When does DS9 get good? (No spoilers please)

[Seven of Five]

I guess my first episodes were the Circle trilogy because I only started to get into Star Trek around the time it was airing on the BBC. I really enjoyed all of that, but if you aren't particularly keen on Bajoran politics, you might be more on board with the show from season 3.

The back third of season 2 has a lot of good episodes in it so stay patient.

 

[kkt]

Boy that makes me feel my age. I got into Star Trek in the early 1970s when the original series was in reruns after school. That's okay, everyone's welcome at Quarks!

 

[Dar70]

I’m on series 2, episode 2.

I'm not interested in Bajoran politics and religion bores me.
I was determined to sit it out until it got as good as people say it does, but my interest is waning.

Did you give up???
I will agree with many that season 3 is when the show really gets altogether good. BUT the episode that really started to suck me into the show and showed me the potential the show could have was Episode 19 season 1...'Duet'.

When i rewatched the series late last year I remembered the episode and couldnt wait to see it again. It set the tone for the rest of the series and where it would start to go concerning the cardassians. Apparently you didn't think much of it since you were ready to throw in the towel.

Since more dramatic talky episodes dont seem to interest you......the SFX get progressively better with each season as well as the action...

By season 4 or 5 the effects and action are movie quality.... in both execution and length...

The show enters an arc around the end of season 2 and its pretty much peppered heavily throughout the rest of the show....

 

[Qonundrum]

Boy that makes me feel my age. I got into Star Trek in the early 1970s when the original series was in reruns after school. That's okay, everyone's welcome at Quarks!

We're not old. We just need supplements with caffeine, cortisol inhibitors, thyroid stimulants, other pills of various shapes and hues,a sports car to reflect our being middle-aged, and so on. We're young at heart. And cynical. What better combination is there to have?

 

[arch101]

It's really great from Emissary. The show builds on itself so, while you can skip some eps, it's really worth a view all the way through.
As for quality, I watched the entire series on Hulu 2 years ago and thought it looked great. That said, I'm expecting that some enterprising fan will someday remaster the series in HD as more tech becomes available.

 

[Herbert]

I liked the first episodes, but they started getting 'samey'. Yet another ferengi episode (although I don’t hate them), yet another political or religious episode.

I don’t want to knock it, I’m hoping to be grabbed by it at some point

It's definitely worth a watch. I don't hold it in as high regard as some here do but it's a good Trek series. Sure it's got some clunkers but that applies to every Trek series.

 

[Finn]

I'm not interested in Bajoran politics and religion bores me.

If you don't know where to start with DS9, how would you know you wouldn't find "Bajoran politics or religion" interesting?

 

[DonIago]

The way I usually put it to people who haven't seen the show is that DS9 has the same slow build to greatness as TNG, but it also gets to the sweet spot faster, and the slow build generally isn't as weak as early TNG could be.

It helps to think of the first couple of seasons as building the characters and stories that will really start to hit their stride starting in late S2.

I feel the same way about Babylon Five, where I find the first season arguably has more misses than hits, but it's setting the stage, and if you don't appreciate it at the time, you're likely to appreciate it more in retrospect if you hang around.

I think some people tend to say that the first episode of S4 is almost a fresh pilot for the series. I didn't find the beginning of S3 that great (not as great as the beginning of S2), but it does mark the beginning of the series finding its path forward.

 

[kkt]

We're not old. We just need supplements with caffeine, cortisol inhibitors, thyroid stimulants, other pills of various shapes and hues,a sports car to reflect our being middle-aged, and so on. We're young at heart. And cynical. What better combination is there to have?

Actually, I had to give up the caffeinated tea, and now I must learn to be content with herbal tea. That's the only thing that really bothers me. A sports car would just be stuck in the same traffic I'm stuck in anyway.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm not interested in Bajoran politics and religion bores me.

Then DS9 will never be something you enjoy.

 

[DarKush]

I always thought DS9 was good, with a stronger first season than TNG, but I guess when it 'really' got good was the season four opener when Sisko had the bald head and goatee.

Granted each season had clunkers and the first two seasons-particularly Season 1 was finding it's way-but overall I thought the characters, writing, and production values were much better than TNG's first season.

I liked the Bajoran political stories so I was fine with a lot of that. I really liked the season two opener as well and I felt the season two finale took it to another level and really set the course for the rest of the seriess.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

All I can say is just keep watching. And Quark and Odo are really fun to watch they are so funny together!

 

[Thowra]

Ok… it’s got good (to the point where I’m avoiding the forum to avoid accidental spoilers).

I’ve just watched 'the visitor' - managed to get some dust in my eyes…

Some awful episodes - what was that all about when Jadzia 'met' the previous hosts?

I still find the religious episodes dull. I am enjoying the Ferengi far more than I expected. I love the Cardassians - the more sinister they can be the better. Hope this keeps up. Don’t know whether we learn more about Garak, but would love his backstory to be suitably dark and unpleasant. I’ve enjoyed Worf's arrival more than I expected.

I was unsure about the war to begin with, but there’s plenty happening. The special effects are really rather impressive.

 

[DonIago]

I rather liked "Facets" (IIRC) for giving us some more insight into Dax's prior hosts, but you're allowed to disagree.

Otherwise, your opinions seem pretty on par with the majority opinions regarding the series, if that helps.

I think it speaks really well of the VFX team that the effects they created so long ago still hold up.

 

[Laughing Dragon]

Probably the last episode of the first season of DS9 that led into the first season ep as a part 2 is the show at its best and it went from there. I think that two-parter was perfect in pacing, dialogue, and story as well as action.

 

[kkt]

Casablanca was also remastered so it could be released in recent formats. You’re thinking of the widespread, Trek-related misuse of the term to mean replacing original VFX with modern creative efforts, but even so it should be obvious that DS9 remastered would include changes just as subtle as those made to TNG, where the focus was on improving audiovisual quality by going back to the source, which is what remastering usually means.

Try watching the same TNG episode on DVD and in HD. The difference is stunning, not only because of the switch from SD, but mainly because the show was originally finished on video and the previous releases never went back to film elements. A full rebuild with recomposited and recreated VFX was finally deemed necessary for HD.

When I wrote "colorized" I meant "colorized", deliberately to exclude the relatively subtle remastering that Casablanca has received so that it can be released at a higher resolution.

The list of crimes committed in the name of remastering is long - colorizing black and white, changing the aspect ratio by hacking off part of the frame, changing the visual effects to something unrecognizeable... The folks who do remastering seem to think they are the part of the creative process, like the creative people who made the film in the first place, that they have a moral license to improve on any aspect of the film they dislike. They should be thinking of themselves like people hired to clean an old master of an oil painting. The goal should be to release the same film in a higher resolution format, clean up obvious damage that has occured since the film was produced, and that's it. Not change the camera angles or the color of the phasers or who shot first in the cantina.

TNG is not my favorite Trek. I don't have it on either DVDs or Blu Rays, and I'm not likely to.

 

[at Quark's]

Even without religion and Bajoran politics I think there's still plenty to enjoy (Dominion war arc for example), but these two are pretty fundamental concepts to the show.

That's okay, everyone's welcome at Quarks!

Why, thank you.

 

[Lynx]

DS9 is a series which gets better and better.

I wasn't that impressed when I first watched season 1. I actually liked it, it was a good series with good characters and some interesting on-going plots but back then I saw it as a decent spin-off to TNG. But I fund it interesting to go deeper into the Bajoran-Cardassian conflict with The Maquis and all that.

But the more I watched, the better it got when it came to plots, storytelling and character development. Take Sisko for example. In the beginning I found him a bit boring, a gloomy character with a tragic background. But he turned out to be a great captain and a real bad-a** sometimes.

I also like the interaction and growing friendship between O'Brien and Bashir, Dax becoming much more than just good-looking, all of Odo's personality. Kira and Quark became favorites already from the start and Garak in season 2. The itroduction of Worf was OK and Ezri was a good character too. I found jake a bit whiny in the beginning but he also became better and better.

The deveklopment of the whole series from just a space-station in the middle of the Cardassian-Bajoran conflict to all that it became later with the Dominion arriving and all about that. It was a real roller-coaster ride with a lot of twist and turns and unexpected events which made almost all episodes interesting and exciting.

And don't forget the bad guys. DS9 definitely had the most and best of them. Dukat, without doubt the best villain in anything Star trek related, the Female Shapshifter which I really hated for her cool genocidial ways but that was what made her an excellet villain, the slimy Weyoun whch was both annoying and funny at the same time, Kai Winn, damar who started as something of a brutal hitman but turned out to be something completly different at the end....well, there are many of them.

When it comes to the point when DS9 "get good", well there isn't exactly such a point because this series gets better and better for almost each episode and to get a good grip about what's going on, it's best to watch it from the start and don't skip any episodes or seasons. Everything is built up and to skip certain seasons or parts of it might make it difficult to understand certain scenarios, like "who is that character, what is he/she doing there, when did that happen, why do they like/tdislike each other etc.

So my advice is: Watch it from the start, be patient with things that might be uninteresting or irrelevant to start with because all this is necessary for what will come and enjoy the ride. This will be fun!

 

[urrutiap]

Most of the best episodes and story arcs occur since Season 4 to the last season. The show gets pretty much dark because of war, war, war and death

 

[Charles Phipps]

It may not be your thing because Bajoran religion and politics are a thing.

The show was designed with the idea of not being nearly as episodic and getting deep into stuff that is normally glossed over.