Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

Recently, I've been re-watching Deep Space Nine and I just love the format of episodes in which they are telling one big long story. Things that happened in one episode is often relevant in continuing episodes and I really like that. It's funny, when DS9 was in production, I hated it, but at the same time, I never really gave it a chance. I watched maybe 2 episodes total. I was so loyal to TNG that everything else was just fluff. It wasn't until years later that I watched it, gave it a chance, and grew to love it. My question is this...what happened? Why were the ratings or popularity, according to many comments that I've seen here and there, so...lame? I mean I always understood why they brought the Worf character to the show, but it just seems to me that this is one of the most well written and thought out shows in the Rick Berman/TNG era. Was the show not properly pushed or something??

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

I can answer that by quoting you.
:)

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

DS9 made observations about humanity that contradict Roddenberrian wisdom and that weren't taken seriously until 2001. It was an 00s show that aired in the 90s.

Why did I hate the show when it aired? Because it contradicted Roddenberrian wisdom, of course. ;) Humans didn't progress over time. Take away their creature comforts and they're a bunch of savage beasts, even worse than the farengi. HERESY, teenager me said!

I think it's the opposite, people wanted to love the show. The highest rated Star Trek episode in history? The Emissary. But the fact is the number of people who want dark serial shows is far smaller than the number of people who want optimistic light heartedness. DS9 is what we want, but it's not what most of the Neilsen audience wants, unfortunately.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

I remember the actors commenting at the wrap party that Paramount never promoted the show adequately and focused more on Voyager. I think DS9's ratings were consistently better than VOY's throughout DS9's run.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

In the first instance I remember hating DS9 on principle. The principle being that it wasn't TNG.

When I got over that, and gave the show a chance, I found that it was pretty good. Towards the end of the first season it got very good, and then during the second season it got even better. By the end of year 2 I'd been completely won over.

I stuck with Trek all the way through Voyager, through Nemesis, and through Enterprise, but for me, DS9 was really the last time that Trek was brilliant.

It also helped when I stopped comparing the show with B5 in my head, and just accepted them both for what they were, great shows.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

A lot of it was people not giving it a chance. Instead of feeling like a stand alone show it was made to feel like a TNG spin off while TNG was still on the air.

I ended up giving it a second look and it's become my favorite incarnation of Trek. Unlike most other Trek shows I felt like DS9 was consistently good right from the get-go. And there was so much character development, I felt more attached to those characters more than others just because so much time was spent on character driven story arcs.

And I'm saying this as a lover of all things Trek, but DS9 is just a stand out to me when it comes to story telling.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

No doubt a number of factors

Increasing competition
Star Trek on a Space Station!
etc..

And of course tastes change over time.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

^ Interesting point. Which is a pity, because, for me at least, DS9's second season is by far superior to TNG's final season. "Necessary Evil" aired at the same time as "Force of Nature". "Blood Oath" aired at the same time as "Journey's End". "Armageddon Game" aired the same time as "Sub Rosa".

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

Wheiit first aired I thought that a Star Trek show that didn't have a ship or a Captain was dumb. TNG was still on so I didn't pay it any attention. Then when TNG finished I started watching it (S3) and I was hooked. But, I always felt like DS9 was the "Jan Brady" or Trek at the time. It only had 1 season to be the only Trek on TV.

I know it sounds cliche', but I really think it was ahead of its time. If it had come in today's era of cable networks producing original programming focusing on heavily serialized stories it would rock. We're talking Breaking Bad/Walking Dead awesome.

And I do believe someone posted here a long time ago some data that showed that DS9's ratings were better than VOY's despite all that.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

I was just like you.

My story:

I tried to watch DS9 when it began and again when Worf switched over. Just couldn't get into to it. Early on, there's was some pretty lame episodes. I liked Emissary but the ones after that were (then) boring.

Space station=yawn
No capt=WTF?
Bajor/Bajorans=Yawn squared

Then in fall of 1995 tried it again. Didn't know who the Jem Hadar was or the Shapeshifter/Changelings that was referred. Pretty good episode, but I was lost. Quit on it.

Late one night, I got to watching Spike TV and Sacrfice of Angels was onl Holy Cow that was awesome, so I watched a couple of more and really liked it
Then I was stuck for a week away from home and little to watch so I began to rewatch a week of it (S7) and thourghly loved it. Started DVRing it and have been hooked ever since.

Again, what hurt:
1) Writing much like early TNG in S1-boring
2) Voyager coming on and stealing some thunder
3) Not having a ship until S3

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

I think it's also much easier to be interested in the Bajorans after having watched Battlestar Galactica's New Caprica arc. At the beginning we saw them through TNG filters: Bajorans are just another planet in the Federation's path of all-inclusiveness, and the Occupation was just Cardassians being generally evil. After Galactica, any reference of the Occupation makes us imagine the New Caprica arc, and we finally get the Bajorans the way Ron Moore imagined them.

IMO here's how I'd rank the various seasons of Trek in the 87-03 era.

A+:
DS9 6

A
DS9 3-5, TNG 3-6

B
DS9 1-2 7.second half
Voy 5-6

C
TNG 2 7
Voy 1-2 7

D
DS9 7.first half
Voy 3-4
TNG 1

F
Enterprise

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

Some might say TPTB focusing on VOY actually helped DSN in terms of the stories they were able to tell as TPTB weren't really keeping an eye on it.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

That's very true. I remember they designed one entire Voyager episode around having The Rock in it for two minutes. Voyager's writers were slaves to the promo, DS9 could just hang back and tell the story they wanted.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

I would agree with the idea that while being the middle child within the Trek Family, might have hurt DS9's ratings during its original run and could possibly be linked to the reason why we'll never get a proper DS9 movie, that level of...neglect, aloud the writers to take far more risks than TNG or Voyager were capable of.

Re: Deep Space Nine thoughts & questions
 

http://25.media.tumblr.com/0c0d5305f...q4io1_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9d506cc7c...q4io2_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/e389232dd...q4io3_1280.jpg

The ratings chart tells the story... You can see the ratings for DS9's launch episode being the highest among all the others. It had the benefit of airing when TNG was still at the height of it's popularity. People saw it, and weren't impressed with what they saw. A space station, religious mumbo jumbo, whiny alliens, no starships only shuttlecrafts. Yeah no wonder DS9 ratings took a dive after the pilot.

Problem with DS9 I feel is the first 3 seasons were boring. TNG kept it light and adventure of the week. Tune in for a new adventure. Not your fancy try back next week.

DS9 had a shaky start. The preachy, whiny, and unsympathetic Bajorans grated my nerves

Dax was a know it all Spock type who borderlined Mary Sue with all her talents and knowledge

Odo hadn't been developed yet

The constant trolling by the Cardassians got annoying really fast. Not like they didn't have a government to run or anything.

DS9 didn't feel like a space station. It felt like a space mall with Sisko as the GM.

Season 4-7 we saw a change for the better for DS9. Unfortunately it came at the expense of ripping out things established by TOS and TNG. Breaking Kirk's greatest achievement the Khitomer Accords from Star Trek VI, and undoing TNG's Redemption storyline and by changing Gowron's character and making the Klingon Civil war a long forgotten footnote. The Dominion War was toyed and teased by the show runners for the better part of season 3, 4, 5, and finally jumped off in season 6. The first 6 episodes of season 6 to be exact. The the stories go back to episode of the week for specific characters with a mad dash to end the Dominion War in the last 9 episodes of season 7.