SyFy & Tomatometer say: DS9 is the best

[Captain_Nick]

Sisko is an interesting case foor me.

When I once started to watch DS9, I thought that he was gloomy and boring.

But the more I watched, the more I started to like him. He could be a real bada** sometimes. OK, he was a bit hysterical when it came to Eddington but most of the time he was brilliant, a great Captain!

Completely agree.

Might sound silly, but he was the only captain that I felt I could learn something from. DS9 did not shy away from complex and nuanced issues.

 

[dupersuper]

The whole reason why Sisko chose Garak is because he knew assassination was a possibility and Garak would be willing to do it. Garak specifically calls Sisko out on this in the episode and Sisko doesn't deny it. If Sisko just wanted a fake holorecording, he would have gone to Starfleet Intelligence, but he knew full well what needed to be done.

I don't see it as nearly that straight forward.

 

[Oddish]

We still have to deal with the fallout when the Romulans find out how they got suckered into a war.

 

[Kor]

I don't see it as nearly that straight forward.

Agreed. Sisko definitely expected Garak to go outside conventional channels to get what they needed. And it's true that Garak did warn him, "it may be a very messy, very bloody business." Sisko responded that he was "prepared to do whatever it takes." And then, at Garak's prompting, Sisko was willing to keep going even after Garak's contacts on Cardassia ended up dying.

But from their exchange at the end, it was clear that Sisko never expected a prominent figure like Senator Vreenak to die, or that Garak himself would kill anyone in cold blood as part of this operation. Having it happen so 'up close and personal,' with Garak having planted the bomb right under Sisko's nose at DS9, took things to a different level as it removed the abstraction and distance of some unknown Cardassian operatives dying way over in Dominion-allied/controlled Cardassian space.

Kor

 

[Bad Thoughts]

We still have to deal with the fallout when the Romulans find out how they got suckered into a war.

Bring up Romulan attempt to steal a ship, call it even.

 

[dupersuper]

We still have to deal with the fallout when the Romulans find out how they got suckered into a war.

There was a short story with Zak Kebron from New Frontier telling Brikar kids about how it started another war with the Romulans when it came out, but that was written before we knew the Romulan supernova was coming in 2387, so maybe amend that to "nearly started a war with what was left of the empire"?

 

[Qonundrum]

I like TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager for different reasons. In the same way that I like different sorts of rock music, from heavy stuff like Iron Maiden and Deep Purple to Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Byrds and Pink Floyd. Sometimes I find it hard to state that DS9 is best or Voyager is best or so because I like different aspects of the shows. However, I must state that in recent years I have discovered that DS9 is the one with most depth, character development and good stories.

^^this

As for TOS, I came in late in that one. I watched the movies first and when around the time TNG started to air on one of my channels, TOS showed up on another. OK, it was a bit primitive when it came to filming and such, after all it was made in the 60's. But the characters are very likeable, great actually and the stories are mostly very good. And TOS is TOS, the father of it all. Like Elvis for rock music.

I saw TOS in incessant reruns as a kid. Even had those coloring papers with Kirk and Spock and the shuttle, and another with "RED ALERT" (Which I filled in blue, by the way)... I recall the school doling out TNG book covers in 1987... the show hadn't quite aired yet and I suppose that the crew would probably be more appealing than AV club, I guess...

As for music, I'm more a Chuck Berry and Little Richard fan...

When I started to watch TNG, I was first a bit disappointed. I had watched the TOS movies and a few episodes and after watching the pilot of TNG I thought "is that all there is?"

I initially loathed TNG. Most late-80s shows were shlocky, but when season 5 came and old episodes got reran, my tune changed...

But I continued to watch it and after a few episodes I started to like it more and more. Around season 3 when the series really became excellent, I thought that it was the best I've seen. It also has very likeable characters and TNG is still a series which I watch with great joy.

I was silently enjoying it, but was annoyed that Kirk movies became nothing more than comedy acts and here's TNG being treated with credibility and gravitas and not the butt and be-all of jokes.

I had a troubled story with DS9. One of my channels started to air it after I'd seen the last TNG episode and in the light of that, the first episodes of DS9 didn't seem too great. I thought that the series was OK, the characters OK but sort of "TNG:s minor team" in a way. Kira and Quark was those I liked the most from the start. Unfortunately, the station I had which aired DS9 cancelled it after only one season. Some years later, I signed up for a paid channel in order to be able to watch DS9, only to see the channel close down after a few weeks. When I finally started to buy the series on DVD, I had problems wih bad quality DVD.s which continued for some time. I'm sure that my angry posts a bout low-quality DVD:s still can be found on this site.

I saw some of it, but didn't consistently keep up... I must have caught the teaser for season 4's opener because I felt a desire to watch it and... *ding* insta-big fan of what the show was trying to do. My interest would eventually waver, but did see the finale and would return to various episodes. It's amazing what I didn't see compared to what I had... I never saw Duet on original viewing, and might not have liked it back then if I had.

But when I finally got DVD.s of good qualities and got the chance to watch the series from start to finish, then I realized how incredible good it is. The development of the characters and their interaction, the windling story which takes some unexpected twists and turns here and there all the way from the Bajoran-Cardassian conflict to the Dominion war and all other exciting plots. Even the villains are the best.

^^ this

Right now I'm into my fifth rewatch of the series and it's still as exciting as it always has been. It's also nice to discover things which I haven't noticed before in the series.

^^ditto

Voyager is another chapter. I actually found Voyager while visiting a shop where it was possible to rent VHS tapes from movies, series and such for a decent sum. Legally, I must point out. I was out to find a copy of Move Along Home which a malfunctioning VHS player had obstucted for me when I was about to tape it from TV an evening when I was at a rock concert so I could just watch 10 minutes of it before the VHS player had stopped recording. Eager about to finf´d out how it ended, I went to the shop to borrow the episode. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything DS9. But they had all season 1 of Voyager.

For DS9, it's a different episode - but pivotal in some ways. Especially Quark...

So I borrowed Caretaker and I really liked what I was watching. I took an immediate liking to all the main characters which only has happened to me one more time and that was with NCIS some years later, they were introduced in a very good way in the episode and the premise with a ship lost in space was brilliant.

It was trying to be hard sci-fi, and some episodes I didn't even watch all the way through back then. It also took the Borg to get me to watch more of VOY, but they had enough thought and ideas for it and the Seven/Janeway relationship is easily first rate.

So I watched Voyager with great joy for three seasons but in the long run, the series became a disappointment for me. I still like the first three seasons and the characters but Voyager could and should have been much better than it was. bad writing and stupid decisions by those in charge ruined it in a way.

Later seasons got stale, and the occasional early gem like "Meld" or "Tuvix" were pretty solid... I still can't believe they would nix Kim...

I neve liked Enterprise. I found the characters bland and boring and the whole idea of a retro series stupid. They couldn't even make it look like TOS and they also started to mess upp established Trek history. So I quit after 4 or 5 episodes and never turned back.

I appreciated their attempt to do a look that tried to balance TOS-esque looks with "older technology" that's more or less LCD screens and stuff from our time... but prequels rarely do anything for me; they don't really go after answering questions that needed to be asked, as rarely is something there to begin with. More often they'll take a 2 minute snippet of dialogue from an old episode (that may or may not have been good enough to expand upon) and bloat it into a 50 minute or 300-part epic episode. Or do something that is pointless because Earth will still exist at the end of it all. TOS had discussed a Romulan war from a century or so earlier in a 10 second snippet of dialogue. Is it really going to be all that exciting when shown in full? For our main characters, who are already focusing on things other (and even bigger) than merely a battle scene?

As for the recent stuff, I never really liked the NuTrek movies which I see as a desperate attempt to squeeze out the last of TOS. Discovery is downright horrible! The characters are lousy, the whole series is dark and gloomy, not to mention the Mutant Ninja Turtles Warriors Klingons.
And Picard is also dark and gloomy, only interesting because Picard is in it.

NuTrek started as "flanderization", coasting on stereotyped character traits (Kirk screws green women, Spock angrily battles his emotions, McCoy makes wisecracks, Scotty drinks, etc, etc). 2009's flick also did what NEM did and crib previous movies and tv show set-pieces. That said, there's a good cast involved, Into Darkness was passable (and didn't need Khan to be coasted on either), and Beyond was the best of the three by far.

DSC had some great ideas (evil captain, Mudd, Tilly/Burnham) but unrefined scripts and more producers than on a merry-go-round. The evil captain's big reveal also felt like coasting on nostalgia, and a bit too soon in the show's run. It never fully coalesced for me but I see why others adore it. The Klingons have some great make-up and were always an allegory in one form or another.

PIC is (IMHO) style over (little) substance, with season 1's finale not exactly helping.

So as it is now, I'm quite happy with re-watchin TOS, TNG, DS9 and the first three seasons of Voyager. There are aspects of all those shows which I really like but if I have to choose, then I pick DS9 as the overall most watchable.

I've gone back and forth, but DS9 has the best mix of character archetypes and feels closest to TOS in spirit, despite the near-amusing irony of the crew being stuck on a space station a lot of the time.