Why Didn't DS9 Have as Many Viewers as TNG?

When an opinion is dressed up as "irrefutable", you can guarantee the next person will refute it!

 

Well, if I've seen neither TNG nor DS9, I might be thinking. 'Well, TNG, you got the Enterprise, they're meeting aliens, they're going pew-pew-pew. I'll watch!'

Whereas with DS9 I might be thinkin'. 'It's on a what? Where! That sounds like space-politics. Maybe some other time'.

 

It's interesting to see people say TNG had stronger characters than DS9 because I feel the opposite is true. Almost all of DS9's main cast have compelling personal conflicts from the get-go, and many of the side characters do too. As much as I love TNG, I don't feel that was one of it's strong suits.

 

I think DS9 had a stronger cast of characters by a country mile and is a more rewarding once you engage with that but TNG's relatively simple cast of characters within a smooth family ensemble probably has a greater mass appeal.

I'm kind of minded of Worf and O'Brien on DS9 fondly reminiscing about the days on TNG rescuing Picard from the borg and so on. And this simplicity contrasted with the complexity of the times they were living in on DS9.

 

That makes sense. And probably ties into the point raised about DS9's serialization vs TNG's relatively episodic plots. I can't get enough of the politics and intrigue but I guess it can't be everyone's cup of tea.

 

They were all aiming for the same audience.

 

When I was a kid, we didn't have cable or satellite tv. The local FOX affiliate carried TNG, but no one in broadcast range aired DS9.

 

This is part of it, at least for me. It felt like Cheers in some respects, except the interior of Deep Space Nine wasn't as friendly a place as was that bar, or the interior of the Enterprise. Another part is that the optimism and explorational aspect wasn't really there like it was in TOS and TNG.

For me, I think it was a bunch of different factors.
1) Being a spin-off. I originally thought TNG had ended when DS9 started. I think having multiple Star Trek shows and movies out simultaneously ended up carving up the potential audience. Also, it felt more like a spin-off than a continuation, especially considering it was such a departure from the previous shows.

2) The space station. It didn't feel at all like a Federation station or vessel. I know, it was a Cardassian space station. But the drab and stark look of it made the overall feel of the show less Star Trek, and more like some other sci-fi show. The space station reminded me of Mars from Total Recall.

3) Captain Sisko didn't get cool until he shaved his head and grew the mustache and goatee.

 

For me a lot of factors. One was I preferred the tng cast to the ds9 cast. Also the first season was just dreadful and relied way too much in tng. Ds9's standalones weren't nearly as good as tng's standalones. And those horrible ferengi comedy episodes or those awful romantic hours--parmach, second sight, crossfire, his way, a simple investigation, fascination, meridian etc

For me ds9 started to get good once the writers started tying everything they set up over the first four or so seasons and actually putting things in motion with the dominion war and more serialized storytelling. It also helped that they created far more interesting characters than just the main cast. Garak, dukat, Winn, weyoun, the female founder martok were far more compelling than Dax or quark for instance

It really became a great series in its last 2.5 seasons

 

I think once it started cooking, it really cooked!

Unfortunately, one of the underlying problems with all the Trek spinoffs really is they often took three or four years to start cooking.

 

bad concept. space station? come on..... most people at the time were like "but they don't go nowhere!"

This is it, really.

DS9 is arguably the best of all the shows, in some ways.

but then it's not very well-known. people say competition, I think it's due to the initial concept. In 1992, there were few main primetime sci-fi shows anyhow. TNG, yes. It was pre X-Files, pre-Buffy, I guess Highlander the Series, but not many others. Quantum Leap?

TNG was the first Trek for many years, plus it had its own quirks. A British actor playing a French captain? An Android officer? A Klingon officer? An officer who can read others' emotions? A blind helmsman? In a way, these endeared people to TNG. I don't think there is a singular reason, but it's a mix. If DS9 were first and TNG second, DS9 may be more known, who knows?

 

Here are some reasons:

1. Season 1 of DS9 is quite bad for the most part.

2. Season 1 tries to clone TNG.

3. Season 1 features heavy amounts of extremely aggravating, incessant whining from Bajorans, including Kira who is perhaps the most annoying/worst offender.

4. The pilot is extremely boring.

5. The pilot is based on a weak premise of very poorly developed wormhole aliens.

6. Season 1 also features heavy amounts of Bajoran religious mumbo-jumbo, which is only slightly less annoying than their constant whining.

7. By the time DS9 moved away from most of those problems, most people didn't know because they had stopped watching.

 

I had read it was going to be gritty, but it never felt as gritty as I expected. I still don't get that feel. I now appreciate that the story is told from the point of view of Starfleet, which isn't gritty, running a base near a gritty war-torn country. Now I watch it and imagine the planet being a series green zones where the provisional gov't has authority and other places where xenophobic religious extremists run things on brute force and informal structures the Bajora had to use to survive under the occupation. We hear about gritty, but we don't see that much.

 

I felt like this when I saw it, but I liked it much more when I re-watched it 10 years later. People develop a lot of mumbo-jumbo, and it really stands out when you're in a foreign place where the mumbo-jumbo is different from your culture's. People adopting literal interpretations of religious stories is common in war-torn places with low education. The whining and anger makes since when you consider it starts less than one year after a brutal occupation.

 

For me it was hard to watch DS9...it was never in Prime Time in my area like TNG and VOY were..and they kept changing times or something would pre-empted....that was probably one reason

 

Many people tuned in for Emissary but were turned off. I was such a hardcore Trek fan at the time that I was willing to wait it out and forgive the early flaws. It took a while for the characters to find themselves (Dax, Dr. Bashir) and many did not want to give it a second chance.

 

It's a mixed bag, but there were character consistencies developed even early on. Glad they changed Bashir, though - he's entertaining, but as much as he taught sailors new things, they couldn't have him hitting on Dax forever. Glad they didn't make him bitter, the thought of having a Dax to grind would be as bad as that attempted joke... or the other one, had Bashir and Dax became an item...

Partially. The characters clearly have conflicts with each other, or don't all walk the same line. (Voyager definitely tried to clone TNG since the Maquis quickly become integrated into the Federation way of doing things whereas in DS9 everyone's bickering and in conflict (and more successful in getting one to wonder if everything falls apart. )

Looking at Q-Less, which is a great example of DS9 bringing in TNG characters more as a bridge than a clone, Q was doing things in DS9 that would never be allowed in TNG. Q could actually be seen as genuinely malevolent, rather than a Trelane-style galactic bored prankster manchild with a high IQ of 2000. Which is why he didn't work in TNG. But in DS9 he's genuinely creepy - almost worthy of the horror genre - in the way he treats Vash. He's far more entertaining trying to get Picard how to think in new ways. That and I got the impression from that episode the makers had better ideas for themes for the future, which certainly were laid out.

Kira would be refined, but she was defiant and bold - even in the face of defeat.

Not untrue; it's not one I'd revisit any time soon. Especially as Picard was misused and, as such, thankfully underused if they wouldn't let Sisko get the last and best say in the matter. It's far better constructed than Voyager's - which redefines "boring" to a new level, though I agree "Emissary" is hit or miss and spending more time with the magical beings not being sure what death and things were like - which, the more I think about it, the less that holds up considering they'd observed a lot of the same with the Bajorans and Cardassians. In terms of in-universe narrative. In terms of the human condition, it's very Trekkian but not in tune with how Sisko was the Emissary and all that.

Oops, already got to that in point 4, LOL.

It did feel like a quest with the 9 orbs and the hourglass shiny thing floating around, but - yeah - it's all very woolly. Later seasons really build on the premise, though.

It's a setup, maybe too much so in a way. Early DS9 does continue TNG's hyperfocus on the Bajorans.

Which makes me think about season 4's premiere. Season 3 is pretty solid, but I recall season 4 being very much advertised. The makers knew they had to get more viewers.

 

The first series in a row of related successful series always gets the most viewers.