I just love this show so much. Wow.

Season 4 really starts it for me, though season 3 is as strong in some ways (Garak torturing Odo was chilling, but his arc wasn't done in any way even remotely "cliché", it was exceptionally well done) in a re-watch season 1 fared a lot better than on original transmission - but I'm older compared to back then.

I really wanted to like the presentation, except the backing music (muzak?) drowns out the dialogue it's supposed to be complementing. It's not an uncommon problem in both professional studio offerings and fan offerings nowadays, especially as everyone else was harping on the 2005-present run of "Doctor Who" in much the same way while I was more interested in story content or lack thereof. Ditto for other shows at times. Which is all sad, really, since in decades' past where the technology required more effort to do proper mixing compared to today's easy-peasy production software and Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects are not difficult to use at all in that regard. And yet examples of drowned dialogue are very few back then, when compared to today. Are the makers half-deaf between the frequencies of 90-250Hz?. One needn't have perfect hearing to tell the makers of the mawkish schmaltz were too wound up with the muzak and subconsciously kept the volume higher because it sounded cool - thus missing the point entirely, if not selling a completely different point - that it's not about the frosting but the cake and DS9's cake is so rich that it doesn't need gobs of frosting to proverbially deafen the ears with, but the frosting definitely added to the piece. But wasn't THE piece. Now other cakes, made with sawdust and other empty filler, need as much maudlin mush as possible to cover up the flavorless cellulose... (Which isn't to say cellulose is a bad thing, it helps prevent clumping in containers full of grated cheese, but after n% it starts to dilute the advertised end product... and eating 100% sawdust or 100% frosting isn't good either...)

 

DS9 is a really special show. I grew up watching re-runs of TOS and TNG, but it wasn't until those DVD sets came out that I got to watch DS9. I was too young for most of it's TV run, (voyager was the first show I remember watching new (I'm 26)). but man do I remember how long those waits for the new DVD season to come out felt. I'm not sure if it's my favorite, that or TNG, IDK... I just like Trek.

Cheers to one of my favorite shows of all time... now give me that damn remaster.

 

I have a very strange relationship with this show. It's not my favorite Star Trek. It's not my 2nd favorite either. I'm old school & I like the 1st two better. To me they are more of a star trek, literally. It's weird to see this new incarnation using the same methods in such a different way. It's quite literally Star Trek tv, without the star trek.

However, it's impossible to not recognize that DS9 did a great job, on the whole, with their show. You've got seasoned writers hitting their stride going on. You have some interesting characters that might never have had the liberty to be explored on the earlier shows, in the same way. You have broadening of the Star Trek brand in multiple ways, and you have a continuation of growth that came from all the successes of its predecessor

But what is most notable is that Star Trek, more than any other intellectual property, has a way of worming itself into its fans' hearts. It becomes their entertainment "Comfort food", & what this show did better than any other is embrace that, in how they explored their characters. DS9 fans seem to me to be the most satisfied with their show among the collective. I can totally see how someone would get seduced by it, especially if it had been among their introduction to the franchise. It's the pinnacle of Star Trek's escapism craft.

TOS was never intended to have that aspect, it was a fluke that people took it so intimately, so much so, that those 1st Trekkies were quite literally looked upon as weirdos for doing so. TNG sort of paved the way for that vibe, over the course of some trialing, & none of the shows since DS9 ever truly had the same degree of... hominess

That's the key. While I never approved of Star Trek ditching the trek to land on a space station, it was a wise move if the intention was to continue delivering a more rooted drama. They have a home, & there's no better way to welcome the viewer intimately than to invite them into your home. DS9 is the Full House or Waltons of the Star Trek franchise, and that's a compliment. They are the homiest Star Trek, by far

 

I'm watching DS9 for the first time and just hit season 7 a couple days ago. I did not expect DS9 to totally flip every table in my Star Trek dining room, but it has. I grew up as a TOS kid, got more into TNG in middle school. That was my Trek experience until my mid-twenties. Last year I started a "complete binge" of every show and movie. And around the time I got to Way of the Warrior I realized DS9 was converting me to full-blown Ninerism.

I too am in love with this show. I feel, I dunno, like I'm home while watching it. It's become not just my favorite Trek series but my favorite television show, period. I don't want the show to end. But I'm comforted by the fact that there's a whole slew of relaunch novels waiting for me at the end of this journey. Now I'm a Niner, through and through.

 

I was just reading the DS9 Wikipedia page and found a quote from Ronald Moore that sums up my feelings about DS9 perfectly:

I think Deep Space [Nine] was the show that really took Star Trek as far as you could take it. You have the original series which is a sort of a landmark, it changes everything about the way science fiction is presented on television, at least space-based science fiction. Then you have Next Generation which, for all of its legitimate achievements is still a riff on the original. It's still sort of like, ok, it's another star ship and it's another captain – it's different but it's still a riff on the original. Here comes Deep Space [Nine] and it just runs the table in a different way. It just says ok, you think you know what Star Trek is, let's put it on a space station, and let's make it darker. Let's make it a continuing story, and let's continually challenge your assumptions about what this American icon means. And I think it was the ultimate achievement for the franchise. Personally, I think it's the best of all of them, I think it's an amazing piece of work.

 

To add to my first reply, I think at its best, DS9 was a very well written, acted, and directed blend of heartfelt character drama and intrigue. I'm rewatching season 4 and I was blown away by For The Cause, the episode where Odo and Eddington inform Sisko that Cassidy Yates is a Maquis smuggler. What is so great about this episode is how the audience is let in on the secrets while some of the characters onscreen are in the dark. There is a great scene where Sisko suggests that he and Cassidy drop everything and go on vacation. She is unaware of his noble attempts to save their relationship while the audience has a deeper insight into his motivations. Then Eddington fools everyone and there is another twist and dimension of subtlety to enjoy. Cassidy thought she was a step ahead of Sisko, while the audience knew Sisko was on to her but Sisko was unaware of Eddington's plot, which the audience discovered slightly before Sisko could see it. For me that's DS9 at its best.

 

One thing you notice about that episode after you know how it turns out. When Eddington is asked what he thinks about the Maquis he declines to offer an opinion, says he steers clear of those kinds of discussions or whatever. Which is also something (At least if 24 is correct) that terrorists tell their recruits to do, just decline to offer any opinion about politics.

 

I got into DS9 during a summer break from college, thanks to reruns on Spike TV. As a child, I had previously seen a tiny bit of Deep Space Nine during its initial run (Emissary, The Search, perhaps one or two others), but I don't think I was old enough to properly appreciate it. Ever since college, though, it's been tied with TNG for my favorite Star Trek show. To this day, I think DS9 has one of the best balances of episodic and long-form storytelling that I've seen. Individual episodes are satisfying as stories in their own right, but also add to the broader canvas. I enjoy how the show's stationary setting not only lets it develop a rich cast of recurring characters, but also lets it focus for an extended period on the Bajoran and Cardassian cultures. And of course, the main characters are like family to me now.

As for the fan trailers being discussed earlier, at one point I was browsing around for a trailer I could show to someone who'd never seen the show, and I came across this one, which I like because it gets across the starting premise and feel of the show without major spoilers.

 

I'm in the middle of my DS9 season 5 rewatch. Episodes like Apocalypse Rising, Things Past, and The Ascent are everything I like about DS9. Sisko, Odo, Quark, Obrien, and Worf are great characters. Trials and Tribbulations represents what I find so frustrating about DS9. It's a well made, entertaining episode but I find some of the dialogue and characters annoying. I can't stand Bashir and Dax at times and I wish the writers didn't try so hard to give them cute banter. It can feel very forced. I prefer the tone that DS9 had during its second season.

 

I just finished another 7-season watch through. It has aged better than any of the other shows, I think. The arc is brilliant, how it runs from the Federation playing peacekeeper on a remote outpost between the Bajorans and Cardassians to Bajor becoming an important exploration and commercial hub thanks to the Wormhole. The Dominion was a perfect foil for the Federation, and General Martok and Garak were brilliant and became two of my favorite characters.

If I have a complaint about DS9, it is that the show felt too small. I realize budget and filming schedules prevent fleshing out the worlds, but it felt like everyone on the Station had a hotline to their respective Heads of State, and several were actually offered the chance to become a head of state. The Grand Negus seemed more like a wacky cult leader than a head of state, and the Cardassian Central Command Center was smaller than the bridge of the Defiant. There's nothing that I really hated about DS9 except for Vic Fontaine, who I think was a blight on an otherwise brilliant season 7.

 

I adore DS9. I haven't done episode by episode rewatches but tend now to read Memory Alpha recaps... and then watch whatever particular episode that catches my attention.

What I truly adore about DS9 is that it manages to combine science and religion in a way that I find to be, quite frankly, breathtaking (I am a 140% scientific person). Never ever ever could I ever see how religion made 'sense' in the Star Trek era but the whole Cardassian/Bajoran backstory really brought out how a spiritual belief can live side-by-side *with* science... both supporting one another when needed.

 

Speaking of smallness, one disapointment with both TNG and DS9 is the sense that Earth is always a mere 5 hour flight away. DS9 was supposed to be on the edge of the final frontier but the audience never got a sense of how far away it was from Earth, from The Klingons, from The Romulan Neutral Zone, from the Ferengi, ect. It would have been cool if the writers made an effort to define where everyone was in relation to each other in the alpha quadrant.