To sum up, I felt the season started off very strongly, in the middle it got a bit muddled, than finished strong with two great episodes. Now for some in depth thoughts:
Outside of perhaps the pilot episode and Move Along Home I never watched the first season of DS9, so it was with great pleasure that I sat down to watch it, because, as I've pointed out here before, DS9 is the only Trek series I never really had the chance to watch in first run, simply because UPN could never decide upon a set time to run it; I was never able to watch it with much consistency.
I feel giving my thoughts on all twenty episodes would take too much time (man, I should have started a viewing thread before I began...perhaps I'll do that with Season 2, anyways...), I thought perhaps I'd reflect on my three favorite episodes, and my three "not so favorite episodes of the first season:
Duet- One of the reasons I so wanted to watch this show is because of episodes like this. By not being set on a Star Ship but instead setting the show on a space station, episodes that deal with the Cardassians and their occupation of Bajor are really fascinating to me. Watching Kira over the course of the episode realize that she can't blindly hate every Cardassian is just great storytelling. Though I do feel having Marritza getting killed at the end is taking the easy way out. It does demonstrate how much Kira has changed versus the random Bajoran.
In the Hands of the Prophets- Again, I consider this a great episode because it deals with the Bajorans and their religious beliefs. While Vadek Winn's crusade against the school turned out to be a means to get Vedek Bareil to the station in an attempt to have him assassinated, it did hit close to home. And the assassination plotline was handled well too. Again I'll mention that this is why I really wanted to watch DS9, because this is stuff you wouldn't normally see on the other Trek shows.
Progress- A story that is hardly original (farmers have to vacate their land in order for it to be utilized by the government) works for me because of how Kira sees herself in the farmer, or at least relates to his struggles and how they mirrored her own when she was a member of the resistance. While I understand the ending was to show us how Kira accepted who she is now rather than who she was, watching her forcefully remove the farmer from his land was heart breaking.
I hardly feel the need to expound on the episodes I didn't care for, but hey, what the heck:
Q-Less- It's hard to really dislike any episodes with Q, but he just doesn't really seem to fit into DS9. It just felt like a holdover from TNG.
Babel- Mysterious virus threatens everyone on board...yawn.
The Passenger- One of our intrepid crew gets taken over by a criminal...yawn.
Dramatis Personae- Another mysterious virus threatens the crew...really?
I could list a few more episodes I didn't care too much for, which probably is making it look like I didn't enjoy Season 1, which isn't really true, I mean when they hit it out of the park (as in the three episodes I really enjoyed) they really hit it out of the park, but when they stunk, oh boy did it stink. I do gotta say one thing though, I never realized how hot Nana Visitor is!
Outside of perhaps the pilot episode and Move Along Home I never watched the first season of DS9, so it was with great pleasure that I sat down to watch it, because, as I've pointed out here before, DS9 is the only Trek series I never really had the chance to watch in first run, simply because UPN could never decide upon a set time to run it; I was never able to watch it with much consistency.
I feel giving my thoughts on all twenty episodes would take too much time (man, I should have started a viewing thread before I began...perhaps I'll do that with Season 2, anyways...), I thought perhaps I'd reflect on my three favorite episodes, and my three "not so favorite episodes of the first season:
Duet- One of the reasons I so wanted to watch this show is because of episodes like this. By not being set on a Star Ship but instead setting the show on a space station, episodes that deal with the Cardassians and their occupation of Bajor are really fascinating to me. Watching Kira over the course of the episode realize that she can't blindly hate every Cardassian is just great storytelling. Though I do feel having Marritza getting killed at the end is taking the easy way out. It does demonstrate how much Kira has changed versus the random Bajoran.
In the Hands of the Prophets- Again, I consider this a great episode because it deals with the Bajorans and their religious beliefs. While Vadek Winn's crusade against the school turned out to be a means to get Vedek Bareil to the station in an attempt to have him assassinated, it did hit close to home. And the assassination plotline was handled well too. Again I'll mention that this is why I really wanted to watch DS9, because this is stuff you wouldn't normally see on the other Trek shows.
Progress- A story that is hardly original (farmers have to vacate their land in order for it to be utilized by the government) works for me because of how Kira sees herself in the farmer, or at least relates to his struggles and how they mirrored her own when she was a member of the resistance. While I understand the ending was to show us how Kira accepted who she is now rather than who she was, watching her forcefully remove the farmer from his land was heart breaking.
I hardly feel the need to expound on the episodes I didn't care for, but hey, what the heck:
Q-Less- It's hard to really dislike any episodes with Q, but he just doesn't really seem to fit into DS9. It just felt like a holdover from TNG.
Babel- Mysterious virus threatens everyone on board...yawn.
The Passenger- One of our intrepid crew gets taken over by a criminal...yawn.
Dramatis Personae- Another mysterious virus threatens the crew...really?
I could list a few more episodes I didn't care too much for, which probably is making it look like I didn't enjoy Season 1, which isn't really true, I mean when they hit it out of the park (as in the three episodes I really enjoyed) they really hit it out of the park, but when they stunk, oh boy did it stink. I do gotta say one thing though, I never realized how hot Nana Visitor is!
-- always good to hear somebody out there is enjoying DS9 for the first time! I like Season 1, but when it comes to DS9 I don't seem to have the ability to be critical anymore 
. Agree about the Q episode, but it was fun to see how that situation turned out...
