Re-Doing DS9?

[JirinPanthosa]

I liked the focus on Bajor, but they didn't make Bajoran culture complex enough. They're always focusing on either the recovery from the Occupation or religion. There could have been a Ro Laren figure who wasn't religious or maybe spent her life on the run in an alien culture. All the male Bajorans we saw tended to be very passive, focused exclusively on religion with no real depth.

I don't buy arguments like "Oh, they could never get the audience to care about an alien character!" Maybe in the 60s. We've had shows with vampire protagonists. Movies where the protagonist is a giant red demon with horns, and people cared about them. As long as they appear basically human, they can get people to care about them. Having at least recurring characters in Odo's security force would be a good idea.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I'm curious--why did many people not like the focus on Bajor? I seem to be in the minority in this respect, as I enjoyed both the explicit emphasis on spirituality and the implicit emphasis on art. The opening frame for most of the scenes set on Bajor always struck me as an idyllic landscape with a hint of Russian influence in the golden domes. Moreover, the costumes for vedeks and kais struck me as medieval in origin given their bright colors and (in Kai Winn's case) distinctive headgear and sumptuous fabrics; I was reminded of illuminated manuscripts. I found Bajor's refined aesthetic refreshing and its politics interesting, and I'm wondering whether others here would agree with me.

Don't get me wrong-I liked the focus on Bajor in some episodes (and I even loved the episode, 'The Storyteller' that everybody else hated), but from what I could remember reading in certain publications of the time, not everybody watching DS9 liked that focus, and wanted a more space-based one.

^ I too loved the focus on Bajor. It really helped set DS9 apart from everything else, as it was a constant that they had to deal with as the planet recovered. I wish they'd had a few more stories in the early years about actually helping with the conditions on the planet--a Bashir story about dealing with an outbreak, or an O'Brien one where he is helping rebuild/repair a key piece of hardware.

As I recall, there was one episode where O'Brien does repair a computer on Bajor, but yeah, I agree, there should have been more.

They could have moved "The Quickening" to Bajor. Interesting . . .

I think that works better as a Dominion story, myself-it sounds like the kind of thing that the Dominion (in particular the Founders) would do.

 

[Rahul]

Well, I'm one of those people that really disklikes the Bajorans. For one simple reason:

suspension of disbelief.

(Note: This goes not against Kira. I really like her, because she's a well-written and well-rounded character. This is about the Bajorans as a people)

Whenever the Bajorans appeared on screen, it was painfully obvious you're watching a scifi-show on a budget. Most of Star Trek in general, and DS9 especially, hold up very well to this day, with their production quality, make-up and special effects. The Bajorans do not.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of 90's era Trek were the 'bumper-forehead aliens'. Aliens of the week, which were basically humans except for one special (mostly exaggerated) trait, and a bumper on their nose or forehead.

They were mostly accepted on TNG, because the episodes were usually very well written, and because it was obvious that the show couldn't afford a more elaborate make-up for a single episode. On Voyager, they became really annoying, because most episodes with aliens of the week lacked a certain quality. But the biggest offender were the Bajorans. While the other series tried to 'hide' their bad-make-up-aliens in their 'episodes of the week', DS9 put them front and center! This was a bad decision.

Every other important Star Trek species has both physical and social characteristics that defines tham as uniquely alien. Think of Cardassians, Vulcans, Vorta, Ferengi, Klingons, Xindi, Bolians, Andorians, Romulans, Hirogen, Borg and others. Most of them have a (somewhat) believable make-up, and all(!) of them have special social/personal characteristics that define them as aliens. Spock may not look that alien, but his actions inform us that he, indeed, really is inhuman.

The Bajorans were basically just humans with rippled noses and a ridiculous space wedgie belief.

 

[Rahul]

(Note: There were certainly a lot of good Bajoran episodes. I just never believed we were indeed watching aliens. They really seemed more like a bad plot device to tell certain stories about war and religion. Which could have easily been told in a more believable way.

If the appearence of Bajor would have been limited to a few episodes each season, I may have really liked them for their complexity, compared to other aliens of the week. As the main(!) location for a major part of the (early) series, the Bajorans heavily lacked believability)



As a result: If I were to re-do DS9, I would heavily shift the focus away from Bajor. Make it a station near a wormhole in the middle of nowhere, manned by Bajoran and Federation personal because the Bajorans already had the space station there, and the Federation wasn't too eager to built another one.

 

[somebuddyX]

I don't really have any good plot ideas, just some boring behind the scenes stuff that I would use if making DS9 today.

Restart Michael Piller's open door policy for accepting scripts. I think that got seem neat ideas into the shows.

More location shooting and/or move production to somewhere cheaper. I think the Stargate shows had some good ideas about doing this. I recently watched the episode 2001 where they go to the Aschen farming planet which is just a normal farm but with a stargate standing and a harvester flying about. You could do something like that with Bajor and just stick a tiny CG town/city off in the background. I also like the demo reels Stargate Studios has on youtube which show their digital backlot and you could use this sparingly for a scene in some alien city, a street is going to look like a street.

Throw all the technobabble in the bin. It's not needed. I watched The Die is Cast the other day and there is this scene:

DAX: I've never seen readings like these. What do you think?

O'BRIEN: Subspace energy fluctuations, quantum fractures in the electrodynamic field, EM spikes across the spectrum? You've got me.

Who cares about this garbage!

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Who cares about all of the medical babble heard on most medical show, some of which can get downright scatological in nature? The use of it helped create some believability that this was the future, and that they had scientific terms for scientific things that happened in that century.

 

[LadyT'Anna]

The technobabble shows that one is watching the activities of a working ship or space station. I agree with Shaka Zulu that the use of (often rapid-fire) technical language adds believability to an episode. It can certainly ratchet up the tension of a scene.