Favorite things about DS9

[Tribble Threat]

What are your favorite things about Deep Space 9?

My favorite things are how there are believable conflicts and disagreements between respectable characters, who have varying degrees of loyalty to the Federation and other loyalties that compete with those loyalties, and a nice variety of ethical dilemmas. Such a good show!

 

[Xhiandra]

The secondary characters, principally Quark, Garak and Weyoun.

The conflicts, I didn't find that believable, mostly exaggerated. These are supposed to be fully adult characters, but they're at each other's throat over any disagreement? Tiresome.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Parents. Children. Real people.

 

[shivkala]

It all comes down to characters. I truly believe DS9 had the best character development, not just of its main cast, but of its secondary characters as well.

 

[Qonundrum]

Bashir
Kira
Garak
Benjamin Sisko
Quark
Dax
Odo
Worf
The O'Briens--

Pretty much everyone with zero exceptions. They nailed it from day one and what blossomed as a result was magnificent. All distinct personalities yet fitting into the 24th century mold without looking like the two extremes of:

a) contemporary people from the late-20th century, which is lazy character scripting
or
b) the sort of robots that TNG got lampooned with. You remember the good old days of "Data was the most human character on the show and he uses contractions when he's not supposed to and has emotions when he's not and yadda yadda yadda", which - despite getting kudos for being sci-fi is still an extreme. TNG was miraculous that the characters were watchable despite nearly all being all proto-Vulcans and/or popsicle stick nonpersonalities. Which is rendered sadder by the fact many of them had personalities, which were curtailed or cast members left. DS9 fixed those TNG issues and nailed it.

Characters being different in personality, even arguing or being taken aback, yet they all get along when needed. A great example is from the get-go when Bashir and Kira meet. That's a damn good scene. Ditto for Siskocompelling Quark to stay in a neat parallel subplot to his own being convinced to stay on DS9. "Emissary" has a few nitpicks but everything else is so strong, the nitpickies are rendered moot.

Showing Sisko from the get-go as not being a Picard clone, and with aplomb.

The Dominion became a credible "big bad" and never got watered down l;ke the Borg.

The Defiant.

Seasons 2 and 3 were already largely refined (and season 1 wasn't and had a couple real belters in the mix, like "Duet") bad but season 4 was the shot in the arm the franchise needed. It's a reboot that isn't a reboot. If that makes sense.

TNG was always dessert. DS9 is the entire meal, with napkins and silverware, and allowing a little burp o' appreciation when done.

 

[Lynx]

Great characters. Very likeable all of them.
The actors, who all did an excellent work in portraying those characters.
The minor characters who were brilliant.
How the series and characters developed during the seasons. The Bajoran-Cardassian conflict with the Maquis problem in it and how it developed from there with the Dominiion and everything. The development of relations between the characters.

 

[FederationHistorian]

The intro and the DS9 theme.

Character development. Both the main cast and secondary characters.

Even though DS9 is an alien space station, its simple for both adults and kids to draw, as it was designed to be that way in purpose.

The Defiant.

 

[shivkala]

I do have to make a slight adjustment to my comment that it was the character development. Robert Hewitt Wolfe was on the 7th Rule podcast where he talked about Aron Eisenberg being very talented (a common thing in the podcast is to reflect on how talented the cast was) and he, like a lot of the secondary character actors were so great at their jobs, the writers enjoyed coming up with material for them.

So I do have to recognize the actors, since without them, the writers would not have developed the characters to the level they did.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Pretty much everything.

 

[Rigel]

Pretty much everything.

Yes, that sums it up really well. The show hit very, very few false notes. :-)

If I had to pick one single aspect, though, it would be Kira Nerys (due in no small part not just to incredible writing, but also to Nana Visitor's brilliant portrayal).

Kira Nerys is not just the best (best drawn, wonderfully complex and dynamic) character in all of Trek, but also in fiction in general. The best thing is she was always written as a fantastic character, not as a fantastic female character. She just happened to be a woman.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Yes, that sums it up really well. The show hit very, very few false notes. :-)

If I had to pick one single aspect, though, it would be Kira Nerys (due in no small part not just to incredible writing, but also to Nana Visitor's brilliant portrayal).

Kira Nerys is not just the best (best drawn, wonderfully complex and dynamic) character in all of Trek, but also in fiction in general. The best thing is she was always written as a fantastic character, not as a fantastic female character. She just happened to be a woman.

Kira is the best character in Trek.

 

[maneth]

The characters and especially the serialized format that allowed for true character development. Bashir in season 7 was not the same man as he was in season 1, and the same can be said about pretty much every character.

 

[kira_nerys]

Kira is the best character in Trek.

Kira is definitely one of the best characters written!
Other favorite characters also include Garak and Quark and the relationship between Bashir and Miles. Love how that developed through the seasons.

 

[Tosk]

I am an unabashed Niner. Biased, guilty as charged.
That said, I don't love everything about it...but I love most of it.

It's the kind of show where if I started to name things I love, I'd keep remembering other things and loudly adding them.

There are several episodes I really do not like, but other than those there's very little I can complain about.

 

[STEPhon IT]

It was so conceptually different from anything Star Trek from the interior and exterior of the space station, the explosive appearance of the wormhole and its spiraling rings of bluish color, and the runabouts and their functions. The Bajorans' art designs and the contrast with the Cardassians was interesting, the first 3 seasons of the series still is a wonder to view; so much detail was done to fully realize those alien worlds and the people who lived in those environments. I would like to add the world of Quark, and his perspective of Ferengi and the unique and clever side of business relations, his endeavors were a sense of exploration in itself and had the same entanglements our heroes had to dive into and crawl and scrape to get a noble resolution.

Deep Space Nine really felt alien to me and I enjoyed every bit of those 71 episodes.

 

[Jellico]

I love most of the character development and the relationships, but the promenade and Quark’s seems to me to hold it all together.

 

[FanST]

Everything.