DS9 was ahead of its time

[House Stark]

I feel like DS9 would have fit in very well with the high quality TV shows that are popular today, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead. House of Cards. Morally grey characters and decisions that aren't black and white is very "in" right now. Like the characters in those shows the characters in DS9 make questionable choices and don't neatly fit in to a good/bad box. Hey, In the Pale Moonlight is essentially Sisko playing the game of thrones and winning

If it had been made today it would have been pretty popular I think.

 

[Hypaspist]

I don't think morally gray characters have ever really been out of style. I'd like to think that we don't need to live in a more negative time to appreciate those kinds of stories. I think DS9 was just more willing to explore the characters beyond their defining feature. All of the TNG characters are so interesting because of what they are on the surface. Picard is the only one who goes through massive developments and personal trials again and again...and it's partly so interesting because he is already a grown man and completely successful. DS9's cast goes through similar changes, but they are in a backwater and they are all younger, so their personalities tend to clash a lot more.

I will say that Breaking Bad is way better than any of those other series. I mean I'll always love Star Trek, but Breaking Bad is the best show ever made, in my opinion.

 

[Ward3]

I think DS9 has stood the test of time, and is in some ways more relevant today than it was during its original run. The story arcs are great, the themes are great, but what makes it really work for me are the detailed and far-reaching character arcs. This is probably my favourite TV series ever. At least, it's in my top 3.

I will say that Breaking Bad is way better than any of those other series. I mean I'll always love Star Trek, but Breaking Bad is the best show ever made, in my opinion.

Yes, I can understand how much you love Breaking Bad. I really liked that one. I am also currently hooked on Orange is the New Black, but I keep coming back to DS9, over and over again.

 

[Destructor]

I think the real why DS9 was ahead of its time is on how much it *predicted* what was going to happen to American's attitudes on terrorism, war, 'the other', paranoia, the security state, and then commented on what was GOING to happen without knowing it was. It's a completely different show post-9/11 than it was when it aired.

 

[Hypaspist]

I don't think it would be that interesting if it had tried to be relevant. A show basking its own importance is a recipe for disaster. I think a lot of these concepts are universal, and I like how they tried to portray both sides as much as possible. The Dominion is definitely pretty evil, but the Cardassians are a lot more interesting. When they were first introduced in TNG, they were pretty much exactly like TOS Klingons. A lot of the exposition in the show made them more interesting, if not entirely sympathetic.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

DS9 definitely had themes that were unusual in television in 1993. Bear in mind this was in the time where Simpsons was seen as morally bankrupt for portraying a family as dysfunctional.

But, these kind of themes were already common and literature and film. So if anything, you can see DS9 as being one of the earliest shows to treat the medium of television with the artistic respect that modern shows do now.

TV miniseries by film directors like Twin Peaks, Riget, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Scenes From A Marriage, etc notwithstanding.

 

[kkt]

Speaking of ahead of its time, do you realize it's exactly 10 years until the Bell Riots? So far, the shove the homeless into a ghetto attitude is proceeding on schedule.

 

[Ward3]

Speaking of ahead of its time, do you realize it's exactly 10 years until the Bell Riots? So far, the shove the homeless into a ghetto attitude is proceeding on schedule.

I noted that when I watched it for the first time last year. I also wonder who Kira Nerys would have been given our take on terrorism post 9/11. This show was relevant enough 20 years ago, but it is ultra relevant now.

 

[JeffinOakland]

It's by far the most complete and realistic depiction of plausible future of any of the series. That's what makes it the best.

 

[IreneAdler]

One thing I remember about watching DS9 was keeping notebooks and such full of notes. I really loved the overarching plot, but it was difficult in the days of VHS with an internet that contained far, far less information to keep track of all of the details. I think that's why DS9 was ahead of it's time. My dad was constantly asking: who is that, what are they doing, who are they again, what's that ship? If you weren't a diehard, it was really hard to keep track of it all. It also made nuances like "OK, how long has Bashir been a Changeling" go unappreciated. When I watch on DVD/Netflix and something like that comes up, I can revisit the previous episodes and look for signs and such.

Also, it was hard to be "the show about the station" when two shows about ships were still being showed during prime time (TNG reruns and VOY). This was largely fixed with the Defiant, but by then, a lot of people had already made up their minds, and it wasn't like today when you see all your friends posting "X SHOW IS SO MUCH BETTER SINCE Y HAPPENED!!!).

 

[Hypaspist]

One thing I remember about watching DS9 was keeping notebooks and such full of notes. I really loved the overarching plot, but it was difficult in the days of VHS with an internet that contained far, far less information to keep track of all of the details. I think that's why DS9 was ahead of it's time. My dad was constantly asking: who is that, what are they doing, who are they again, what's that ship? If you weren't a diehard, it was really hard to keep track of it all. It also made nuances like "OK, how long has Bashir been a Changeling" go unappreciated. When I watch on DVD/Netflix and something like that comes up, I can revisit the previous episodes and look for signs and such.

That's really the only way I think DS9 was ahead of its time. Serious television shows that require knowledge of the whole show are normal now. When DS9 first came on, the only thing heavily serialized were soap operas for old ladies and welfare moms. That DS9 was often compared to a soap opera was always a negative connotation. Now it's completely the opposite, where the only episodic shows people talk about are comedies.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

DS9's work on the issue of 'terrorism' always led to great stories and fantastic character work. If made today, the showrunners would need to have balls of steel, to get those episodes produced.

 

[Lance]

It was totally ahead of it's time. I remember when I last watched the whole series, about ten years ago in the wake of the Iraq war, I thought a lot of the backstory seemed relevant. And that was ten years after it first went on air!

I think it's because, whereas most other Star Trek shows invite the viewer to take on board difficult subjects via some kind of an allegory, DS9 was never afraid to just say things the way they really are, no subtext required: sometimes shit happens, and you just have to deal with it the best way you can.

I don't think the show ever lost Star Trek's fundamental optimism, but on the other hand it was by the far the Trek series which most represented anything resembling a gritty reality. That was built into the format way back at conception, and it only got strengthened as the show went on.

On a side note, watching the TNG season six blu ray the other day, I was thinking about Worf. That guy was a mainstay of TNG for seven seasons, but was always just the guy that fired phasers and got caught up in (mostly isolated) Klingon intrigue subplots. On DS9, he got more actual character development in four seasons than he did in his seven years over on TNG. I think that's down to the very different format of the series. Everyone got character development, whereas on TNG almost everybody was static, operating only within certain parameters (and was carefully maintained that way).

So yeah. I guess my point is, DS9 had a solid series format from day one. And that's why it holds up so well today. You can't bluff that kind of thing, a show has either got it or it doesn't. And DS9 definitely had 'It'.

 

[erastus25]

Homefront and Paradise Lost are freaking eerie now.

 

[Hypaspist]

I never thought Paradise Lost made a lot of sense. I assumed it was a budget thing, since they had all of those Starfleet uniforms. I don't honestly see Starfleet as THE military in the federation. Surely they had some sort of army or militia or something that would make more sense to declare martial law with.

On the other hand, the one where Tuco and the others are all stuck on that Satellite for months wasn't as jarring. Probably because they were actually operating in space.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's by far the most complete and realistic depiction of plausible future of any of the series. That's what makes it the best.

Is it plausible though? TNG morals are still the guiding factor. Sisko and Picard have the same moral compass, just Sisko was put in more situations where it is challenged.

NuBSG is far more realistic than DS9, and Minority Report is easily the most plausible vision of the future I've ever seen.

 

[Destructor]

I dunno, will jetpacks ever be a 'thing'? Seems like a lot of broken ankles would result.

DS9 isn't really realistic, because Trek itself is unrealistic. But within the world of Trek, DS9 treated the world most realistically, and more importantly treated it like it was real, rather than a stage for anthology tales.

BSG was definitely more realistic... er, except for all the God stuff.

 

[RandyS]

I dunno, will jetpacks ever be a 'thing'? Seems like a lot of broken ankles would result.

DS9 isn't really realistic, because Trek itself is unrealistic. But within the world of Trek, DS9 treated the world most realistically, and more importantly treated it like it was real, rather than a stage for anthology tales.

BSG was definitely more realistic... er, except for all the God stuff.

I don't know....it seems to me that a group of survivors on the run from killer robots would focus on, you know, getting away from the killer robots, and leave all the unimportant things like fleetwide elections and stuff until AFTER they found a planet to settle on.

Not to mention all the dysfunctional humans that populated that fleet, what with all the drama that was pointless given that their whole society had just been destroyed.

Dramatic? Sure. Realistic? Not by any definition of the word.

 

[Lance]

DS9 isn't really realistic, because Trek itself is unrealistic. But within the world of Trek, DS9 treated the world most realistically, and more importantly treated it like it was real, rather than a stage for anthology tales.

Correctamundo.

As I alluded to earlier, and as JirinPanthosa also noted above, the fascinating thing about DS9 is that it doesn't really "lose sight" the vision of the 24th century that Gene and the others built up when they were conceiving The Next Generation -- the Starfleet officers on DS9 are very much a product of the same society that created Picard and his crew. But because they were lifted out of that Starfleet Clean environment and instead placed in one where the Federation aren't necessarily the main driving force behind events, the morals of the characters were tested more often. It's that creative contrast of idealism versus pessimism which really makes DS9 shine.

And in hindsight, we can see that this was very cleverly implemented from the very beginning. By introducing us to Sisko through the events of Wolf 359 and the horrific personal loss that he suffered there, we see already a man who remains idealistic about the future, but there's a chink in his armor in terms of him having faced the brutal realities of space already. He isn't a broken man, but that degree of humanity makes him by far most easily identifiable of all Star Trek's leads.

 

[Hypaspist]

The only way that DS9 is less realistic than other series is how many times the main characters should have gotten killed. It is really jarring, especially when compared with TOS, to see somebody suffer a minor wound from a phaser. I could make the case that the Jem'Hadar end up being a little weaker than they should be, but on the other hand, they are never reduced to Stormtrooper level cannon fodder. The Dominion maintains its menace to the very end.

When something is described as "relevant," that usually means it's self congratulating, pandering, or uncreative. It's normally dogmatic as well. DS9 is none of those things.