Why is DS9 the black sheep?

[anti-matter]

While I'm in agreement with nearly all the comments above I just wanted to add the fact that DS9 was an arc based story telling approach...and that made it different than the other treks. Sure it had its bottle episodes...but keen followers can still find a 'connect the dots' kind of story telling going on ...its subtle but it's there.

I mention arc based story telling because most of the fans I knew at the time that DIDN'T follow it just kind of got frustrated because they felt they missed something important and well ...gave up. To me being the black sheep means that while you may be cut from the same cloth...you're still a bit different....that's all.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

DS9 had a great cast and some very good episodes

What was wrong with DeepSpaceNine :
It was a lot of a soap opera
Too much religion involved in the show
DS9 destroyed 'Q'
Runabouts during early Seasons were poor
They spent too much time deconstructing the Gene Roddenbery
primary characters had an identity crisis like teens with bad attitudes
Rich story ideas only came in the later seasons
It's originality has been questioned, JMS pitched to Paramount before WarnerBros
Even after setting sail DS-9 still borrowed heavily from Babylon-5
The CGI effects dated quicker than StarTrek TOS FX, Odo effects etc now look terrible
Trekkies started calling it Deep Sleep Nine
It got very predictable
Kera acting all butch/feminist and her bitchy demeanor just weirded fans out.
It was very war orientated unlike Roddenberry's vision
DS9 had already passed it's prime by the seventh season

 

[Anwar]

As for Berman being totally dead set against DS9, I don't think that was always the feeling. I mean, he wanted to hold VOY back for a year so to give DS9 more a chance to stand on his own (Piller stated this in an interview he gave before he died), and he didn't have much to do with VOY until S4, meaning he was a part of DS9 until the end of S5 or beginning of S6.

Braga, I don't think he was envious seeing as how the one time he wrote for DS9 (It was a TNG/DS9 crossover but it featured DS9 in a big way) he did a really good job and kept the DS9ers IC and faithful to them.

It was a "Black sheep" because it dared to deviate from the TNG formula, and at the time Paramount was primarily interested in using Trek to make tons of $$$. So anything that deviated from what was a confirmed good formula was instantly considered bad. And since DS9 didn't make a lot of money or ratings to Paramount this was justification for their attitude (never mind that no sci-fi show is ever likely to get the ratings TNG got in its prime...) which is why they kept VOY from going for arcs, a darker tone, etc.

Piller said that people would come to appreciate DS9 more over time, since he thought arc-based shows would be more common eventually.

Damn, man was a Prophet...

 

[NewHorizon]

@ GalaxyX

TOS was a household name LOONG before 25 years. Try the seventies, that's why the motion picture was made. The show had become a hit in reruns and demand was so high that they were going to make a second series.

Next Gen took fifteen years to gain popularity? WHAT? Next Generation took off during the third season and continuously grew in popularity over the course of the seven seasons it was on the air.

I quote:

The show premiered on September 28, 1987 and ran for seven seasons, ending on May 23, 1994. The Next Generation had the highest ratings of all the Star Trek series and was the #1 syndicated show during the last few years of its original run. It was nominated for an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series during its final season. It also received a Peabody Award for Outstanding Television Programming.

I grew up during the Next Generation run and I remember how it was essentially the talk of the town. You could easily watch it. Heck, I grew up in the country with only two channels and I could get it. Next Gen was plastered everywhere.

The franchise as a whole, was at its peak with Next Gen...but Next Gen was a HUGE hit and crossed over into the mainstream. The movies killed Next Gen unfortunately.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Going back to the mid-90's, Paramount needed to launch TNG as a feature film series, and VOY was the focus of their attention on the television side of things because the fate of their new broadcast network, UPN, largely rested on VOY's shoulders at the time. So it's not surprising that DS9 ended up being treated somewhat as the neglected middle child. On the bright side, Paramount's lack of attention to the show probably gave Behr and his team more freedom to make the show as they saw fit, which elevated its quality.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Vonstadt said:
Sorry my friend not only was it Star Trek it was /good/ Star Trek /in my opinion/ . I found DS9 on par with the feel of pushing boundaries as the old trek.

Not only that, because B&B were so little involved, it was the only Modern Trek save for Season 4 of ENT which showed TOS the proper respect. Berman and Barga seemed to feel smugly superior to it, a show guided by SF luminaries which all but single-handedly changed the way SF is presented on tv and viewed in American culture.

Believe me, if it weren't for DS9, I'd be as much of a cranky TOS-Only Trekkie as Warped 9 and The God Thing, may the Prophets bless them both.

 

[OmarB]

DS9 and TNG always battle in my head for my favorite series. DS9's great for me because although there's no real trekking going on it's still what it should have been. It's a show that points out how absurd people treat each other because of religion, race, money, natural resources or any other reason. It was effective because rather than come off as preachy it came off as intelligent. ST should provoke thought and ask important questions, fiction's one of the best ways to shine a light on the world and show it for what it is and what it could and should be.

I think if DS9 were done today it would be a smashing success. It lay the groundwork for hour long shows with huge story arcs and it suffered for blazing that trail. 24, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica and many more benefited from what it did not just for sci-fi but for storytelling on TV as a whole.

If done today I would love to see more Bajor and more Cardassia. Show how war changes the lives of the invaders and the invaded. The tenuous peace that exists between the occupied and their occupiers.

By the way, if you get a chance check out the show Island At War. Amazing show about an island occupied by the Nazis and how it changes everything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_at_War

 

[Broccoli]

People who think that Berman had nothing to do with DS9 are fooling themselves. Granted, he didn't have as much creative influence in it past season two. However, Berman didn't have that much creative influence in Voyager until later in its run when major turn-overs started to happen (season 5/6).

If anything, it was because of Berman that DS9 came out the way it did. The studio did not like how the show was evolving, but Berman continually protected them. If Berman wasn't there, DS9 would have been very different.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think we've wandered off course here a little. The original point was around why Paramount treated the show as the black sheep of the family.

I thought it was all about internal politics - VOY was UPN's flagship while DS9 was off there in syndication land, and didn't count. Berman focused on VOY because that's what the suits were watching, and the success of VOY would impact the success of his career. Not so much for DS9. VOY was the product of careerism + brainless corporate baloney. It's a miracle it wasn't worse than it was.

DS9 was so much better than VOY precisely because it was more free of corporate interference. That interference is what kept VOY frozen in the same-old, same-old "safe" Trek paradigm while DS9 was free to experiment.

So being the black sheep is what made DS9 the best Trek series. No big mystery.

 

[Angel4576]

Temis the Vorta said:It's a miracle it wasn't worse than it was.

That's almost impossible to imagine!

Great assessment btw :thumbsup:

 

[Nebusj]

T’Baio said:
So what's up with that?

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.

What's left to appeal to the audience, dialogue that might without warning break out into tachyon pulses? The detailed political intrigues of a bunch of made-up species forced to wear silly latex appliques? Seasons spent on a war about how those meany shapeshifters are all mean about having been treated mean by mean solids? Or the occasional descent into a time-travel anomaly bit of nonsense and the Mirror Universe?

 

[Photon]

Yep what Temis said. Those hot Vortas are always good w/words

 

[GalaxyX]

DS9 had a great cast and some very good episodes

What was wrong with DeepSpaceNine :
It was a lot of a soap opera
Too much religion involved in the show
DS9 destroyed 'Q'
Runabouts during early Seasons were poor
They spent too much time deconstructing the Gene Roddenbery
primary characters had an identity crisis like teens with bad attitudes
Rich story ideas only came in the later seasons
It's originality has been questioned, JMS pitched to Paramount before WarnerBros
Even after setting sail DS-9 still borrowed heavily from Babylon-5
The CGI effects dated quicker than StarTrek TOS FX, Odo effects etc now look terrible
Trekkies started calling it Deep Sleep Nine
It got very predictable
Kera acting all butch/feminist and her bitchy demeanor just weirded fans out.
It was very war orientated unlike Roddenberry's vision
DS9 had already passed it's prime by the seventh season

I agree with you on almost every point. I even highlighted the points you make that specifically grated me.

I think a lot of the hardcore DS9 fans are never going to admit any of it though, and will simply keep crying about how "Berman/Braga"
didn't give DS9 the backing it "so richly deserved"

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.

What's left to appeal to the audience, dialogue that might without warning break out into tachyon pulses? The detailed political intrigues of a bunch of made-up species forced to wear silly latex appliques? Seasons spent on a war about how those meany shapeshifters are all mean about having been treated mean by mean solids? Or the occasional descent into a time-travel anomaly bit of nonsense and the Mirror Universe?

Agreed with this 100% as well.

 

[Phily B]

It was the only Trek series that wasn't nothing but episodic.

 

[Angel4576]

GalaxyX said:
I think a lot of the hardcore DS9 fans are never going to admit any of it though, and will simply keep crying about how "Berman/Braga"
didn't give DS9 the backing it "so richly deserved"

Must DS9 fans are probably thanking their lucky stars about that, otherwise it could have ended up like Voyager/Enterprise, and the franchise could have died that much sooner.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Phily B said:
It was the only Trek series that wasn't nothing but episodic.

What about Enterprise's third and fourth seasons?

 

[GalaxyX]

Must DS9 fans are probably thanking their lucky stars about that, otherwise it could have ended up like Voyager/Enterprise, and the franchise could have died that much sooner.

I'm not defending Voyager or Enterprise, which are pretty bad series in their own ways.

I just don't think DS9 was that much better. Funny because I actually thought B5 was a much tighter series that made way more sense than its clone series DS9.

 

[KayArr]

I'm not crazy about Voyager, but some of it I like. I love TOS, TNG, and Enterprise. DS9 is the only one that I didn't watch--I found it deadly dull. The whole Bajoran situation just bored me to tears. That said--my all-time favorite series ever is Alien Nation--and that's all about the Newcomers trying to adapt to life after slavery and how earthlings reacted to them. That's not completely unlike the Bajorans. I dunno--would I have liked it in later seasons? Maybe, but they'd already lost me. I think that I watched a season or a season and a half, then I tuned out. Same thing happened with Voyager, actually, I only came back to watching after seeing some of the later episodes in the fan collectives. Watching In the Pale Moonlight on the Captain's log convinced me that I wouldn't ever like DS9--I voted for that since I'd heard such fantastic things about it. But it was so obvious and heavy handed--very bland.

TOS, TNG, Enterprise--those are the three that I love. Voyager, I can take or leave, DS9 just isn't my cup of tea.

I'm not saying that DS9 is a bad show--it's a great one if that's what you like. But there's gotta be a reason that people like me only watched 4 out of 5 treks, and DS9 is the one that I didn't.

 

[Angel4576]

GalaxyX said:

Must DS9 fans are probably thanking their lucky stars about that, otherwise it could have ended up like Voyager/Enterprise, and the franchise could have died that much sooner.

I'm not defending Voyager or Enterprise, which are pretty bad series in their own ways.

I just don't think DS9 was that much better. Funny because I actually thought B5 was a much tighter series that made way more sense than its clone series DS9.

I'm a B5 fan, as the sig suggests. Comparing any show to B5 is always going to make it seem inferior, simply because that show's not yet been bettered.

DS9 was a bold and innovative (for Trek) change from the norm. Darker in tone, wider in scope, and in terms of character writing, so far superior to either Enterprise or Voyager that it's hardly worth mentioning them in the same breath.

DS9, IMO, was Star Trek's last hurrah at being one of the genre's leading lights. After that everything pretty much went down hill, be it on the smaller or large screen.

If Star Trek, as a franchise, took up DS9's lead and moved with the times, then it's a safe bet that it would have hung around a lot longer than it ultimately did when Voyager and Enterprise proceeded to take it down the pan. Both Voyager and Enterprise pretty much disregarded everything that DS9 had done, and just came across as being completely out of touch with the way the genre had developed. What worked for TNG in the late 80s, early 90s, was incredibly outdated by the time that Voyager/Enterprise tried to recreate the same formula at the backend of that decade and into the new millennium.

DS9, whilst highly derivative, was still an attempt to pull Star Trek into the new millennium. When they chose to ignore its direction, the writing was on the wall.

 

[Angel4576]

KayArr said:
But there's gotta be a reason that people like me only watched 4 out of 5 treks, and DS9 is the one that I didn't.

Not that hard to understand. DS9 is the one that sticks out as being different. For me, it's TOS, TNG and DS9. TOS speaks for itself, TNG reintroduced Star Trek into the popular mainstream. DS9 took things down a whole different, darker path, a Star Trek for the time it found itself in, just as the previous two incarnations had been.

Voyager, didn't really know what the hell it was or who it was supposed to be for. It certainly didn't reinvent the Star Trek universe in the same way that the previous two incarnations had.

Enterprise, should have been a fantastic origins story. Instead they introduced a lame 'temporal cold war' to explain away all of the glaring continuity gaffs and refused to give people what they wanted. All the significant events of the timeframe were initially discarded, and only glossed over as the series came to a close. First contact with the Klingons, ballsed up. The Romulan war, ballsed up. The birth of the Federation, an afterthought.

DS9 was the last time that Star Trek could realistically claim to be great.