Contest: VOTE Favorite Episodes From Season One

[Arpy]

What are some of your favorite episodes from Season 1? Vote for them because you love them, like them, hate them, because they’ve made an impression, because you want to Move Along Home.

A refresher:
Emissary
Past Prologue
A Man Alone
Babel
Captive Pursuit
Q-Less
Dax
The Passenger
Move Along Home
The Nagus
Vortex
Battle Lines
The Storyteller
Progress
If Wishes Were Horses
The Forsaken
Dramatis Personae
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

My picks:
Emissary — welcome my friend to the game that never ends.
Captive Pursuit — I am Tosk.
Q-Less — the memorable disaster.
Dax — underrated.
Move Along Home — we’re still talking about it!
The Nagus — the Nagus has never been creepier.
Progress — understated poignant forgotten gem. I’ve always wondered whatever happened to Mulibok. We’re they penpals? Did she visit him every year for Thanksgiving? Was he ultimately another indirect casualty of the Occupation?
Dramatis Personae — the Mirror Universe Episode before, you know, the Mirror Universe episode. A lot of fun seeing the actors try to be other people while still trying to figure out their own characters.
Duet —the standout.
In the Hands of the Prophets — not the cliffhanger some were expecting, but a solid episode, and the introduction of Vedek Winn.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

DS9 s1 is one of my least favourite seasons of Star Trek so I don't have a lot of favourites. I like enough episodes to give you a top five though.

1. Duet - If this wasn't #1 my list would've been defective.
   
2. In the Hands of the Prophets - I almost like this episode a little more though.
   
3. Babel - It's got drama, explosions, Quark, Odo, and some actual tension going on as the crew struggle to deal with a series of escalating crises while main characters are dropping like flies.
   
4. Emissary - One of the best Trek pilots, just as much about the main character dealing with his issues as it is about setting up the series.
   
5. Past Prologue - Gets right into the question of whether the Federation should even be there and introduces Garak.

 

[kkt]

My picks:

Emissary
Past Prologue - Yay, Garak!
Progress - Kira finds some of the heartaches that come with the uniform
Dramatis Personae
Duet

I could have picked more, but I'm trying to keep the winners down so it really means something.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm limiting myself to three episodes per season, which is already pretty generous.

1. Duet
2. Emissary
3. In the Hands of the Prophets

Coincidentally, these three probably do more to set up the rest of the series, but I find them to be the best written. Season 1 was probably the best first season of the Berman era, with few truly terrible episodes--no Codes of Honor or Justice. And let's face it: we could sing Alemaraine on first viewing.

 

[DigificWriter]

There honestly isn't a single episode in DS9 Season 1 that I dislike, but if you forced me to choose favorites, the following episodes would make my list:
* Emissary
* Past Prologue
* Q-Less
* Dax
* Move Along Home
* Battle Lines

 

[tomalak301]

My choices:

Emissary
Dax
Battle Lines
Duet
In the Hands of the Prophets

 

[Arpy]

All this love for Battle Lines. It and The Passenger are two episodes that I haven’t seen in decades, not having fond memories of them. I may have to give that and The Collaborator a double-feature rewatch at some point. It’s mentioned or referenced so infrequently.

 

[Trekker09]

I agree “Dax” is underrated….Jadzia does come across as passive and meek, a misleading introduction to her personality, but I admired how far she would go to protect the woman from Curzon’s past. The old Bajoran woman judge, and the general’s widow, were well played - both by actresses from TNG. The whole question of Trill responsibility for past lives gets explored but only a little, never really resolved.
Always had a soft spot for “The Storyteller” too. … appealing in a goofy way.

 

[Lynx]

Duet is my favorite.

Great story and a fantastic interaction between Kira and Marritza.

Not to mention that Harris Yulin is a favorite since the days of the Family Macahan where he played the slimy, cunning and nasty villain Mr. Peasley and he's doing a great job playing Aamin Marritza in this episode.

I also voted for:
In The Hands Of The Prophets
Move Along Home
Captive Pursuit
Vortex

 

[Vger23]

DS9 is my favorite Trek series from the "Berman era"...but S1 is easily my least-favorite of the series. That said, there are some gems in there that are worth pointing out:

• Emissary (my favorite pilot episode of all the post-TOS series)
• Captive Pursuit
• Battle Lines
• Progress
• Duet (one of the FEW static "debate team" episodes that I think truly rises to the occasion in the franchise)
• In the Hands of the Prophets

Honorable Mentions (top of the next tier, let's just say):

• Dax
• The Storyteller

 

[Qonundrum]

The Emissary - Trek franchise's best series opener, bar none. It mixes the right elements of TOS and TNG while being clear from the get-go that Sisko is nothing like Picard (or Kirk, but if Sisko were closer in style to any established captain it'd be Kirk and only in the good ways). Very nicely done stuff.
Dax - underrated character piece
Move Along Home - it's supposed to feel off-kilter at times, and had it been given a proper budget it wouldn't feel like a glorified episode of Doctor Who. It's a great Quark story as well the first to really move the Ferengi forward in any serious way (save for "The Emissary").
Duet - triple twists and turns and an unexpected ending. Very well crafted.
At the Hands of the Prophets - above average.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Seems that almost everyone is picking Emissary, Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets. For some reason I expected there to be less love for In the Hands of the Prophets, but I'm glad to see it doing well. Just beneath them is Dax in fourth place, so I guess it can't be that underrated.

There's absolutely no love so far for The Passenger and If Wishes for Horses though. It doesn't seem like people are fans of bad dubbed villain voices or Rumpelstiltskin.

 

[Lynx]

Seems that almost everyone is picking Emissary, Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets. For some reason I expected there to be less love for In the Hands of the Prophets, but I'm glad to see it doing well. Just beneath them is Dax in fourth place, so I guess it can't be that underrated.

There's absolutely no love so far for The Passenger and If Wishes for Horses though. It doesn't seem like people are fans of bad dubbed villain voices or Rumpelstiltskin.

I like If Wishes Were Horses! And Rumpelstiltskin!

Honestly, I like all the episodes in this season. OK, Babel and The Forsaken is a bit dull but not bad as such.

Emissary is not the best pilot episode of Star Trek but still very good to watch. A good start of the series and great introduction of the main characters.

 

[kkt]

So what do you think was the best pilot of Star Trek? I can't think of one that I thought was better. Possibly The Cage, but that wasn't shown in its original form until, um, way after I was a fan already.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

So what do you think was the best pilot of Star Trek? I can't think of one that I thought was better. Possibly The Cage, but that wasn't shown in its original form until, um, way after I was a fan already.

Emissary is the best largely because of circumstances. It was the product of writing, production, and artistic teams that worked together for years. The writers took the template from previous introductory stories--TMP and Encounter at Farpoint--building upon them in form, learning from them, but also adding elements of character exploration therein. And it had the most impact on the series going forward: the DS9 writers went back to the pilot story to build upon its themes such that Emissary did a better job of defining the series (perhaps retroactively).

 

[Captrek]

Emissary is the best largely because of circumstances. It was the product of writing, production, and artistic teams that worked together for years. The writers took the template from previous introductory stories--TMP and Encounter at Farpoint--building upon them in form, learning from them, but also adding elements of character exploration therein. And it had the most impact on the series going forward: the DS9 writers went back to the pilot story to build upon its themes such that Emissary did a better job of defining the series (perhaps retroactively).

That’s a good point. By contrast, “Caretaker” suffers retroactively. One of the strengths of the episode was how it established the Starfleet-Maquis dynamic, but that was almost completely ignored by the rest of the series, so it just seems like wasted time in retrospect.

 

[tomalak301]

That’s a good point. By contrast, “Caretaker” suffers retroactively. One of the strengths of the episode was how it established the Starfleet-Maquis dynamic, but that was almost completely ignored by the rest of the series, so it just seems like wasted time in retrospect.

What do you think about Broken Bow? I used to think Caretaker was my favorite pilot, but I've come to really love Broken Bow a lot on each rewatch.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Broken Bow has a lot going for it. It's easily achieves the most in terms of art and design: the ship has a decent retro-feel that is familiar to us nowadays; the Suliban are creepy and pityable. The detour to Rigel is cool, creating the sense of adventure and wonderment that they wanted from a prequel. However, it's not deep intellectually or emotionally. Archer's frustration with the Vulcans is interesting, but it is pitched so high that it seems unnatural. Perhaps because too many things are juggled, the episode doesn't address anything completely: Klingon problems, Suliban ambitions, relations with Vulcans, Temporal Cold War, meet the crew, explore the ship, strange new worlds, ... .

 

[Arpy]

My opinion could change in an hour, but, for my personal entertainment value, I’d rank them:

Emissary — a bit grim, but cool.
Caretaker — unlike the rest of the series, but solid.
Where No Man Has Gone Before — dated, ESP nonsense, but good.
The Vulcan Hello — a bit too glossy, mutiny is serious, but good.
Broken Bow — not too deep, but engaging.
Encounter at Farpoint — my fav series, some good stuff here, but kind of a mess.

 

[Vger23]

By my measure, Emissary is easily the best pilot of the franchise. It was a completely new world and a very dramatic introduction to that world. It had a powerful "hand-off" guest appearance by a legacy character (Picard in this case), it had amazing production values, and it had a plot that honestly could have stood on its own as a unique Star Trek telefilm, even if no series had ever followed in its wake. It did an outstanding job of introducing the characters and setting up the premise of the episodes to come. It also built appropriately and expertly off of the existing lore (Cardassian/Federation relations, Bajor, Wolf 359, etc), which made it even richer.

It also showcased a very personal and impactful journey of the main character, which is something none of the other pilots accomplished (Broken Bow did to some degree with Archer, but not nearly as effectively).

Emissary is not only my favorite pilot, it's one of my favorite outings of Star Trek in the entire franchise.