DS9 = WORST Star Trek Series EVER

[Tina Lawton]

Once I got past the “I am better than you are” aspect of your post, I found these points worthy of response.

I can see that your view of intelligence is that it is measurable by producing a correct or healthy world-view?

It is measured by a television show which can tell its story or make its point without either resorting to or relying on crudity for the sake of crudity or sexual pandering simply because sex sells or glorifying the most horrific nature of man as something to be idolized. If “Deadwood” was about all the things you say it was about, it could have been about those issues without saturating the dialect with crudity simply for the sake of being crude. That is not intelligent writing, as an eighth grader could accomplish that.

But to be able to understand its grand narrative, its critique of traditional historiography of the 'wild west' and its depiction of the west through more historically correct figures than prior westerns, you have to hear that cursed language...

We “have” to? No, we don’t. Would filling my response here with profanity laced invective convey my point any more effectively? A curse is at times effective, as in Kirk’s application in the episode “City on the Edge of Forever”. But profanity for profanity’s sake is not only annoying but insulting, and if writers have to rely on that device to be effective then they are not very intelligent writers.

Intelligence is sophistic, not ethical.

Intelligence is both, as propaganda can be intelligently crafted but still be sophistry. The counter to propaganda is the truth, and the truth by definition is ethical.

Intelligence is displayed in the making of a given object...

If the statue of David had been crafted sporting an erection, would the intelligence it conveys be interpreted differently?

Star Trek, including “Enterprise”, always attempted to tell it stories without resorting to moral relativism or the glorification of the anti-hero or overt sexual innuendo or the overt depiction of sexual conduct or the inclusion of crudity in language simply for the sake of crudity in language or any supposed shock value. It made limited but effective use of those devices, and that is one reason I admired the show. “House” is another television show currently being aired which falls into this category. There is language and sexual content to be found in “House“, to be sure, but it does not define the series. Nor did it define “Enterprise” or any of the other Trek incarnations.

As for poetry I was always partial to Shakespeare’s use of metaphor found in his prose, as in Lear’s speech on adultery and the “sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption!”

You see, ugliness in drama, in poetry, in art, can serve important artistic and intelligent ends.

Sure it can, if it serves important artistic and intelligent ends. But when Tony Soprano’s boys gang-rape a former associate simply because they find out he is gay, or the boys from “Oz” wall up another inmate behind a Coke machine and leave him to die all while having a good laugh about it, I don’t see that as “artistic and intelligent” entertainment television. That is dystopian, a glorification of the worst man can be. Trek, including “Enterprise”, did not fall into that trap.

If you really want to know where I am coming from where Trek is concerned, follow the link below and read post number 82. I wrote it as part of my TOS “Best and Worst Of” thread as posted on other websites. Or, follow the second link to a thread here concerning the TNG episode “The Royale” and my response to Sho, post number 54.


Link 1:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97865&highlight=star+trek+worst&page=6

Link 2: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=161416&page=4
　

 

[RoJoHen]

I hate to break it to you, but the world is a crude and vulgar place. Their inclusion in TV do not negate a show's level of intelligence.

 

[Jarvisimo]

Personally, I don't think becoming what amounts to nuBsG is the direction Star Trek needs to go. I liked nuBsG for what it is, but I also think there's a misconception out there that the only thing "intelligent" is nihilistic, full of swearing and explicit sex, and violence. Frankly, I am sick of anti-heroes you want to kick the daylights out of even worse than the villains. I am not interested in a show driven by schadenfreude, where you tune in simply to enjoy other people being more miserable than you.

If that becomes Star Trek--no thanks.

And I do agree, RDM & Eick's BSG was another show, for another time, a reaction both from 911 and against Trek's dramatic problems. Yet it also built upon the strengths that the writers perceived in their work on shows like DS9 and Carnivale. Although I do not think it is as nihilistic as people often feel that it is, given that it is fundamentally about what will save people, rather than what makes them 'fail'.

It is measured by a television show which can tell its story or make its point without either resorting to or relying on crudity for the sake of crudity or sexual pandering simply because sex sells or glorifying the most horrific nature of man as something to be idolized. If “Deadwood” was about all the things you say it was about, it could have been about those issues without saturating the dialect with crudity simply for the sake of being crude. That is not intelligent writing, as an eighth grader could accomplish that.

Really, a teenager could produce this scene (a political scene), or this scene (when Al met Alma for the first time)? The language is restrained, yet used highly emotionally.

But to be able to understand its grand narrative, its critique of traditional historiography of the 'wild west' and its depiction of the west through more historically correct figures than prior westerns, you have to hear that cursed language...

We “have” to? No, we don’t. Would filling my response here with profanity laced invective convey my point any more effectively? A curse is at times effective, as in Kirk’s application in the episode “City on the Edge of Forever”. But profanity for profanity’s sake is not only annoying but insulting, and if writers have to rely on that device to be effective then they are not very intelligent writers.

I take it you won't like The Thick of It?

Intelligence is both, as propaganda can be intelligently crafted but still be sophistry. The counter to propaganda is the truth, and the truth by definition is ethical.

What are you saying, that intelligence can be entirely unethical? I think you have proven my point.

Anyway, I am curious. What for you is 'truth'? Because you bring a range of vibrant opinions to this sport, and it would be good to know where the come from.

If the statue of David had been crafted sporting an erection, would the intelligence it conveys be interpreted differently?

As an art historian I can tell you that it would not have removed Michelangelo's genius from analysis of him. He was indeed censored in his life, if we are to use that word, since he desired to paint the Sistine Chapel Last Judgment with mannerist nude charcaters, but the Virgin could not be naked!

Alas, with David, it was not in his commission to depict David thusly. But his David is still a sexualised portrait, arguably, though perhaps not as suggestive as Donatello's earlier bronze David.

But - context. You must first remember that it was designed for the Duomo of Florence Cathedral, to be seen from very far away, and hence features like the exagerrated upper body versus the smaller features of David's lower half. During the making of it, it was deigned as too superb to be hidden up there by the Florentine optimates who commissioned it. Thus David became part of the collections of Florence's hierarchy, who adored its voluptuous masculinity and suggestions of prowess (which compounded its contemporary ethical values) much more than its supposed religious-ethical values. Did you know that the conviction rate for sodomy by fifteenth century Florentine civil courts (the Office of the Night) was very high? Almost half the adult male population from 1420-1490. That the Florentine David caters to a burgeoning culture of pornography is highly arguable, especially since it was in this culture that Michelangelo whose patrons came from. In addition, his inability to correctly depict female anatomy, yet his attention to the mannered masculine physique, is suggestive. Yet despite its sexualism, this nude culture was fundamentally high-culture & highly allusive, stemming from contemporary reactions to anthropology in the new world and from the classicisation of art resultant from examples like the statue of Laocoön and His Sons which Michelangelo advised on.

There are contexts for 'vulgarity', as you would perhaps deign it. Some are surprising, but would not suggest that the artist was any less intelligent in depicting vulgarity in that way. This image by Jean Bourdichon is contemporaneous with Michelangelo's David, and is from a Book of Hours that was commissioned by Louis XII in the 1490s. As you may guess, it is Bathsheba being seen by David. It is a prayer book image, but given the private use of the book in a devotional context, also caters to Louis' other desires. Bourdichon's image is not alone, but one of a range of sexualised Bathshebas from the end of the fifteenth century.

Yet, is not Bourdichon a wonderful painter, the creator of magnificent art that is highly intelligent for its chromatic effect and unusual scenes of piety, as well as its reams of allusion. See his Kiss of Judas.

Once I got past the “I am better than you are” aspect of your post, I found these points worthy of response.

I am sorry but I found 'I think you mean “serialized”. But no, I wouldn’t' to be an excellent example of that attempt to be better, yah? There are planks in both our eyes.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Personally, I don't think becoming what amounts to nuBsG is the direction Star Trek needs to go. I liked nuBsG for what it is, but I also think there's a misconception out there that the only thing "intelligent" is nihilistic, full of swearing and explicit sex, and violence. Frankly, I am sick of anti-heroes you want to kick the daylights out of even worse than the villains. I am not interested in a show driven by schadenfreude, where you tune in simply to enjoy other people being more miserable than you.

If that becomes Star Trek--no thanks.

And I do agree, RDM & Eick's BSG was another show, for another time, a reaction both from 911 and against Trek's dramatic problems. Yet it also built upon the strengths that the writers perceived in their work on shows like DS9 and Carnivale. Although I do not think it is as nihilistic as people often feel that it is, given that it is fundamentally about what will save people, rather than what makes them 'fail'.

I don't think that argument would have even the slightest chance if it weren't for the events of "Daybreak." That's pretty much the only thing that saved the show from being a complete "everybody dies" tragedy. Most of it, however, focused on failings.

Even though I would never, never normally bring up anything that had Will Farrell in it, the exception to the rule is the movie Stranger Than Fiction, which I found very refreshing because it directly confronted and dismantled the idea that a tragedy is somehow "higher" literature than a comedy, and that it's somehow not as intelligent to have the good guys be good guys and win. There very much is a trend among academia and the critics right now that anything traditional is inferior, which I think is partly responsible for the proliferation of the kind of ultraviolent, ultrasexy shows of the 21st century, and that those who don't go for those shows are more lowbrow somehow. Less able to deal with the "truth of life," even.

Personally, I would not deny the artistry employed by an Orthodox iconographer because what he does has traditionally-defined boundaries--I would not automatically rank him less than a person like Jackson Pollock, who created things with no recognizable subject or pattern, who basically made his career off of flouting all possible rules. But this is the direction that I think a lot of people have gone, and it even affects our output of things like book and TV shows, where the name of the game right now seems to be, "How far can we push the envelope (or even burn the envelope)?" and that which does it the most is considered the "highest" art.

Maybe it's lowbrow or uneducated of me, but I think traditional things are still beautiful, and are not automatically set below the non-traditional ones.

 

[Sindatur]

Personally, I don't think becoming what amounts to nuBsG is the direction Star Trek needs to go. I liked nuBsG for what it is, but I also think there's a misconception out there that the only thing "intelligent" is nihilistic, full of swearing and explicit sex, and violence. Frankly, I am sick of anti-heroes you want to kick the daylights out of even worse than the villains. I am not interested in a show driven by schadenfreude, where you tune in simply to enjoy other people being more miserable than you.

If that becomes Star Trek--no thanks.

And I do agree, RDM & Eick's BSG was another show, for another time, a reaction both from 911 and against Trek's dramatic problems. Yet it also built upon the strengths that the writers perceived in their work on shows like DS9 and Carnivale. Although I do not think it is as nihilistic as people often feel that it is, given that it is fundamentally about what will save people, rather than what makes them 'fail'.

I don't think that argument would have even the slightest chance if it weren't for the events of "Daybreak." That's pretty much the only thing that saved the show from being a complete "everybody dies" tragedy. Most of it, however, focused on failings.

Even though I would never, never normally bring up anything that had Will Farrell in it, the exception to the rule is the movie Stranger Than Fiction, which I found very refreshing because it directly confronted and dismantled the idea that a tragedy is somehow "higher" literature than a comedy, and that it's somehow not as intelligent to have the good guys be good guys and win. There very much is a trend among academia and the critics right now that anything traditional is inferior, which I think is partly responsible for the proliferation of the kind of ultraviolent, ultrasexy shows of the 21st century, and that those who don't go for those shows are more lowbrow somehow. Less able to deal with the "truth of life," even.

Personally, I would not deny the artistry employed by an Orthodox iconographer because what he does has traditionally-defined boundaries--I would not automatically rank him less than a person like Jackson Pollock, who created things with no recognizable subject or pattern, who basically made his career off of flouting all possible rules. But this is the direction that I think a lot of people have gone, and it even affects our output of things like book and TV shows, where the name of the game right now seems to be, "How far can we push the envelope (or even burn the envelope)?" and that which does it the most is considered the "highest" art.

Maybe it's lowbrow or uneducated of me, but I think traditional things are still beautiful, and are not automatically set below the non-traditional ones.

Nice Post

Certainly there is an audience for an artform with Anti-Heroes, and gritty moral dilemmas, and dark depressing situations, where the heroes rarely win. But, that's not the only choice, and having everything be "NuBSG Depressing" is no more intelligent or entertaining than having everything Morally black and White and Unicorns and Rainbows.

I don't mind watching one NuBSG-type realistic show at a time, but, I don't want that to be my only option, that'd make me want to slit my wrists, I want some fun too.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

But the question is...is nuBsG automatically "more realistic"? Isn't nuBsG in its own way just as extreme and unrealistic, but just in the other direction? Even if you look at some of the most evil regimes in human history, you can also find real, true heroes who fought against them from within, without being nothing more than another shade of grey.

 

[Silvercrest]

So I didn't feel like wading though 22 pages of this thread, but did the OP ever eventually come to the conclusion that he was totally wrong and that DS9 is in fact the best Star Trek show ever?

The OP admitted he started the thread with the intent to troll, announced he was leaving the thread on page 11 (January 19), and has not made a post anywhere on the BBS since then. And he is greatly missed.

I wonder if he even knows he received a trolling warning?

 

[Lindley]

No it's not my choice, canon is canon. Unlike some fandoms there isn't much grey area in Trek. I'd like to de-canonize TATV but I can't.

The only canon established by TATV is the nature of a 24th century holodeck program. Its accuracy is not established.

Jar, if you are going to talk about intelligent television and then put up as examples "The West Wing" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", well, you have defeated your own assertion with just your first two selections.

I haven't yet seen The West Wing (I know---shame on me), but Buffy was certainly one of the more intelligent shows of its time. I would equate it in quality to Star Trek, more or less, although of course both Trek and Buffy are quite variable in the quality of individual episodes.

I do prefer Angel, personally, but I think Buffy was the more ambitious series and it showed in both its highs and its lows.

 

[CAPTAINMAX]

It is the only Star Trek series that I turned off during the pilot episode because it was so awful. I never watched the series after that. I have only seen a handful of DS9 episodes. I saw the finale when it aired & it was insultingly dumb, and it wasn't just me who had that exact same sentiment. Every time I watch DS9 it makes me cringe & not want to see more of it.

They had no ship, and just sat on a space station. Sitting of the Station week after week was big turn off. That worked out so well for the series that by season 3 they added the Defiant to help out the serious flagging DS9 series. DS9 was so awful it was the first & only Star Trek series that hired an actor from a previous series (Michael Dorn) to reprise their character role (Worf) as permanent cast member addition. I was shocked that the writers felt that a Star Trek show didn’t need a real ship for exploration & wasn’t surprised that by season 3 they introduced the Defiant as a ship permanently assigned to Deep Space Nine (the runabout idea was a really seemed like someone’s idea of a bad joke since it really wasn’t designed for long range deep space exploration nor was it capable of real defense of the space station).
Now that DS9 is on Netflix I have tried to watch it again. I have gotten 12 episodes in & they are just awful. Even mediocre would be a huge improvement for DS9.
I will give Deep Space Nine credit that once the Defiant was introduced they did encounter more new alien races & explore more that The Next Generation.

I totally agree i`v just started watching it i`m up to episode 12 and i`m bored to tears.

 

[Lindley]

It's like the last 24 pages never even happened!

 

[Silvercrest]

Are we starting the thread over? Listen, if we're caught in one of those never-ending time loops, I'm going to be royally torqued. There's stuff I need to get done.

 

[RoJoHen]

But the question is...is nuBsG automatically "more realistic"? Isn't nuBsG in its own way just as extreme and unrealistic, but just in the other direction? Even if you look at some of the most evil regimes in human history, you can also find real, true heroes who fought against them from within, without being nothing more than another shade of grey.

Even being the dark, depressing show that BSG was, I think there were still some genuinely good characters. Lee Adama, for instance, was always most concerned with doing the right thing, regardless of the personal cost. You also had Helo, who got to know the enemy early on and realized that it might be possible to find peace between them.

BSG gets a wrap for being unbelievably gloomy. Well, given the context of the story, it would be completely ridiculous to think that everybody would remain happy and optimistic.

 

[Tina Lawton]

The theme of nuBSG was the survival of a species which was facing genocide. Therefore I find it hard to imagine the show taking any other track than it did. Of all the Trek incarnations, only "Enterprise" touched on that theme. But overall Trek was about a mankind which had already won that battle as waged with himself, and was seeking an elevated form of betterment rather than simple survival.

 

[Lindley]

I would say Trek was about a mankind which desperately wished to believe it had no greater concerns than personal betterment. I think Deep Space Nine was very effective at questioning just how true that actually was.

 

[Sindatur]

Even being the dark, depressing show that BSG was, I think there were still some genuinely good characters. Lee Adama, for instance, was always most concerned with doing the right thing, regardless of the personal cost. You also had Helo, who got to know the enemy early on and realized that it might be possible to find peace between them.

BSG gets a wrap for being unbelievably gloomy. Well, given the context of the story, it would be completely ridiculous to think that everybody would remain happy and optimistic.

Oh, absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with that. My problem, is some people seem to want everything to be like that, and think there is no room for any other style SciFi nowadays, and any other type of show would be somehow automatically inferior.

 

[Tina Lawton]

I would say Trek was about a mankind which desperately wished to believe it had no greater concerns than personal betterment. I think Deep Space Nine was very effective at questioning just how true that actually was.

You have a point about DS9, but even during the time of DS9 mankind was not depicted as a entity hell bent for leather on destroying itself.

 

[Sjaddix]

Lol BSG was okay. Not enough diversity to be Star Trek.

I was rooting for the Cylons to kill them all though. I don't have a problem with anti heroes but there is something about them that made me hope everyone of those people died a horrible death. Also that trial was BS there is simply no way Baltar would not have gotten offed by someone. Trials are irrelevant when u have a traitor someone would have gutted him eventually.

 

[Jarvisimo]

But the question is...is nuBsG automatically "more realistic"? Isn't nuBsG in its own way just as extreme and unrealistic, but just in the other direction? Even if you look at some of the most evil regimes in human history, you can also find real, true heroes who fought against them from within, without being nothing more than another shade of grey.

Indeed, you can - if you define them by singular heroic actions. But heroes do have other aspects of their lives which define them, be it an unsuccesful love life, a tendency to temper, or having a boring rhetorical style, or being a professional killer, or whatever else. Grey is the colour of the world, it is the choice of the dramatist how much he or she defines their character by their heroic or anti-heroic actions.

But the question is...is nuBsG automatically "more realistic"? Isn't nuBsG in its own way just as extreme and unrealistic, but just in the other direction? Even if you look at some of the most evil regimes in human history, you can also find real, true heroes who fought against them from within, without being nothing more than another shade of grey.

Even being the dark, depressing show that BSG was, I think there were still some genuinely good characters. Lee Adama, for instance, was always most concerned with doing the right thing, regardless of the personal cost. You also had Helo, who got to know the enemy early on and realized that it might be possible to find peace between them.

BSG gets a wrap for being unbelievably gloomy. Well, given the context of the story, it would be completely ridiculous to think that everybody would remain happy and optimistic.

Indeed, hence the unintended humour of original BSG, or indeed Voyager, with its all-too perfect ship.

Oh RoJoHen, thank you for pointing out that there are 'heroic' people on the show! Thankfully, their nobility is countenanced by other factors, deliberately depicted as above - such as Lee exacting too high a nobility on his father, or his destructive love with Kara.

Daybreak is not window-dressing: nobility, life and a desire to see society continue are omnipresent themes throughout the show. That is why Laura sought democracy above secrets and militarism in Kobol's Last Gleaming; why Home feels so restorative, not simply because the plot saw the fleet reunited, but that the family - society - was deliberately chosen to be healed by the parties responsible. This was seen in the genuine unification of the shattered fleet, and in the relationships of Adama & Laura, Adama & Lee, Adama & Kara, Laura & Billy, etc; why Starbuck went back to Caprica twice, out of hope, love & faith; and so on.

The theme of nuBSG was the survival of a species which was facing genocide. Therefore I find it hard to imagine the show taking any other track than it did. Of all the Trek incarnations, only "Enterprise" touched on that theme. But overall Trek was about a mankind which had already won that battle as waged with himself, and was seeking an elevated form of betterment rather than simple survival.

I would say Trek was about a mankind which desperately wished to believe it had no greater concerns than personal betterment. I think Deep Space Nine was very effective at questioning just how true that actually was.

I would say Trek was about a mankind which desperately wished to believe it had no greater concerns than personal betterment. I think Deep Space Nine was very effective at questioning just how true that actually was.

You have a point about DS9, but even during the time of DS9 mankind was not depicted as a entity hell bent for leather on destroying itself.

Regarding these three posts, indeed DS9 offered the most astute criticisms of Trek until then and since depicted. Despite Enterprise being closer in time to us, the blank characterisation of Enterprise versus DS9's wide and wonderful cast & superior writing means that it is easier to empathise with the world-view of the former rather than the latter. DS9's critcisms, both of the society depicted in-Trek and the meta-aspirations of wider Trek's humanism were more powerfully effected. Think of In the Pale Moonlight, where Sisko's confession serves as a wsay to abosolve himself of the utilitarian espionage and murder he was party to; or the use of the Houdinis in ARR-558. However yes, humanity in Trek or (to paraphrase another grey Trek production) the homo sapiens-only-club that the Federation seems to be was not devoted to self-destruction, though arguably neither are the human societies which exist today. We expend vast capital in preserving wealth, culture, traditions - in continuation.

Concerning the issue of criticism of Trek from within DS9, and the unreality of utopianism, the screenwriters of The Maquis were potently astute when they proposed through Sisko the 'earth as the problem' dialogue:

"On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints — just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!"​

The criticism of utopia makes more sense to me as a viewer than the placid Enlightenment perfectionism of humanistic aspirationalism, which dictates to the audience in the real world (through drama in the fictional universe) that ontological problems in individual humans and within society at large do not exist anymore (or rather should not).

It is a shame that Cal Hudson did not work out for the showmakers, as his precense might have inspired a quicker continuation of the Maquis themes, but then they did strike gold in deciding to make Eddington (the previously dull) into Jean Valjean. The return to themes of tyrannical paradise and failed utopianism of For the Uniform and For the Cause was wonderful.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I would say Trek was about a mankind which desperately wished to believe it had no greater concerns than personal betterment. I think Deep Space Nine was very effective at questioning just how true that actually was.

That's how I see it. For that reason, I think DS9 had a pretty good middle ground in how it treated topics like good and evil: questioning, prodding, but not beating people over the head, and still letting what was good and right be seen just as clearly as what was wrong. Real life is not only black, only white--or only grey as Jarvisimo suggests. There are elements of all of those, but each element can and should be solidly identified as what it is, for indeed, apathy leads to some of the worst evil there is.

I do not feel I should be thankful as some here suggest when a character is made miserable or made to drown in his or her flaws, though. As I mentioned before, that borders on schadenfreude, which is not the reason that I choose to watch a show.

Helo did help keep nuBsG watchable, but there is no way I could ever see myself subjecting myself to nothing but a steady diet of such misery. Am I lesser for that? No.

 

[timothy]

I've been rewatching ds9 on Netflix and I gotta saw that I love the show now more than ever. and as far as who has the worst pilot in sci fi that has to go to babylon 5 with the gathering which was the worst ever made. though I the show did get better after s2 on that one. where ds9 was strong and constant all the way through.