Deep Space Nine: a thread for (re)watching this awesome series

the mirror universe ones are Good (even if the ease of getting back and forth is extra silly)

that quote from Behr about Picard's greatest fear in the Medium piece DJI linked is great
and of course Roddenberry killed it and liked the whole Risa pleasure planet junk

I don't think there's a ton of agreement on what the outright bad episodes are - I love the Mirror Universe eps for instance - plus a lot of the politics are drawn super slowly in the first two seasons. Just suck it up and digest it all, buddy!

xp too lazy to find it, can you quote it mh

Can do, sorry for the length

I created this planet called Risa, which was a pleasure planet. The captain was stressed out and needed a vacation. He went on this vacation and there was a holosuite there — or a holodeck — I guess a holosuite, we called it.

It said, “Face Your Greatest Fear!” and it was like a carnival place. And he thought, “Oh, cool, this is going to put me in a good mood. What I need is to fight some Klingons without thinking about the repercussions of it, or go after some Romulans or whatever it is.

And he goes into this holodeck, and it was all about the captain being promoted to admiral, and losing the Enterprise, and Riker being bumped up to captain of the Enterprise. Basically, though we never really hit it on the head, it’s about growing old. Not to grow old, but your time of life changing and suddenly you’re not going to be the guy going off on adventures, you’re going to be sitting at a desk somewhere, SENDING people on adventures. That’s his greatest fear.

Then it became a whole long story that I’m not going to get into now, but it got SLAMMED dead by Gene (Roddenberry); it was my big ‘Gene meeting’, where he slammed me down with all kind of pronouncements about what Star Trek is and is not. It was like, “Picard fears nothing. If it’s time for him to grow old, to become an admiral, he becomes an admiral! He would not think about that, AT ALL. Picard is John Wayne!” Well, John Wayne had all kinds of fears and guilt and angers and bitterness in his best movies… “No. John Wayne is a hero, Picard is a hero, we are not doing this episode.” Even though I guess this had happened a lot on the show in the first couple seasons, it hadn’t hit us.

And that’s when Gene sat there, “…but I love the pleasure planet! Get the captain laid!”

https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-deep-space-nine-in-82-5-hours-10acde591fd2#.nfj6q7sqb

Done a LOL @ that.

hahaha omg

We all know that Picard's unyielding lack of complexity is at the core of his enduring popularity.

I'm surprised Roddenberry didn't insist he have a heroic catchphrase. 'Jean-Luc out, here comes Picard!'

Um. Engage?

Not heroic enough imo. Maybe like 'engage that shit' while he slides on some shades to the accompaniment of chugging guitars.

I think i've mentioned the time i was on the men's room line at the theatre w/ Patrick Stewart, but didn't end up at the next urinal, where i wd've intoned "Make it so, Number One."

tbh I can't imagine that you would like DS9 at all Morbz

Yeah, if you're primarily a fan of TOS, it bears little resemblance. Very good but quite different.

does anyone want to explain to me what is going on with the Tribbles ep img with O'Brien inserted into it upthread

i don't require it to be a clone of the first series

fwiw I couldn't make it past the first episode, and you know how low my standards are

The first episode of a television series is usually its best, so that's a pretty fair assessment.

idk if you really want to have this argument but I was not given the impression that the things that were the most objectionable about it (like, say, the lead's line readings) were remedied later on

Does the Medium piece talk about how Roddenberry also wanted half-naked guys in the background holding hands?

I actually like "Move Along Home"! I think that someone who gets with TOS would appreciate its silly camp.

like, there was just nothing there that grabbed me, nothing that seemed like an interesting idea/no character that might develop into something interesting, and plenty of things I found actively irritating (Sisko, Ferengi etc.)

xps

You'll be missing out on Wallace Shawn and Space Nurse Ratched
https://s.put.re/maPB9nTX.png
https://s.put.re/PmdfguRf.png

Like while on the one hand I can accept that your objections were enough to keep you from pursuing the series further, on the other hand recommending against watching a well-regarded television series on the basis of the one (1) episode you couldn't even make it all the way through is...what's the word? Oh, yes: challops.

As Philip notes, if you haven't even gotten around to seeing Vedek Winn and Garak and the evolution of Nog etc. etc. you might as well be saying 'don't watch this show why because I saw a commercial and it looked unintersting'.

well-regarded television series

eh depends who you ask

not sure what you think Morbz would like about this series tbh

Did you read the post right after you wrote to Morbs where I agreed with you (not realizing you hadn't actually seen the show)

fair enough

anyway i'm a fan of Rene Auberjonois and Colm Meaney in other things

also there is a baseball episode

love me some Alex Siddig, that guy has been a valuable supporting actor in a lot of things over the years. he was the best thing about the worst part of Game of Thrones too (Dorne), which was an utter waste of his skill level and charisma.

I agree with Οὖτις that Avery Brooks can be a bit off-putting with his weird line-reading, but if you can get past that the rest of the series is really great. One of the first golden-age-of-TV-style shows where there is a large over-arching plot, and the first Star Trek show to have any hints of darkness or doubt within the Federation.

eh depends who you ask

I admit that I'm pretty deep into the Trek echo chamber but basically everyone praises DS9, especially for its structural ambitions.

also there is a baseball episode

i think this was the only one i skipped.

probably still prefer the later tng seasons

There's also an episode that revolves around the 1951 Willie Mays rookie card.

The baseball episode is actually really good, in a corny, sentimental way, even for someone likes me who knows almost nothing about it. It helps that it's right in the middle of long war arc, and it's clear that both the viewers and the characters need the temporary distraction it brings to all dark stuff they've been going through.

And yeah, baseball features in other episodes too, because right from the start Captain Sisko is established as a major fan of the sport (which apparently isn't played much on Earth anymore in the 24th century).

Baseball only exists as a Fortnite DLC in the 24th century.

Avery Brooks is just very theatre.

He's a joy and my favourite captain.

It wouldn't be Star Trek if the principals didn't ignore the last several centuries of their history in forming cultural interests that are uniformly familiar to viewers in the 20th/21st Century.

FTR, I get shakey's qualms inasmuch as the pilot is overlong and unwieldy and not a great entry point for people who aren't predisposed to jump headlong into a new Trek venture sight unseen. And if you don't stick around to the end, you miss the emotional payoff and best part of the episode. And, yeah, Brooks is sometimes a little much.

iirc the the TNG pilot was much worse

contains nothing as bafflingly inscrutable as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR1gdiuqAQs

TNG pilot has Q in it, which at least makes for an entertaining/watchable villain. Other stuff is stiff/stupid but that central conflict between Picard and Q in the pilot establishes a lot successfully imo.

xp
He's talking to an incorporeal wormhole alien!

Also, the Bajoran mystical stuff is some of the least interesting material in the show imo so frontloading it like that probably wasn't the best idea.

shakes, go watch 'Duet' and tell me this show still stinks.

Ignore Shakey, Morbs, he's muddying the waters.

The only thing you need to know from the first episode is that:

- Sisko's wife was killed by the Borg (which happened in TNG), and he's raising his son on his own.
- He's been sent to command a backwater space station (titular DS9), which makes him wonder if he should remain in Starfleet (his career is going nowhere).
- Bajorans are another kind of Space Jew, and the Cardassians are Space Nazis. In fact, the station used to belong to the Cardassians, but the Federation is taking it over in the hopes of negotiating Bajor's entry into the Federation.
- By the end of the episode, a wormhole suddenly opens up next to the station -- and living inside are noncorporeal aliens that Bajorans worship -- and Sisko is credited with its appearance. From now on, he's viewed as Bajor's Emissary (basically a prophet for renewing contact with Bajor's gods), and he likewise finds renewed purpose as a Starfleet officer.

That's from memory so I may have gotten some details wrong.

Also, be aware that the early seasons look butt-ugly (they haven't been remastered for HD and UHD screens).

The visual aesthetic of this show always struck me, I.e. still polished but it seemed to be an attempt at downplaying the visual interstellar glory prevalent in the previous series (which of course were journeying everywhere) but beyond that making it appear more working class and underfunded. This is just my memory from watching 25 years ago of course.

The station was pointedly a run-down wreck early in the show. It kinda develops like Deadwood, a character unto itself.

god I fuckin hate Q