Trek: DS9 “What We Left Behind...” Documentary

I received my backers copy after all the delays with Shout doing the US theatrical release etc and having to pay a damned import fee on the package and thought the documentary was ok.
It didn't quite live up to the hype I had built in my mind over the last 2 years and I felt it lacked focus. It seems there was a LOT of footage filmed with the cast and those behind the camera but a lot of things weren't addressed.
As nice as it was to have the musical number at the start I would happily chop that out and use that time to hear from one of the crew behind the camera.
Some of the best bits are the deleted scenes. Hearing about the Rocks and Shoals shoot from hell in the quarry was interesting or Cirroc's wardrobe problems was funny.
Terry's departure was barely addressed and Nicole had about 2minutes in the entire doc.

I understand there will be areas not covered but after watching this documentary once, I don't get the feeling that I know What Was Left Behind by those who were featured. Maybe I need to watch it again.
Overall a B- maybe a B+ because of the extras.


I never cared for the inclusion of “Vick The Lounge Lizard Crooner Of The Holosuite” in the last few seasons. Watching Ferengi listening to his music and gathering advice from a hologram who referred to them as “Daddy-oh” threw me a bit.

This is a very minor nitpick for me as I really love DS9.
 
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Definitely bad blood and hurt feelings from Terry on what happened.

When I met her when she first started doing Cons, she was the nicest, unassuming, naturally drop dead gorgeous Actress I have ever met.

Absolutely no airs about her.

I can tell you the majority of Fans were PISSED that she was killed off and HATED poor Nicole


Terry's departure was barely addressed and Nicole had about 2minutes in the entire doc.
 
Definitely bad blood and hurt feelings from Terry on what happened.

When I met her when she first started doing Cons, she was the nicest, unassuming, naturally drop dead gorgeous Actress I have ever met.

Absolutely no airs about her.

I can tell you the majority of Fans were PISSED that she was killed off and HATED poor Nicole

Terry as Jadzia was fantastic, such a rich, endearing character, I was sad to see her go.

Nicole had a tough job following Terry to become the next Dax host and only have 1 season to not only get a grip of the previous 6 seasons of DS9 lore but make her Dax fit into that world. I loved Ezri and wished we had more time with her, she had a lot of potential in the show. I feel the writers managed to get the Worf and Bashir dynamic worked out to a pretty satisfactory conclusion given they knew season 7 was going to be their last. Ezri had great scenes with pretty much every cast member, heck see even managed to get a whole episode with Garak.
 
Your response was what I used to say to the people that hated her, didn’t matter, Jadzia lite was a popular term.

Nicole knew exactly what she was getting into and that it was going to be a tough job.

Although no fault of her own, Nicoles real problem was that Terrys portrayal of Jadzia was so strong and powerful, that in the time she had she was never really going to be able to eclipse it


Terry as Jadzia was fantastic, such a rich, endearing character, I was sad to see her go.

Nicole had a tough job following Terry to become the next Dax host and only have 1 season to not only get a grip of the previous 6 seasons of DS9 lore but make her Dax fit into that world. I loved Ezri and wished we had more time with her, she had a lot of potential in the show. I feel the writers managed to get the Worf and Bashir dynamic worked out to a pretty satisfactory conclusion given they knew season 7 was going to be their last. Ezri had great scenes with pretty much every cast member, heck see even managed to get a whole episode with Garak.
 
Your response was what I used to say to the people that hated her, didn’t matter, Jadzia lite was a popular term.

Nicole knew exactly what she was getting into and that it was going to be a tough job.

Although no fault of her own, Nicoles real problem was that Terrys portrayal of Jadzia was so strong and powerful, that in the time she had she was never really going to be able to eclipse it

I think if we as the audience were expected to believe that Nicole as the actress was replacing Terry as the character of Jadzia then you could understand the criticism but Nicole was a whole new character in the form of Ezri, who was sharing the Dax symbiont, anyone who couldn't or can't see that is a bit short-sighted.
 
Sometimes its all about “Performance”

I enjoyed what she did with her character, others not so much


I think if we as the audience were expected to believe that Nicole as the actress was replacing Terry as the character of Jadzia then you could understand the criticism but Nicole was a whole new character in the form of Ezri, who was sharing the Dax symbiont, anyone who couldn't or can't see that is a bit short-sighted.
 
It was clear that Ira had the entire principal cast together in one place but it seemed like a missed opportunity to not do a roundtable panel the same way that Rob Burnett and Roger Lay Jr did for the fantastic extras on the TNG and ENT blurays.
Hopefully that footage will make it to the fans soon, maybe as a download.
 
Ditto, watched it again and I felt it was a huge missed opportunity.

It was like they lacked focus, song and dance number, writers breaking a new episode.

I would have rather seen a full hour with just the cast

It was clear that Ira had the entire principal cast together in one place but it seemed like a missed opportunity to not do a roundtable panel the same way that Rob Burnett and Roger Lay Jr did for the fantastic extras on the TNG and ENT blurays.
Hopefully that footage will make it to the fans soon, maybe as a download.
 
I loved the writer's room segment, I found that very insightful, with a couple of tweaks I would love to see the season 8 they started to lay out in that session.
 
I enjoyed the doc, and the writer's room stuff, as well.
I have always hated the very idea of Section 31 in the Trek universe, and so wasn't thrilled with the notion they would be a large factor in this theoretical next season. But anyway.
 
Just caught this documentary as I've been going through and rewatching the backlog of Trek. Particularly DS9.

It might be sacrilege to say but I've never been fond of Trek outside of TOS. TNG onward has never done much for me despite the series having many great stories. I will say since going back and rewatching the lot, DS9 may be my second favorite of the series. The main premise I've always been fond of, but I recognize and appreciate the cast, especially the recurring guests, more now; they're the main draw and greatest strength. However, nothing will ever convince me that Jadzia Dax was a good character. Ever.

As far as the doc goes, for being two hours long, it really went by and...really didn't say much. At the beginning, Ira says how Avery told him not to make it a "bunch of talking heads," so he decided to make a "non-linear documentary" instead. Which, funny enough, did the very thing he was told to avoid and it was a just a bunch of talking heads having scattered brained conversations. I like it was supposed to be an all encompassing retrospective featuring all of the production but it just wasn't focused. Nothing lead to another. As others have mentioned before, I wouldn't have minded a roundtable discussion with these people, intercutting on different topics. What was the point of doing one-on-one interviews with cast and crew when there wasn't a moment to get a full thought out?

It was a fun enough watch, and I might watch it again before my rental expires, but I did think there were a lot of missed opportunities here. Maybe it'll all be there in the bonus material?
 
It might be sacrilege to say but I've never been fond of Trek outside of TOS. TNG onward has never done much for me despite the series having many great stories. I will say since going back and rewatching the lot, DS9 may be my second favorite of the series. The main premise I've always been fond of, but I recognize and appreciate the cast, especially the recurring guests, more now; they're the main draw and greatest strength. However, nothing will ever convince me that Jadzia Dax was a good character. Ever.

I feel like DS9 is one of those shows that will always be relevant and have important lessons to impart. Wil Wheaton has recently been posting about how he is watching it for the first time recently (he admits that he had feelings of sibling rivalry with the show that were entirely based in his own overwrought teenage brain and had nothing to do with the casts or crews) and how he's really enjoying it. I do very much feel that it's a show best experienced from an adult perspective because although there are some elements that are broad-strokes, there's a lot of subtlety and subtext that kids are likely to miss simply because they don't have the experience/understanding of the world that an adult has.
 
Just caught this documentary as I've been going through and rewatching the backlog of Trek. Particularly DS9.

It might be sacrilege to say but I've never been fond of Trek outside of TOS. TNG onward has never done much for me despite the series having many great stories. I will say since going back and rewatching the lot, DS9 may be my second favorite of the series. The main premise I've always been fond of, but I recognize and appreciate the cast, especially the recurring guests, more now; they're the main draw and greatest strength. However, nothing will ever convince me that Jadzia Dax was a good character. Ever.

As far as the doc goes, for being two hours long, it really went by and...really didn't say much. At the beginning, Ira says how Avery told him not to make it a "bunch of talking heads," so he decided to make a "non-linear documentary" instead. Which, funny enough, did the very thing he was told to avoid and it was a just a bunch of talking heads having scattered brained conversations. I like it was supposed to be an all encompassing retrospective featuring all of the production but it just wasn't focused. Nothing lead to another. As others have mentioned before, I wouldn't have minded a roundtable discussion with these people, intercutting on different topics. What was the point of doing one-on-one interviews with cast and crew when there wasn't a moment to get a full thought out?

It was a fun enough watch, and I might watch it again before my rental expires, but I did think there were a lot of missed opportunities here. Maybe it'll all be there in the bonus material?

The bonus material has some great deleted scenes that should have been left in and maybe some of the singing reserved as deleted scenes.
 
firesprite I think TNG is more concise at doing morality plays in single, self-contained episodes, but they are more like blunt instruments. Effective but... fairly basic. DS9 has the benefit of being more serialized and that allowed it to weave more mature ideas of morality and questionable ethics through its stories. There's a few spots where it stumbles early on (but continuously and frustratingly with Dax) but DS9 really irons it all out all the wrinkles after the first season and a half.

There's a moment in the documentary that brings up the morally gray aspects to Major Kira and how it may have played differently today, but I think it's well handled in the series as it is. They compare it to a show like Homeland and I felt if that were the case, and if Kira was portrayed with modern conventions, she'd be brooding and grimacing all the time, and really would be a very flat and static character. She is unrepentant and unapologetic, though not completely without regret, of her actions during the occupation but she manages to grow past that role in the series into a fully realized, and complex person. That fact that it works so well today, in post 9/11 times, shows just how right they got it.
 
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