Was DS9 Unpopular Originally Early On..??

Perhaps. Voyager was basically the anti-DS9, the show that they developed because they lacked confidence in DS9. And DS9 was already exhibiting characteristics that would define the series: darker, more political, longer stories, more stories told in terms of characters. The intention was always to hand the show over the Behr after a few seasons. And in spite of Voyager, the studio still interfered, requiring the show to include Worf, which delayed the Dominion War for one season. Where I think the show might have changed is how the old TNG people might have been brought in: what would happen if Jeri Taylor or Brannon Braga were part of the staff?

 

That really happened? Damn, I didn't know that; even more reasons why including Worf was a great decision!

 

It meant that the Dominion War wrapped up later.

(Indeed, it probably went longer because of all the interference.)

 

Nah. They would have continued that tedious affair till the last episode regardless.

 

No, they wanted the war to be season 5 only. The delays pushed it to season 6, the insistence on stand alone pushed the resolution back further until it became better to use the end of the war to end the series.

I highly recommend you look at Fifty Year Mission if you want to say anything on this topic.

 

Well, more that three episodes for it was too much.

 

I think DS9 just got lost in the shuffle. I know here it aired on a Saturday late at night or something ridiculous. TNG got the prime syndication slots and then Voyager was right on its heels literally launching a network. Enterprise ended up airing here on CBS in the middle of the night on a Saturday too. Pretty ridiculous.

 

I know about the studio bringing in Worf and the year delay. But in comparison to the other shows, DS9 was left relatively alone by the suits and Berman.

I do think bringing Worf on was overall a good thing. The delay in the Dominion War, I don't know. We may have gotten more Gamma exploration, which is one thing I would have loved to see.

 

What is your source for that bit of info? According to Patrick Stewart, people in Hollywood didn't think TNG would make it past Season 1.

 

To be fair, it's something of a miracle - a perfect storm - that the show got renewed, what with little sci-fi competition (or no competition if you compare TNG's gloss over other shows' shoestring sets), TREK in general was at a high point (amazingly, TNG1 didn't dampen that), the so-called culture was rife with numerous, inane revivals ("The Munsters Today", "Bonanza: The Next Generation", "The New Monkees", etc, etc) to appeal to the trend of cashing in on nostalgia to 30-somethings for which most of those failed after one season (or even half of one), the turnover in writers and production staff, bizarre executive decisions ("Justice" is easily the worst offender and "The Naked Now" actually had some nobility in an earlier draft), hastily filmed scenes with no retakes (count Data's contractions, that alone is a nightmare)... which I'm glad it did, latter season 1 shows potential and season 2 is when there's an actual style in place that's boldly going and making its own self and increased, sustained ratings suggest it did something better than season 1 had. (Season 3 still had a paradigm shift, but season 2 is criminally underrated.)

 

Yes.

On "middle child syndrome" though... In the middle years, DS9 got great ratings. I remember it referred to as the #1 original syndicated show at one point. Voyager, when it started, may have had all that promotion, but it needed it. The ratings were awful. They stayed awful for a long time. An ordinary network would have cancelled it soon, I think, but Paramount was counting on Star Trek to float the new network.