Visitor: Deep Space Nine Has Staying Power

[Bry_Sinclair]

Aragorn wrote:

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You could argue that DS9 being the middle child between TNG and VOY (DS9 was never on the air all by itself) allowed the show to be as great as it was, since the suits at the top were too concerned with milking TNG and making VOY as bland and repetitive as possible to bother themselves with DS9.

I'm kinda glad it did, seeing how poor VOY became with all the effort and focus on it. DS9 needed to be left to its own devices to flourish.

Dream wrote:

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DS9 being set on a space station might have turned some people off. It's a shame.

The setting really made the series, as they were in the thick of things and stayed there, facing the consequences of their acts and shaping the future of the quadrant. Rather than warp into a system cause havoc and warp off, never to return. Besides, the station sets were stunning.

[Bamarren]

Dream wrote:

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DS9 being set on a space station might have turned some people off. It's a shame.

I know people who have said that before as their main reason for not watching it, "They dont go off to explore new worlds." But I find that was the whole point, and what really made DS9, was that everything came to them - or in some cases, kicked them right off the thing.

I found it more interesting than to just say "Now we're in this star system this week..." at the start of an episode.

[John Mason]

Here Here

Quark! The galactic Delboy.....

[Nightdiamond]

I was always baffled at why Voyager was considered more popular and mainstream than DS9 was.

I understand why now, in hindsight.

Still, did the exploring new worlds format work for Enterprise and Voyager? (Voyager had nothing but new strange worlds to explore).

These two shows and the last few movies are often used as an example of Trek's recent decline. (Sometimes DS9 is included though).

I have to admit that DS9 had some flops with the new worlds department, like "Meridian".

But they also had some interesting ones, like the refugees that came through the wormhole, and no one could understand each other, until the Universal Communicator kicked in.

The dialog and style was different, more intense at times, that makes it less dated than TNG, IMO.

[timtonruben359]

The reason there was no DS9 movies is that simply DS9, and Voyager too, didn't get the same ratings that TNG did. It's a numbers game.

There's a myth in the fandom that Voyager was more popular than DS9 but the truth is DS9 had better numbers its entire run than Voyager. The issue was DS9 was the 'forgotten Trek' as far as Paramount was concerned. Voyager was given a higher production budget than DS9 and because it was a network show it got far more money for promotion than DS9 did. Because of this, I think VOY was in the mainstream consciousness more than DS9.

DS9 had the highest rated debut of any Star Trek series before or since but DS9 was so different than anything Star Trek had ever done that a lot of fans were turned off by it. The show was far more dark, gritty and political than TNG and was more about exploring the human condition rather than exploring space. Add to that, the first two seasons of DS9, while having a few good moments, weren't exactly stellar.

I always felt that if Voyager had debuted later than it did, DS9 might have been a bigger success ratings wise. The original plan was DS9 would debt and run along side TNG for a couple years and then be the solo Star Trek show far a number of years and if DS9 was a big enough success, they'd launch another spin-off around the end of DS9s run. But two things happens DS9 and TNG did very well ratings wise running concurrently that Paramount felt they could have two Star Trek shows on at the same time. Paramount was finally going to launch its long talked about TV network so it was decided that they would debut the network with a new Star Trek show.

The problem is a lot of TNG fans who didn't liked DS9 gave up on the show and waited for Voyager to debut. Sadly, DS9 really started coming into its own in the third year at the same time Voyager launched and all the publicity and media attention went over to Voyager.

[indolover]

If there is one "regret" if it were, then it's that DS9 was never a pop culture phenomenon as TNG was. IMO, both were of equal quality.

[indolover]

Nightdiamond wrote:

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I was always baffled at why Voyager was considered more popular and mainstream than DS9 was.

I understand why now, in hindsight.

Still, did the exploring new worlds format work for Enterprise and Voyager? (Voyager had nothing but new strange worlds to explore).

These two shows and the last few movies are often used as an example of Trek's recent decline. (Sometimes DS9 is included though).

I have to admit that DS9 had some flops with the new worlds department, like "Meridian".

But they also had some interesting ones, like the refugees that came through the wormhole, and no one could understand each other, until the Universal Communicator kicked in.

The dialog and style was different, more intense at times, that makes it less dated than TNG, IMO.

Voyager had the best potential.

But Trek's recent problems are production-based. TNG and DS9 had excellent all-round production (casting, character development, plot development, etc.) Voyager's was poor by comparison (Harry being an Ensign for 7 years as an example).

In DS9's case, TNG probably had some novelty value in that it was the first Trek show on for a while. And in fairness, the concept of DS9 probably turned people off.

[pimp]

As I recall DS9 was not very popular during it's original run. But shows like Voyager which overlapped with DS9 did far better in ratings/viewers. Only now years later do I see people taking a big interest in DS9, in original airtime it wasn't that big (but am I wrong on this???) which is sad really ;(

anyways maybe this is one fo the reasons why DS9 did not get a movie done, just no money in it for good old Hollywood.

[Sindatur]

pimp wrote:

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As I recall DS9 was not very popular during it's original run. But shows like Voyager which overlapped with DS9 did far better in ratings/viewers. Only now years later do I see people taking a big interest in DS9, in original airtime it wasn't that big (but am I wrong on this???) which is sad really ;(

anyways maybe this is one fo the reasons why DS9 did not get a movie done, just no money in it for good old Hollywood.

Nah, once TNG ended Trek ratings decreased every year, so the later the Series started, the lower the ratings went.
So TNG the best ratings
DS9 2nd best
Voyager 3rd
Enterprise 4th

[Utopianvista]

Voyager was never mainstream!

DS9's problems were a crowded syndication market and not being the focus of Paramount. You had movies and Paramount had a network. DS9 was just sort of there doing it's own thing.

They shouldn't have ended TNG at 7 seasons. It's was stupid to kill the cash cow and try to launch a network with another unproven Star Trek show. All it did was hurt Trek in the long run. TNG should've been a 10 year show. TNG season 7 is horrible because all of the focus was shifting towards prepping for the movie, prepping for the network launch of UPN/Voyager and having DS9 on as well. Trek never recovered from ending TNG early.

[sonak]

pimp wrote:

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As I recall DS9 was not very popular during it's original run. But shows like Voyager which overlapped with DS9 did far better in ratings/viewers. Only now years later do I see people taking a big interest in DS9, in original airtime it wasn't that big (but am I wrong on this???) which is sad really ;(

anyways maybe this is one fo the reasons why DS9 did not get a movie done, just no money in it for good old Hollywood.

nope. Again, I don't know where this myth got started, but Voyager did NOT do better than DS9 in ratings. Does the fact that VOY was a network show really make that much of a difference in perceptions? I'm just curious as to where the myth of Voyager as so much more popular than DS9 came from when the actual numbers don't back it up.