Is DS9, a true Trek show?
- Thread starter Emperor-Tiberius
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Agreed, this is the way I see the list as well, with Manny Coto coming in it moved ENT just above VOY for me.
Keep in mind I still find myself watching all of the series, its just I also find myself muttering "Oh Come on now!" the -most- with TNG and VOY.
I completely agree with this statement. In fact DS9 kinda gave us what the others did not. A wider scope in which to see and enjoy the large scale interaction of Roddenberry's world. We felt as if the Federation was a government (we even got an Anthem to hear! ) and could see their policies good or bad reflected in the other governments around them, be they just single planets or allied or enemy powers such as the Romulans or Klingons.I've said it before...and while I know it pisses off some people, I'll say it again - DS9 did not 'betray' Gene Roddenberry's 'vision'. IMO, Gene Roddenberry betrayed his OWN vision with TNG.
You felt the scope and that added to the other series too such as TOS, TNG and VOY. It gave them a sense of place and DS9 showed us what was going on in the place, not just a bottled ship from that place.
Exactly. I could have written your entire post.
There were two things that 'saved' ENT in this respect. The fact that it was a prequel and so very occasionally they didn't do that whole "What Would Picard Do?" thing, but instead have the characters work it through on their own. But even more important was the fact that they had Manny Coto to the rescue of season 4.
Those two together were what gave it the edge over VOY in this respect.
VOY has a great opportunity available to it to move away from the happy-shiny perfection of TNG and back toward TOS...and we saw a flicker of a response to that opportunity in great episodes like Equinox and Year of Hell (although even the latter was a reboot in the end). But sadly, that opportunity was taken advantage of so infrequently as to be almost totally lost.
But TNG? Roddenberry may have worked on both TOS and TNG...but in those intervening years, he really lost touch with what TOS was about...or maybe he just got too sidetracked into that whole 80's PC mentality.
I mean, that sort of thing is always much easier to see with hindsight...but all I know is that if you look at the two shows critically and objectively...TOS and TNG do not have anywhere near the same approach.
TOS says "We are flawed human beings who screw up, but we are trying to do the right and noble thing...and perhaps learn a few things as we fly around the galaxy on our mission of exploration and growth"...and TNG says "We are evolved human beings who are not flawed and have no need of growth, but who are here to teach you the 'correct' and 'enlightened' way to live."
Different messages completely.
It really makes we wonder how people talk on and on about Roddenberry's 'vision' as if the existence of this 'vision' is an accepted fact that does not need to be proved....because outside of the fact that these two shows shared Roddenberry for a few years...and are both about the exploits of a crew on the ship called Enterprise...they have very little in common.
Personally, I don't think Roddenberry ever really had anything as lofty as a 'vision'. And if he did, it sure did a 180 between TOS and TNG.
I never got that feeling from TNG, TNG was the evolved version of TOS though and in the end TNG was the only show that gained more viewers as it went along.
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/SciFi/StarTrek/history.html
I think it was Gene Roddenberry's vision that made TNG and TOS stand out after TNG left the air Star Trek was no longer a front runner among the other sci-fi shows out there and sadly it showed even the local stations started to refuse to air DS9, I had to email my local Fox station twice just to learn what day and where they were going to start airing the seventh season I even missed the season premiere because I couldn't find it on the schedule.
http://www.geocities.com/hblur/cyrus/trekratings.html
I've said it before...and while I know it pisses off some people, I'll say it again - DS9 did not 'betray' Gene Roddenberry's 'vision'. IMO, Gene Roddenberry betrayed his OWN vision with TNG.
I'd go one step further--Trek is so much further than GR's vision! I mean, come on, the ideas of how many men and women have gone into creating Trek? DS9 is just one step on the journey (and I say that even though it's my least favorite Trek).
I met a person who knew Roddenberry personally this year, and I asked him this very same question. He was weary of war themes because he didn't want Star Trek to be a like everything else-- but he felt like Roddenberry would have appreciated how delicately the writers of DS9 handled the series.
I'm very much a fan of DS9, I think it's the best series of the bunch.
I'm very much a fan of DS9, I think it's the best series of the bunch.
In the end it's kind of useless to speculate whether or not Gene Roddenberry thought the later Star Trek series were indeed Star Trek all of Star Trek will be lumped together as Star Trek, the fractions that divide Star Trek will someday cease to exist if even the idea of Star Trek survives in the years to to come and I'm talking hundreds if not thousands of years to come.
>>snip<<
But TNG? Roddenberry may have worked on both TOS and TNG...but in those intervening years, he really lost touch with what TOS was about...or maybe he just got too sidetracked into that whole 80's PC mentality.
I mean, that sort of thing is always much easier to see with hindsight...but all I know is that if you look at the two shows critically and objectively...TOS and TNG do not have anywhere near the same approach.
TOS says "We are flawed human beings who screw up, but we are trying to do the right and noble thing...and perhaps learn a few things as we fly around the galaxy on our mission of exploration and growth"...and TNG says "We are evolved human beings who are not flawed and have no need of growth, but who are here to teach you the 'correct' and 'enlightened' way to live."
Different messages completely.
It really makes we wonder how people talk on and on about Roddenberry's 'vision' as if the existence of this 'vision' is an accepted fact that does not need to be proved....because outside of the fact that these two shows shared Roddenberry for a few years...and are both about the exploits of a crew on the ship called Enterprise...they have very little in common.
Personally, I don't think Roddenberry ever really had anything as lofty as a 'vision'. And if he did, it sure did a 180 between TOS and TNG.
We were just watching the edited best bits of TNG human behaviour
. TOS humans with the same "editing team" would have appeared suitably evolved and perfect lol jkI love how FC cleverly addressed the difference in TOS n TNG behaviour, with Lilly calling bullshit on Picard's "evolved" sensibilities beliefs (great scene, superb acting by both).
That, together with now adulthood perspective, retrospectively nuanced the TNG TV series in my mind. I saw the TNG humans in a different light. An air of conceit to their behaviour. The TNG humans had no genetic or biocomputer enhancement, and showed no yogic mastery of the brain. So they were just purely human like us.
Subject to the same emotions and mental frailities as us.
I realised, that the Umani on TNG BELIEVED they were evolved, but were nothing more than an overlymannered and preachly hypocritical society like eg.Victorian England
This must be deliberate indoctrination judging by how brighteyed,brushytailed DrBashir and his views were in early DS9. Almost expected him to read his "Little Blue Book" everynight lol
Realising that also changed the "tinman" TNG episode, I now understand more about Tam's( the very empathic empath) distaste for Umanii. He heard their every thought, their every lie, felt their war between their private thoughts and their public conduct, their every failure to live up to their words. It must have , and did sicken him
I still love TNG, I can now see them as either perfect or imperfect. Depending on how cynical I feel on the day lol
I love tng and tos for how they make me optimistic for the future of humanity.
But DS9 is also a very good show in my opinion, i see it more as a commentary on society with each of the races being an aspect of today's human culture with the ferengi's representing greed, the klingons of barbaric past, and so on and so forth. Then all the sides of us get caught up in a war that could end up destroying us. Thats what i see in it at least, and if thats what they were going for it was a brilliant idea.
But DS9 is also a very good show in my opinion, i see it more as a commentary on society with each of the races being an aspect of today's human culture with the ferengi's representing greed, the klingons of barbaric past, and so on and so forth. Then all the sides of us get caught up in a war that could end up destroying us. Thats what i see in it at least, and if thats what they were going for it was a brilliant idea.
Wait, you think In the Pale Moonlight and Far Beyond the Stars are heavy-handed, but you have whole seasons of ENTERPRISE?!
Ooooh, them's fightin' words! You and me, 3 o'clock, by the Starfleet Academy flagpole!
I wouldn't be so quick on the judgements: after all, the person who said no before you has a board name and an avatar from DS9...
Even if a DS9 fan said "No", it would still IMO be based on arbitrary ideas about what "true" Star Trek supposedly is.
Of course it's a Trek show! It says Star Trek: DS9 does it not? Why aren't we asking this about the first two seaons of ENT? They didn't have Star Trek in their title. 
In Roddenberry Trek, we saw many space stations, the god Apollo, and almost constant hostilities with the Klingon Empire.
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ktanner3
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Ds9 isn't even in the same stratosphere as Star Wars.
Personally I think this whole Rodenberry vision thing has been terribly overblown. He created the idea for the show and other writers came along and added most of the elemants that fans grew to like.The TOS episodes that most fans like weren't even written by Rodenberry.Then somewhere between the cancelation of the show and the first movie he starts becoming some "visionary" by the fans and even starts to believe his own hype
And yes, we first got a glimpse of Roddenberry's "new vision" with the first movie; two hours of boring tripe that would have never been a success had the public not been so starved for new Trek. Once Rodenberry was forced to a consultant role the movies got better. But then he was given control of the new show and the first two seasons are generally considered the weakest of all of trek. TNG didn't get good until Michael Pillar was put in charge of the writing staff.DS9 would never have been the show it was had Rodenberry been in charge of it because he would have objected to the flawed characters, the religous cultures, and the violence. Hence, the show would have become TNG 2 and gotten canceled by season 4.So personally I 'm glad that DS9 doesn't conform to the utopian vision perpetuated by Rodenberry. It has the most rewatchability next to the Original Show and gains new fans every year while TNG loses them.
Which statement and why?
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