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

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

excellent run about 2/3 of the way through season six: worf/dax in the jungle, kira and her mom, bashir meets section 31

(i know the next one is a favorite too, but i haven't watched it yet so shush)

Ah yes, the classic "Profit and Lace."

ayo my nerds have you all watched this?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6332276/

ira steven behr’s ~hideous~ goatee (and general “look”) notwithstanding, it’s v enjoyable

I plan to as soon as I have a couple furtive hours alone in my house

just finished season 6 :'-(

ayo my nerds have you all watched this?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6332276/

ira steven behr’s ~hideous~ goatee (and general “look”) notwithstanding, it’s v enjoyable

My post has gotten buried already! I guess that's a good thing. Deep Space Nine: a thread for (re)watching this awesome series

i just watched all of voyager so i guess i will watch this now, it's kind of relaxing watching crummy 90s tv, nothing too high-intensity, no worries about what it means

waiting to watch the doc until after i finish the series

vic fontaine and vic fontaine episodes are great. fu if you disagree!

it's kind of relaxing watching crummy 90s tv

as opp'd to crummy pretentious 2010s TV

i like vic fontaine, but he does say 'pallie' too much

i have begun season seven

maybe the nog ptsd episode managed to wring some pathos out of the otherwise risible vic fontaine thing.

pic.twitter.com/xe7vaiwIg0

— Charles Windstar (@Cwindstar) September 6, 2019

damn, i finished ds9 last night. i definitely felt bereft afterwards.

i know we have people watching rn so i won't spoilerize, but there are many elements of the finale that i was not fully on board with.

was pretty amazed that the penultimate episode was honestly not very good and focused quite a bit on the ferenghis. never change ds9

man I'm so itching to discuss all the aspects of the finale and the whole of the season that i wasn't on board with.

this show is a hundred years old, there can be no spoilers, metaphysically speaking

It is with extreme regret and sadness to announce that my love and best friend, Aron Eisenberg, passed away earlier today.
He was an intelligent, humble, funny, emphatic soul. He sought to live his life with... https://t.co/VbI9X5g1ku

— Malíssa Longo (@Malissa_Longo) September 22, 2019

RIP :(

aww. RIP :(

Bummer.

finally finished it

still don't like nog

your heart felt something at the ptsd episode, though. right?

never felt like he was a character dude I could relate to personally due to baggage and different outlooks but the realization, couched in the disconnect that *he* was now the injured one and really figured out what empathy is, meant something

then again, c’mon, you have to lose a leg to realize you’re mortal. ferengi are all libertarian teens

i think i mostly didn’t like him because his actor (rip) seemed to always be yelling? as a character he had a good arc, but weird because even at the end he still looked exactly like the kid he used to be

He still looks exactly the same 75 years later (The Visitor).

According to Ira Behr, Marc Alaimo never wavered from his belief that at heart, Dukat was an okay guy. He'd developed his theory during the shooting of the third season episode "Defiant", a landmark show in terms of rendering Dukat a more ambiguous character from a moral standpoint, and despite all that Dukat had done, Alaimo still felt there was good in him. As Behr says, "In Marc's mind, I believe he felt his relationship with Winn was legitimate in some way, and that, in some wacky fashion, it was Dukat's bid for legitimacy. I mean Marc was actually upset when we had him hit Solbor [in "The Changing Face of Evil"]. Until the very end, he wanted Dukat to be the hero of Deep Space Nine.

lol what a weirdo

method acting

anyway, s07 was good. i think the jadzia-to-ezri thing was handled about as well as it possibly could have been. (the ezri's family episode was weak, but that wasn't the character's fault.) her interactions with worf were great. the method of her getting with bashir was annoying -- oh, she's talking about him in her sleep, and then the two of them spend three episodes staring at/avoiding each other like adolescents -- but i don't mind them getting together.

i liked vic fontaine, but it was maybe a little too much. if those episodes had been spread out over multiple seasons than one-plus seasons it might have been better. i was a little disappointed that it was never explained why he was 'more than just a hologram' -- briefly wondered whether he might be a Prophet who was on probation or something.

garak and weyoun were awesome. kai winn was perfect. damar was solid. would join the house of martok. still don't think much of dukat or his actor -- no depth when it was required nor presence when it wasn't.

the section 31 eps were good (and the guy who played sloan was great) except for the final one where . . . miles and julian traipsed through his dying mind? that was goofy af and easily the weakest part of the entire Final Chapter.

the miles-and-julian relationship really became a parody by the end.

weird to see quark reduced to the role of greek chorus in s07, particularly as people went to vic's instead.

sorry for complaining about kira being shrill early on; she ultimately ruled.

i just never really cared about odo. and tbh it's pretty weird that the federation would keep on a security officer who served under the cardassians -- even before he was revealed as one of the Dire Enemies. he and kira getting together was weird but fine, and much less annoying than the seasons spent with odo yearning.

always here for wallace shawn and rom; the rest of the ferengi episodes were . . . fine. whatever. the only episode i skipped in the whole series was the one where quark evidently dresses up as a woman.

the segue from Female Changeling Ordering the Genocide of All Cardassians and Pyrrhic Final Battle > Linking with Odo > Calmly Surrendering and Submitting to Judgment was . . . awfully handy.

the sisko's final fate was, i think, questionable at best. i'm told that originally he just became a prophet and that was it, but that upon reflection avery brooks thought 'having the black guy abandon his family' was a bad look and insisted on sisko promising to return. imo he should have been offered prophetic immortality and turned it down.

v. glad i watched it, even if it took like three years! definitely cared more about the characters than in other treks, although it took longer to do so than might have been ideal. i think it had higher highs than TNG; it might also have had more duds, but that's probably because i skipped the first two seasons of TNG. ultimately they're tough to compare.

and yes nog's progression from gung-ho kid who signs on with the crazy elite cadets > kid who is less gung-ho > maimed and scared veteran is really good and important.

i just find nog's presence annoying. it'd have been better (and more interesting) with jake

if they ever followed up on the Ferengi, I’d most want to know how Rom did as Grand Nagus

Nothing would ever be better and more interesting with Jake

My issues with the final season were: enough with the mirror universe and holodeck and stupid Ferengi episodes already! When they were still coming in the second half of the season it *really* felt like they had more important things to be getting on with. Except... the whole Dominion/Cardassian alliance and war ended up being just as tiresome - there was absolutely no sense of the grand scale of it, when most of the time it was just Weyoun and Damar alone in a room looking at screens. The expressionless Breen added absolutely nothing. And as for Sisko, what a fucking disaster. Seven seasons of building up expectations and then - "I know what I have to do! Fly to Bajor in a shuttle and hurl myself off a cliff!"

The last section 31 episode was indeed a dire, a miserable failure of an attempt at a classic mindfuck episode. Hated Vic. The Klingon episodes were good, probably the best part of the whole thing.

Sorry to be so negative. I'd never have agreed that it had higher highs than TNG, but I feel like S7 retroactively poisoned my enjoyment of the whole thing!