The Eternal Question: TNG or DS9

[Nyotarules]

I watched Captain's holiday last night, I think its the one where Patrick Stewart asked for and got 1. action/adventure and 2. a love scene. At first it felt strange seeing him in the role because up to then the character came across as very monklike and asexual. Either Captain Jean Luc (Frenchman) Picard visited the holodeck a lot, had an 'arrangement' with Guinan or had lots of bromide in his 'Earl Grey hot' tea.

 

[Tosk]

Prior to Captain's Holiday, we'd already seen displays (or talk) of romantic attachment with Beverly Crusher and Jenice Manheim. I posit that Picard wasn't asexual, he was just attracted to widows.

 

[JesterFace]

making the writers look immature, and as if they are irritated about the universe they forced to write for.

This is something that has irritated me a little, writers annoyed by the rules that they have to follow when writing material.

 

[fireproof78]

There's almost a fixation on it, as though the writing team is taking frequent opportunities to call out perceived hypocrisy, or make the Roddenberry 24th century humans to look like hypocrites. It feels juvenile. I cringe when Sisko says "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." The line makes no sense in the context of the story. They continue to call Earth "paradise" in a tongue in cheek manner later in the series.

This stuff comes off as a meta commentary from the showrunner and his team, making the writers look immature, and as if they are irritated about the universe they forced to write for.

I really don't get that read at all. It's a rather large leap to see these writers as exploring the fringes of the Federation society established in TNG, and possible consequences from actions (Wolf 359 and Sisko's bitterness being top of the mark).

I don't see it as immature...

I think at the end of the day the thing that bothers people the most is that DS9 chose to openly defy the idea that humanity is the super-wonderful yardstick of the universe and narratively undermine the heroes' ability to fix any problem at the drop of a hat just using the power of bullshit 'Science'. It's not that people in the Federation do bad things, because that's always been there, it's that some of the people on the show ideologically agree with the bad things and ideologically disagree with the Federation ideals. It's not that there is war, as that's always been around, it's that the heroes aren't allowed to put an end/hold on the war at the end of the episode via some clever strategy/diplomatic gambit.

I do like that aspect of serialized shows that things are not neatly wrapped up.

The Ferengi are comedy and fun and superior to violent humans yet they treat women as slaves, keep their children illiterate, and don’t give a damn about losers dying in the gutter.

Superior? I cannot think of an episode with the Ferengi being portrayed as superior to humans. What an odd thing to say.

Calling the DS9 writers "immature"? DS9 is hands down the most mature Trek show made. It was an adult show with adult stories. It was a modern 21st Century TV show that happened to be made made in the 90's the way many consider a show like Hill Street Blues from several years before.

Interesting point.

 

[eschaton]

How is it any more mature than TNG? Because it has war stories? Holosuite brothels? And what does that have to do with the writers showing immaturity? Nothing. Nothing at all.

The main reason I'd argue that people claim DS9 is more adult is because of the different way that it dealt with moral issues.

In general, TNG was very simplistic and didactic in its moral reasoning. If it was going to be a "message" episode, then some sort of conflict was set up where the other party (alien race, admiral of the week, etc) will be proven completely, totally, inexcusably wrong, and Picard & Co. will be right - possibly with some monologue given by Patrick Stewart at the end. The TNG style is honestly fairly didactic at times - as if it was purposefully set up to educate young people about issue X.

In contrast, DS9's style was more to ask questions rather than give answers. The protagonists of the series have very different moral frameworks - from Odo's need for order, to Quark's focus on greed, to Kira's religiosity. This brings them into inter-personal conflict, but the show is generally keen to present things in an evenhanded way, which allows for interesting critiques of aspects of the Federation we didn't see elsewhere. Also importantly, the main characters are allowed to be wrong. Not just wrong as in a temporary setback over the course of an episode, but wrong in a manner which has lasting repercussions - costing lives and wounding relationships. The show often really isn't interested in telling us what to think, so much as it is showing us an "issue" and having us draw our own conclusions.

 

[Prax]

I really don't get that read at all. It's a rather large leap to see these writers as exploring the fringes of the Federation society established in TNG, and possible consequences from actions (Wolf 359 and Sisko's bitterness being top of the mark).

I don't see it as immature...

Perhaps I've read too many memory alpha episode articles, and it's tainted how I interpret certain scenes

 

[fireproof78]

In general, TNG was very simplistic and didactic in its moral reasoning. If it was going to be a "message" episode, then some sort of conflict was set up where the other party (alien race, admiral of the week, etc) will be proven completely, totally, inexcusably wrong, and Picard & Co. will be right - possibly with some monologue given by Patrick Stewart at the end. The TNG style is honestly fairly didactic at times - as if it was purposefully set up to educate young people about issue X.

And that's why I could struggle at times. I didn't mind them exploring issues or ideas-far from it. But, the didactic model was rather odd to me.

In contrast, DS9's style was more to ask questions rather than give answers. The protagonists of the series have very different moral frameworks - from Odo's need for order, to Quark's focus on greed, to Kira's religiosity. This brings them into inter-personal conflict, but the show is generally keen to present things in an evenhanded way, which allows for interesting critiques of aspects of the Federation we didn't see elsewhere. Also importantly, the main characters are allowed to be wrong. Not just wrong as in a temporary setback over the course of an episode, but wrong in a manner which has lasting repercussions - costing lives and wounding relationships. The show often really isn't interested in telling us what to think, so much as it is showing us an "issue" and having us draw our own conclusions.

This is probably why I could relate far, far, more to these characters than TNG ones. It's not that I want them to be wrong but I appreciate the fact that they can be wrong.

 

[WebLurker]

Superior? I cannot think of an episode with the Ferengi being portrayed as superior to humans. What an odd thing to say.

In a few DS9 episodes, Quark expresses the opinion, but usually written for laughs (and once to make a point about humans considering themselves superior to Ferengi).

"The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget.... But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better." - "The Jem'Hadar"

 

[fireproof78]

In a few DS9 episodes, Quark expresses the opinion, but usually written for laughs (and once to make a point about humans considering themselves superior to Ferengi).

Yeah, they are so few and far between that I cannot recall one, aside from Quark's observation regarding human's away from their creature comforts. Except, in that same episode Quark demonstrates similar qualities to the humans he condemns-that when faced with an existential threat he would kill just as easily as the humans he despises.

What interests me far more in the Ferengi is episodes which show them trying to grow past the stereotypes often lobbed at them. Quark works hard for a time to explore alternatives to what is usually expected of them. And it's living up to the Roddenberry ideal, in a way, of growing past your limits and becoming more.

 

[Arpy]

Well, from where I'm sitting DS9 had lots of strategies to try to stop wars, too, they just made a narrative choice to explore what happens when those strategies aren't successful, which is something worth doing and something TNG was never willing to try.

They didn’t like the idea of doing WWII: In Space! I don’t blame them. It’s Star Trek, not Space: Above and Beyond. They did civil war in “Redemption”, brinksmanship in “Data’s Day,” cold war in "The Enemy," showed the bad guy stop a war in “Journey’s End,” thwarted the start of a new one in “Preemptive Strike,” talked about post-war realities in “The Hunted," about the prejudice of war and the machinations toward war in "The Wounded," and about the weapons of war and the innocents harmed by it in "Booby Trap," among others. And they didn't kill billions in the background to do it.

And it certainly had nothing to do with 'distracting from the writing staff's inability to maintain viewership without aggrandizing the drama of it all'.

Yes it did. Viewership was dropping across the board in television and it spooked them. They went for the low-hanging fruit of war. The complaint you heard again and again from TPTB was that the show was that the show was limited by its stationary setting. That's BS. Most television series are set in one place. Besides, they jumped around everywhere; they didn't need the war to do it.

Which, really, what exactly is wrong with drama to begin with?

The problem isn't the drama but in making war exciting. Something perhaps to yearn for in your otherwise boring, sometimes desperate, life.

And also, you do realize there are tons of non-war related stories, many highly regarded, in every season of DS9, too?

That's the part of the series I really liked. Frankly, the war arc, though fun, wasn't "new" enough when they really went into it...I wasn't amazed by the sci-fi or storytelling choices. Contemporary drama did it better.

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make with the politics of Earth,

What part? Sisko declares Earth is paradise filled with saints (like that's a bad thing), but all these amazing extraordinary people, what, don't get the basic politics? No, by Quark's estimation, Earth is boring. What? It's paradise, not Pleasantville.

though you certainly seem to have missed the point of the Ferengi,

Not at all.

...which was clearly not that they're 'superior' at all.

Superior? I cannot think of an episode with the Ferengi being portrayed as superior to humans. What an odd thing to say.

"You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you... we're better."

Rather that they see themselves as superior to humans just as much as humans feel superior to them and that there are actually plausible arguments to be made on both sides of that discussion because neither species is even remotely perfect nor is either one irrefutably evil. They're just different.

That's how you appreciate the scene at face value, and it's great in that. But, same as the Eddington Federation = Borg scene, Sisko has no counterargument. Please.

They also didn't change by magic, nor overnight, nor by order of Grand Nagus Rom. It was Ishka and Zek who transformed Ferengi society dramatically by creating their own women's liberation movement - appropriately helped along by the argument that women owning property would be great for profits, but in the end leading to a massive demographic shift that allowed for major changes to the Ferengi government (the establishment of a legislature and reduction of the Nagus' powers, which was all done before Rom was given the position).

I'll have to get back to you on Rom's achievements in the finale (also, realistically, he would have been eaten alive in the position, if not assassinated), but they spend the entire series talking about hypocritical human disdain for the different (not awful) Ferengi, then take away that differentness at the end because, yeah, it was awful but now we don't have to come up with stories every week so, fuck it, let's make them "just like the Federation."

 

[fireproof78]

"You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you... we're better."

And yet, the Ferengi are demonstrated as being capable of being just as barbaric as the humans, as the people they look down upon.

Regardless, as @eschaton noted, just because the characters say something doesn't mean the writers are speaking through them or that those characters are right. The characters in DS9 are capable of being wrong, in many different ways.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

They didn’t like the idea of doing WWII: In Space! I don’t blame them. It’s Star Trek, not Space: Above and Beyond. They did civil war in “Redemption”, brinksmanship in “Data’s Day,” cold war in "The Enemy," showed the bad guy stop a war in “Journey’s End,” thwarted the start of a new one in “Preemptive Strike,” talked about post-war realities in “The Hunted," about the prejudice of war and the machinations toward war in "The Wounded," and about the weapons of war and the innocents harmed by it in "Booby Trap," among others. And they didn't kill billions in the background to do it.

In other words, 'war' with no real consequences, always neatly tied up in a bow by the end of the episode. *Yawn*.

Yes it did. Viewership was dropping across the board in television and it spooked them. They went for the low-hanging fruit of war. The complaint you heard again and again from TPTB was that the show was that the show was limited by its stationary setting. That's BS. Most television series are set in one place. Besides, they jumped around everywhere; they didn't need the war to do it.

So you're saying they did it because they didn't need to do it? The ratings don't make much of an argument either way. DS9 Just never had very good ratings, war or no war. General audiences weren't attracted to it.

The problem isn't the drama but in making war exciting. Something perhaps to yearn for in your otherwise boring, sometimes desperate, life.

DS9 didn't do that at all.

That's the part of the series I really liked. Frankly, the war arc, though fun, wasn't "new" enough when they really went into it...I wasn't amazed by the sci-fi or storytelling choices. Contemporary drama did it better.

So you agree they didn't have an inability to tell compelling stories outside the war.

What part? Sisko declares Earth is paradise filled with saints (like that's a bad thing), but all these amazing extraordinary people, what, don't get the basic politics? No, by Quark's estimation, Earth is boring. What? It's paradise, not Pleasantville.

Don't get the basic politics of what? I still have no idea what you're trying to say here. And one man's paradise is another man's hell. Of course Quark would think a Federation paradise is boring, he's Quark.

"You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you... we're better."

Said the Ferengi.

That's how you appreciate the scene at face value, and it's great in that. But, same as the Eddington Federation = Borg scene, Sisko has no counterargument. Please.

Sisko doesn't have to have a counterargument on the spot for the audience to draw the obvious conclusion that the argument is not entirely accurate.

I'll have to get back to you on Rom's achievements in the finale (also, realistically, he would have been eaten alive in the position, if not assassinated), but they spend the entire series talking about hypocritical human disdain for the different (not awful) Ferengi, then take away that differentness at the end because, yeah, it was awful but now we don't have to come up with stories every week so, fuck it, let's make them "just like the Federation."

They don't become 'just like the Federation', just more like the Federation. They're still 100% capitalist, for instance.

 

[Nightdiamond]

You bring up an interesting point about Dax. The episode in question shows a somewhat reversion to the TNG presentation of Trill, that the symbiont is the driver, and the host merely the vehicle. And more importantly, the reaction of Dax vs Crusher. Crusher is a different character from Dax. She is uncomfortable at first with Odan in another body, but learns to go along with it. When Odan switches to a woman, she is not ready for that change or will never be ready for it. So she rejects him/her. If that's how Crusher feels, there's nothing wrong with that.

Definitely-- it doesn't make her a bad person at all. Beverly has a right to reject Odan, especially if she wasn't attracted to her new gender .

But her mannerisms tells a different story. She was smiling when she was waiting for the Trill replacement to arrive. When it arrived, she said "send HIM in". When she saw it was a female, her expression instantly changed, her smiled dropped, and after that she was quiet.

Then she gives him the speech about how she can't keep up with the changes and maybe its a human failing and maybe one day a human's ability to love won't be so limited. Odan even kisses her wrist and she seems kind of shocked somewhat. But she admits she'll always love Odan.

It's obvious she expected another male and was disappointed when she turned out to be female, so why the insincere speech about "it's about the constant changes"? When it was visually obvious it was mainly her being a female.

I'm not 100% sure at all, but I get the feeling DS9 would have had Dax just outright admit she wasn't attracted to another female. It didn't really shy away from concepts like that.

Whereas TNG was kind of stuck in some ways -- It says humans have evolved beyond judging by appearances. But at the same time the networks couldn't have her decide to get involved in a same sex relationship. But they couldn't have her admit she wasn't attracted to other women either--because it might hurt the idea of how we see TNG characters--as being open minded and tolerant and nearly perfect.

 

[Arpy]

In other words, 'war' with no real consequences,

The episodes were about the consequences. Which is what DS9 was supposed to be about. What happens when the starship leaves and you deal with the people and relationships. They should have focused on the unknown possibilities of those relationships than retreading the WWII war stuff we all instantly know and recognize.

always neatly tied up in a bow by the end of the episode.

Episodic television. Unlike serialized which can suffer the pitfall of manufacturing drama despite it making little narrative sense. (I.e. retconning the existence of genetic-engineering in the Federation despite the fact that we're doing it now and it will likely be considered child abuse not to in 400 years. Or that they were clearly doing it in TNG's "Unnatural Selection.")

So you're saying they did it because they didn't need to do it? The ratings don't make much of an argument either way. DS9 Just never had very good ratings, war or no war. General audiences weren't attracted to it.

The series premiere was one of the highest rated Star Trek episodes ever. They didn't hold onto the viewership. As the ratings continued to go down, they went war-happy instead of building on the great stuff they'd managed to do in the middle seasons. I'd love to get a look at the series in the alternate universe where they just got better at doing their DS9 thing without going the sexy war-route. God what would that, what, 7-episode final arc have been like fueled by...other stuff? Making Bajor part of the Federation, exploding open the alien wormhole realm, meeting an interesting new Gamma Quadrant people who maybe wanted into the Federation or had some connection to the Ancient Bajorans, exploring the nature of the Great Link further, even giving Sisko Borg closure. Or maybe a two-parter sending Odo to Betazed, or Sisko to Cestus III for a Gorn story, or seeing Earth through Kira's eyes, or a non-red contact lens end to the Dukat storyline, or doing more with the Tzenkethi or the Talarians or whomever (I loved that they brought in the Breen but did find them kind of one note). I dunno, other stuff....all culminating in something being built, not destroyed. Probably that thing being Bajor entering the Federation, with strings of starships and fireworks and a sense of achievement and hope...the sort of thing we want in the real world between today and a TOS-like future: show us how to make the Federation.

Don't get the basic politics of what? I still have no idea what you're trying to say here.

The politics of the Maquis situation that Sisko felt Starfleet wasn't getting that prompted the speech. Rewatch it if you need a refresher.

And one man's paradise is another man's hell. Of course Quark would think a Federation paradise is boring, he's Quark.

Meaning he's emotionally damaged and may not even know it. Or that the Roddenberry-resentful writers made Earth Pleasantville instead of the spectacular citadel one imagines for a capital world of a trillion people from the future.

Sisko doesn't have to have a counterargument on the spot for the audience to draw the obvious conclusion that the argument is not entirely accurate.

Sisko doesn't reply because it's supposed to be a mic drop from the writers that human aren't so special and Ferengi are better than they seem, and it's unearned.

I did love the alienness of learning that the Ferengi were horrible in different ways than us, though.

 

[fireproof78]

Meaning he's emotionally damaged and may not even know it. Or that the Roddenberry-resentful writers made Earth Pleasantville instead of the spectacular citadel one imagines for a capital world of a trillion people from the future.

Why the assumption of resentment on the part of the writers? Even Michael Piller lamented the "Roddenberry box" in terms of writing and yet was able to work in side of it.

There is a lot of assuming and black and white thinking coloring the opinions here. And, honestly, it makes very little sense so it is hard to take seriously.

DS9 was losing viewers is no surprise. All the Trek shows were losing viewers at the time if one looks at the trends. It was not something unique to DS9. From what I've read, the writers recognized that they were not the focus, as VOY was used to launch UPN. So, they took the opportunity to explore different stories that might not have happened on TNG or VOY. That doesn't make them "resentful."

 

[eschaton]

There is a lot of assuming and black and white thinking coloring the opinions here. And, honestly, it makes very little sense so it is hard to take seriously.

DS9 was losing viewers is no surprise. All the Trek shows were losing viewers at the time if one looks at the trends. It was not something unique to DS9. From what I've read, the writers recognized that they were not the focus, as VOY was used to launch UPN. So, they took the opportunity to explore different stories that might not have happened on TNG or VOY. That doesn't make them "resentful."

As I've mentioned numerous times in the past, Deep Space Nine had higher ratings than Voyager during its entire run (both comparing season-for-season and chronologically) though both series basically had continual ratings decline, with fourth-season attempts to shake them up (Worf/Dominion War in DS9, and Seven in VOY) basically not accomplishing anything in terms of boosting ratings.

Given the two shows were about as far apart as could be reasonably expected during the era for Trek shows, I think it's hard to argue that anything intrinsic to either scared viewers away. How could DS9 have been hurt by serialization when Voyager wasn't rewarded for doubling-down on episodic adventure? How can DS9's dark tone have been bad for it, when VOY's sunny tone didn't help? How can DS9's stationary setting have mattered, when VOY's roaming setting didn't help?

 

[fireproof78]

As I've mentioned numerous times in the past, Deep Space Nine had higher ratings than Voyager during its entire run (both comparing season-for-season and chronologically) though both series basically had continual ratings decline, with fourth-season attempts to shake them up (Worf/Dominion War in DS9, and Seven in VOY) basically not accomplishing anything in terms of boosting ratings.

Given the two shows were about as far apart as could be reasonably expected during the era for Trek shows, I think it's hard to argue that anything intrinsic to either scared viewers away. How could DS9 have been hurt by serialization when Voyager wasn't rewarded for doubling-down on episodic adventure? How can DS9's dark tone have been bad for it, when VOY's sunny tone didn't help? How can DS9's stationary setting have mattered, when VOY's roaming setting didn't help?

Yes, that's exactly my point and thank you for explaining it in such a succinct way.

 

[Farscape One]

Because DS9 was more or less left alone, I'd argue it was a big reason why it was so great. Having the gloves taken off, for the most part, really let the show expand the concepts of STAR TREK enormously.

I think TNG made the franchise far more popular, while DS9 made it better.

 

[Arpy]

Because DS9 was more or less left alone, I'd argue it was a big reason why it was so great. Having the gloves taken off, for the most part, really let the show expand the concepts of STAR TREK enormously.

I think TNG made the franchise far more popular, while DS9 made it better.

I think both made it better and there is no “eternal question.”

I wonder if the ratings dives and DS9’s higher ratings than VOY are what let it go anywhere it pleased. It also shows the importance of the show runners — both contemporary Trek series, both vastly different.

 

[fireproof78]

Because DS9 was more or less left alone, I'd argue it was a big reason why it was so great. Having the gloves taken off, for the most part, really let the show expand the concepts of STAR TREK enormously.

That is a large part of why DS9 interests me more even though I'm sure many could argue that TNG was better. I think both offered fascinating dive in to world building of Star Trek and were willing to play with the concepts a whole lot more than the episodic format of TNG or even TOS would necessarily allow.

One thing I always enjoyed about TOS comics and books is that it was willing to revisit actual consequences of Kirk's actions (Kirk on trial for violating the Prime directive, the outcome of the Mirror Universe due to Spock's choices, the Romulans discovering the Guardian of Forever, being my personal favorites). I personally like DS9 because it was willing to explore very uncomfortable consequences at times rather than just warping off to the next adventure.

 

[Arpy]

^ that’s the thing though, episodes like “Too Short a Season,” “The Hunted,” “Ship in a Bottle,” “Redemption,” others were about consequences. There’s something falsely condescending when the differences between series are described like that. I think what people like about DS9 is the serialized format where we get to stay with different characters and issues through the years, through changes good bad and indifferent. There’s an intimacy in that that one enjoys.