Different perspectives with age

[Lindley]

"Ties of Blood And Water" --- Oh my god! They killed Tekeny! Those bastards!
Yeah, that's really all I've got...

"Ferengi Love Songs" was better than I remembered. I loved everyone showing up in Quark's closet. That first moment when Zek is in there was the funniest thing this whole season!

I'm not yet into episodes I haven't seen, but season 5 I'm far less familiar with than I was the earlier years.

 

[Antihero]

I also remember watching it when it originally aired. I was in high school at that point and I really wasn't interested in anything except the Starfleet characters.

Now as I watch it again, I find myself more drawn to Quark, Garak, Dukat more than any of the others. Sisko, Dax, Bashir are pretty boring by comparison.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

"Ties of Blood And Water" --- Oh my god! They killed Tekeny! Those bastards!
Yeah, that's really all I've got...

I started crying at the end of that episode! While it's easy to make me cry...I feel justified in that one.

Now on the overall subject of the thread...I used to be smitten with TNG when I was younger. I was a very optimistic person with all sorts of idealistic views about what human society could be, etc. But after world events took a turn for the worse--well, my optimism pretty much got flushed down the toilet and has never come back and now I've got cynicism enough to do Garak proud. Which naturally catapulted DS9 right to the fore of my favorites.

Plus now that I'm older I've caught a lot more stuff that I didn't see before, and feel like maybe it was a good thing that during the show's initial run, I stopped before getting into Season 4--I was in a better position to appreciate it as an adult. And then there are those things that require the perspective of history that wasn't available at the time, to think of. The first few seasons of DS9--am I nuts, or is there one hell of a parallel to the Iraq War situation, in the way Bajor develops? The wreckage of the Occupation, the insurgency, the government that can't work together and the foreign power trying to exert its influence...I don't care what side you're on as far as the real-world war and I don't want that debate. But the parallel is incredible.

One thing I felt could've been developed further during the Final Chapter...but again, they couldn't have had the historical perspective to think how this would feel (except maybe for interviewing people alive when Pearl Harbor was bombed)...the psychological impact of the hit on San Francisco. I just can't help but see that episode through the eyes of someone who remembers 9-11. Try as I might to remember that hadn't happened yet, the episode brings up a lot of feelings.

 

[Darth_Pazuzu]

Nerys Ghemor,
Very insightful comments you made, drawing parallels between events on DS9 and real-life events which occurred later. Although while one may be tempted to refer to many of the DS9 storylines as being "prophetic," I think that simply shows how intelligent and insightful the writers (Behr, Piller, Wolfe, Beimler, Moore, etc.) are about life and politics and how people deal with strife, tragedy and external threats in general.

I was just watching The Way Of The Warrior the other day, which is about the Klingons unilaterally declaring war on Cardassia, simply because they suspect the civilian government of having been taken over by the Founders of the Dominion (the Changelings, of course)! It's certainly tempting to read parallels between this story and the current U.S./Iraq situation, but like I said that only shows how the writers have an extremely sophisticated and realistic sense of how things sometimes work in real life (for better or for worse).

Like yourself, one of the reasons why DS9 is my favorite of the five Star Trek shows is because it strikes a wonderful balance between being hopeful in the best Trek tradition, and being realistic about how things actually work in real life.

You may call yourself "cynical," but I personally think of us Niners as being "realists"!

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

LOL, well, I am a cynical old curmudgeon before my time...I know of what I speak. I have faith in things beyond what we can see--but of that which I can, I have no faith in IT at all. Go figure.

The early-season events with Bajor get even creepier when you not only look at the Federation in the position of trying to rebuild a country in political chaos, but you also remember the whole incident with the Circle and the outside funding coming from the Cardassians. Reminds one of where certain Iraqi insurgent groups have been getting THEIR funding (and remember, Iraq and Iran have had a very nasty, destructive war with each other, so there's no love lost there).

And yes, I agree that DS9 strikes a good balance--there's ultimately hope but it's HARD-won. It's not something just handed to you.

AND I liked the idea that some of that "paradise" might be an ill-gotten gain (i.e. Section 31). That rings much more true to me about what real life is like, than saying people all just decided to gather around the campfire singing Kum-Bah-Yah.

 

[Lindley]

I'm now into episodes I haven't seen before. Including incidentally, "In the Pale Moonlight". Suffice it to say, I knew the gist of the story from all the references in novels and Hidden Frontier and whatnot, but it was nice to see how everything tied together.

Just watched "Time's Orphan". While it was a strong story, I'm not sure I buy old-Molly disappearing as she did. Either the *entire* sequence of events she was involved in should have been erased, or she should have remained----I don't see how you can do timeline adjustments in half measures.