Forget the Maquis! The Romulans Should Have Been Used!

[Anwar]

Oh please, stop saying that DS9 ripped off the entirety of B5. B5 took most of its stuff from LOTR anyways.

At the time DS9 premiered, the Cardies weren't all that well-developed a race aside from Gul Madred in "Chain of Command" so Berman wasn't wrong to say they were rather one-note at the time. CONTEXT, people.

As him telling them to make a 3-tiered enemy, that had nothing to do with B5 since JMS himself has said that he doesn't think Berman and Piller ripped anything from B5 off, and any similarities came from some Paramount Execs who gave them a few ideas in development.

Multi-tiered organizations have existed for a long time in fiction, so Berman's hardly ripping anyone off by saying to make another one.

 

[Kegek]

^
At the time VOY was in development, "Duet" had come and gone.

Context, indeed.

 

[Anwar]

Yes, but two episodes and characters ("Chain of Command"/Madred and "Duet"/guy whose name began with M) can still mean a one-note race. I mean they complained that the Klingons and Romulans became One-Note even though they had good individual episodes too.

And Berman said that the Cardassians were one-note bad guys when DS9 was in development, not VOY. He was referring to the idea of them being the series villains and them alone. At THAT time they were kind of one-note aside from "Chain of Command" so he gave Piller the initial idea for the Dominion.

 

[Kegek]

^
And the Dominion are far more two-dimensional than the Cardassians. The Cardassians wound up remaining the show's main villains/tragic antiheroes.

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, mainly due to the Dominion situation.

 

[Kegek]

^
Granted. But while the Cardassians were consistently interesting on DS9, I didn't really begin to like the Dominion until around late season five, when Jeffrey Combs really came into his own as Weyoun. Cardassians were doing a fine job as villains for the first three seasons, and unholy allies in the fourth and early fifth.

 

[patlandness]

I refer all naysayer of this idea to TOS's "Balance of Terror" and TNG's "The Defector"--both definitely showing that the Romulans can be played as something other than one-dimensional baddies. (With special props to actors Mark Lenard and James Sloyan).

 

[exodus]

Kegek said:
^
Granted. But while the Cardassians were consistently interesting on DS9, I didn't really begin to like the Dominion until around late season five, when Jeffrey Combs really came into his own as Weyoun. Cardassians were doing a fine job as villains for the first three seasons, and unholy allies in the fourth and early fifth.

How much did the Dominion really do before season 5?

They were mostly covert before then. Besides, the Jem Hadar don't have much in the way of a personality, so Weyoun was naturally going to out shine them as far as character depth.