You mean Winn, right? Nitpicking of this sort is often meaningless, but I find myself doing it on occasion nonetheless.
Regardless, I enjoyed the Dukat/Winn arc in The Final Chapter. I really did. I know a lot of people were expecting something different, something more. I looked at it from the classic angle of these two characters who have changed over the years but despite any evolution of character, remain antagonists, and they're of two immensely separate worlds but coming together to do something damnable and despicable, and Sisko makes the biggest 'I'm the Emissary, bitch' stance of the entire series.
I might have changed it so that Sisko actually physically perished for good, rather than having the opportunity to return in a newly-assembled mock-up body or whatever the case was supposed to be. I know that's how the writers originally intended it, but Avery Brooks called Ira Steven Behr and see he was uncomfortable with the undertones of a black man abandoning his pregnant wife. I get that, I do. My late grandmother was a civil activist for crying out loud, so I can't contend. For the sake of the story, though, for the 'know nothing but sorrow', it gets a little jarring to me. Is it sorrow that Sisko might not return for six months, or a year, or ten years? If he knows he'll return, then that's not so bad.
I would have included a scene in which Sisko communicates with the Prophets, then, in which he begs them to let him return at some later date, and it goes full-circle to the premiere in his trying to make them understand something. And he reiterates the passage of time, and how crucial this notion is to those of his kind, and he begs them some more, and he swears up and down, left and right that he did hear them when he stood against them and got married anyway, but he's flawed, he's imperfect, he may be their Emissary but he's a human being and human beings do things like this. And at last they yield, but they tell him there is much for him to learn, and it will take some 'time' (there is emphasis as they state it, as though they truly grasp it now) to 'piece him back together' and he will have to accept that.
That would have been savvy.
Now, would I want an eighth season? Yes. Like Nana Visitor, I feel it's a bit selfish to say that, but whatever. I think the show could have gone on. I think TNG ended where it should have, and that's because its 'continuing mission' scenario was perfect for further additions over the years in the form of films... which it got. I think Voyager ended where it should have, because the crew was heading home and that was its one defining mission, and the journey had gone on for a respectable enough length of time. I think DS9 could have lasted another year or two, though, because I don't believe it had fully run its course. Its storytelling style gave it the chance to open up so many threads, and some weren't quite snipped.
I know why it got seven years. For one thing, it was becoming 'the thing to do'. For another, less-cited reason among fan circles, there's the simple matter that DS9 was never as successful as TNG. It was promised six years from the start, and thankfully it was successful enough that there didn't seem to be any regret on the part of its investors. But it was given a seventh year because a.) it was still strong enough, though again, it was never TNG in the US ratings market; b.) the studio respected that there were entirely too many things loose that needed to be finished, and I would imagine this would directly correlate to the idea that VHS and DVD sales would be soured if it didn't get its rightful finish.
Giving it the go-ahead for an eighth season, though? That would have required some stronger ratings, I'd think. Plus I have a feeling after seven years of running two shows at once, there had to be some feeling of looking forward to getting away from that. It takes a lot to do that. A lot of money, a lot of coordination, a lot of effort. I know DS9 and Voyager had almost completely separate staffs, didn't they? So it wasn't quite like the Stargate issue; for three years SG-1 and Atlantis ran side-by-side, and while that was terrific in its own sense, I've read so many interviews with producers and writers about the absolute hell that it was behind-the-scenes.
Giving it an eighth season would have meant the bigwigs would have had to say, 'alright, we gave you a seventh to wrap things up with a bow, but let's go ahead and give you an eighth because... because we love you.' It wasn't going to happen. DS9 wasn't pulling in the ratings that Voyager was, if I remember correctly. Again, it was solid. But it wasn't TNG, and it wasn't even Voyager, because Voyager was so much more accessible to the 'I'm-tuning-this-in-this-week-but-not-next-week' types. So it was kind of a, 'let's give this show a warm sendoff, and then hurry up and get it off the air', or at least that's the sense I get. And then the ratings for The Final Chapter, as the last eleven hours of DS9 are categorized, ended up being quite impressive and some of the series' best, so that's wonderful. But if it wasn't marketed the way it was, as the 'end of an era', the 'climax of a saga', and other assorted things I remember buzzing across my television in 1999... it wouldn't have done that.
1.) Forgive the rant.
2.) Feel free to correct me on any historical errors I made. I'm no pro. I just remember things. And I was only 11 when the show ended, too, so I didn't really document them well.
