I love Deep Space Nine. Somewhere around seasons 5 and 6 it managed to supplant TNG as my favorite Trek series. The rich and complex universe, characters and relationships it developed are unparalleled amongst the other series. My personal sensibility as I grew older gravitated towards the constant shades of grey inflecting every character, the omnipresent conflict between characters and empires, the toning down of the technobabble, the storyarcs and the daring attempts to take the Trek universe somewhere new in every way, not just planets of the week. TNG may have been a bit more effervescent, TOS more visionary and less stolid, Voyager more... accessible and Enterprise more flashy, but DS9 is aging the best out of the modern series primarily through its writing. That all being said, my niggles with the series finale haven't gone away. The toll of doing an 11-part war arc is evident in the production values - viewers spoiled by the space battle splendor the show started to indulge in from season 3 onwards are treated to a few sparse new shots and a plethora of reused footage from all over the place. Colonel Kira's ragtag team of freedom fighters hides out and does battle on some of the smallest, cheapest sets the show has ever presented outside of Star Trek's infamous cave interiors. Which brings us to the final climax of the show where Sisko matches wits against Dukat and Winn on a greenscreen and some particularly bad-looking cave sets. The huge cast and epic story conclusion weren't going to be cheap. But it's some of the writing that really lets the side down a bit. Ezri and Bashir's coupling still doesn't ring that true - Trek never did romantic dialogue very well. The way the war wraps up is both effective (the Cardassians are massacred, the Founders surrender to Odo) and underwhelming (the Breen never rise above their arc-long role as simple plot device, the final standoff at Cardassia Prime isn't exactly convincing - we need three characters to earnestly convince each other that the Dominion is still dangerous and capable of rebuilding itself when holed up around only one planet they are in the process of terrorizing. Um, no.) But it's how the Sisko story unfolds that really doesn't sit well with me to this day. It all comes down to some Dungeons and Dragons mumbo jumbo about an old book? Nevermind the bad sets and FX - THIS is really the culmination of Sisko's purpose? To knock the Pah-Wraith obsessed Dukat (whose descent into full-on mustache-twirling fundamentalist villainy from "Tears of the Prophets" onwards is one of DS9's saddest come-downs) off a cliff?! It's such a sloppy and clearly not entirely thought-out end for Sisko, Dukat and Winn. Sisko's ascension to the realm of the Prophets works, as does his overall arc serving primarily as Bajor's protector for them. But come on - he somehow breaks Dukat's Force Grip to destroy a book of spells and they fall into cheesy fire effects together. Who on that brilliant writing staff thought that was the best they could come up with? Just some silly venting - I wouldn't feel as strongly if I didn't love the show to death, and it still did a lot right in the end for its characters (the leaving flashback montage works, even if it does need Terry Farrell footage). Its last shot is haunting and a great send off for the show, but I'm curious to know how people today are looking back on the finale. Do tell!
IMO WYLB has always been a weak finale so it never did hold up in terms of delivering what DS9 deserved. The 'resolution' to the war was clearly hackneyed for the sake of tacking on a 'happy ending' at the last minute and making it easy for other franchise products (i.e. TNG movies) to ignore DS9's content. Bashir and Ezri was also poorly-done, I agree. The Sisko abandoning his son and then adding insult to injury by snubbing him and visiting Kasidy instead of him is very very poor writing. Even further insult is added to that injury by the fact that the Sisko lied by saying he would return, yet in reality he never did return and never will return (books are not canon). The re-used footage is pathetic. Getting a new Defiant one episode after the Defiant was destroyed is also pathetic. Leaving the secondary characters like Weyoun, Garak, Winn, Dukat etc. out of the montages is shameful. There are many other problems with WYLB in addition. I have no idea why WYLB is so highly-rated, as if it is great. It is a decent episode but that's about it.
Part One- yes. Except for the reused battle shots, but that can be fixed. Satisfying. Part two-nope. End to the PW arc was kinda disappointing, and the farewell scenes could have been better. I would rather have some semi-experimental farewell episode, with flashbacks using new footage etc.
Yes it still holds up. In fact DS9 season seven especially the Final Chapter holds up and demonstrates that a show need not come off the rails as it winds down. I love the battle sequences(don't care if it does re-use footage), the Winn/Dukat interplay is just as good as it has been, the good-byes are touching, the impact is still there when the Founder orders the destruction of Cardassia along with the loss of 800 million lives. The same problems I had are still there--the way the war ended with the Founder and the way Dukat/Pagh'wraith arc wrapped up. I also didn't like the idea that line that Avery Brooks insisted on including about Sisko returning one day. Is it perfect? No, but it is fairly solid especially when you look at other send-offs like The X-Files, Enterprise, Voyager etc.
I was a big proponent of a documentary-style finale for "Enterprise" using whatever TOS-Voyager actors they could get to come back for quick "talking head interview" cameos that addressed what happened on "Enterprise" and could at least hint at where their own characters ended up in the end. ...which of course could have solved the question of whether Ben Sisko ever did come back...
It's always been an appropriate finale for DS9 as far as I'm concerned: ambitious, flawed, beautiful. It still holds up because it remains ambitious, flawed, and beautiful
Didn't compare to All Good Things but it was good and does hold up. Gotta remember DS9 was very charactor based so trying to give everybody a happy ending and wrapping up the war / battle of the profits was difficult to do.
My family is drawing close to the end of DS9 on DVD so I'm interested in seeing my son and daughter's reaction to WYLB. IIRC, while worthy, I didn't find it as impressive as TNG's AGT. However, a lot of that had nothing to do with the creative team, but rather the studio. Paramount had no interest in continuing DS9 in any form (until the novel relaunch several years later). As a result, they HAD to wrap up all the loose ends, some of them rather abruptly. Same thing with Voyager. Enterprise was more of a huh??
I've never been a big fan of the finale, no. Reintroducing the Defiant robs its destruction of any weight, the re-used footage robs the final ship battle of most of its weight, and the conclusion to Winn/Dukat/Sisko is rather silly and an anticlimax. There are parts that work (mainly Garak, Odo, Kira, and Damar), and the closing montages are nice (though the lack of Jadzia due to contracual reasons leaves them to be a little season seven heavy, IIRC), but on a whole it could have been a much better conclusion.
AGT was the epitome of what TNG had become: tired, stuffy and pretentious. I was so sick of Q that I could just barf. Furthermore, the TNG cast never had the complex and intimate comeradery that the DS9 cast had. Frak yes, WYLB holds up...one of the best 2 hours of Trek ever filmed!
Damar, Garak, and Kira manage to get into Dominion headquarters too easliy, and the pagh wraith rubbish helps ruin things. DS9's my favourite Trek, but All Good Things is far superior. Endgame probably rivals it too.
The only thing Endgame rivals is These Are the Voyages... for the lamest finale... not just Trek, ever. WYLB is on par with BSG finale as a very flawed finale that still has many things going for it and manages to be very moving in parts.
Meh. If I had to watch either WYLB or Endgame, I'd have to think about it. And Endgame would probably win.
It was an Ok finale, but after seeing DS9 take so many of it's cues from B5 over the years, the disappearing captain trick just didn't do it for me. For sure, it was no All Good Things, but it was far better than Voyager's and light years ahead of Enterprise's finales. How does the finale hold up? A better question would be how is poor Jake holding up, sitting there on the promenade these past eleven years, waiting for daddy?
^he's probably like, working on his stories and stuff and umm waiting for the day he turns into Tony Todd.
Sure, because Endgame is an isolated finale. WYLB on the other hand is the end of a multi episode arc.