The earliest defining moment of DS9

[JirinPanthosa]

The destruction of the Odyssey just seemed to me like a "Hey fans, we're NOT GONNA BE LIKE TNG". More a statement of what the show is not than what the show is.

 

[JediKnightButler]

The destruction of the Odyssey just seemed to me like a "Hey fans, we're NOT GONNA BE LIKE TNG". More a statement of what the show is not than what the show is.

Right. And it wasn't a reversible time anomaly or something like, say, "Cause & Effect" or "Yesterday's Enterprise" (though both were enjoyable eps in their own right nonetheless). I had the same feeling about later eps of DS9 like with Dominion War, as well as the new JJ Abrams Star Trek movie. The instant they destroyed Vulcan in that movie, I knew that we were in for some serious stuff and that they weren't going to pull any punches. At that point, it was made clear that nothing nor anybody is "safe" in the new series. I ALMOST thought that they were going to push a "reset button" at the end of the movie when they destroy the Narada and almost get sucked into the Black Hole but they didn't and for that I was thankful.

 

[Paper Moon]

For me it hast to be Duet, before this all the previous episodes strayed into well-trodden TNG territory or were too timid and didn't make bold leaps forwards.

Duet changed all that, for starters it focuses solely on two alien characters who drove this episode forwards, and TNG has NEVER done that before. Secondly there is a level of psychological and emotional insight that TNG only occasionally achieved. …

There are some seriously raw emotions, and the 'villain' of this episode, the disguised Marritza, you almost want to hear more of his brutal and frank opinions because the episode isn't biased towards him or Kira. It's a clash of opinions, of facts and of accounts, and it's allowed to happen and it's allowed to run its course. Finally cumulating in what I see is a major breakthrough for Kira's character; she finally differentiates between those Cardassians who committed all those terrible things against her people, and the ones who did not.

It's classic Roddenbury stuff…

For me Duet was when DS9 truly showed its potential; it started to really focus on the people, and move away from this planet-of-the-week, travelling-through-the-stars format which TOS and TNG were so heavily bound to.

Yeah, I definitely agree. teacake's moment from "Emissary" is a critical one, to be sure, but I feel that "Duet" provided a more focused definition, along the lines of, "Yes, this show will be about suffering and we are not going to shy away from discussing the ambiguities of sufferings and their causes." Kira's line, "No! It's not." at the end is probably the defining moment for me, actually. DS9 was about change (see Quark's last lines in the series), and that line sums it all up, right there.

(Also, teacake, I want to echo what others have said: your analysis of that scene from Emissary is very eloquently put indeed. )