Okay Niners, Convince Me

[buckeyenation]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged. So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

 

[Smiley]

It's hard to be persuasive without more information. Why did you feel apathetic in 1993, and what are you liking about the Fan Collective episodes that you've watched?

In general, I recommend that a new viewer try watching from "Emissary" to "Battle Lines." The plots are pretty standard, but the characters are all defined and explored to varying degrees. You're almost guaranteed not to like everybody straight off, but that gives them room to grow and change over seven seasons. If you don't get at least some glimmer from the early episodes, then it may not be the show for you. However, if you do like what you see, then you will probably be a solid Niner by the end of the series.

 

[Praxius]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged. So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

Ok then....

When it first came on TV, I thought the exact same thing as you and didn't quite care for it... I was too far into TNG to give it a chance really.

It wasn't until the series was almost over that I decided to look back into it.

Now I think it was the very best ST series of them all, even TNG (Though TNG is a very very close second)

My wife was never a ST fan in the first place and thought Star Trek was a shallow Star Wars-like show with no depth or substance and only appealed to nerds and losers.

Heck I thought the same thing when I was a kid until I got into TNG.

I'll tell you what I told her:

The first two seasons of DS9 are kinda bland, mostly because like TNG and Voyager, the first couple of seasons are needed to work on character development and scene setup. Push through the first two seasons and by the time the third comes around, things start to take off and you'll be hooked.

I was.... my wife was and most others I talked to were as well. In fact, my wife was sad when we got to the end of the series and there wasn't anymore. Her favorite characters were Worf #1, Jadzia and Odo.

Mine were Odo, Garak, Sisko, Worf and O'Brien..... Oh and Dukat... but I won't say why yet or else I may ruin some things for you.

Oh and if you're not that far yet.... sorry about spoiling the tid bit of Worf coming onto the show :P

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged. So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

Best series imo even better than TOS. They did more to develop those characters than any other show did. Also by being fixed on a station it allowed them to have som many secondary characters like Martok and Garack.

 

[TheGodBen]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged. So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

DS9 is a great series with an important caveat; The first season isn't very good. You'll not find many Niners that consider the first season their favourite of the show, and you'll find some fans that actually hate it.

DS9 grows in ways that the other Treks didn't, it goes from being a show about a shipping hub in a sector of little value to being a show about the fate of the galaxy. The main characters grow and change over the seven years, the characters in the pilot are different from the characters in the finale, and that's very rewarding for a long-time viewer. In fact, DS9 actually included a character in the first season that the audience were supposed to dislike, Dr Bashir, but he grows into a great character and a very likeable guy.

According to your profile you like TOS, TNG and Enterprise, and those are the three Treks that I also like (with DS9 being my favourite), so I think that DS9 might just suit you. I think you should definitely give the show a try, starting from the beginning. Yes, I know I said that season 1 isn't very good, but DS9 is a saga and it is worth watching it in order if you can, just keep in mind that the show will get better. If you find after a few episodes that season 1 isn't to your tastes then we can provide you with a list of essential season 1 episodes, the ones that are either good or important to watch for their universe and character building, and normally those episodes are one and the same.

If you do decide to take the plunge then I hope you'll keep us updated, we love watching the indoctrination of new Niners. Just be careful when visiting the forum, some of the thread titles have big spoilers.

 

[RyuRoots]

Season 1 does have a few good ones though. In particular, Progress and Duet. I also think the first ep was pretty darn good too though.

 

[flemm]

My advice to you would be to do whatever it takes to get yourself into the show, because it is a special ride from beginning to end, the greatest of the Trek shows by a fairly wide margin imo.

Given that you weren't enthused by the pilot, you might want to try a few episodes from the DS9 Sampler described below to get a feel for the show's different themes and styles. The Way of the Warrior is basically a second pilot, but with the more epic feel of the later seasons, so I would highly recommend it. Also Trials and Tribble-ations, since you are already a fan of other incarnations of Trek.

DS9 Sampler

The Way of the Warrior, which is basically a second pilot that works remarkably well as a standalone, while giving any new viewer a taste of the epic feel of the later seasons.

Duet, for a glimpse of the more intellectual and character-driven side of the show.

Trials and Tribble-ations, for any fan of other parts of the Trek franchise.

Necessary Evil, which needs no introduction.

Civil Defense, a standalone episode that involves a lot of important characters and introduces the station as alien and potentially dangerous. Also, people just seem to enjoy it.

Captive Pursuit, another episode that stands on its own and is widely beloved.

Whispers, Visionary or Hard Time, all high-quality "torture O'Brien" episodes that don't spoil anything.

Further thoughts from a bunch of different fans on how to approach the show as a new viewer can be found in this thread:

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=117429

Good luck!

 

[Navaros]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged.

You didn't misjudge. The pilot truly isn't very good.

However, the bad quality of the pilot's content is not representative of the series as a whole.

I was in a similar boat to you when DS9 first aired. I watched the pilot, was bored to tears by it, and then tuned out of the rest of the series because the pilot so awful. It wasn't until I watched the show in reruns after it stopped its first run that I realized it was nothing like the pilot, for the most part.

As of the Season 2 finale, the series for the most part flushes all that junk featured in the pilot down the toilet and instead focuses on much cooler things for the rest of the series.

DS9 is the only Trek show with story development and character development which continues past 45 minutes of a single episode, therefore it's easily the best Trek show for those reasons alone, although there are many other additional reasons. You are missing out if you do not check DS9 out.

If you check DS9 out, the best to way to get a sense of what I've said is: don't even bother with Season 1. Skip right to the Season 2 finale episode, which is called "The Jem'Hadar" and just keep watching from there.

 

[Tosk]

So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

You either want to watch the show or you don't. If you don't give it another chance, the only person who misses out is you.

 

[TheGodBen]

As of the Season 2 finale, the series for the most part flushes all that junk featured in the pilot down the toilet and instead focuses on much cooler things for the rest of the series.

For such a huge fan of the series, you don't actually appear to have paid attention to it.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

You either want to watch the show or you don't. If you don't give it another chance, the only person who misses out is you.

I feel this way pretty much also.

I mean, TNG's first couple of seasons are WAY worse than DS9's are, and if he likes that and got through it on the way to the better stuff, then there is no accounting for why he'd dislike DS9 by comparison and drop it so quickly. I mean, Encounter at Farpoint is a godawful mess. Give me Emissary every TIME!

And DS9 improves - especially after the Dominion is introduced.

Like most people around here, I love it when new fans show up and gush about how they gave DS9 a try (or another try) and decided that they'd made a mistake to ignore it completely or give up on it so early...or that they were too young to appreciate it the first time but love it now...or whatever reason they give for their change of heart.

But I think people have to WANT to give it another try. Because if you go into it wanting to dislike it and insisting that fans 'convince' you that it is, in fact, worth watching...well, that is not really giving it a fair chance.

I don't really know where the OP is on this issue, or why he wants us to 'convince' him. But my feeling is that he should give the show another chance (a real chance - not just the pilot or whatever) and let IT convince him.

Of course, that is going to take some patience on his part, because DS9 is not immediately everything that it becomes later on. When I rank the seasons, in order, they end up like this:

Beyond Great:
6
7


Great:
5


Very good:
4
3


Pretty good, with the exception of a couple of duds:
2


Just okay, with a few very bright spots that give a glimpse of it's potential, and a couple of utter duds:
1


But of course, he can't start at the point the show gets fabulous, because part of the reason it's so good later on is because of all the character development that happens earlier, and all along. I mean, would The Visitor be as good, for example, if you didn't really know Ben and Jake very well, but watched that episode out of the blue? I don't think so. The power of that episode is in the fact that we CARE about these characters by that point.

My feeling is that DS9 is like good Scotch - it takes a while to reach it's peak. So you have to be willing to wait - you have to have patience and stick with it.

If you can't do that, nothing we say in this forum is going to convince you.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

As of the Season 2 finale, the series for the most part flushes all that junk featured in the pilot down the toilet and instead focuses on much cooler things for the rest of the series.

For such a huge fan of the series, you don't actually appear to have paid attention to it.

I am assuming here that he is referring to the stuff related to Bajoran internal politics (that is what most people mean when they say this). But I don't think that ever goes away - that is what Kai Winn is all about, after all!

I just think the Bajoran political stuff becomes more relevant later on, as we begin to really care about Kira...and Sisko as Emissary....and we begin to have really strong feelings about the Cardassian occupation, Dukat, Odo's part in the Occupation, etc. I think it is only then that we begin to really care about what happens to Bajor.

I don't know...just a guess. But that is my take on the issue (Bajoran politics) that most people who dislike the early seasons complain about.

 

[Destructor]

I find, like TNG, it takes about two seasons to truly 'get' into DS9. Season 1 is pretty clunky... season 2 has some amazing moments but still finding it's feet... but it gets very solid from then on, barring some inertia in S4. Give it time is all I can say.

 

[Navaros]

For such a huge fan of the series, you don't actually appear to have paid attention to it.

I paid plenty of attention to it and know of what I speak.

Even the writers admitted that they mostly ditched that stuff in later seasons, because a lot of fans hate it.

As for equating Winn with that stuff, I don't agree that that's an accurate equation. I love Winn, she is amazing! One of the reasons why DS9 is way better after Season 2 is because when they dealt with Bajorans at that point, they wisely focused on Winn instead of the random whining Bajoran of the week who previously filled that slot. But even better is that aside from Winn, Bajorans/wormhole aliens etc. are largely abstracted out of the show.

I know there are still some episodes with them in it, but they are much easier to take in their drastically lessened S3-7 doses.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ I wasn't aware there WAS a 'whining Bajoran' in every episode of S1 & S2. Must have missed that.

I suppose you could count Progress and In the Hands of the Prophets...but IMO those were two of the BETTER S1 episodes, after Duet (which also dealt with the Bajoran 'whining'). Certainly better than crap like Move Along Home and The Passenger, which don't have anything to do with Bajoran politics, but instead some silly TNG-esque sorts of 'alien of the week' kinds of situations.

In fact, looking at the first couple of seasons, my favorite episodes - the ones that actually saved the show for me, were PRECISELY the ones that had to do with the Bajoran stuff - Duet, Progress, In the Hands of the Prophets, the Circle Trilogy, Cardassians, Necessary Evil, The Maquis I & II, The Collaborator....

In seasons 1 & 2, the only episodes I really loved which did NOT deal mostly with the Bajorans were: Armageddon Game (mostly because it's the beginning of friendship between Bashir and O'Brien), Whispers, The Wire (which did actually touch quite a bit on Garak's recollections of the Bajoran people during he Occupation), and The Jem'Hadar.

So I don't really agree that S1 & 2 were bad because of The Bajoran stuff. I just think there were some dud episodes - several of which had nothing to do with Bajor.

Subject lane change:

To the OP - a few years ago, one of the posters in this forum (who I occasionally still see around the boards - mostly in TNZ) did a fan trailer for DS9 which I think is great. If this doesn't 'convince' you to watch it, nothing will:

SirRocko711's trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-nDssQRtI

 

[Kirby]

I find, like TNG, it takes about two seasons to truly 'get' into DS9. Season 1 is pretty clunky... season 2 has some amazing moments but still finding it's feet...

This...

I'll also add that a lot of the secondary characters get more character development than most regular characters get in any other Trek show.

 

[Hober Mallow]

When DS9 first aired, I watched it with eager anticipation. After viewing the pilot episode, my reaction was a profound apathy. Now after watching a couple eps on a Collective, I'm willing to concede the possibility I misjudged. So I ask you, Niners, to convince me further.....

Um... no.

If you don't like a show, you don't like it. If you want to give it a new try, go ahead. But why would want someone else to convince you a show you think you don't like might actually be good. Doesn't really make a lot of sense. No offense, but can't you simply make your own judgment? My experience watching the show isn't going to be the same as your experience.

 

[DevilEyes]

^ I wasn't aware there WAS a 'whining Bajoran' in every episode of S1 & S2. Must have missed that.

As I've demonstrated in my previous analysis, per Navaros' defininition of 'whiny': Pretty much every single Bajoran who has ever appeared on the show, other than Winn, has attempted to "make a great show of suffering in order to arouse sympathy." in fact, the only Bajoran in season 1 who can even remotely be considered 'whiny' is Mullibuk from "Progress", and the rest of DS9 features only 2 or 3 more Bajorans who can be called whiny, out of some 50 or so characters: one is Kubus Oak, and the other one is Winn, whose speech delivered to Kira in "Rapture" about her suffering during the Occupation is a good example of making a great show of suffering in order to arouse sympathy, i.e. whining.

"Those of you who were in the Resistance, you're all the same. You think you're the only ones who fought the Cardassians, that you saved Bajor single-handedly. Perhaps you forget, Major, the Cardassians arrested any Bajoran found to be teaching the word of the Prophets. I was in a Cardassian prison camp for five years, and I can remember each and every beating I suffered. And while you had your weapons to protect you, all I had was my faith... and my courage. Walk with the Prophets child... I know I will"

I suppose you could count Progress and In the Hands of the Prophets...but IMO those were two of the BETTER S1 episodes, after Duet (which also dealt with the Bajoran 'whining'). Certainly better than crap like Move Along Home and The Passenger, which don't have anything to do with Bajoran politics, but instead some silly TNG-esque sorts of 'alien of the week' kinds of situations.

In fact, looking at the first couple of seasons, my favorite episodes - the ones that actually saved the show for me, were PRECISELY the ones that had to do with the Bajoran stuff - Duet, Progress, In the Hands of the Prophets, the Circle Trilogy, Cardassians, Necessary Evil, The Maquis I & II, The Collaborator....

Exactly.

 

[flemm]

DS9 has its problems in the beginning, notably in season 1. There are two, primarily:

1) TNG Backwash
The sci-fi plots feel like rejected TNG scripts, and as I recall, they essentially are: writers would pitch their stories to both shows, TNG would get the cream of the crop and DS9 would get the leftovers. Hence the strong episodes in DS9's first seasons are mostly DS9-specific eps dealing with Bajor, the occupation, Cardassia and related characters. Not coincidentally, the pure sci-fi material on DS9 makes a significant leap in quality in season 3 once TNG goes off the air and the DS9 writers have all the alpha quadrant storylines to work with.

2) Weak Starfleet Characters
In seasons 1+2 the non-Starfleet characters are by the far the most fully realized, notably Odo, Kira and Quark. Sisko inexplicably takes a tumble after a strong outing in the pilot, only to come into his own in a big way in season 3. Dax and Bashir feel like accessories to the main story, and Bashir specifically is rather annoying and by far the least well-acted character in the early going. (Especially when he is called upon to act out of character, such as in The Passenger. Yikes!) Only O'Brien escapes this tendency, due to the better standalone episodes falling into his lap, such as Captive Pursuit and Visionary. Since most Star Trek fans tune in expecting to see heroic Starfleet characters doing their thing, this undoubtedly makes the early seasons less palatable for many.

Enjoyment of early DS9 hinges largely on how much one enjoys Kira, Odo and Quark, especially Kira since she is the focus of much of the Bajoran material that is the strength of the early seasons. For example, the five-episode arc spanning the end of season 1 and the beginning of season 2 remains for my money one of the most entertaining, layered pieces of storytelling the show ever did. This is hardly a marginal point of view, as reviews written at the time by Jammer, Tim Lynch and Michelle Erica Green can attest. However, the fact remains that some Trek fans don't find these episodes especially appealing and, for those individuals, seasons 1 + 2 will be quite barren and difficult to traverse, with only the occasional oasis such as Necessary Evil, which is also focused on the occupation of course, but which seems to be less polarizing than the opening arc of season 2.

Odo, Kira, O'Brien and Quark remain among the stronger characters in later seasons, but by that time Sisko has attained a higher plane of awesomeness, Bashir has improved quite a bit, and Worf has joined the show, so the Starfleet crew really solidifies and comes into its own while the sci-fi plots increase in quality, thus eliminating the show's two main weaknesses in the early seasons and producing the never-surpassed standard of epic Trek excellence that is DS9 seasons 4-7

 

[TheGodBen]

I paid plenty of attention to it and know of what I speak.

Apparently not, because you went on to say this:

But even better is that aside from Winn, Bajorans/wormhole aliens etc. are largely abstracted out of the show.

I know there are still some episodes with them in it, but they are much easier to take in their drastically lessened S3-7 doses.

The Prophets were largely abstracted from DS9 after the first two seasons? Do you know how many times the Prophets appeared in the first two seasons? Once, in Emissary. Their next appearance was in season 3's Prophet Motive. If you want to be really generous you can throw in the two Orb experiences in season 2 even though those weren't really Prophets, but that's still only a total of three in two years. In contrast, off the top of my head I can remember at least four Prophet episodes in season 6 and another five in season 7. The Prophets came to prominence in the later seasons of the show, not the early seasons.


There's not much point in arguing about this with me, I'm apparently a bigger nerd than you. I'm also a better debater because I try not to make sweeping generalisations based upon my personal preferences.