal in his cell. And it showed DS9s potential right out of the gate, and how good the cast really was.

Voyager never came close to that level of quality writing.

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That's because Voyager was very episodic and hit the reset button just about every episode. The only real character growth in that show was with the Doctor & 7 of 9, none of the other characters grew or really changed, and don't get me started on how poor old Harry Kim never got promoted once during the 7 season run.