Does "What You Leave Behind" still hold up?

[mattyhugh]

Meh. If I had to watch either WYLB or Endgame, I'd have to think about it. And Endgame would probably win.

Sure, because Endgame is an isolated finale. WYLB on the other hand is the end of a multi episode arc.

No, that's not why. It's because I find it better entertainment.

Point taken. I just think that when discussing DS9's finale once has to consider the entire final arc. But that may be silly as well. I agree however that bringing back the Defiant 2.0 was silly. Almost as dumb as Worf risking his career to save Jadzia only to have her die a few weeks later.

 

[darthraidr]

i havent watched DS9 in years so i cant really say if it holds up. but i did enjoy the character sendoffs. the writers/producers knew there wasnt going to be a movie on this crew and they made some major changes. and i think a lot of people take that for granted.

the amount of risk taken with DS9 as a whole is pretty staggering when you think about the TV climate and the Trek climate at the time. a Trek arc was 2 episodes, typically done as a season finale/opener. most characters didnt change beyond gaining a new rank. by the end of the show, most characters were still in the exact same position where they started and showing no signs of growth or movement beyond that.

AGT ends with Picard playing cards with the senior officers... hardly a game changer. WYLB is wrapping up a 10 part arc. several plot threads had been in play (in major ways, not like the occasional appearance of the Borg) for years (the dominion). some threads in serious play since the start of the show (Sisko as Prophet). and at the end, many of the senior staff are leaving. Worf, gone. O'Brien, gone. Odo, gone. Sisko, gone. (this doesnt even count the massive number of recurring rolls the show developed over the 7 years)

WYLB is a far more ambitious finale than any other trek finale. DS9 a far more ambitious show than other treks. the multi-dimensional characters, serialized nature of the show, and large recurring cast were ahead of it's time. but often are overlooked since those qualities are fairly common in the more recent popular shows.

 

[Damask]

All Good Things is the better episode, WYLB is the better finale.

 

[Saxman1]

Out of the mouths of babes: my children (9 and 11) thought WYLB was a great finale because all the loose ends were tied up. "That way they didn't go on to make four awful movies like they did with Next Generation!"

There is something to be said for that. To them, TNG ended with AGT and in a way, I can't argue with that. However, they are huge fans of TOS movies.

Watching WYLB I do have to say I probably cried a heck of a lot more than I did with AGT. It really is a great ending to the series, if bittersweet which it HAD to be because everyone involved (including the fans) knew there would be no more DS9.

To me, AGT and WYLB are both great series enders.

On to Voyager shortly, with a side trip to finish off where we left off with TOS. I don't hate Voyager, but I certainly don't think it's a good as TNG or DS9. My daughter is excited to watch "the series with the lady captain!" My son has no interest in Voyager, being about as anti-Borg as you can get. I told him he can skip the Borg eps if he likes, but he still has memories of getting no sleep the night we watched "First Contact" - "the worst, most scary thing I've ever seen!" Ah, youth...

 

[Bones2]

^
I remember finding the Borg really scary. Even the TNG ones. There was something about them when I was young.

 

[Saxman1]

^
I remember finding the Borg really scary. Even the TNG ones. There was something about them when I was young.

I found them quite scary in "Q Who," TBOBW and especially "First Contact." Otherwise, not so much. I thought the Borg Queen was scary in FC because she was just so...WRONG...yuck!

Voyager...not so much. The Enterprise ep very scary. TNG's "Descent" pretty much stupid and jokey, as is the entire thing: Lore, Data turning evil, sending the whole ship after Data, etc. I can't even watch that two parter anymore.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

The Sisko/Dukat Pah Wraith Cave stuff is trash. The rest is good... but spending all that time to lead Dukat and Winn all the way to the cavs, then bam sisko suddenly sees what he has to do, and such a piss-poor final confrontation...

/facepalm

The end of the Dominion war is very effective though. The whole thing has a sort of gravitas to it, that the Pah Wraith Prophet stuff doesn't. Also the character good-byes are really effective, particularly Bashir/O'Brien. That's a friendship I believed.

I REALLY wish they had wrapped up the Pah Wraith storyline like two episodes earlier, and it was all about the Dominion War.

Overall it's a pretty decent finale... one of Trek's best, though that's kind of backhanded praise, when your competition is Endgame and These are the voyages, both pure trash finale.

 

[G2309]

I also didn't like the idea that line that Avery Brooks insisted on including about Sisko returning one day.

Is it perfect? No, but it is fairly solid especially when you look at other send-offs like The X-Files, Enterprise, Voyager etc.

I have mixed feelings about Sisko's line. In a way I agree. But I'm glad the writers had enough respect for Brooks to allow his point of view.
I thin it was a really good episode although the reused sfx are really diasapointing the shows battles peaked with sacrifice of angels. Some characters felt rushed or unresolved, it's a shame they wasted so much time with Ezri and worf in the 10 episode arc.

 

[Deckerd]

I thought it was sentimental overblown rubbish. The timescale was unbelievable, with Winn and Dukat hanging around the batcave for a couple of days before Sisko suddenly felt it was time to join them. Jadzia merited one quick photo, despite being a principal character in all but the last season. The completely silly sequence of events which led to Odo being cured and then suddenly making the Queen Bitch all biddable. Everything was a disappointment.

 

[mattyhugh]

I thought it was sentimental overblown rubbish. The timescale was unbelievable, with Winn and Dukat hanging around the batcave for a couple of days before Sisko suddenly felt it was time to join them. Jadzia merited one quick photo, despite being a principal character in all but the last season. The completely silly sequence of events which led to Odo being cured and then suddenly making the Queen Bitch all biddable. Everything was a disappointment.

Heh, I hope you weren't a NuBSG fan then.

 

[G2309]

The completely silly sequence of events which led to Odo being cured and then suddenly making the Queen Bitch all biddable.

I didn't like the disease either. Sure it made the founder desperate but once they had the cure the war would e over. If you had the choice of surrendering or the extinction of your species what would you choose. It wasn't like she had any choice. They could have got odo to send a message.

 

[Fenric]

I think oh the whole WYLB does hold up to the test of time with one or two exceptions,

I recently re-watched this episode and find the first hour brilliant ( even with the reused footage) it brought back the memories for me when i first watched it the final battle to end the war the real conclusion to end DS9 and I loved every moment of it. and the bit were the Cardassians swap sides still makes me smile

there are bits however i dont like it did feel rather rushed from the whole odo beaming down to stop the female founder to suddenly end the war, i perhaps would have enjoyed a scene maybe were the cardassian rebels dealing with her and that lead to the end of hostilities.

as for the sisko and the prohpets ending i can see why the writers gave it such prominence in the ending but perhaps feel could have been condensed in the finale somewhat

I found the montage at the end to be utterly beautiful and well done to show you the close relationships that the show had developed over the previous 7 years of viewings.

as for the finale all good things is still my favorite finale but what you leave behind gets a very respectable second place

 

[Spotkittycat]

I love DS9 and WYLB. The only thing I don't like is Sisko stating that he would be back (doesn't seem very final to me). Was this an attempt to point to a possible movie? I wish is was. I can only imagine what that would be like to have:
!. Sisko returning to wife, Jake, and child Cassidy pregnant with
2. Odo coming back to Kira
3. Garak becoming head of Cardassia
4. Quark's bar being the only realm of old Ferengi exsitance left
These are just to name a few. So I don't believe the final episode really closed the series.

 

[ares93]

I love DS9 and WYLB. The only thing I don't like is Sisko stating that he would be back (doesn't seem very final to me). Was this an attempt to point to a possible movie? I wish is was. I can only imagine what that would be like to have:
!. Sisko returning to wife, Jake, and child Cassidy pregnant with
2. Odo coming back to Kira
3. Garak becoming head of Cardassia
4. Quark's bar being the only realm of old Ferengi exsitance left
These are just to name a few. So I don't believe the final episode really closed the series.

you pretty much summed up the ds9 relaunch book series... although i admit some of it was a bit vague. but still, a pretty accurate list.

 

[Damask]

The completely silly sequence of events which led to Odo being cured and then suddenly making the Queen Bitch all biddable.

I didn't like the disease either. Sure it made the founder desperate but once they had the cure the war would e over. If you had the choice of surrendering or the extinction of your species what would you choose. It wasn't like she had any choice. They could have got odo to send a message.

Never had any problem with this. In season 6 the Female Founder says returning Odo to the Great Link was more important thn the war or Alpha Quadrant. Odo returning to the Link and curing his people would have been a huge plus for her.

 

[flemm]

Never had any problem with this. In season 6 the Female Founder says returning Odo to the Great Link was more important thn the war or Alpha Quadrant. Odo returning to the Link and curing his people would have been a huge plus for her.

Agreed, for the reason you cite and a number of others. It's the culmination of Odo's character arc from the very beginning: he was sent out to learn about the Galaxy and bring that information home to his people. The one point that the FC had made repeatedly since season 3 was that a solid could never really love a changeling. After linking with Odo, she knows she was wrong all along. Then of course there is the question of averting the genocide of the Founders. It's a much more satisfying ending than merely having the allied fleet blow up all the remaining Dominion forces while Cardassia was reduced to dust by the Jem'Hadar.

Militarily the fleet was in a position to win regardless, but from a storytelling perspective more explosions would have been completely worthless at this stage.

 

[Mr. Spook]

Funny thing is I prefer AGT because it doesn't close out the characters. Thanks to the movies, for good or ill, the series ended with every character intact and ready for more adventures. Personally, I don't like finales which kill off main characters, end relationships, leave people sad and lonely, etc. If they had no intention of making TNG movies, they might have done some huge "destroy the Enterprise and split them all up" sort of ending. I like the idea, since it's all fiction anyway, that there are more stories to tell and maybe one day we'd get to hear about them.

With WYLB and EG, and even TATV, novels taking place after the finales had to do these cheesy tap dances to bring characters back. AGT left it open.

I would have been happy with WYLB if: Odo said he was coming back after he cured his people; Sisko killed Dukat and made his home on Bajor; Miles remained on the station. The sadness should be in our leaving of the characters, not them leaving each other. One is bittersweet, the other is just depressing (Sisko dead, Jake abandoned, Odo leaving Kira, Miles leaving Bashir, etc.). Of course, this is just my preference.

 

[Damask]

I would have been happy with WYLB if: Odo said he was coming back after he cured his people; Sisko killed Dukat and made his home on Bajor; Miles remained on the station. The sadness should be in our leaving of the characters, not them leaving each other. One is bittersweet, the other is just depressing (Sisko dead, Jake abandoned, Odo leaving Kira, Miles leaving Bashir, etc.). Of course, this is just my preference.

Obviously that's your preference but I prefered the evolution of DS9 and her characters to the static nature of TNG. Nothing lasts forever.

 

[LapsedTrekkie]

I don't honestly believe it holds up, no. I was disappointed with it when it aired, but overall thankful for the excellent work the group of writers did. But there were a couple of seriously botched things, and there's very little flow to the finale -- it just moves haphazardly from one major plot point to another, as if the writers were frantically throwing scenes together after realizing they had things they needed to do and too little time to do it in.

"The Visitor" holds up no matter when you watch it. But not the finale. As someone else said, it was never that strong to begin with ... and you have to be near-perfect to keep being rewatchable again and again.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

It holds up in the sense that I came out of it thinking "that was a good finale", but for me, it never really crossed the line from good to great. It's got a pretty exciting wrap-up to the war arc, a disappointing end to Sisko's emissary story and a satisfactory send-off for the other characters. There are a couple of very nice scenes - Odo and Kira saying goodbye and Ezri watching Worf leave. In many ways it reminds me of the rest of the Final Chapter, barring Tacking into the Wind which achieved a brilliance the finale can't match.

Compared to the other Trek finales it's a lot better than These are the Voyages (though perhaps not Terra Prime) and a fair bit better than Endgame. On the other hand, it can't match All Good Things... - that felt like a truly inspired ending, whereas this is merely a good one.