Changing opinions of DS9 characters?

[Too Much Fun]

Did anyone else find that some of the characters on DS9 took awhile to grow on them? I mean did you find any characters unappealing to you at first, until some episode or moment changed your mind and got you to warm up to them/start to like them? There were a lot of DS9 characters that I went through that process with. It's one the reasons I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get through the whole series until the third season.

Benjamin Sisko: I didn't like him much in the series opener. I was especially disturbed by his antagonism towards Picard for something that wasn't really Picard's fault. Also, his interactions with the wormhole aliens made me think he might end up being just a really bland, corny character unlike the dynamic Picard. I think it was when he yelled about wanting to kill Kira in "Dramatis Personae" that I first saw him as a character that could be fun to watch. I guess that's partially because I hated Kira so much at that point , but to this day, my favourite quality of Sisko is his temper. I just love when he gets angry and yells at people with that big booming voice!

Kira Nerys: This is one of the characters it took me the longest to like. I really hated her for two seasons...she and all her whiny, preachy, overbearing, shrill ways. Her awful outfit and haircut in those seasons didn't help either. It took all the way up to season four and "Starship Down" for me to change my mind about her. That was when her warmer side finally came out as she bonded with Sisko for the first time and gave that lovely smile at the end. Her new hair-do and snazzy uniform in that season were a welcome improvement, too.

Quark: It took me even longer to like Quark. At first I thought he was just a cliche character - a slimy, immoral, greedy, selfish coward. I started to appreciate him more when he began to show that even though he was mostly just a materialistic weasel, he actually had an affable sense of humour and some incredibly clever insight into humans, despite his apparent disdain for him. The first instance I can remember of this really shining through was in "Little Green Men", with his hilarious judgment of the human race and its vices. I also had a newfound respect for him after Season 5's "Looking for Par'Mach...", when he showed a brave and romantic side.

Odo: To this day I still don't like Odo very much. His voice, personality, and behaviour annoy me, but over the course of the series I came to sympathize with him because of his outsider status among the 'humanoids' of the station and his love life problems, which lead to me being very happy for him when he did succeed romantically.

The first show where I really felt for him was "Crossfire", but it was more just out of sympathy from experience watching someone be caught in between the girl he has a crush on and the guy she wants instead of him as she's unaware of how he feels. Episodes like "The Search" about his issues with his Changeling origins showed me that he could be a consistently fascinating and sympathetic character who makes a good protagonist in spite of the qualities about him that bother me.

Rom: I always have and always will hate his voice and the cheap jokes of how he's brilliant even though he sounds like an idiot, and how the luscious Leeta thinks he's sexy, even though his make-up clearly makes him hideous (I can't STAND the sight of that crooked tooth!). Nonetheless, I did eventually start to like him for his honesty, strong work ethic, resourcefulness, love for his son, and kind-hearted demeanour.

Nog: Like Quark, he also started off seeming like a typical cliche greedy Ferengi, but blossomed into a very convincingly admirable hero.

Garak: I couldn't stand Garak for awhile because of how arrogant his voice and a lot of his dialogue sounded. This made me really bewildered about why he was so popular here. I'm still not a huge fan of his, but over the course of the series I was surprised again and again by how he would prove repeatedly that he really is as smart as he says he is and he's got imagination, cunning, and resourcefulness far beyond many of the other characters. I never really warmed up to his personality, but I've got to a point where I can't help but be impressed with what he's capable of. I appreciate what he can do, more than who he is.

Characters I liked immediately:

Jadzia Dax: Instant favourite, charming right from the beginning.
Ezri Dax: Also liked her right away, but more for her vulnerability, honesty, and sweetness than charm or coolness.
Julian Bashir: Ira Steven Behr says fans didn't like him much at the beginning for being so 'wet behind the ears' and nerdy. Did anyone here really feel that way? Personally, I found him endearing and fun from "Emissary" onwards, although I did think he was a lame and irritating wuss in 1993 before I'd seen DS9 and saw him guest star on "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
Jake Sisko: Cooler and more relatable than Wesley from the start, surprisingly.
Worf and O'Brien: Loved them both on TNG and thought DS9 made them even better, although they seem to be marginalized a little bit in the later seasons.
Weyoun: A friend of mine criticizes him for not being an intimidating villain due to his small stature and kiss-ass persona, but this sniveling, hide-behind-the-muscle smug chickenshit mold of villain is one of my favourite kinds, and Jeffrey Combs plays it to perfection.

I like him as a villain even more than the much more aggressive and vile Dukat. The fake sincerity in his eyes and voice when he sizes up Odo in "To The Death" cemented him as one of my all time favourite villains. Jeffrey Combs seems to be awesome in any role and this is no exception. He has a way with body language and method of delivering dialogue with his voice that is just addictively intriguing and endlessly watchable.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

The only character that I didn't really like at first was Julian. I just found him kind of annoying but as his friendship with Miles grew I started to like him better.

 

[arasam22]

i totally agree about sisko for one.... i was really pissed at how he treated Picard... he may have lost his wife, but Picard had to live with the guilt of killing hundreds (thousands?) of his own people against his will... [/picard fangirl rant] and i think that tainted the whole first season for me... but his character really grew on me.

and rom... i hated him at first... but i love him in the later seasons! <3

as for odo... something weird happened with him for me... i loved him at first, but then i lost a lot of respect when he betrayed rom and kira and all them in the... whatever season he did that.

 

[Jono]

Kira - Didn't like her at first but she did grow on me.
Ezri - when she first appeared I thought it was a good move and her character was interesting, a couple of episodes later I was completely bored with her and hoping she'd trip and fall out an open airlock.
Nog - Found him annoying and pointless at first. Only started to like the character once they decided to make him go through Starfleet.

 

[Navaros]

Initially couldn't stand Bashir, Jadzia, Kira, Rom, and Nog.

I learned to like Bashir but still find Sid's acting and hence character to be extremely bad & inherently annoying in Season 1.

I started to love Rom and Nog after I've seen how masterful their performances were.

I now sort of like and sort of hate Kira. Still absolutely cannot stand Kira in Season 1-2/however long it was until she stopped acting like Keiko 24/7. For the most part, Kira is ok after that...except for when she has temper tantrums and once again starts acting like Keiko...or when she has to cry/snivel at which times her acting never fails to become hokey & unbelievable and unwatchable IMO.

Still can't stand Jadzia at all due to her smug condenscending attitude and complete lack of ever having anything interesting to say or use to the show; seeing her or listening to her is always inherently annoying to me just as it has always been.

Keiko: never could stand her and find her to be one of, if not the, worst-written and worst-acted characters in the history of TV. O'Brien marrying her makes no sense whatsoever...she's an eternally-angrily-bitching battle axe with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I hate her with the utmost fiber of my soul.

At first I hated Kai Winn for being yet another Keiko-like banshee, but then I grew to love Winn because she is supposed to be inherently annoying, and she takes it to the level of an artform, unlike Keiko and Kira when they are unintentionally inherently annoying.

Always loved Dukat, Weyoun, Garak, and Quark, and still do.

At first I was indifferent to Odo but once I realized the phenomenal range of emotions he portrays throughout the series, I was mesmerized and he became one of my favorite characters along with the characters of all the other master actors (Shimerman, Combs, Alaimo, Robinson, Fletcher)

Originally I found the female Founder to be extremely annoying, but now I am indifferent to her; don't like her or hate her.

Couldn't stand Jake in Season 1 when he was a very bad actor and wore obscene clothing. I started to like Jake once he learned how to act (sometime around Season 2-3) and they got him out of that obscene clothing.

Ezri: never could stand her, but over time I've come to appreciate that although her character is completely worthless just like her predecessor, at least she bought some interesting acting to the table. But since I don't really care about her character or anything relating ot her, I still lament the waste of screen-time/salary that she is. But I'm more indifferent to her than I am to Jadzia, who I hate.

I always liked O'Brien, never had any problem with the acting there but don't feel his character is all that interesting.

I always liked the Sisko when he acts normally, but can't stand him when he has to flip-out, at which time, much like Kira, his acting often becomes very bad, hokey, and unbelievable.

 

[Kirk1980]

Navaros...are there any ladies you do like from that show?

Seems like you hate them all.

 

[Navaros]

Navaros...are there any ladies you do like from that show?

Seems like you hate them all.

Well, yes, Kai Winn, absolutely love her.

Likewise, I love Kilana.

 

[khaaan!!!]

When DS9 first started I liked Odo. I was 9 when it started and liked the non-human characters on all the shows the most, Odo for DS9, Data TNG, Spock TOS. For no other reason than they were not human and therefore we really cool.

I missed the second and third season and started viewing in real time again in season 4. At that time I liked Worf, which surprised me because I was indifferent to him on TNG. I found I liked Bashir and Sisko and Garak too. I cannot really remember any reason why. At that time do i remember really disliking a character.

When i did my rewatch last year I found i really did not care for Jazda. I felt she was a little too perfect, and the only thing i really liked about her Curzion. I just found her to be a boring character.

For me now it is more important for me to find the character interesting than to "like" them if that makes sense. For example Saul Tigh was my Favourite character in BSG even in the first two season not because he is a likeable guy but because i found the character interesting and engaging. As a person i would hate him. In the same vain I think I would like Jadzia but as a character I find her boring.

 

[Tracer Bullet]

I don't recall disliking any of the main characters at the start, but I grew to dislike both Worf and Jadzia as the series progressed.

My affection for Kira, Garak, Odo, and the Julian/Miles friendship have only increased.

Sisko is still my favorite captain.

 

[arasam22]

GARAK FTW!

i forgot to mention this in my post, but i think that garak is my favorite character in any star trek ever (besides picard maybe)... idk why. there's just... something about him. he's so... mysterious i guess. i love how he'll just come out of left field and really take charge of a situation... and i love his lines explaining away his inexplicable knowledge. "oh, just something i picked up while hemming someone's trousers." lol

 

[flemm]

I now sort of like and sort of hate Kira. Still absolutely cannot stand Kira in Season 1-2/however long it was until she stopped acting like Keiko 24/7. For the most part, Kira is ok after that...except for when she has temper tantrums and once again starts acting like Keiko...or when she has to cry/snivel at which times her acting never fails to become hokey & unbelievable and unwatchable IMO.

Wow, I just quoted the above because it is amazing how opinions can differ from person to person even among fans of a show (I hope I am not presuming too much by refering to you as a fan of the show ).

For my part, I thought from the beginning the characters that worked best on DS9 were the ones who were linked to the station and to Bajor in some way other than simply being Starfleet personel stationed there.

So basically: Sisko (the emissary), Kira (Bajoran resistance fighter), Odo ("birth" as an individual, first contact with solids on Bajor/security officer under the Cardassians), Quark (the bar, physically a part of the station under the Cardassians and the Federation), Dukat (commander of Terok Nor) and Garak (in exile on the ex-Cardassian station).

The characters that interested me the least were Dax and Bashir, who had no particular link to the particular situation of DS9, neither the station, nor the planet, nor the Wormhole, nor the troubled past of the occupation.

Miles was a special case for me because I thought he played an important role as the crew's everyman, and because I like Colm Meaney's work so much.

The above was basically my impression from the beginning and, though the characters certainly evolved over time, my level of interest and affection never really varied all that much.

 

[Michael]

Funny you should post that thread, Too Much, as I just had such an experience while rewatching the whole of Deep Space Nine after many years.

It's only now that I realize how much I really like the character of Quark! As a child I just couldn't stand him. I found him to be an overly selfish, irredeemable and (on top of that) annoying character. I never understood why the writers chose to focus on him that frequently.

But after having watched through the first three seasons I have finally come to the conclusion that I love Quark! Now I can't help but look at him as the funniest character of the show. He usually gets the most humorous lines and I really enjoy the nice Odo/Quark moments we get in nearly every episode.

Also, it's nice when the writers use his character to comment on the humans of the 24th century (because, usually, he's right). When I look at Quark now I don't see the criminal I once thought he was. Actually he has some pretty decent merits. As greedy as he is regarding money, he's shown to value love more (Natima Lang).

Oh, and I think it goes without saying that it's mainly thanks to Armin Shimerman's outstanding performance that I come to love this character.

Isn't it funny how the perception of a character can change when you grow up?

As for the other characters, I can't really remember every disliking one of them. I think I liked most of them from the get-go. Well, besides maybe Worf, who I couldn't really stand on The Next Generation either.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I would say that one character I started out liking but ended up disliking was Jadzia Dax. I was just...never a fan of the wild personality they gave her in the end, or the romance with Worf, which felt like SUCH an unrealistic match.

I never had the problems with Kira a lot of people seem to have had, though...and though it may be a woman's perspective as opposed to a male one, I actually prefer to picture her with the older uniform and hairstyle...a more serious military look, as opposed to the catsuits, heels, and "sexy" hair. The evolution in her character, though, I did like.

 

[Anika Hanson]

O'brien. I found him quite boring in the begining but I liked him after the first one or 2 seasons.

Another one I had a hard time with was Dukat. I started off hating him, then I started to like him before the Cardies joined the dominion, then I hated him, then after his daughter died I started to like him again. In the end I hated him again.

Other characters I liked more as the show progressed but I had liked them to start with.

At times Odo got on my nerves, actually I didnt like him as much at the end. After he went out with Kira he changed and I didnt like it. His initial behaviour during the resistance to the dominion occupation of DS9 also irrked me.

Jake also got on my nerves sometimes when I felt he was being lazy but I still liked him at the end of the show.

Initially I didnt like Ezri, but that was mainly due to the fact that I was such a big fan of Jadzia and felt that Ezri was poor replacement/ host of the Dax symbiont in comparision to Jadzia. Initially I thought it would have been better to have a male host, but I think I warmed to her when I saw how she was treated in the begining especially by Worf.

As the show went on I grew to love Jadzia, Rom and Quark even more.

I loved Worf on TNG and that only continued on DS9 (even though I thought he was better on TNG) but the matching of him and Jadzia only endeared me to Jadzia more.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I couldn't stand Kira for a long time. In fact the 1st two times I watched the show from beginning to end I just hated her.

Somehow though the 3rd time was a charm and now she is one of my favorites.

I never warmed up to Jadzia.

 

[DevilEyes]

Funny how people have completely different feelings about characters.

I always absolutely loved Kira, right from the start. She is one of my favourite Trek characters and one of my favourite female TV characters in general.

Garak is another character I found interesting right from the start.

I also loved Odo, although in his case, I started liking him more and more with time.

I liked O'Brien, because he as played by Colm Meaney, an actor I've liked from other things (like the movie "Snapper"), although he was never one of my top favourites.

Oddly enough, the first time I saw Dukat, I thought he was a bit too much of a hammy villain character. It was only later that I found myself thinking of him as interesting, magnetic and sexy.

I was at first unsure about Sisko, or rather Avery Brooks' acting, I found him too theatrical at times, but he got better and better in his acting and his screen presence (shaving his head certainly helped ), and in time he became my favourite Starfleet captain, being more human and with more shades of grey than Picard or Kirk.

I didn't like Quark at first - because I didn't like Ferengi in general, I thought they were a stupid caricature, and I hated the Ferengi episodes. With time I realized that Quark was awesome - although I still hate dislike many of the Ferengi episodes, with some exceptions. "The House Of Quark" was great, and Quark's remarks on Klingons in that episode, as well as his remarks about humans to Sisko in "The Search" (I think that was the episode) showed that he was more than comic greedy bartender. Still, I enjoyed his interactions with the other main characters much better than the Ferengi-centric episodes.

The characters I didn't care about at all at first and that took me the longest to get into were Jadzia and Bashir - especially Bashir. I was really underwhelmed by Jadzia at first, and I found her bland for a character with such an interesting history. Only with time I started realizing that she was really awesome, exactly because of her relaxed, happy go lucky attitude that seemed to contrast with her 'old soul', and I started loving her for her open-minded, witty nature.

It took me the longest to start liking Bashir, but he was really bland and flat as a character in the first few seasons. He only started to get interesting in the later seasons, and although he is still my least favourite out of the main characters, he became interesting in his own right. I liked "Statistical Probabilities" and loved all the Section 31 episodes.

All in all, there really wasn't a main character on DS9 that was not interesting in his own right - even Jake - something that can't be said for other Trek shows!

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Sisko - while I liked him from the start I think he gained more presence and became more interesting to watch in season 3.
Kira- I always liked her, she struck me as kind of like a modern day human somehow, so a nice contrast with the Starfleet personnel.
Odo - I liked him from the start, but he got better. Especially after finding his people.
Quark - came into his own in season 2 - I was very happy when he started getting the better of snooty Vulcans and Klingons!
Bashir - I actually really liked him from the start. I thought he was funny and enjoyed the way he rubbed other characters up the wrong way.
O'Brien - took a while to come into his own as a main character, but I though Whispers from season 2 was a turning point. Also I like the rapport he had with Sisko.
Dax - I'm not her biggest fan really, but she did improve if only because in season 1 they did so little with her.
Jake - the anti-Wesley. Likeable, seemed like a real teenager and actually enhanced his father's character. Jake was always good.
Garak - loved his first appearance, but disappointed they didn't use him again till season 2. Profit and Lace made him seem more dangerous, which was a good thing.
And I don't really have a problem with Keiko - she was at least very attractive!

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

You mean "Profit and Loss," right?

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Yes. Yes I do. Not sure I've seen the other one, but I've heard bad things...