Tomorrow: 20 Years Ago

[tomalak301]

Can't believe it's been 20 years, and DS9 doesn't look it's age at all. Great series and I'm not sure if I'm buying the blu-rays (Already double-dipping on TNG) but this was a great DVD purchase when it came out, 10 years ago.

[StarMan]

I found the series (and Trek in general) after I saw ST:FC at the cinema. Season 3 was where I got on board. Good timing, IMO.

[Seven of Five]

20 years is frightening, really, but I have a semi-escape clause because I didn't start watching until 1996.

I was only just getting into Trek at the time, but I'd had some exposure to TOS as my Dad used to watch it. BBC were pretty far behind Sky's schedule, but it still became tradition for me, my friend and his family to watch at 6pm, whichever series was on. So, I got into TNG's seventh, DS9's second and VOY's first seasons all around the same time. And before long as was watching anything and everything.

I was 12, and still at middle school.

Simpler times indeed!

[Jimi_James]

My first episode was Heart of Stone. Like many people, I was preoccupied with TNG and didn't give the show a fair chance until catching it late one night almost by accident. I hadn't intended to watch it, but simply left the tv on to have something playing in the background while I was working on something else...which I can't even remember what it was now.

What I do remember though, was being so engrossed by the Odo, Kira, and the Female shapeshifter that I made a point to tune in the following week to watch more. And boy was I not disappointed. By the time I started watching, Season Three was nearing the end of its original run and was showing repeats before heading into the last few episodes of the season. I don't recall if it was the next episode I saw, but shortly there after, I saw The Search...and was properly introduced to the Defiant.

Wow. This wasn't the Enterprise-D at all and Sisko wasn't anything like Picard. If anything, he was more like Kirk, kicking ass and taking names. It definitely left an impression.

Soon after that came Defiant, Improbable Cause and the Die is Cast. I suppose that it helped a great deal that my introduction to DS9 was based mainly on such strong episodes. Had I started out from the beginning, I'm not sure I would have stuck with it. I enjoyed Emissary quite a great deal when I finally saw it and there are some really good episodes in the first two seasons, but they are certainly few and far between.

Well, by the time the Season Three finale came around, I was hooked and I had only seen mainly half the season. I was gearing up for Season Four and the obvious conflict with the Dominion that was sure to come and that's when something changed for me.

I had seen and enjoyed the original movies, some of TOS, and much of TNG. All of it though was just something I watched and and enjoyed. They were just movies and TV shows.
DS9 was different.
DS9 flipped the switch that made me a Star Trek Fan. It wasn't enough to just watch the show any more. I had to know about the Defiant and how things worked on the ship as well as the station. I had to know about these characters and their past, where they had been and where they were going. I needed more information than what the show was giving and for the first time, I began to seek out other sources for that information.

DS9 pushed my into bookstores to buy sci-fi magazines so I could get interviews with anyone who worked on the show. And eventually DS9 pushed me online to find other people and what information they had. I had to know as much as possible about this world. I was fanatic...I was a fan.

DS9 made me the sci-fi fan I am today and for that, it will always hold a very special place in my heart. Those were good years, some of the best years and while my love and enthusiasm for Trek may wain at times, I will always be a Niner.

[cooleddie74]

DS9 is my second favorite Trek after TOS and has been for quite a few years now. I still like or even love the others in the franchise but none of them quite match the impact that DS9 had on me (TNG comes awfully close, though).

[Chris3123]

Here's a 4-minute trailer from 1992, narrated by voice over legend Don LaFontaine:

[RandyS]

It's conversations like this that make me aprieciate the first generation TOS fans like my mom and her sister, both sadly, now deceased. I missed TOS when it was on NBC, but was 17 when TNG came out and 23 when DS9 premiered.

23??

Who the hell stole the time??

Actually, I was still 22, since DS9 began airing in January, and my birthday is not until April, but my point is still valid.....

I'm getting long in the tooth......

[RandyS]

Chris3123 wrote:

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Wow, I can't believe it's been 20 years since I first saw DS9. 20 years.

I was 9 at the time.

Only nine?

That means you are now the age I was when DS9 ended.

[cooleddie74]

I was a little over 18 when DS9 premiered and had turned 13 just a month after NEXT GEN debuted in the fall of '87.

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

I came into DS9 quite late in the game. Although both of my parents watched and liked TNG, I was forbidden to watch DS9 because they considered it a "soap opera" (general anti-DS9 opinion). My older sister had overriding TV privileges and, as she considers Star Trek to be "gay" (general anti-Trek opinion), would insist on watching anything else. Usually Home & Away.

Somewhere along the way I was allowed to watch my first DS9 episode, which wound up being "Little Green Men" -- not the best first episode to watch. My second chance to watch it didn't come until "Rules of Engagement", which was quite hard going. It wasn't until BBC2 were showing late season 5 that I got to watch it regularly, when I went to my grandparents' after school on a Thursday. I filled in most of the early episodes through repeats over the next few years and then bought season 7 on video when it came out. I'm not sure I'd even seen every episode until last year when I bought all the DVDs!

[lonewriter]

It's hard to believe its been 20 years, I remember watching it and loved it. It was my favorite Trek show.

[toughlittleship]

Chris3123 wrote:

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Here's a 4-minute trailer from 1992, narrated by voice over legend Don LaFontaine:

Thanks for posting that. Anybody notice there is a TNG shuttlecraft at 02:56? I don't remember that ever appearing in DS9. I wonder if it is footage from a TNG episode.

[cooleddie74]

I don't recognize the shot from any early Season 1 DS9 episode, so yeah it's almost certainly an f/x recycle from TNG to pad out the trailer. Even in the theatrical trailer to Generations about two years later Paramount reused TNG clips to fill gaps left by the film's then-incomplete visual effects.

Paramount loves to cut corners where it can. Can't say I blame them, though there are times when it's painfully obvious and even a little laughable. The Starship Bozeman emerging from the temporal rift in Generations....really?

[Jimi_James]

How many times have we seen that one Bird of Prey explode? TUC, Generations, DS9, and Voyager all used it. Someone should make a video of all the times it's been seen exploding.

Thanks for posting that trailer.

[Steven]

Wow, has it been 20 years already? I haven't watched an episode of DS9 in a while, so I just finished watching Emissary to celebrate the anniversary. It's my favourite of the Star Treks and it still holds up nicely.

StarMan wrote:

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Season 3 was where I got on board. Good timing, IMO.

Same here. Don't recall which episode I started with, but I'm pretty sure it was late season 2 or season 3. Watched it straight to the end from there.

Chris3123, thanks for posting that trailer.