Deep Space Nine: A Re-evaluation.

Coming off the back of my DS9 rewatch I'm about 6-7 episodes into Voyager. Since its' initial broadcast I've only watched a handful of episodes in the intervening 20 years. And I have to say I'm finding it really turgid. I know there are highlights later on and how do I wish they'd made it the gritty survival show it was meant to be.

Finding these early episodes really bland, space-adventure of the week stories. If they didn't mention it you'd have no idea these were other side of the galaxy adventures. Given this was after TNG and DS9 I'm surprised how weak these early episodes are.
 
It's a common mistake that people make. Star Trek is a show about Starfleet which is the galactic peacekeeping arm of The Federation, which comprises planets and races that have agreed to abide by common idealisms. But the Galaxy outside of Federation Membership still has money, and morally questionable values, deeds. Citing religion is an interesting one, because I don't think religion is done away with inside the Federation, albeit they are very science-heavy. But certainly Bajor is NOT a member of the Federation, nor is Cardassia. Starfleet have agreed to 'police' Bajor and the surrounding space, whilst they recover from the occupation by Cardassia, so Strafleet is delivering humanitarian aid, and of course there is some willingness from Bajor to join the Federation over time, which Starfleet will also monitor. And there is no idea that Bajor would have to forego their religious beliefs to join the Federation.

About religion, something which often gets overlooked is a line from Data’s Day. When reciting some events about the day among birthdays and transfers and promotions Data also mentions the Hindu Festival of Lights celebrations taking place on the ship. It's a throwaway line bit but it infers religion is still a part of human culture and traditions are still observed, even within Starfleet and the Federation.
 
Have hit the Trials and Tribble-ations episode so of course had to watch the original TOS episode and then the DS9 one. Great back to back episodes to watch.

One of my favourite episodes. It was really amazing how they were able to mesh together the old footage with the new.
 
It’s been years since I watched DS9 but back in the day it was my favourite Trek, Along with Babylon 5 I loved the fact that they were telling an over-arching story that spanned the entire run of the show, something that was relatively new in sci-fI at the time,

Avery Brooks was fantastic as Sisko, particularly after they made him a captain, he brought a real authoritative presence to the role, you did NOT want a dressing down from this Captain. Hell I think he even intimidated Worf when the need arose.

Think I might follow this example and go for a re-watch..
 
Avery Brooks was fantastic as Sisko, particularly after they made him a captain, he brought a real authoritative presence to the role, you did NOT want a dressing down from this Captain. Hell I think he even intimidated Worf when the need arose.

No need to think about it. He DID intimidate Worf and then often gave him captaincy of the Defiant.
Great leadership. Great Captain. Heck, great series. Yes, my favourite.
 
I love the original post and can't wait to read the rest of this thread more closely. DS9 is by far and away my favourite Trek. I watched it at a formative age in my teens and loved the politics and complexity - still think it does things no other Trek series has. It is definitely due a rewatch, although I'm a little scared it won't stand up as well as I hope. I also had an enormous crush on Terry Farrell's Dax, was this normal?
 
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I love the original post and can't wait to read the rest of this thread more closely. DS9 is by far and away my favourite Trek. I watched it at a formative age in my teens and loved the politics and complexity - still think it does things no other Trek series has. It is definitely due a rewatch, although I'm a little scared it won't stand up as well as I hope. I also had an enormous crush on Terry Farrell's Dax, was this normal?
No, it'll still be good as you remember, probably even better.

And yes, it was normal to have a crush on Terry Farrell as she was gorgeous, even in fuzzy SD!
 
In my opinion the Alpha Quadrant Dominion war was epic. How many races did it involve? And for what? Oh yes... the Dominion must have their piece of pie. Why? Because it's there. Well, they didn't get it.

Truly epic and my favorite Trek series. And I preferred him with a beard. :D
 
Well the Founders considered the Alpha Quadrant a threat and as the female Founder once put it “What you control can’t hurt you”.
 
It’s been years since I watched DS9 but back in the day it was my favourite Trek, Along with Babylon 5 I loved the fact that they were telling an over-arching story that spanned the entire run of the show, something that was relatively new in sci-fI at the time,

Avery Brooks was fantastic as Sisko, particularly after they made him a captain, he brought a real authoritative presence to the role, you did NOT want a dressing down from this Captain. Hell I think he even intimidated Worf when the need arose.

Think I might follow this example and go for a re-watch..

I'd read the DS9 cast were not happy about Worf being introduced to the show since it overshadowed them but I thought he worked out well and they were able to explore his character better.

I think it's a fantastic end to Rules of Engagement were Worf accidentally destroys a civilian ship except it turns out to be a ruse so Worf is cleared. But it doesn't end there as Sisko goes to him and gives him a harsh dressing down pointing out he made a terrible mistake and was lucky this time...then tells him to go his party, not for him but for the rest of the crew who need it explaining sometimes you have put on a smile when you don't feel like it to keep the troops happy.

I also like the ending to change of heart when Worf has gone back to save Jadzia at the cost of the mission and an angry Sisko tells him he made the wrong choice, it will be entered to his service record and he'll likely never be a Captain. Then quietly admits if that was his wife he would have done exactly the same, it makes them both convincing characters and it's touching when Dax apologies for ruining his career although jokes she might not do the same for him.
 
I love the original post and can't wait to read the rest of this thread more closely. DS9 is by far and away my favourite Trek. I watched it at a formative age in my teens and loved the politics and complexity - still think it does things no other Trek series has. It is definitely due a rewatch, although I'm a little scared it won't stand up as well as I hope. I also had an enormous crush on Terry Farrell's Dax, was this normal?
Initially the visuals do look poor but it doesn't take long to get over that and I think it holds up remarkably well, its continuous format which was ill suited to TV at the time but it's perfect for binge watching now. Its great characters and stories are still great now and I particularly like that it's not black and white, the Cardassians aren't all evil and the Federation aren't all good either.

When I was younger I preferred Voyager on TV as its episodic format was easier to follow unlike DS9 which was randomly replaced by Gaelic children's shows so I gave up trying to follow it. Now though I think Voyager has aged badly, its episodic format didn't make sense at the time given the whole concept of the series was one continuous trip and it seems worse now probably after watching DS9 a few times. Voyager felt more reliant on technology which I think has also aged it badly, I was watching the series 4 episode 'Hunters' the other day...spoilers just in case

which is the one after the Doctor has been sent to the Alpha quadrant over the Hirogen relays which itself makes no sense when a simple voice message couldn't make it. In this episode there's a message from Starfleet lodged in one of the relay stations, it turns out to be letters for the crew which are downloaded individually to pads and then Neelix hand delivers each of those pads to the crew.

When this episode was released in 1998 we did have the internet and we were well beyond simple text transfer so the idea of text taking so long to download on Voyager seems daft but it's made worse by Neelix having to transfer the pads rather than them just transfer automatically to each person instantly.

That seems a contrived example but it's just a general feeling I get from the program that I don't get from DS9 when watching it now although I'm sure there's some examples there but it's more focused on the stories and characters which Voyager couldn't do because it had to be wrapped up by the end of the episode.
 
which is the one after the Doctor has been sent to the Alpha quadrant over the Hirogen relays which itself makes no sense when a simple voice message couldn't make it. In this episode there's a message from Starfleet lodged in one of the relay stations, it turns out to be letters for the crew which are downloaded individually to pads and then Neelix hand delivers each of those pads to the crew.

When this episode was released in 1998 we did have the internet and we were well beyond simple text transfer so the idea of text taking so long to download on Voyager seems daft but it's made worse by Neelix having to transfer the pads rather than them just transfer automatically to each person instantly.
I think you have forgotten what 1998 internet was like. SMS had just become a thing for mobile, if you had internet at home you were likely on dial up if you were lucky or rich you might have had ISDN. When the Phantom Menace trailer debuted a friend and I went to a Internet Café (remember those) to watch it and it still took a while.

P2P file sharing stared the following year in 1999 and video file sharing started probably not long after that. I get what you are saying about the personal transfer but again it is very easy for us to say this in an age when we all walk around with a computer that is more powerful then the ones they used to render the CGI for VOY.
 
I'd read the DS9 cast were not happy about Worf being introduced to the show since it overshadowed them but I thought he worked out well and they were able to explore his character better.

I don’t know how the cast felt privately about Worf joining though I can’t remember reading anything negative about it. I think it would most likely been a mix of nervousness and excitement. The show wasn’t doing that great at the time, Season 4 was seen as a bit if a re-launch and Worf was a key element of that. I imagine some of the cast would have been looking forward to the show entering a new phase but at the same time aware that if it didn’t work out the show’s fate would hang in the balance.
 
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Initially the visuals do look poor but it doesn't take long to get over that and I think it holds up remarkably well, its continuous format which was ill suited to TV at the time but it's perfect for binge watching now. Its great characters and stories are still great now and I particularly like that it's not black and white, the Cardassians aren't all evil and the Federation aren't all good either.

When I was younger I preferred Voyager on TV as its episodic format was easier to follow unlike DS9 which was randomly replaced by Gaelic children's shows so I gave up trying to follow it. Now though I think Voyager has aged badly, its episodic format didn't make sense at the time given the whole concept of the series was one continuous trip and it seems worse now probably after watching DS9 a few times. Voyager felt more reliant on technology which I think has also aged it badly, I was watching the series 4 episode 'Hunters' the other day...spoilers just in case

which is the one after the Doctor has been sent to the Alpha quadrant over the Hirogen relays which itself makes no sense when a simple voice message couldn't make it. In this episode there's a message from Starfleet lodged in one of the relay stations, it turns out to be letters for the crew which are downloaded individually to pads and then Neelix hand delivers each of those pads to the crew.

When this episode was released in 1998 we did have the internet and we were well beyond simple text transfer so the idea of text taking so long to download on Voyager seems daft but it's made worse by Neelix having to transfer the pads rather than them just transfer automatically to each person instantly.

That seems a contrived example but it's just a general feeling I get from the program that I don't get from DS9 when watching it now although I'm sure there's some examples there but it's more focused on the stories and characters which Voyager couldn't do because it had to be wrapped up by the end of the episode.
Re watching Voyager I wonder why it went on for so long although only 2 seasons in when most early series of Star Trek franchise have been poor but think Enterprise early seasons were way better. And wonder why Seska always popping up do the Kazon have way faster ships? By rights if similar speed should have only one encounter, although enjoyed the episodes with her in it.
 
I’ve been re-watching DS9 lately. Great thread and OP @Derek S-H .

Hadn’t seen it since since the first time around In my late teens, one episode a week. I’m about half way through S5 now and loving it.

I always liked it, probably my favourite trek. Re-watching it is something else though. I found the first couple of seasons pretty slow, but there is a marked change of pace from S4 as others have noted. I love the slow building menace of the Dominion threat. I think it was somewhere in S2 that they were first mentioned and for at least a season’s length they are only hinted at and their nature gradually discovered.

It’s so rewarding to see a proper story arc with some time taken over it. Time for all the characters to have their personal journey along the way. I’m not anti Discovery, but it’s like it’s been made for people with ADHD.

The only disappointment is that the picture on Netflix has generally been pretty poor. The first 3 seasons were very soft even for SD. It seems better from 4 onwards. I know that‘s not entirely their fault, but clearly they haven’t bothered to allocate much of a bitrate and everything turns to mush as soon as a darker scene comes along, which is their fault.

It is good to see the special effects get slightly better with every season though.

Anyway, I just thought I’d chuck in my 2 cents. :)
 
I’m not anti Discovery, but it’s like it’s been made for people with ADHD.
Yes, yet another of my pet hates is the recap of what's happened after every commercial break on TV and the first 5 minutes intro at the start. I just record everything and fast forward over the dross.
 
When this episode was released in 1998 we did have the internet and we were well beyond simple text transfer so the idea of text taking so long to download on Voyager seems daft but it's made worse by Neelix having to transfer the pads rather than them just transfer automatically to each person instantly.

While there were questionable tech plot points on voyager I don't think that's one of them.

If I recall at that point they've already been warned off by the owners. If there's the potential of cyberattack but you want to give private messages crew members then it absolutely makes sense to load them onto independent pads.

We know the array is capable of faster rates as it was later used to transmit the doctor. I'd have to re-watch the episodes but weren't the messages you're talking about being retrieved from backup storage rather than a live transmission?

We're told the array is semi-abandoned and given what we later see of the hirogen's priorities it wouldn't be a stretch to say that backup storage isn't maintained and was defaulting to a very slow fallback mechanism.

Just look up the details of the backup communications equipment on recent spacecraft launched in the present day. The low gain antenna on Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover launched last year can manage a just a few bits a second at best:
 
DS9 is perfect if you want TNG trek that is the same but different. The characterisation is fantastic - Dukat for example is a multi layered villain and Garak is pure ambiguity.

It definitely improved in later seasons with the introduction of the Dominion War, introduction of Worf, using the Definant etc etc and they also tarted up the opening titles by adding more detail and remixing the theme tune. At one point Babylon 5 was well ahead of DS9 but overall DS9 became the better series.
 
I know this is OT and there's a dedicated "B5" Thread (which I must properly read through), but I don't think there's any comparison between the two shows.

My (admittedly hazy) recollection of "Bab" was that the first Season was quite shaky, it improved dramatically during the next two Seasons thanks to recasting the Commander role, Season 4 was just treading water with far too much padding, and Season 5 only picked up about halfway through with an exciting ending.

Some of the dialogue was also far too pompous, portentous and pretentious with characters making big, grand statements rather than saying something that felt authentic.

And the special effects! We're talking PS1 level here which have aged really badly.

Hmm. Maybe this needs re-evaluating too....
 
And the special effects! We're talking PS1 level here which have aged really badly.
It’s been remastered in a limited way fir HBO Max. I watched a couple.of episodes out of interest. The CGI is cartoony still in the new HD presentation. The show itself I think had great heights in terms of the foreshadowing/world building, and extremely clunky troughs in filler episodes, and unfortunately some troughs with character moments land smack in the middle of the heights, it can really jar, particukarly out-of-place attempts at humour/levity.

JMS is apparently seriously trying to contact the BBC to take over Dr Who.
 
I know this is OT and there's a dedicated "B5" Thread (which I must properly read through), but I don't think there's any comparison between the two shows.

My (admittedly hazy) recollection of "Bab" was that the first Season was quite shaky, it improved dramatically during the next two Seasons thanks to recasting the Commander role, Season 4 was just treading water with far too much padding, and Season 5 only picked up about halfway through with an exciting ending.

Some of the dialogue was also far too pompous, portentous and pretentious with characters making big, grand statements rather than saying something that felt authentic.

And the special effects! We're talking PS1 level here which have aged really badly.

Hmm. Maybe this needs re-evaluating too....

There wasn’t much padding or treading water in season 4, the opposite. As its future was uncertain and they still didn’t know if they would get a fifth season they packed in two seasons story in the one season. It was a phenomenal season imo.
 
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I know this is OT and there's a dedicated "B5" Thread (which I must properly read through), but I don't think there's any comparison between the two shows.

My (admittedly hazy) recollection of "Bab" was that the first Season was quite shaky, it improved dramatically during the next two Seasons thanks to recasting the Commander role, Season 4 was just treading water with far too much padding, and Season 5 only picked up about halfway through with an exciting ending.

Some of the dialogue was also far too pompous, portentous and pretentious with characters making big, grand statements rather than saying something that felt authentic.

And the special effects! We're talking PS1 level here which have aged really badly.

Hmm. Maybe this needs re-evaluating too....
The genius of S1 of B5 is only seen on rewatches, on first watch it is slow, uneven and even uninteresting, I only watched as it was either this, Home & Away or the News in the Tues 6pm slot. It was only the S1 final that blew my mind and it all clicked into place and I was like "OMG." I can't think of any kind of cliff hanger that had that kind of impact at this point (I hadn't seen Best of Both Worlds yet).

As pointed out you may be misremembering S4, it moves at a breakneck pace and covers the Shadow War, the Minbari Civil War and the Earth Civil War. Due to the fear of cancellation because the network that B5 aired on in the US (PTEN) essentially collapsed, so JMS moved stuff like the telepath arc that would have happened in the background of S4 to S5 and brought forward the conclusion of the Earth war. S5 does get a bum rap the second half is very good.

Some of the dialogue could be clunky but the grand pretentious stuff was delivered so well by Perter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas that I could have listed to them just recite the phone book.
 
A lot of DS9 gets a bum rap as well. It didn't start that well but by flip, much like B5, what a build up and finish!
 
There wasn’t much padding or treading water in season 4, the opposite. As its future was uncertain and they still didn’t know if they would get a fifth season they packed in two seasons story in the one season. It was a phenomenal season imo.
Thank you to both you and @zantarous - yes, clearly, my dodgy memory failed me badly here.

I just recall a Season kind of floating along without much forward momentum, this must have been Season 5 after, in effect, Season 4 kind of concluded the story.

In my defence, I watched the show in the 90's on TV in its weekly time slot. I haven't seen an episode since, but maybe it's something that rewards nightly viewing and a serious time investment, like I did with the "DS9" Box Set.
 
I was one of those that taped B5 on VHS and would watch the episodes over and over, I would buy any magazine that had any articles about the show and knew each episode name by heart in order (no longer the case). Even after the show was done and into the 2000s I was collecting Trading Cards and remember paying $100 for a rare signed JMS special card that only dealers got cause you had to buy a case to get it. I read the novels.

I went to conventions, one of the best was an intimate one which only had like 30 people in a conference suite with Patricia Tallman. She did a signing afterwards and I gave her 4 "Lyta" cards to sign from my collection and I will never forget she picked them up looked at them and then gave me that look that said "You are one of those guys that will live in his mothers basement, be a virgin forever, and rant about you love of Star Trek on message boards." :laugh:

Ah those were the days.
 

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