Like many features in Star Trek: The Magazine, the DS9 articles were superficial and offered few new insights into the series. The only really interesting (and new) piece was the Brooks interview.
That's kind of the impression I'm getting from reading the summaries of the magazine in this thread. I don't care about relaunch novels or fan fictions or superfluous questions/info to the actors, many of which have been answered before anyhow. Most of Cirroc's and Brook's interview portions that they put on the DVD extras were already spent saying they are really close; don't see what the point is in the magazine rehashing that. I guess different fans have different DS9-related stuff that appeals to them though.
Does Brooks give the impression like he hates DS9 in the magazine interview? Ie: Like he does in his interview in the DVD extras commentary. Or has he changed his tune about that and just gives some stock answers that don't make his hate/disgruntledness with DS9 evident in the magazine?
As Editor, I thought I'd just come in here on this - the format we used for the DS9 special is the same that we've used for the Movies, and for the TNG special last summer. The idea isn't to provide a blow by blow account of the show but hopefully to make fans who've seen the episodes multiple times go back to them with a fresh eye. Each of those "mini" articles (and they're not designed to be anything more than that - there are 7 seasons plus the novels to cover) looks at a feature of DS9 and puts it in some form of context. For long term fans, the odds of loads of "new insights" is probably quite low, and I'm pleased that we obviously had some!!
As far as Avery Brooks was concerned, I didn't for one minute get the impression he hated or was disgruntled with DS9 although obviously he gave me his perspective as of summer 2007. He doesn't give many interviews and there are a lot of fans who won't have seen one before. There are also fans who don't have all the DVDs, or who simply watch the episodes rather than the supplementary material.
The Cirroc interview was written up by me, but there were a number of us present (as indicated in the stand-first) so I didn't think it fair or accurate to indicate that it was "my" interview. Avery gave the magazine nearly an hour of his time over the weekend for which I was very grateful.
I take your point that Avery and Cirroc always talk about how close they are - but to them, that is fundamental. It turned up in both interviews more than it does in print - I removed the various repetitions.
The DS9 continuation novels may not interest you, but with no ongoing TV series, and the movie still a year off, the novels and now the IDW comics, are the only new Trek we're getting, and they are very important to a lot of fans.
Answering other points above, the typo in David George's piece is just that. A typo!
As far as UK distribution goes, the magazine will be on release on 22 March, as it's now being printed in the US and shipped into the UK, in common with the majority of Titan's US-show based magazines. I signed off on the website update recently, so that should show there very soon.
A question to everyone here then... When we do our next DS9 special (and it will come round sooner than you think!) what would you like to see? (NB a Nana Visitor interview is on the way, in our upcoming Mirror Universe issue.) Who else would you like to see interviewed?
Paul Simpson
Editor, Star Trek Magazine
