New DS9 Documentary

[tomalak301]

I've heard similar whispers about Avery Brooks' health over the last year or so...no actually idea what is wrong - and it's none of our business. He seems to have become fairly reclusive and no longer makes convention appearances nor does he seem to be teaching at Rutgers anymore.

That's understandable. I just wish him well and hopefully he has a sense of recovery.

After Jerry Doyle died, I was thinking of the people in 90s trek era who also died. You have your Pillers and Judays and most recently with Yelchin and Nimoy. But with TNG and DS9, most everyone is still around. That's been fortunate but I know sooner or later it might occur and I will be sad all the same.

 

[DS9forever]

Can anyone confirm if this documentary is by the same team as "For the Love of Spock"?

 

[BlueStuff]

Fantastic news. We Niners as a community haven't really had much of anything new to discuss in quite some time.

 

[Kor]

Does Behr have hair coloring in his beard there?

Kor

 

[DS9forever]

He dyed it when he was producing 4400. He had to share offices with business-types.

 

[DS9forever]

Straight from Behr himself:


When we did the first season [of The 4400], it was a miniseries. And they were, let's say, trying to save money, and they would not put us in a studio. They would not get us offices anywhere, as it turned out. So, well, where the hell are we gonna go? You know, we gotta write six episodes... So they put us in Viacom Productions on Wilshire and Westwood, and so suddenly you have this writing staff with all the corporate suits. And it pissed me off, it really did. And we'd be sitting in the offices, and there was a window on my office, and it was frosted, but there was a little bar of clear glass, and every day I'd look up and there'd be eyes staring at me, looking in, I swear to God, and people would come in and go, "How's it going? How's the scripts going?" I'm going, "It was going great, until you just interrupted me!" So, I got more and more unhappy with the conditions that we were working under, and I came home one day and I talked to my wife and kids and said, "You know, I gotta remember, I'm not them and they're not me. How do I keep remembering that?" And my wife said, "Blue your beard." And my daughter said, "Yes yes yes yes yes!" Of course, I had once met Billy Connolly, the comedian, and he had these long ringlets of hair and this little imperial beard; he was like Wild Bill Hickok, and I said, "Boy, you look awesome, you look great!" And he said, "I used to want to be the most famous comedian on the planet, now I just want to be the coolest dad at The Oakwood School." [Ed note: Oakwood is a Los Angeles private school] And I said, "Wow, that's something I have to remember." And then I decided, hey, Campbell Hall, where my kids go, is even less cool than the Oakwood School, so I could probably be the coolest parent there easily! And at the beginning when I walked in the first time to Jeff and all these people, it was like, "What is going on!?" And it just could not have been better. Now of course they're used to it, and it's a big joke, and it's lost its impact. But my kids like it...

 

[tomalak301]

Straight from Behr himself:


When we did the first season [of The 4400], it was a miniseries. And they were, let's say, trying to save money, and they would not put us in a studio. They would not get us offices anywhere, as it turned out. So, well, where the hell are we gonna go? You know, we gotta write six episodes... So they put us in Viacom Productions on Wilshire and Westwood, and so suddenly you have this writing staff with all the corporate suits. And it pissed me off, it really did. And we'd be sitting in the offices, and there was a window on my office, and it was frosted, but there was a little bar of clear glass, and every day I'd look up and there'd be eyes staring at me, looking in, I swear to God, and people would come in and go, "How's it going? How's the scripts going?" I'm going, "It was going great, until you just interrupted me!" So, I got more and more unhappy with the conditions that we were working under, and I came home one day and I talked to my wife and kids and said, "You know, I gotta remember, I'm not them and they're not me. How do I keep remembering that?" And my wife said, "Blue your beard." And my daughter said, "Yes yes yes yes yes!" Of course, I had once met Billy Connolly, the comedian, and he had these long ringlets of hair and this little imperial beard; he was like Wild Bill Hickok, and I said, "Boy, you look awesome, you look great!" And he said, "I used to want to be the most famous comedian on the planet, now I just want to be the coolest dad at The Oakwood School." [Ed note: Oakwood is a Los Angeles private school] And I said, "Wow, that's something I have to remember." And then I decided, hey, Campbell Hall, where my kids go, is even less cool than the Oakwood School, so I could probably be the coolest parent there easily! And at the beginning when I walked in the first time to Jeff and all these people, it was like, "What is going on!?" And it just could not have been better. Now of course they're used to it, and it's a big joke, and it's lost its impact. But my kids like it...

That's an awesome story. I didn't ask him any questions but if I could, I would have asked him about the beard, and why he wears sunglasses all the time. Has anyone ever seen Behr with his Glasses off?

 

[DS9forever]

I was thinking about this today - it's a sort of vindication for Niners - we've known for years DS9 was a great show but it was often overlooked.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I was thinking about this today - it's a sort of vindication for Niners - we've known for years DS9 was a great show but it was often overlooked.

It will certainly be a great too to put the show in context and maybe sell it to people who either never watched, avoided it because of the Star Trek tag, were bored by the initial TNG-ness of the first episodes, or whose masculinity was threatened by Kira.

 

[timtonruben359]

I was thinking about this today - it's a sort of vindication for Niners - we've known for years DS9 was a great show but it was often overlooked.

Certainly when DS9 was on the air after the second season it was pretty much ignored by Paramount - many of the writers and producers of DS9 have talked about this over the years. Strategically Voyager was more important to Paramount as it was the flagship show of its fledgling TV network UPN and even Rick Berman said he spent more of his time dealing with Voyager than DS9.

I actually think the being relatively ignored by the studio allowed DS9 to get away with some of the things that made it a much better show than Voyager e.g. continuing story lines, huge cast of recurring characters, the Dominion War.

Looking at DS9 now pushing 20 years since its been off the air, it's clear to see DS9 actually had a massive impact on the franchise as a whole and in many ways is now held as the gold standard of how Trek can/should be done going forward. I remember when Voyager was on the air there was questions about why Voyager didn't/couldn't do more serialized stories and certainly when Enterprise came around there seemed to be a consensus that Enterprise needed to emulate DS9 more as opposed to the TNG/VOY format it continued until they changed course in the third season which by then was too late.

The thing I'm happy about is in the last few years there have been a lot of fans who gave up on DS9 in its early seasons who thanks to streaming have come to embrace the show. I think in someways DS9 was a head of its time. It's main topics were politics, war, religion, terrorism which would take on a whole new meaning in a post 9/11 world. Michael Piller once said DS9 will become the cult within the cult and he's right about that. DS9 will never have the pop culture presence as TOS and TNG but I think it might have more of a lasting impact on the franchise as whole in the years a head.

 

[DS9forever]

I think it might have been Behr who said DS9 was the cult within the cult, I remember Piller saying DS9 was like Batman and TNG like Superman.

 

[timtonruben359]

I think it might have been Behr who said DS9 was the cult within the cult, I remember Piller saying DS9 was like Batman and TNG like Superman.

It may have been Behr. I know Behr had said that in 10 years people would get the show and I think he's right. Many people seemed to 'rediscovered' DS9 over the last 5 or so years.

 

[lurok]

Was watching the Trek Vegas 2016 Convention panel, and Behr mentioned that they got a writer's room together for a proposed Season 8 DS9 opening episode for the documentary. Would love to see that. (Though he admitted they all left out Quark after the fact!)

Was also nice to see Terry and Nicole on panel talking about Dax

 

[tomalak301]

Was watching the Trek Vegas 2016 Convention panel, and Behr mentioned that they got a writer's room together for a proposed Season 8 DS9 opening episode for the documentary. Would love to see that. (Though he admitted they all left out Quark after the fact!)

Was also nice to see Terry and Nicole on panel talking about Dax

I loved those two together. I thought there would be some anomosity, but there wasn't. Also, Nicole DeBoar reminds me a lot of Jeri Ryan, in terms of personality and cheerfulness. Loved her.

 

[DS9forever]

Found this quote from David Mack on what it was like pitching to the DS9 writers:

To be in the room with such amazingly talented writers as Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Rene Echevarria, and Ronald D. Moore, was truly mind-blowing. There was so much creative energy in that room that I found it intoxicating. It’s hard to describe how impressive it is to take part in a creative brainstorming session with minds of that caliber. If I have any professional regrets in my life, it’s that I never impressed them enough to get a shot at joining that writing staff. To this day, I’d be willing to fetch coffee for Ron Moore in return for a chance to intern as his writers’ room assistant, on any show.

 

[DS9forever]

It's definitely from the same people as "For the Love of Spock", as confirmed by Adam Nimoy in a recent interview

 

[DS9forever]

http://ds9whatweleftbehind.com

Looks like the documentary is titled: "DS9: What We Left Behind".

 

[kkt]

This'll be the bonus feature in the Blu Ray release, right?

 

[tomalak301]

This'll be the bonus feature in the Blu Ray release, right?

I wish. I hope If it goes to theaters there is one around me that is showing it.

 

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