Why is DS9 the black sheep?

[Kegek]

The Duras sisters appeared once on DS9, in "Past Prologue", an episode also notable for introducing Garak. I think it's the best use of the sisters, as they're confined to a very small role as part of elaborate politicking between the Bajorans, a Bajoran terrrorist cell, the Feds and the Cardies. Certainly better than using them in a major villain role.

 

[Angel4576]

Re the Duras sisters, I like the anecdote about Barbara March. she was excitedly phoning people telling them that they were in the next Star Trek movie (Generations). It wasn't long before someone told her that Klingons don't have the best track record of surviving Star Trek movies!

 

[regemet]

I do not know why D S 9 is my favorite Trek show

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

I liked and watched DS9, but it was because of the ways it was like the other Trek series, rather than the ways it was different. A typical favorite DS9 episode for me would be "Shadowplay", a stand-alone episode built around a weird sci-fi concept, whereas "Siege of AR-558" was one of the episodes I liked least.

 

[DarthTom]

Firstly, DS9 is my favorite as well. Why does Paramount tread it badly, well as a multi-billion dollar corporation I'd suppose that the show failed to have the same ratings draw that TNG did post Borg which IIRC was the highest ever watched Trek.

Why do Berman and Braga the holders of the franchise dislike it, I'd guess because they had little or nothing to do with it's making nor the plots and it didn't follow the Trek formula.

Why do fans dislike it, for the same reasons - notably that it didn't follow the standard Trek formula and the show dared [ ] to make even Federation citizens flawed, misguided and even evil.

 

[Anwar]

I don't get where the idea is that Berman and Braga didn't like DS9. Just because they didn't have anything to do with it doesn't mean they had to hate it.

Honestly, that's as much rumor as the "Berman hates Kirk" argument. There's no evidence for it.

 

[Angel4576]

Wait, Berman hates Kirk? The bastard!

The Berman/Braga situation depends on how much you believe Ron Moore. The statements he made in the aftermath of him leaving Voyager (and Star Trek entirely), both immediately, and then later on, made it quite clear that Braga at least was incredibly intimidated by Moore for what he'd helped do with DS9. Envious to the point of practically forcing Moore out. The nefarious practices of freezing Moore out of the creative process on the show almost completely must have at least been known to Berman, or was he really that out of touch with what was going on with Voyager? Given that he already know that he took an extremely handsoff approach to DS9 once Voyager started, that's unlikely.

DS9, whilst not a massive ratings mammoth, was respected on a professional basis. Voyager never managed even that.

Berman chose poorly in making Braga his lapdog. If only he'd have kept Moore onside, and managed to convince Ira Behr to come across with him, Voyager might have been saved. As things stand, he got Braga, lost Moore and Behr, and completely screwed the franchise to the point of there being no regular new Trek on television for the first time in nearly two decades.

 

[Anwar]

Keeping Moore or Behr wouldn't have changed anything. As long as Voyager was on UPN the shows would stink since most of the biggest problems with VOY and ENT were due to constant UPN interference, as opposed to DS9 which was syndicated and not under any network influence.

Moore really didn't know what he was talking about when he blamed everything on Berman and Braga, and frankly at the time he gave that interview he was a disgruntled ex-employee which colored his words and attitude quite a bit.

Having Braga as an Exec Producer wasn't a bad idea. If Braga had been allowed to do what he had planned for VOY it would've turned the show around and probably made it more respected professionally (Braga wanted to get rid of the replicators and have "Year of Hell" be a full year with no reset button) seeing how well the "Year of Hell" story actually was.

And I'm not just talking out of my butt either, seeing how Michael Piller was the one who came forward and said that it was UPN that pretty much made them drop all the stuff they had originally planned for VOY, and in one of his last interviews before he died he even defended Berman by saying Rick had wanted to hold VOY back for a year to give DS9 more time to attract audiences and work out VOY's story and characters more.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ Re Moore's comments, his initial comments were quite restrained when contrasted with his later comments, which provided more detail. His words at that point were damning, both of Berman/Braga and the show's wider creative process. The nefarious working practices that were in use were nothing to do with the network and led to a writing staff that frankly didn't even want to be there.

I don't believe for a second that you're talking out of your butt Anwar, if anything, I've enjoyed this discussion.

I'll concede that UPN did them no favours, but Moore's comments make it perfectly clear that they didn't help themselves much either. Digruntled writers, disgruntled actors? The whole thing just sounds like a miserable process, which pretty much seeped onto the screen sadly.

It's been a few years since I've watched much Voyager, I think I'll dig some out soon and see if my opinion's changed much.

I don't think holding back Voyager for a year would have made much difference to either show. Anyone who wanted to watch DS9 would have been watching already, it wasn't a case of 'either/or', and I doubt that people would have suddenly realised that 'shit! TNG's finished, now I'll HAVE to watch DS9.'

What was the original plan for Voyager btw?

 

[Anwar]

The original plan (for S1 at least) was for there to be more arc-based storytelling, and lots of tensions and hostility between the two crews. I think the season finale was supposed to be a mutiny.

Also, Piller had thought Trek would stagnate if it stayed only to the TNG way of doing things and he wanted to experiment with new camera techniques/angles and better scene cuts/editing.

I dunno about the "if they weren't watching then they wouldn't at all". I didn't get into DS9 until S4 with "Way of the Warrior" but was an avid viewer till the end.

As for VOY, the actors were disgruntled at that point due to years of the sh*t they had to act out, and the wrtiers may have been becoming fed up with all the UPN sh*t that restrained them.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ I actually liked the first couple of seasons of Voyager. If Piller had gotten his way and been allowed to make the series darker then things might have been different. Jeri Taylor's 'light-hearted' approach was completely the wrong way to go.

It's a shame that they had more than just Voyager to worry about, if it weren't for the wider implications to the franchise, I'd have liked Berman to give UPN the same kind of treatment that Joe Straczynski gave TNT over Crusade. Let's face it, UPN weren't exactly in a great bargaining position at that point, they cancelled pretty much their entire schedule except Voyager. They'd ploughed that much money and publicity into it that cancelling what they'd championed as their flagship series would have humiliated themselves. Berman should have done to UPN exactly what Ire Behr did to him when Berman specifically told him not to finish DS9 with a multi-episode arc, flat out ignore them.

The fact that Berman/Braga had their ideas interfered with, diluted, and crushed by UPN just lends weight to the envy argument, that whilst they tried and failed to tell the story that they wanted to, Ira Behr and Ron Moore succeeded. Granted, there were factors at work which favoured Ira/Moore, but the bottom line is that one story got on the air, pretty much undiluted, and you can tell by the wrap party footage/interviews on the DS9 season 7 DVDs just how proud they were of that accomplishment, whilst the other didn't. Instead, it was a series of missed opportunities and what-might-have-beens. Berman can claim that he's proud of DS9 all he likes, but that's gotta hurt to some degree.

The Voyager situation sounds very much like what happened on Crusade. Joe had an idea of where the series would go, TNT started making small interferences which he let go, and then the interferences were flat out orders contrary to the overall direction the series was taking, so he effectively refused and invited cancellation rather than put out a warped version of the series he envisaged.

 

[JD]

Wow, I wish I had ventured out of the Lit and General Sci-Fi forums more often, because I have learned alot of stuff hanging out here today.

 

[Anwar]

I don't think UPN would've threatened VOY with cancellation, it was more that whoever defied them would've gotten fired or been asked to leave like Piller in S2. Berman just wanted to keep his job.

And frankly I kinda have to agree with that, I mean who would abandon their career just because of disagreements with the higher management? UPN would've just replaced them with others who were more willing to suck-up while suing Berman/Braga for violatig their contracts and keeping them from finding further work. Moore was just a writer and not a Producer so he wasn't in that kind of position, and Behr finished his contract and left to make his own shows (4400). Piller was asked to leave and was released from whatever agreements he had with UPN/Parmount and founded his own company and had a hit with "Dead Zone" until he died.

 

[JD]

Wow, I didn't realize there was that much story behind why those guys left. I had just figured they were no longer interested in Trek.

 

[ktanner3]

Anwar said:
I don't think UPN would've threatened VOY with cancellation, it was more that whoever defied them would've gotten fired or been asked to leave like Piller in S2. Berman just wanted to keep his job.

And frankly I kinda have to agree with that, I mean who would abandon their career just because of disagreements with the higher management? UPN would've just replaced them with others who were more willing to suck-up while suing Berman/Braga for violatig their contracts and keeping them from finding further work. Moore was just a writer and not a Producer so he wasn't in that kind of position, and Behr finished his contract and left to make his own shows (4400). Piller was asked to leave and was released from whatever agreements he had with UPN/Parmount and founded his own company and had a hit with "Dead Zone" until he died.

I have to ask this:

If that was all really the case, then how come as soon as voyager left the air they went right back and created Enterprise on UPN? Seems to me that if they were fed up with the brass at UPN and all their interference then why go thru the same thing again with another show for the same network?Seems to me that they could either shop the show somewhere else or just go back to syndiciation. I just find it hard to believe that UPN would allow a year long arc on Enterprise and not on Voyager.

 

[Angel4576]

Anwar said:
I don't think UPN would've threatened VOY with cancellation, it was more that whoever defied them would've gotten fired or been asked to leave like Piller in S2. Berman just wanted to keep his job.

And frankly I kinda have to agree with that, I mean who would abandon their career just because of disagreements with the higher management? UPN would've just replaced them with others who were more willing to suck-up while suing Berman/Braga for violatig their contracts and keeping them from finding further work. Moore was just a writer and not a Producer so he wasn't in that kind of position, and Behr finished his contract and left to make his own shows (4400). Piller was asked to leave and was released from whatever agreements he had with UPN/Parmount and founded his own company and had a hit with "Dead Zone" until he died.

It depends on the terms of their contracts. It's highly unlikely that Berman would have been in a position to be sued for defying UPN direction when presumably his contract was that of an Executive Producer. Granted, they would probably have ushered him out the back door, but to be fair, blackballing him wouldn't have made a great deal of difference since the UPN network at the time was the smallest network going. Personally, I'd rather be creating some that I could be proud of rather than being hamstrung into producing something that you ultimately know will be rubbish. Thinking about his job security is fine, but it hardly does his reputation much good when the mediocrity of the show begins to reflect badly on him and his reputation. Coming off the back of TNG, Berman was, in the opinion of most Star Trek fans a shoe-in for sainthood. By the time Enterprise came to a close they were ready to string him up from the nearest lamp-post.

The 4400 isn't Behr's show. He has an Executive Producer position, but the series itself is Echevarria's. Behr had already made it clear that he didn't want to go across to Voyager, and there was nothing they could do as his contract only ran until the end of DS9. Moore moved across and lasted a few weeks. Moore went on to BSG whilst Biller made a dog's dinner of the end of Voyager. The fact that they froze Moore out just adds more weight to the argument that they couldn't give a fcuk at that point.

Piller left his Executive Producer role with Voyager in 96 but continued as creative consultant until the series concluded. Had Piller been asked to leave it's unlikely that Berman would have approached him to write Insurrection after his departure. Piller's relationship with UPN had been on the wane before he gave up his EP title, first when they went with Jeri Taylor's great idea of making the show light-hearted instead of darker, and furher when they cancelled his other show Legend.

After The Dead Zone, he created Wildfire, again under the Piller2 umbrella, along with his son Shawn.

 

[Anwar]

ktanner3 said:

Anwar said:
I don't think UPN would've threatened VOY with cancellation, it was more that whoever defied them would've gotten fired or been asked to leave like Piller in S2. Berman just wanted to keep his job.

And frankly I kinda have to agree with that, I mean who would abandon their career just because of disagreements with the higher management? UPN would've just replaced them with others who were more willing to suck-up while suing Berman/Braga for violatig their contracts and keeping them from finding further work. Moore was just a writer and not a Producer so he wasn't in that kind of position, and Behr finished his contract and left to make his own shows (4400). Piller was asked to leave and was released from whatever agreements he had with UPN/Parmount and founded his own company and had a hit with "Dead Zone" until he died.

I have to ask this:

If that was all really the case, then how come as soon as voyager left the air they went right back and created Enterprise on UPN? Seems to me that if they were fed up with the brass at UPN and all their interference then why go thru the same thing again with another show for the same network?Seems to me that they could either shop the show somewhere else or just go back to syndiciation. I just find it hard to believe that UPN would allow a year long arc on Enterprise and not on Voyager.

Because UPN was Paramount's network, and it was Paramount itself that ordered them to start work on a prequel show.

By the time of ENT more arc-based and serialized shows were common then and were proven to be at least partially successful, so UPN knew it would work by then. Back in 1995 there weren't many arc shows and they didn't want to take the risk it wouldn't work.

 

[ktanner3]

Re: Why is DS9 the black sheep?

Back to the subject of DS9, this is Ira Behr pretty much summing up most niner fans:

Ira Steven Behr was a TNG veteran, albeit a shell-shocked one. "I did not enjoy writing TNG," he admits. "I did not like the lack of conflict, the kind of stodginess, the tech solutions to a lot of problems."

http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Space-Nine-Co...2652&sr=1-8

 

[Nebusj]

MacLeod said:

Nebusj said:
Did you see the first season? When it starts out acting like the sixth season of a show you're already tiring of, is there good reason to stick around and see how it tries to blend the subtle implications of ``one of the people in the opening credits is accused of MURDER'' with ``there's a wacky alien space virus gonna INFECT everyone on the station!''

Add to that the Bajorans are the only Trek race to have absolutely no interesting properties, and that nobody invented light bulbs for space stations, and you've got a show that starts off dull, featuring marginally interesting characters, on sets that were specifically designed to be unpleasant (``cause it's alien'') to look at.

I sugest you re-examine S1 of the other Trek shows

TOS "Court Martial", VOY "Ex Post Facto" One of the characters listed in the credits is accused of Murder

TOS "The Naked Time", TNG "The Naked Now" The crew is infected by a virus.

So it would appear that like the other shows, DSN S1 shared some basic story elements.

Yeah, it was interesting when Kirk was wanted for murder in ``Court-Martial''. And it was kind of interesting when Scotty was wanted for murder in ``Wolf in the Fold''. And then when McCoy was wanted for genocide in ``Albatross''. And then when Kirk and McCoy were wanted for murder in ``The Undiscovered Country''. It was a little less interesting when Wesley Crusher was wanted for tromping over the tulips in ``Justice''. It was more interesting when Picard was wanted for murder in ``The Battle''. It was terribly uninteresting when Riker was wanted for not murdering enough characters in ``A Matter Of Perspective''. It was getting a bit thin when Worf was wanted for his father's alleged crimes in ``Sins of the Father'' ... so by the time we get to ``A Man Alone'', should I really be worried about the possible ethical catastrophe facing one of the characters in the opening credits being accused of murder?

Similarly, ``The Naked Time'' was an interesting space disease luckily solved by the end of the episode. And ``Miri'' was an interesting space disease luckily solved by the end of the episode. Similarly ``Operation - Annihilate!'' was a somewhat interesting space disease luckily solved by the end of the episode. And ``The Deadly Years'' was an interesting space disease luckily solved by the end of the episode. And ``The Enterprise Incident'' and ``Wink of an Eye'' and ``The Cloud Minders'' and ``Requiem for Methuselah'' and ``The Lorelei Signal'' and ``The Terrating Incident'' and ``The Ambergris Element'' and ``Albatross'' and ``The Pirates of Orion'' and ``The Practical Joker'' and ``The Counter-Clock Incident'' and ``The Naked Now'' and ``Angel One'' and ``Symbiosis'' and ``Unnatural Selection'' and ``Contagion'' and ``Shades of Gray'' and ``Identity Crisis'' and ``Night Terrors'' and ``The Nth Degree'' and ``The Game'' and ``Violations'' and ``Conundrum'' and ``Ethics'' and ``Realm of Fear'' and ``Man of the People'' and ``Schisms'' and ``Rascals'' and ... boy, but the question of whether they can solve the new space disease of the week by the end of the episode was more interesting when it had been done thirty fewer times. At this point -- when you could fill an entire season up with ``space disease'' episodes -- it's a lot less interesting to see yet another one.

And that's why it's a bad idea for the supposedly new show to start out acting like it's the sixth season of a show we're already starting to get tired of. If the fresh new show is giving basically the same stuff only with a less loved cast then what's it trying to do to make it worth the attention?

As for the lack of light bulbs on the space station, perhaps the Cardassian race prefers a lower light level than humans. At least it is an effort to bring different characteristics to an alien race, whether it works or not is a different debate.

So it's all right if it's unpleasant because it's supposed to be unpleasant. That can be a useful dramatic choice, but then you have to compensate in some way. Otherwise it just looks like they're trying to cover up any flaws in the alien makeup.

 

[Kurgan]

The answer is simple.DS9 shook up the ideals that made Trek what it was until that point.It through out the squeaky clean Utopian society and replaced it with one alot more like the situations we face in real life today.In DS9 the answer to solving a problem was sometimes almost as underhanded as the dilemma they were facing,but at the time the stakes were so high,that such actions were necessary.

DS9 was and is easily my favorite Trek series.