Alternate ending: soundstage reveal

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Originally, they were going to end the last episode with Benny Russel conferring with producers on a soundstage that was shooting Deep Space Nine.

Would you have liked that ending?

 

[Ian Keldon]

Short answer: no.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, no.

By the way, http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Benny_Russell says:

According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, there was some talk that the final scene of "What You Leave Behind" would be Benny Russell sitting outside a sound stage holding a script that read "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," essentially making the series, and all of Star Trek, a dream.

There being some talk about it is not the same as there being an original plan. "Some talk" could just mean that the idea was floated and then rejected without any steps taken towards bringing it about. To say it was originally going to be that way suggests that the first screenplay drafts had that happen, and then it was revised out.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

They definitely made the right call in axing that idea, regardless of how talked-about or not-talked-about it was.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

One of the great things about the whole idea of Benny Russell is that there was a certain amount of ambiguity to it. If the series had ended on such a note, the ambiguity would be gone and Benny Russell's world would have lost a lot of it's emotional impact. "It was all a dream" is rarely, if ever, a good idea when it's so clear-cut. "It could have been a dream" is, at least in my opinion, a far more powerful plot device.

 

[DonIago]

While I'd have to give points to TPTB for having the chutzpah to do something like that, I'm glad they didn't go in that direction.

 

[BillJ]

They'd have crushed their own franchise, essentially making it a joke.

 

[JohnChod]

They'd have crushed their own franchise, essentially making it a joke.

Yeah - luckily they left that job for Voyager and Enterprise.

One of the key aspects of DS9's style was their willingness to go outside the box. This would, I believe, have been too far out of that box for me and, I would think, for a lot of other fans.

 

[BennyRussel]

It couldn't have been on a sound stage. It was real.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It couldn't have been on a sound stage. It was real.

 

[Ssosmcin]

That would have put the stink of St. Elsewhere on the series (a great show until the last 5 minutes). No thanks.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Decanonize your entire show in the last five minutes (and possibly all the others, due of their interconnectedness)? I can see why they chose not to

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

It couldn't have been on a sound stage. It was real.

IT'S A FAAAAAKE.

 

[MikeS]

Sisko wakes up in a sonic shower on The Saratoga. "It was all a dream Jennifer"

 

[RyuRoots]

Decanonize your entire show in the last five minutes (and possibly all the others, due of their interconnectedness)? I can see why they chose not to

Yeah, that schtick didn't get approved until ENT.

 

[sonak]

too cliche.

Just another version of the "all just a dream" ending, done before on "st. elsewhere," "bob newhart," or the "bobby in the shower" season. BTVS would do something similar in "Normal Again" a few years after this hypothetical show.


This sort of metafiction twist might have been clever a long time ago, but even by DS9's time it wasn't all that clever.



So to answer simply, "no."

 

[MacLeod]

Well if you want to annoy your fanbase that would be the way to do it.

 

[Leviathan]

I am sure this was discussed, but ultimately rejected due to the innate human fear of boiling oil.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The idea would only had worked if the pilot episode had started with "It was a dark and stormy night..."

 

[R. Star]

The idea would only had worked if the pilot episode had started with "It was a dark and stormy night..."

I don't think it gets any more dark or stormy than the Borg killing your wife along with another 11,000 people.