Hi all--Long time reader of BBS, but fairly new to posting, I joined a few weeks back. I am mainly into the literature (You'll notice a few of my posts in the 'What Are you Reading Generations post'), but being born in the mid 80's, I grew up with both TNG and DS9. As I don't remember, can/should DS9 & TNG be intertwined if attempting to view in some kind of chronological order ? I do know if one wants to read some of the literature in a particular way, one can mix both titles from DS9 & TNG. Thank you all in advance !!
The only real interaction I can think of is on the Maquis storyline. "Journey's End" in the final season of TNG leads into "The Maquis" two-parter on DS9, which then leads back into "Preemptive Strike" on TNG. But even with this arc, the episodes do all stand on their own. It enhances them to watch them in the order above, but it's not essential. Otherwise, the narrative on each show moved separately. Bashir and Quark appear on TNG, but not in ways that tie directly into DS9's story. Q's episode in the first season of DS9 follows up on his story in "QPid" 2 seasons earlier, but doesn't interact with his TNG appearance that year. The Duras sisters have an early guest spot on DS9 that fits between "Redemption" and "Generations", but they're just kind of thrown in there... you could have any antagonist replace them in DS9 without meaningfully impacting their TNG story. Really, the only other thing I can think of is that the DS9 pilot should follow "Rascals" in TNG season 6 (last appearance of the O'Brien's on TNG).
When I did my re-watch, I followed the overall chronological order of airdates that Memory Alpha has on its pages.