• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Is DS9 worth binging?

The approach to watching television in the contemporary world doesn't lend itself well to DS9 (and to a certain extent, Voyager and Enterprise). There is a lot of focus on plot, and characters are interesting only in so far as they embrace the extremes of action. All ten of the episodes are supposed to be important in that they all tell the same story, but in truth only three are essential. The season premier sets up this season's story. The penultimate episode pushes the dramatic tension. The season finale is the action packed resolution. I often feel that series mid-season are just treading over the same ground. This pattern was very apparent in the second season of Silo: even though there was action in the revolt plot, the actual dynamics between characters was unchanged. Everyone was just angry. DS9 characters evolved with nuance. All the Cardassian characters (at least one of whom was considered to be made part of the regular cast according to rumors) faced questions about the authoritarianism of their society in culture. Some of them gradually moved away, but rather than incorporate idealism, they simple became more pragmatic. Some of them eventually reach a democratic outlook. However, one character (name withheld for the OP) who snaps back to that authoritarianism. Yet he had never changed. He had shifted with the times as the fortunes of Cardassia changed. He was never 'redeemed', nor did he try. He was always an ass. Yet there are people who think that his reversion was random, probably because of looking only at the plot and not the character moments.
 
mmm love the continuing misuse of the term "filler".
and if people are making lists of the "correct" episodes to watch like this, and eschewing all others, then they are also not "bingeing". and this is especially a poor way to watch something for the first time.
Do you think someone today has the attention span to watch every single episode of DS9 from start to finish without stopping and moving on to something else? There is way too much content. It's paced as shows were in the 90s. And the show takes several seasons like TNG before it really hits its stride.

The reduced lists really help people get through it.

I finished a binge of it during lockdown watching every episode, and I had started and stopped it several times before. I even watched the first couple of season when it originally aired. I wouldn't recommend binge watching it today. It works better to watch an episode or two a week, not an episode or two every day.
 
Last edited:
When some says binge watch to me, I take it to mean watching non-stop from start to finish, rather than a gradual pace over time with other stuff watched in between.
I get it which is why binging is stupid to me. I'm sure I'm an outlier as even my wife enjoys binging shows but ugh, what a chore that represents to me.

Nevermind that Deep Space Nine wasn't really built for binging. Feel like it's like scarfing down a whole pint of ice cream and not tasting the flavor.
 
In 2019, I re-watched every single episode of TNG, all four TNG Movies, and every key Seven of Nine episode of VOY before Picard started. If I had a day off from work, I watched several. If I didn't, I always tried to work in one or two every day.

But I did watch other stuff as well. Let's just say there are 24 hours in a day and I found a way to make use of all of them. I got what I needed to get done first, put in my work day, then watched TV. It also helps that I'm an insomniac. Most people aren't.

If I weren't doing my Re-Watch Thread, I would've binged DS9. I would've been done with the re-watch a long time ago. But I enjoy taking my time with it and alternating with B5. And my pace is whenever I make the time for it.

DS9/VOY, YouTube Reactors, they're now effectively my substitute for New Trek.
 
When some says binge watch to me, I take it to mean watching non-stop from start to finish, rather than a gradual pace over time with other stuff watched in between.
and not a heavily curated list -subject to someone else's taste- of "important" episodes. a gradual watch is also fine, nobody HAS to binge. which i think is part of the problem, people seem to think they have to binge everything, because many streaming shows just drop the whole thing at once, or nearly so, and they need to know so they can talk about it with people, and they apply that backwards, even if they grew up with traditional tv scheduling.


o you think someone today has the attention span to watch every single episode of DS9 from start to finish without stopping and moving on to something else? There is way too much content. It's paced as shows were in the 90s. And the show takes several seasons like TNG before it really hits its stride.
without taking a break or watching something else that takes your fancy? no of course not. but it's not the show's fault. and i don't think it's really attention span so much as impatience. and nowadays, shows almost don't have *time* to hit their stride before they're over.


i got through all of sg1 in less than a month a couple of years ago, and tng, voyager, and enterprise
meanwhile i have been nursing a rewatch of Babylon 5 since last January, where the last several times, it only took a couple of weeks. sometimes a show clicks and sometimes it doesn't.


I wouldn't recommend binge watching it today. It works better to watch an episode or two a week, not an episode or two every day.
and that's perfectly fine. the issue isn't people wanting or not wanting to binge, it's people having a wrong idea of what filler is and not actually wanting to watch the show, just a highllight reel. and with episodic shows from before the 10-episode season streaming paradigm, if you're only watching a handful of episodes a season, you are not really getting the thingies of it. it's different if you've already seen it a bunch of times.
 
In 2019, I re-watched every single episode of TNG, all four TNG Movies, and every key Seven of Nine episode of VOY before Picard started. If I had a day off from work, I watched several. If I didn't, I always tried to work in one or two every day.

But I did watch other stuff as well. Let's just say there are 24 hours in a day and I found a way to make use of all of them. I got what I needed to get done first, put in my work day, then watched TV. It also helps that I'm an insomniac. Most people aren't.

If I weren't doing my Re-Watch Thread, I would've binged DS9. I would've been done with the re-watch a long time ago. But I enjoy taking my time with it and alternating with B5. And my pace is whenever I make the time for it.

DS9/VOY, YouTube Reactors, they're now effectively my substitute for New Trek.
I watch about an hour of TV max a day. My day usually ends with: taking care of the dog, working out for an hour, cooking dinner, watching one hour of TV, and then reading for one hour before going to bed. I'll watch movies on the weekend. Binge watches take me a while. I'm alternating between Penny Dreadful and The Following, and I haven't finished either of their first seasons. I'm sick today, so I'm not doing much of anything.
 
I find myself falling victim to it sometimes and I hate myself for it.
I don't. I tried watching Voyager a couple of times. The first time I gave up partway into Season 2. Then a couple of years later I thought maybe I hadn't given it a fair trial, so I watched through the middle of Season 3. By then, TOS was on life support, and DS9 had shown some really great episodes, and I decided to torture myself no more.
 
I don't. I tried watching Voyager a couple of times. The first time I gave up partway into Season 2. Then a couple of years later I thought maybe I hadn't given it a fair trial, so I watched through the middle of Season 3. By then, TOS was on life support, and DS9 had shown some really great episodes, and I decided to torture myself no more.
I've never finished VOY.

I actually enjoy ENT more, which feels like it's between TNG and BSG. However, by the time it aired, I can imagine most people had Star Trek burn out. And by the time it got its footing, it was canceled with a horrible ending.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: kkt
To clarify:

Binging is doing something to excess. If I watch 3 episodes of Star Trek in a row, I just binged Star Trek.

Watching every episode is marathoning.

Or at least that’s my understanding.
 
To clarify:

Binging is doing something to excess. If I watch 3 episodes of Star Trek in a row, I just binged Star Trek.

Watching every episode is marathoning.

Or at least that’s my understanding.
Our definitions of it are the reverse of each other's.

On TV, if they'd show all the Star Trek movies in a row on the same day, they'd call it a marathon. One time in Boston, the local TV station had a "Klingon-athon" which consisted of all the major TOS and TNG Klingon episodes up to that point.

Sometimes, on things like holidays in the '90s, I'm thinking around Christmas Time, the Sci-Fi Channel showed Twilight Zone episodes all day. Or it was the cable channel USA or TBS or whatever it was. It's been a while. Mathematically impossible show every episode of Twilight Zone in a day, but they showed as many episodes as they could pack into that single day. They weren't in order or anything like that. Just whatever favorite episodes whoever aired them on the channel chose.

One year during the holidays, in 1995, some cable channel all five Planet of the Apes movies. So, I'd think of that as a marathon as well. It's also how I first saw those movies.

When I was in college, I was in the Anime Club. I eventually became President. We'd watch random anime or sometimes we'd watch a bunch of episodes from a series. Slayers, Ranma 1/2, Neon Genesis Evangelion, you name it. Whether we mixed up series or just watched the same one all day, we'd call it a marathon.

Common Denominator: If we watched a bunch of episodes or movies in a series or genre during the same day, we called it a Marathon. I was in my teens and early-20s during all of this.

Binging is a much more recent type of phenomenon. You put on Netflix (as an example). You start watching a new series. Stranger Things for instance. You watch the first episode, then the next one, then the next one, and then the next one, and on and on, and you don't stop. Unless you sleep. Then you get back up and keep watching. If you're not sleeping, working, shopping, or using the bathroom, you're binging.

The only time I flat-out binged a series was during Christmas Week of 2013. I was on vacation from work that week, I lived by myself, I had no partner, and I just watched every episode of Breaking Bad that week. Literally all 62 episodes in that one week. It was fucking crazy. I couldn't stop watching it. It was a page-turner. I never did that before and I haven't done it since.

Earlier, when I said I would've binged DS9 if I wasn't doing a Re-Watch Thread, I didn't mean it literally. I wouldn't have watched all 176 episodes of DS9 in a row, except for sleeping etc. But I probably would've watched a few a day until I was done. Definitely would've been a faster pace than what I'm actually doing.

I think people use "binge" and "marathon" interchangeably at best these days. "Binge" is what's normally said now, almost exclusively. I've fallen into that habit as well.

.
.
.

Before someone asks, "Why were you President of the Anime Club and not a Star Trek Club?" Well, there's a very good reason for that. To quote one of my friends at the time, "You can't do a Star Trek Club because then it'll be Original Series fans versus Next Generation fans!" He wasn't wrong, so I agreed with him. Even though all my friends who liked Star Trek only liked TNG (still the situation today), and I was the only one who liked TOS as well, we knew someone from outside would come along, something would happen, and the whole TOS vs. TNG Fight would erupt. So we just didn't do it.
 
Last edited:
snip

.
.
.

Before someone asks, "Why were you President of the Anime Club and not a Star Trek Club?" Well, there's a very good reason for that. To quote one of my friends at the time, "You can't do a Star Trek Club because then it'll be Original Series fans versus Next Generation fans!" He wasn't wrong, so I agreed with him. Even though all my friends who liked Star Trek only liked TNG (still the situation today), and I was the only one who liked TOS as well, we knew someone from outside would come along, something would happen, and the whole TOS vs. TNG Fight would erupt. So we just didn't do it.
so you chose "who is best girl?" fights instead :P


Binging is doing something to excess. If I watch 3 episodes of Star Trek in a row, I just binged Star Trek.
three episodes would hardly be to excess, that's like one movie
 
"Binging" is like "porn," a borrowing of words from another field in an attempt to be artful and clever, but ultimately undermining the power of the original use. Someone who sits down to watch three hours of a show is no different than someone who watches any three hours of television. No one watching football all day on Sunday would be accused of binging, nor would they be said to be ensconced in football porn.
 
three episodes would hardly be to excess, that's like one movie

If I’ve got three hours to burn like that in a day, it’s a miracle to be honest.

I suppose the concept of binging is relative to the time in which an individual has to binge within.

I dunno.

I’m *this* close to saying ‘I don’t care anyway’, but I’m not quite there yet.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top