What You Leave Behind

[Poltargyst]

I was born in 1965. I was alive when TOS aired, but not old enough to have seen it in its original run. But somewhere around 1970, I started watching TOS in reruns, and I just fell in love with Star Trek. I thought nothing would ever touch TOS for me as far as enjoyment of a tv series.

When TNG aired, I was open to it, but I soon realized that it fell flat to me. Sorry to those who love TNG, but I consider it pretty mediocre throughout.

When DS9 aired, I was open to it. For a while, it came across to me as pretty mediocre too. It seemed at first they were just trying to redo TNG, and I wasn't any more impressed with DS9 than with TNG. But then a funny thing happened. DS9 just got better and better with each passing season. From Avery Brooks going back to his Hawk look, to Worf joining the show, to Worf and Jadzia's relationship, to Siddig El Fadil becoming Alexander Siddig, to the Dominion War, I became hooked. And what great badguys Gul Dukat and Kai Winn were. By the end of the show, at the end of each episode, I would be on the edge of my seat. I couldn't wait until the next episode to see what happened next. DS9 certainly matches TOS for me in terms of my enjoyment.

I watched DS9 when it originally aired, but I hadn't seen it since, so I did my first rewatch this year. It had been so long since I'd seen it, I forgot almost everything except the major events. So I rewatched it almost as if it was new again, and I loved it again. I just finished What You Leave Behind, and I am just gutted. I hate last episodes of series when you know the series is ending. They hit you with all those scenes of fun times from previous episodes throughout the show. Then there were the goodbyes. Julian hugging Miles goodbye. Ezri waving goodbye to Worf. Odo and Kira's goodbye. Jake looking out the window at the wormhole wondering about his father. I am gutted. I'm sorry my rewatch is over.

Sorry again to the TNG lovers, but I think DS9 is SO much better. I've been sorry that TNG, those actors and those characters, have gotten all the glory when I think DS9's were so much better. All those TNG movies. Where were the DS9 movies? Why are we getting a Picard series? It should be a Sisko series. DS9's actors should have been getting all the acclaim the TNG actors get.

So here's to DS9, one great show. Here's to those that made the show, here's to the great actors who created great characters with real chemistry together that made me fall in love with them. It's the greatest compliment I can give a show to feel THIS bad when I've come to the end of it.

 

[kkt]

I agree about DS9 being a great show and I have some sympathy that TNG got all the movies and spinoffs... but jealousy isn't a good look. To me, DS9 didn't need a bunch of movies and other follow-ons, because they did a much better job of finishing their story during their 7-year run.

 

[NCC-73515]

They basically had movies after movies in those last seasons

 

[Arpy]

Yeah, I’m a TNG fan who also loves DS9, who’s even read maybe a couple dozen DS9 books and maybe only half a dozen TNG ones. I find the “rivalry” tedious and regret neither of us got DS9 movies. Here’s the thing though, I find DSC, even PIC, to be much more DS9-like than TNG. I imagine Section 31 will be no different, maybe the Tilly Academy show too. How are those shows for you?

 

[Poltargyst]

Yeah, I’m a TNG fan who also loves DS9, who’s even read maybe a couple dozen DS9 books and maybe only half a dozen TNG ones. I find the “rivalry” tedious and regret neither of us got DS9 movies. Here’s the thing though, I find DSC, even PIC, to be much more DS9-like than TNG. I imagine Section 31 will be no different, maybe the Tilly Academy show too. How are those shows for you?

I like the new shows okay. I like Picard more than DSC. I like Picard more than TNG too. Go figure.

 

[Arpy]

The first season wasn't bad. To me it was an alternate universe from TNG. Hell, so were the TNG movies. One of those classic Hollywood disappointments from executives ruining what should have been a slam dunk. But yeah, there's something Our Town-like to PIC. Half the time they're wearing 21st Century clothes, talking like 21st Century people, walking through 21st Century buildings, discussing 21st Century issues, you get the point. It's an abstract show, almost a special performance more than an acting role by Stewart/others.

That said, I loved it. It was a sad melancholy season about aging and failure, and it was remarkable. After all, that Stewart even returned to Star Trek, to play Jean-Luc Picard, in a series, as the lead....it's a lazy afternoon daydream come true. I thank everyone involved and enjoy whatever they put together for us.

At least, I did with the first season which was just better. Season 2 was 1/3 continuity-porn victory lap, 1/3 Stewart family issues, and 1/3 a six-hour mega-episode in the middle of the season. Baltar and Q were half-wasted – Q because we should have seen more of him and Callis would have been better as a different character we could play with again. My opinion, anyway.

I'm really looking forward to Season 3. Most bits I've seen/gleaned from it seem to be promising (some real meaty pathos for all the characters, and wasn't "Nepenthe" fascinating), and I can't wait. It's remarkable that each season of this three-season series promises to be so different from each other, making it an anthology series of sorts. I hope it ends as spectacularly as it promises to – an Undiscovered Country for The Next Generation.

 

[Oddish]

I'd have certainly welcomed a DS9 film if it took "Nemesis's" place.

Or even if it didn't.

 

[STEPhon IT]

When DS9 aired, I was open to it. For a while, it came across to me as pretty mediocre too. It seemed at first they were just trying to redo TNG, and I wasn't any more impressed with DS9 than with TNG. But then a funny thing happened. DS9 just got better and better with each passing season. From Avery Brooks going back to his Hawk look, to Worf joining the show, to Worf and Jadzia's relationship, to Siddig El Fadil becoming Alexander Siddig, to the Dominion War, I became hooked. And what great badguys Gul Dukat and Kai Winn were. By the end of the show, at the end of each episode, I would be on the edge of my seat. I couldn't wait until the next episode to see what happened next. DS9 certainly matches TOS for me in terms of my enjoyment.

First of all! DS9 aimed to be different on DAY1, besides bringing back Q and Vash, and a failed re-introduction to Kang, Koloth, and Kor, the series wasn't ever trying to redo TNG. That statement is false. The only reason the 4th thru the 7th season was popular for some fans is because the showrunners dumb down the material, and brought in a TNG alum to cater to those who wouldn't give the show a chance. Berman and co. was too caught into THE BIG THREAT syndrome which started with the success of the Borg and just could never get out of that mindset. There was nothing more scary and compelling than the Cardassian Union and the series best work involved with that Cardassian conflict.

Reducing 3 dimensional adversaries like Vedek Winn and the once Great Gul Dukat into 1 note, twirling mustache cartoon for Liquid terminator and Klingon wannabe's is what you find appealing which for me was lowering the bar. Stripping the complexities of the series and giving it a facelift may have drawn you to the series but it lost so much when it's look upon as a whole. It's amazing how some can be on the edge of their seat watching cgi ships explode from scene to scene from the finale season of DS9 than having a compelling script with complex characters figure out and decipher the layers of the human condition and the consequences of those inner layers from the 1st season.

 

[STEPhon IT]

The first season wasn't bad. To me it was an alternate universe from TNG. Hell, so were the TNG movies. One of those classic Hollywood disappointments from executives ruining what should have been a slam dunk. But yeah, there's something Our Town-like to PIC. Half the time they're wearing 21st Century clothes, talking like 21st Century people, walking through 21st Century buildings, discussing 21st Century issues, you get the point. It's an abstract show, almost a special performance more than an acting role by Stewart/others.

That said, I loved it. It was a sad melancholy season about aging and failure, and it was remarkable. After all, that Stewart even returned to Star Trek, to play Jean-Luc Picard, in a series, as the lead....it's a lazy afternoon daydream come true. I thank everyone involved and enjoy whatever they put together for us.

At least, I did with the first season which was just better. Season 2 was 1/3 continuity-porn victory lap, 1/3 Stewart family issues, and 1/3 a six-hour mega-episode in the middle of the season. Baltar and Q were half-wasted – Q because we should have seen more of him and Callis would have been better as a different character we could play with again. My opinion, anyway.

I'm really looking forward to Season 3. Most bits I've seen/gleaned from it seem to be promising (some real meaty pathos for all the characters, and wasn't "Nepenthe" fascinating), and I can't wait. It's remarkable that each season of this three-season series promises to be so different from each other, making it an anthology series of sorts. I hope it ends as spectacularly as it promises to – an Undiscovered Country for The Next Generation.

The first season did what it was designed to do, BE BOLD, and that season delivered because it was so far away from what we knew of Trek and it was going to other places unimaginable and unfortunately nothing has met that after the 3rd season. The Gamma Quadrant should've been a treasure trove of stories to tell, the wormhole itself is a mystery to explore, everything Sisko described about humans to the wormhole aliens was so on point to what this series was going to be. Conflicts will happen but they will continue to move forward and never go back... but... what did we get later during season four??? F^cking more of the same, more Klingons, more Romulans, more time travel tropes and less of things that made DS9 unique. The face lift was quite evident, but look closer and what was there was the same boring cliche's of Trek's history... the stuff which even today makes Star Trek stagnant.

PICARD did the same thing with faster results, sabotaging the new characters to install ancient irrelevant has-been's, the problem is not the showrunners because what I'd seen from the newest batch of crap they're reading and listening to the criticism which has affected their work, fairly-decent or bad, they really aiming to please. The unfortunate thing is the fans don't want anything new and fresh, all they want is the same ol, same ol stuff which have been regurgitating for too long to count.

 

[FanST]

DS9 is very underrated.

 

[Therin of Andor]

They hit you with all those scenes of fun times from previous episodes throughout the show. Then there were the goodbyes. Julian hugging Miles goodbye. Ezri waving goodbye to Worf. Odo and Kira's goodbye. Jake looking out the window at the wormhole wondering about his father. I am gutted. I'm sorry my rewatch is over.

That montage in the finale is my favourite sequence in all of DS9. Absolutely beautiful!

Where were the DS9 movies? Why are we getting a Picard series? It should be a Sisko series. DS9's actors should have been getting all the acclaim the TNG actors get.

The reality is that DS9's ratings were minuscule compared to TNG in first-run and TOS in 70s and 80s syndication. If DS9 had a bigger audience, it would still be around in some form. We did get the documentary, "What We Left Behind", and this was also excellent, but that only happened via an intensive crowdfunding campaign.

... a failed re-introduction to Kang, Koloth, and Kor...

Huh? That was a turning point in DS9. Even though I was initially puzzled by slow-aging Klingons (in the novels up till then they had accelerated lifespans), this was the episode where I really started looking forward to new episodes - and Dax got plenty to do in this one!

 

[Dee1891]

Is this about the first half of "What You Leave Behind" or the second half? I really enjoyed the first half, especially with the conclusion of the Dominion War. I didn't like the second half. I realize it was trying to show what happened to the main characters, but I guess it just bored me.

The unfortunate thing is the fans don't want anything new and fresh, all they want is the same ol, same ol stuff which have been regurgitating for too long to count.

This seems to be the current state of pop culture in general.

 

[NCC-73515]

I watched those just before I moved out of my parents' house, and that montage hit so much harder in that context

 

[JirinPanthosa]

DS9 is a great show that was way ahead of its time in terms of themes. It was the closest to NuBSG you could get away with at the time. TNG was a show for the 1980s and DS9 was a show for the 2000s even though they both aired in the 90s. But TNG certainly had the top acting talent between Stewart and Spiner.

I’d love to see more DS9 based content and it definitely paved the way for Discovery and any other Trek that wants to criticize Utopianism. But Picard and Data are the ones who can support individual side stories between the two.

 

[Dee1891]

DS9 is a great show that was way ahead of its time in terms of themes. It was the closest to NuBSG you could get away with at the time. TNG was a show for the 1980s and DS9 was a show for the 2000s even though they both aired in the 90s.

DS9 was a really good series. But I don't think it was that great. I never thought it had quite reached its full potential.

 

[at Quark's]

Is this about the first half of "What You Leave Behind" or the second half? I really enjoyed the first half, especially with the conclusion of the Dominion War. I didn't like the second half. I realize it was trying to show what happened to the main characters, but I guess it just bored me.

I agree to that. The kind of 'nostalgic memory' moments and drawn-out goodbyes we see in part 2 adds very little to the finale imho. While DS9 could bring up more philosophical questions it was also an action series, and I think it should have gone out on action. The mere suggestion that life would go on after DS9 and people would find different positions would have been sufficient. To me part 2 feels as if they simply ran out of story but still had to fill another (half) episode. (Well, except perhaps for the Sisko vs. Dukat final battle arc, but I thought that conclusion was a bit silly for other reasons).

 

[Ragitsu]

The more you take...

...the more you leave behind.

 

[Trekker09]

That montage in the finale is my favourite sequence in all of DS9. Absolutely beautiful!

As much as I love the finale montage, it always seems a shame that images of Jadzia could not be included. Sometimes I wonder how her role would have been written in the last season if Farrell hadn't been driven out of the show. Her Dax would not have wound up with Bashir like Ezri, that's for sure. But beyond that, I have no idea.

 

[Arpy]

It strikes me as petty Hollywood being petty Hollywood that they wouldn’t either talk to her about contract negotiations or let her leave and do some guest spots/finale the last season. The fans would have preferred that much more to starting over with a new character, and one that contradicts the show’s own history about her people.

 

[kkt]

I liked Ezri and I was glad she was in the series even for only a season.

But I wish the producers had negotiated the use of Farrell's existing footage for flashbacks like the finale montage, the photo of her in Worf's quarters, etc.