I've only recently started watching DS9, and while I loved The Emissary and there were some other strong episodes in season 1, it wasn't until I reached Duet that I thought, "Ooooooh, this is why people are obsessed with this show."
i'm starting to dig DS9
- Thread starter TroiFan4ever
- Start date
I remember liking DS9 when it was on UPN 9 in the 90's but i just started from the first and finished it few days ago. Aside from the fact that sisko never told his son anything but telling kassidy instead, i thought it was amazing!!!
I hope that I can, one day, learn to enjoy DS9, I've tried watching it a number of times and just can't get past the first few episodes. I've loved every other Star Trek series, but being based on a space station and focusing on character development instead of exploring strange new worlds just seems incredibly boring. I will give it another try. Are there any episodes anyone can recommend that are stand alone and deal with "exploring strange new worlds" and just interesting scientific or anthropological ideas? At least to get my foot in the door, so to speak.
I think it's a very, very cool series. Very cool. I'm fonder of TNG in many ways but DS9 is a more rewarding and challenging televisual experience. DS9 has a large ensemble and they are almost all strong characters. That's a great achievement to keep that going.
DS9 is a serialised larger story and might seem very confusing if you only watched it according to your criteria. I recommend watching the following episodes in season 1 and 2 -- however, only the ones I've marked * are essential viewing IMO to follow the larger story (although this doesn't mean that they're all good stories in themselves but none of them is terrible):
Season 1:
Emissary *
Past Prologue *
Captive Pursuit
Dax
The Nagus
Vortex *
Battle Lines *
Duet *
In the Hands of the Prophets *
Season 2:
The Homecoming *
The Circle *
The Siege *
Cardassians
Rules of Acquisition *
Necessary Evil
Armageddon Game
Whispers
Blood Oath
The Maquis parts 1 and 2 *
The Wire *
Crossover
The Collaborator
The Jem'Hadar *
The series really takes off in season 3. If you didn't like the recommended season 1 and 2 episodes, perhaps you should look elsewhere.
It's a little difficult to find episodes that cover "exploration" without having that DS9 accent on them, but there are plenty that have a cultural, if not scientific, angle to them. Here are some decent to good episodes from the first three seasons that I think are worth watching. Only The Search requires that you have seen Jem'hadar. Hopefully these can take you from what you expect of Star Trek to appreciate how DS9 relates to the franchise as a whole.
Captive Pursuits
Battle Lines
Rules of Acquisition
Paradise
Shadowplay
Playing God
The Wire
Crossover
The Jem'hadar
The Search I and II
The Abandoned
Life Support
Destiny
Visionary
Explorers
It's definitely implied at some point that Bashir deliberately underperformed to avoid attention, and that a lot of his insecurity comes from never being able to take pride in his own achievements.
As for his abilities, not super-human like Khan, more like the 60s series The Champions: apart from the telepathy, they couldn't do anything other people couldn't do, but they would come top at everything: sprinting, weight-lifting, etc etc.
As for his abilities, not super-human like Khan, more like the 60s series The Champions: apart from the telepathy, they couldn't do anything other people couldn't do, but they would come top at everything: sprinting, weight-lifting, etc etc.
I suspect that if you prefer hard SF (physical science-based) to soft SF (social science-based), you might be disappointed with a number of DS9 episodes. DS9 has a bias toward examining religious issues though the Prophets and the Orbs, which are interpreted either as divine beings and magical artefacts or as transcended aliens and super-advanced technology. There is technobabble but deliberately not as much as in other late twentieth century Trek.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Technobabble
I do, which has always contributed to my bias against DS9, seeing it as more StarWars than ST. But I need a fix before Discovery comes out.
I always see DS9 as more Babylon 5 than Trek. 
In that it tried to be more epic and mythical, yes, it what more like Star Wars. Even so, DS9 was very much in the Star Trek universes. It is particularly evident when you look at the more political episodes of TOS. Indeed, I often compare DS9 to second season TOS, when Roddenberry's influence was waning and before the imperative to be more adventurous took over.
DS9 has a bias toward being awesome.
I like the show a lot but the pilot show is pretty important to watch but it is rather painful. But so is the 1st TNG episode.
The pilot episode was difficult to sit through. Too much excruciating psychobabble between Sisko and the prophets. The only scenes that were really enjoyable about Emissary were the ones with Jennifer in her bikini swimsuit.
The show got better immediately after that. Thank goodness. There were many good episodes in every season. I liked the early season episodes that dealt with the lingering scars of the Cardassian's brutal occupation of Bajor.
It may not necessarily be the same as "exploring strange new worlds", however, DS9 did a very good job exploring the human condition, better than any other Trek series, with maybe the exception of TOS. Plus, the show fully fleshed out its characters.
The show got better immediately after that. Thank goodness. There were many good episodes in every season. I liked the early season episodes that dealt with the lingering scars of the Cardassian's brutal occupation of Bajor.
It may not necessarily be the same as "exploring strange new worlds", however, DS9 did a very good job exploring the human condition, better than any other Trek series, with maybe the exception of TOS. Plus, the show fully fleshed out its characters.
I actually thought the story and dialogue for the pilot were great. I think it could have been edited better, and I think some of the performances were strange. The chemistry between the cast wasn't there yet, of course, and they were all still trying to figure out who their characters were. I liked the less melodramatic Kira that came later in the series, the less annoying Bashir, and the less wooden Jadzia. But I still love this pilot despite the early growing pains. For Kira, a case could be made for character growth. I suppose for Jadzia it could have been that perhaps the host was still getting used to the symbiont. 
Bashir was just a mess though. I'm glad they adjusted his personality. And, of course, the benefit of a series that has a lot of serial elements is it's always fun to go back and watch the series again from the beginning!
Bashir was just a mess though. I'm glad they adjusted his personality. And, of course, the benefit of a series that has a lot of serial elements is it's always fun to go back and watch the series again from the beginning!
I'm no fan of DS9. I think it has the most embarrassing episodes, the nerdiest elements of all of Star Trek. I think the cast/characters on the whole are unlikable. The first two seasons are pretty joyless and discouraging/suck.
Having said that...I recommend getting youself to Season 3. DS9 then takes on the most consistent stretch of solid writing of any Trek series right until the end of its run. This is an admission from a non-fan. That's not to call it the best Trek. And don't worry about "getting into it". You may come to "respect it" as I have.
Cheers!
Can't reach the grapes, Mr. Fox?
DS9 is definitely among my top series. The focus on characters and longer story arcs helps the show stand the test of time. Even the "side' characters like Garak are captivating, and the villains are much more interesting e.g. Gul Dukat. When you compare this to Voyager,a show of the same vintage, IMO it's obvious DS9 has aged better. But maybe I feel that way mainly because I hated Neelix and thought Janeway was a terrible decision maker.
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