It's been a long time since I've watched through DS9, so I'm on vacation this week and I'm giving it a go. I like DS9 just... "fine" though I think quite a bit of it is a slog and I am not a fan of the "War Arc" as it's just too contrary to everything that got me into Trek in the first place and is too much like the type of Sci-Fi stories that was being done in the 90s and, well, continues to be done today where everything has to be dark, gritty, and have action and CGI battles in it. DS9 was able to have both the "darkness" of the war but at times also have some lighter stuff, but the war story for me was just... Exhausting. Particularly how odd it seemed there could be this war going on where countless people are dying in battles but there still be room for a wacky holodeck adventure on a space station pretty much right on the "front lines" of this war given that it was at the passage between the two areas fighting one another. But, I digress. Anyway, today I finished Season 1 and... Oy. I recall why the show never fully caught me in the first place, there's a lot of dullness in that first season and, honestly, I struggle to think of a good, solid, episode that stands out as something fun and interesting. There's some good drama and story and stuff in there but, really, it just all feels very, very, dry. And the final episode with the battle over Keiko's school is just a bit too... broad of a hammer when it comes to Trek doing episodes to shadow present-day things. (Which modern trek often did a bit too broadly, all of it.) It's just an okay season. I'll likely start Season 2 tonight or tomorrow. If there's one thing the show has going for it, though, it does have interesting characters that can make the stories somewhat interesting to watch unfold, but there were a few episodes where I was just mostly bored.
Funnily enough, I've been rewatching recently and actually found that I enjoyed a lot more of season 1 than I remembered. Even stuff like The Passenger, where I really don't care about the A story and yet I didn't mind it this time except for Sid's Bad Guy acting.
TNG was my first love when it came to Trek so I could never warm to DS9 properly when it first aired. I can look back on it now though as I'm burning through it with the luxury of not having Next Gen so much at the front of my mind, and can view DS9 more on its own merit. I feel it's a very good piece of sci-fi television. Professionally made with some really interesting characters, acting and writing. It doesn't give me that nice warm feeling that I think Trek should give off, but it still has very many good qualities to it. It's a great plus point that I can now skim through dull episodes in 45 mins that at the time I would have to wait a full week to put behind me. Also those moments in season one and two where Sisko was acting like a statue were out the way in a fortnight, rather than 2 years!
It was the episode Duet that impressed me back when the show was just starting to get going late in its first season. Then in season 2, DS9 truly blossoms. Thats when the show found itself before it got self conscious and tried to make up for the trailing ratings. So many solid episodes; Cardassians, Rules of Acquisition, Necessary Evil, Blood Oath, Paradise, The Maquis, Crossover, The Wire, Tribunal. DS9 feels a little more anthologized and serious back then but there is plenty of humor too.
About half-way through Season 3. It's going along fine, there's a lot of good episodes and character stuff but, also, a lot of just dull, dry, stuff. Oh, gee, another episode dealing with the theocratic conspiracies and minutia on Bajor? Wow! As much as the the USS Fanboy, er, Defiant adds as far as sets and giving a means for the cast to go somewhere and do something interesting beyond what a runabout can provide it, for me, is just a "reminder" of the "war arc" and more "aggressive" story telling yet to come. (I call it the "Fanboy" because, sorry, it's just what it makes me think of. Seeing it maneuver, the pulse phaser firing, and things blowing up from it's attacks it just strikes me too much as the "fanboy ship" teenagers would create and it'd just be an awesome ship that kicked ass and took names in what's supposed to be a peaceful, exploratory, organization. (Yes, yes, it was built to fight the Borg. And such ships are needed, but again it was only "made" for the coming war.) One thing I'll give it is that the secondary characters tend to be more interesting than some of the main characters. Garak, Nog, I'm more interested in them than Bashir or even Sisko. And, God, the Ferengi episodes. I love me some Wallace Shawn, but cripes. Obviously still have a bit more to go through, and I intend on continuing, but as I've said it was just never a series I was enthusiastic over. I always thought it was good/fine but for me never stellar.
Starfleet has a dual mission, exploration and defence. (Plus various smaller missions, emergency response, diplomacy, etc.) They have several classes of starships that are primarily for exploration. It's not a big surprise that they would have at least one small class of ships for defence. No matter how maneuverable the Galaxy class is, the same ship without the large crew for 5+ year endurance, the families, lots of research labs is going to be much smaller and more maneuverable.
Yes! This is so true. Minor characters made the show. I always disliked Kira Nerys and there were so many episodes about her. I’m so tired of hearing her whine about the Cardassians. I was actually a little bit happy when Spoiler in “The Darkness and The Light” she got a spoonful of how the war was two sided and she wasn’t just the victim. However I thoroughly enjoyed the Rom, Nog and Garak episodes. Some of my all time favorite Trek characters.
Or Vilix'Pran! I forgot how DS9 also had a stable of recurring characters we didn't even actually see...
I’m almost done with a full top to bottom rewatch myself. I’m 4 episodes into S7. For me the single biggest thing they did to improve the show was to move Worf over from TNG, even if it meant having to get creative to get him into the movies, however I call BS that Sisko would have let him take the Defiant to earth to fight the Borg without him. Worf just fits the DS9 cast so well. I’d argue he’s better on DS9 than he was on TNG.
Worf wasn't there to fight the Borg, he was there to get away from the expected birth of Baby O'Brien.
Completely agree. I actively didn't like Worf until DS9 got their hands on him, then they handled his character so well I found myself retroactively appreciating him on TNG. He just fit so perfectly with DS9's Island Of Misfit Toys thing.
Worf fits well everywhere. Its the nature of his character. Immediately he had a chemistry with the other Deep Space Nine characters. I always liked his relationship with Quark, which was humorous yet disdainful.
I liked Worf on TNG but it seems like DS9 gave him more to do. Especially once he and Jadzia became a thing.
DS9 Worf was a big improvement over TNG Worf. But I still didn't like him. My favorite DS9 Worf-centric episode was "Let He Who is Without Sin...". He played the straight arrow, the fuddy-duddy guy, even though there were all sorts of decadence going on around him on the pleasure planet Risa. It was hilarious.
They all seemed to have good/well written relationships with Quark - I guess become he had the whole "bad guy but not really" thing going on... dJE
I wholeheartedly agree...except for the Ferengi-centric episodes which I personally found largely uninteresting. One of DS9's greatest strengths was a superb supporting cast. Among my favorites were Robinson's Garak, Alaimo's Gul Ducat and Fletcher's Vedek Wynn. It's not that I disliked any of the main cast (except Worf who I'll always consider an unfortunate tack-on to boost ratings because of a fickle fan base pining for the 'glory days' of TNG) but they were very often at their best when paired with one of these characters.
Funnily enough, I had the same problem but the other way around I started with TOS and then watched DS9, because a friend kept recommending it to me and I fell in love with the show and I had trouble getting into TNG, because he was so different from Sisko as a Captain. I admit the first season can be a slog and Dr. Bashir as a character gave me the creeps at least in the first season, but for some reason, Quark didn't strike the same reaction with me he was loathsome, but oddly endearing with his schemes that almost never work out. I think the fact that Star Trek is available on most streaming services has helped increase its popularity beyond its original fanbase.
It may very well have been Starfleet's order for Sisko to sit that battle out. He did lose his wife at Wolf 359, and they could have figured, being the pencil pushers of behind the desk, that he could be less effective as a captain that situation. Starfleet thought Picard would be an 'unstable element in a critical situation', because of his previously being assimilated by them, even though he had more knowledge about the Borg than anyone there at the time. Turns out Starfleet was partially right... Picard did get a little Ahab-like for a bit before he came to his senses near the end of FIRST CONTACT.
If Starfleet excluded everyone who suffered a personal loss in battles with The Borg, there'd be a lot of disqualified people. Picard made some sense given his unique experience but, as seen in the movie, him staying away would have been fatal for Earth before factoring in the time travel plot.