None of which discounts that Ds9 was full of arc based story. Literally the whole thing, loads of them. And I know... I was there. My favourite point of comparing then to now, is then we had Arthur Fancy and Ben Sisko, and now we don't. And am pretty sure Ds9 was real adult TV writing.
How then do you explain the indigogo campaign for the DS9 doc? The small amount of Niners are just mega rich? Or did that fan base grow with time?
There's nothing to explain Do the math: a bit under 700,000 dollars from not quite 10,000 backers works out to an average donation of about $68 per backer. (Coincidentally, that's a hair less than a year's subscription to CBS All-Access will cost them). That speaks to the real devotion of some of the folks who did watch DS9 - they're nothing if not dedicated to the show - but it's no evidence at all either that the fan base has grown or that fans are "rich" (just middle class with some disposable income). In fact, the relatively weak syndication numbers and video sales of the series suggest the opposite. I mean, sadly enough, there are fan films that have raised more than that through crowdfunding.
I'm one of the few voyager fans. Voyager fans are rare on boards like this, however voyager is still in syndication I've caught random episodes on spike, FX, SyFy, and most commonly BBC America. I catch DS9 on Netflix. Voyager and TNG are the shows you can still catch reruns of just by flipping through the channels if you still have cable. DS9 is absent which makes me question if it's reruns get as high of ratings as Voyager. I like and have seen all trek by the way so im not anti-DS9. I just know cable channels play what makes them money.
Serial storytelling hurts reruns as they turn off casual viewers. Voyager is sufficiently non-serialized to work as a rerun show. DS9, less so (though it's not serialized like 24 or anything). Serialized shows work much better on Netflix and similar services. But the choice of transmission platform is not an indication of a show's quality.
^^^ But it really wasn't a serialized story arc...sorry. Character arcs and story threads over multiple seasons is nothing new to Star Trek, or TV in general. Even TOS had them.
DS9 had a greater degree of serialized elements than its predecessors, and than anything to follow sans ENT Season 3. Serialization, as a concept, is given greater focus than was previously seen in the franchise, and twice the show went all-in with a seven-part string of episodes and later a nine-part string of episodes. It was not, inherently, a totally serialized show like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and such. But it juggles more arcs and does so more times per year than is especially common elsewhere in the Trek canon.
DS9 had far more serialized elements than other Trek series. It's not like Game of Thrones or The Expanse (I love both) but more than other Treks. If you think TOS had them, ah, no. TOS had few, very few. You can probably list them on one hand.
Like many averages, it's not representational of the reality of those who backed it. I watched many of the pledges at the time they were happening. There were people who were either unwilling - or unable - to give more than a few dollars. Then there were those who threw thousands at a time - this made a huge difference to bumping that total up. In under four weeks? Ahhh I remember the fantastic Trek-like positivity (you know, that stuff I and others living in obscurity naively suffer from) during that campaign, where I commented:
I would not doubt that the fanbase has grown a LOT over time. I avoided DS9 like the plague when it was announced. Thought it sounded like The Love Boat being based on a station and having visitors every week. I never even started watching it until maybe 2004. While the first 3 seasons were.........meh to me seasons 4-7 were some of the best Trek I have seen. I know some hate it but "In The Pale Moonlight" is one of the best Star Trek episodes of all time to me because it shows a desperate, FLAWED, and conflicted Sisko. Definitely NOT like The Love Boat ;-)
"In The Pale Moonlight" IMO is likely the finest trek episode ever made. Gods I need to go rewatch that
Yes, it was a dirfferent person, BUT you took my reply to him in the post where I replied to him out of context as HE was talking about TNG (Speciofically the Work discommodation story thread.)