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

We've had a couple of DS9 threads before, but they were mostly about specific characters, so I think the the series deserves one of its own. And since it's been recently added to Netflix outside the US too, I think it'd be nice to discuss it with people who are watching it for the first time, or rewatching it like I'm doing at the moment.

And since this thread should be friendly to new viewers, let's try avoid spoilers if possible, and mark any posts with spoiler with an appropriate warning. I think it's okay to mention names like the Dominion or Pah-Wraiths, but please don't discuss any twists and revelations about them without a spoiler warning.

I'm in the middle of rewatching the first season, and since I remembered it being as poor in quality as the first TNG season, I've been a bit surprised that there are actually several episodes that are quite good or even classic (besides "Duet", who's classicness is widely accepted). "Past Prologue", the second episode (third episode in Netflix, since they use the production order rather than the airing order) is already very good and touches several of the themes that will become unique to DS9.

OTOH, you also have eps like "Babel", which are okay but feel more like rewritten TNG scripts... Maybe that's why the first season feels so spotty, because it has more TNG-style, continuity-free episodes than the later seasons, where the big plot arcs start to roll.

The "weird space phenomenon of the week" type of plots work in TNG, but I don't think DS9 finds its own flavour until it de-emphasizes those in favour of galactic politics and intrigue.

I do not accept the classicness of "Duet"!

Like, maybe I'm showing my ignorance of WWII history, but I can't imagine that

*SPOILERS*

an accomplice to genocide would be so wracked by guilt that he'd go to such radical lengths to force a war-crimes reckoning -- seemed like precisely the moral corrective that victims of genocide / retrospective capital-H History would fantasize about.

*END SPOILERS*

If that episode was in a realistic WWII series, I would tend to agree, but this is Star Trek! It's an allegory, a moral fable, and I think it works very well as such.

I mean, one of the main themes of the entire franchise is that our better nature can in the end overcome all the horrible things we've done. I wouldn't want a ST that's cynical in that regard, that's for some other sci-fi series to do.

I love watch Jake grow up over the first few seasons. He's so young at the start! Brooks has discussed it before, but he had a real bond with Cirroc Lofton and it really shows as their relationship develops.

I wouldn't want a ST that's cynical in that regard, that's for some other sci-fi series to do.

That's what DS9 turns into in the 6th and 7th seasons though, no?

Maybe for some stretches, but in the end not really, because...
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(WARNING! SPOILERS FOR DS9'S FINALE WILL FOLLOW!)
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...the whole series ends with the rather optimistic and Star Trekkian idea that the Dominion can be reasoned with, that they can learn to understand solids and eventually change their oppressive ways.

I just rewatched the 1st season episode "Battle Lines", and I hadn't realised before that Jonathan Banks (aka Mike from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) has a major role in it! He plays the leader of the Ennis, one of the two warring factions the protagonists come across. And he conveys a similar cynical and bitter amusement as he does with Mike, I guess that's really his forte. Perfect casting!

Watching the pilot. Sisko explaining the dictionary to dimwitted transcendental beings is hard going.

Yeah, I always found that bit tedious too, and it didn't feel very credible either: if the wormhole aliens don't understand certain concepts because of their non-linear existence, how is explaining them with different words gonna help?

That said, the payoff to that scene ("then why do you exist here?) is still pretty great and moving.

idk because language is multivalent and certain words/phrases might get routed differently through the universal translator

Goddamn it I still have to finish my TNG rewatch don't start this thread now :)

idk because language is multivalent and certain words/phrases might get routed differently through the universal translator

To me that scene felt like the wormhole aliens were communicating to Sisko directly via telepathy, so the universal translator wasn't involved. Presumably the aliens' language is so different from humanoid ones that the UT can't even process it.

oh yeah, I forgot all their interactions take place in mental dream time

Yeah. Also, for some inexplicable reason the aliens only want to talk to Sisko, while they immediately send Dax away from the wormhole. I guess they're afraid of cooties?

Just a couple of episodes in but to my surprise I am enjoying not hating the low budget soap opera feel.

I think DS9 actually had a reasonably large budget for its era, with the virtue of being a Star Trek show. Certainly most the effects still look pretty good, especially when you compare them to a lower-budget show like Babylon 5, whose CGI would nowadays look crappy even in a budget video game.

The big exception I guess is Odo's morphing, which does look silly, but I think those effects were state-of-the-art back then. And you can see budget cuts the show took later on from the fact that in later seasons Odo often doesn't morph even when it would make sense him to do so, or he morphs offscreen.

Ok low stakes rather than low budget - Keiko becoming a schoolteacher is hardly JR getting shot. I know, there's plenty of high stakes galactic political intrigue to come.

Ok, I get what you mean, and I myself like these low stakes stories too. DS9 has a great ensemble cast, and I like how they, unlike TNG, often build the drama on personal interaction and avoid the Weird Space Threat of the Week altogether. Plus the lower stakes make sense considering the stable setting. With the Enterprise, they can sorta justify meeting things that endanger the ship or some random planet every week, because they're constantly on the move, but it'd feel ridiculous if Bajor was constantly under some new, previously unheard of cosmic threat.

The low-stakes stories don't happen till much later in the series IMO, because nearly every episode in the first couple season strike me as having an existential threat shoe-horned into it (see that one where Dax is hazing a Trill would-be initiate and accidentally breaks space-time).

I just rewatched "Progress", which is an excellent example of a first season episode with low stakes. (Okay, if Mullibok stays on the moon he will die, but it's obvious they'll beam him up against his will before letting that happen, so the whole point of the episode is really just the moral dilemma his stubborness causes Kira to face.) But you're right that they do become more prominent in later seasons, when the writers are more comfortable in not following the narrative traditions of earlier ST series.

Trying to do this properly and not skip any but I'm in the middle of the first season slump and things are only going to get worse:

Deep Space Nine is put in jeopardy when the crew's thoughts manifest themselves, and such figures as Rumpelstiltskin appear.

The Federation ambassador from Betazed, Lwaxana Troi, visits the station, and develops an affection for Odo.

Can't I skip them? Pleeease?

It's all part of a rich tapestry, ledge

You cld comfortably skip ahead to the first episode w/ the Jem'Hadar, tbh

you can skip the rest of the first season except for Progress and Duet imo

i wouldn't skip much in season 2, there's some fun throwaway episodes there

Those are both good episodes! You do have to have a taste for camp, though.

The Rumpelstiltskin episode is skippable (it's pretty much a TNG style "weird space phenomenon of the week" story with no larger importance), but I wouldn't skip the Lwaxana episode. It ends up subverting our expectations of the character, and Majel Barrett is wonderful while doing that. Plus it has some important character revelations about Odo. The Lwaxana eps in DS9 (there's a couple of more to follow) in general are better than her TNG episodes, because they treat her less like a joke.

And you definitely shouldn't skip to the first Jem'Hadar episode! In the second season the quality of writing gets better, and the opening three-parter has some very important plot development w/r/t Bajoran politics that will resonate right until the end of the series.

I wouldn't skip the Lwaxana episode

damnit.

Progress was ok, critical character development for Kira, that guy was a dick though.

The Storyteller prob the worst I've seen so far. Fatuous group psychology + ludicrous deus ex machina.

Yeah, The Storyteller's A plot is probably the worst in the entire series, except for "Profit and Lace".

WARNING! SPOILERS ABOUT "PROGRESS"!
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I love how "Progress" subverts the viewer's expectation of what sort of a story it's gonna be, i.e. your typical "the underdog is always right" tale where were supposed to root for this one stubborn guy and forgot about the utilitarian alternative, and instead it turns into a lesson for Kira that sometimes siding with The Man is the right thing to do.
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I love how Quark's life is saved when he bends over to pick up a nickel.

I do not accept the classicness of "Duet"!

I second that emotion!

Can you elaborate?

i like Duet but agree that it is pretty contrived

I like Duet, too. It may be contrived, but it's far and away one of the strongest episodes of the first couple seasons.

I actually had to think about which episode it was, since I always confuse it with Waltz. (Mentally filed under "heavy episodes where two characters square off moralizing against each other.")

Contrived and hammy. I liked the camp survivors standing round all dressed in rags to elicit maximum sympathy.

Kira and Dax notwithstanding this show is being hella sexist right now. Sisko and O'Brien land on a planet and find some earth people marooned there for ten years. One guy says 'I used to be an engineer!', another guy says 'who won the soccer?', a woman steps forward and says 'what are the latest fashions?' smdh. And don't get me started on the Ferengi, a bit of light comic relief from a species who oppress their women in the most contemptible fashion.

That episode with the marooned dude was pretty good though, until the final insulting two minutes.

*dudes

trek gotta trek

i enjoyed the 3-parter opening season 2. that evil religious lady is a good villain!

I think the Lwaxana episodes are good curatives to the usual Trek sexism, IIRC.

on the recommendation of the ILE tastemaking consensus and because I am into day five of being sick as a goddamn dog, I've now set my sights on climbing this mountain of a show. Damn but it is a lot of episodes. I'm about 8 deep into S1 and it strikes me as mostly ok trek, if a little boring. I barely remember watching it during it's orginal run, and couldn't have stuck with it for more than part of S1 and a few into S2 or 3. I find it the kind of show I can watch with my eyes closed. As long as I have the dialogue I can fill in the rest. So far I'm liking Quark mostly because he gets picked on way too much. Kira yells 100% of her dialogue and Dax is to date perhaps the most boring trek character ever created. I'm sure I'll see things change. Anyway, I'm in.

Lwaxana episodes are getting better and better, carrying over from TNG (outside that ghastly drowning kid one). it quite enjoyed seeing her paired with Odo, it's kind of a perfect match, and their little adventure together was very endearing and sweet.

i recall one bad lwaxana episode that was one of the worst of the series but the other couple she's in are fine

11/28/1994. Fascination — A mysterious virus causes the DS9 characters to begin falling in love with each other on sight.

this was the bad one iirc

good god that's going to be a terrible episode on any version of Trek, save the TOS, where it would be hilarious

Kinda surprised if it wasn't used in TOS already, TNG had "The Naked Now" right?

I've just seen 'the captain (commander) falls in love with a ghost', that was pretty bad

i really thought the first season was not bad, although it absolutely does get better. a better first season than TNG imo (I just did the TNG rewatch, i prefer it slightly to DS9 overall but it's fairly close for me).

I'll go to bat for DS9's first season, even "Move Along Home!" And DS9's Lwaxana episodes put her TNG episodes to shame, because in the latter, she's basically a "LOL old harridan" but DS9 gives her emotional depth and shading.

I will only recommend one episode to categorically skip, that being "Profit & Lace" i.e. the trans-Quark lol emotional wimmin episode, which is irredeemably awful and objectionable.

Ok I have to watch that now. Move Along Home was very silly but not unenjoyable, so miles better than early TNG nonsense. Basically almost every one of the main ensemble is a fun character actor, so it’s enjoyable watching them even when the stories r dumb.

Oh no what have I done.

haha profit & lace was the only episode i skipped when i watched the series -- hadn't even heard anything about it, just saw the preview and thought 'that sounds terrible'

yeah i wouldn't skip anything in DS9, there's a couple stinkers each season but those watch guides throw away tons of good ones just because they're lower stakes or whatever

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Profit_and_Lace_(episode)#Reception, which has this delightful nugget:

This episode received Star Trek 101's "Spock's Brain" Award for Worst Episode of Deep Space Nine.

my main complaint about the early seasons is that they wouldn't let sisko shave his head

Ok maybe I’ll skip it. Or...

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/d/d9/Quark_as_Lumba.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3hrW3jVkAAD5K_.jpg

Whats this from? Orville?

‘the making of star trek deep space nine’ by judith and garfield reeves-stevens

I was just confused by all the non-ST refs there lol.

I named a piece of software “emissary” recently and the icon is Sisko, lol

Nice

prune juice: a warrior's drink

just watched the ep where they accidentally set off the station's panic mode left by the cardassians and omg it's so good, you learn more about garak in like 10 seconds than he'd revealed in the entire show up to that point, had to have been such a gag when it came out

https://t.co/4kPK1NYbPA is saddened to learn of the passing of Camille Saviola. Camille made her mark on the Star Trek Universe as the incredible Kai Opaka. She will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/TTgDmdYJIp

— Star Trek (@StarTrek) October 29, 2021

Never noticed that Garak is the guy from Hellraiser (and many other things, as noted elsewhere on these boards.)

yeah he’s a great character actor! i love when he pops up in old shows.

my personal fave is his “zodiac but not” killer in Dirty Harry

My brother in law gets up early with the baby and has been going through Deep Space Nine so I also have pic.twitter.com/1HlGcSae27

— Kate Beaton (@beatonna) April 16, 2023

lol

Not wrong

Kate Beaton is so good

yes, excellent

i don't really agree with this much -- she hates 'the visitor' for one thing -- but here is one person's take on the essential DS9 episodes

https://bsky.app/profile/regretagarbo.rip/post/3k7utwqt25p25

Spectacular take "deep space 9 is incredible because it’s about what if a shitty strip mall was an ancient religious site and also the pentagon"

https://bsky.app/profile/jordanjamboree.bsky.social/post/3kansp625232i

that site's not public

The post is what ET quoted, so you're good.

Just got to "The Die is Cast" in the third season. This show totally - the only word I can think of - rocks. It got way better, way quicker than I was expecting.

Special lol at the Starfleet boss taking Sisko down, after Sisko goes rogue: "If you pull a stunt like that again, I'll court martial you or I'll promote you -- either way you'll be in a lot of trouble."

It's so great.

Some of the early takes itt are absolutely bewildering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Ux34qQyn0

happy 82nd to best beloved garak, a simple tailor

love him so much

I'm going out on a limb and say this is the best thing uploaded to YouTube in the last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ7Kk1z0_Gc

happy bell riots day

https://i.imgur.com/lq5ssT2.jpeg

rip vic fontaine ;_;

It’s crazy how there’s loud spaceship white noise in the background of EVERY scene of this show. I usually forget about it - but when I hear it, it’s like remembering you breathe or blink - it suddenly gets 100x more noticeable (before you forget again).

I’m very slowly going through this show - I’m up to the (excellent!) Dax ex-wife episode in S4. Worf has integrated into the cast pretty seamlessly so far.

“Vic and Nog go to Sears” signed print, “Vic and Nog go to Sears” signed print, $255

https://i.imgur.com/7gMJg33.jpeg

lol it's actually just $25 (and i do not draw a commission from this, i just saw it on bsky)

that's... something!

rip harris yulin

'duet' was the first great ds9 episode imo

aw damn, RIP.

https://i.imgur.com/jWcf3Ax.jpeg

i know he was supposed to be over-the-top, but even so: incredible line readings

I read this whole thread last night just waiting for you to end up liking the show, mookieproof. It was a genuine drama. The main lesson I take from it is that every criticism is completely apt, but I apparently have a huge soft spot for the now-obsolete tropes and weaknesses of old-school 30-episodes-a-year TV. Genuinely love and miss the way that stuff worked, up to and including stuff like failed side episodes and long theatrical budget-conscious monologuing on standing sets. I think I rambled about this a bit on the Strange New Worlds thread? The quality of a show becomes more about its static elements, its world and characters and tone, an arrangement that kinda obviously suits Star Trek productions.

Also I must be a sucker for that "Inner Light" / "Visitor" type of thing, because I even like the ending of that feral-Molly-O'Brien episode. Discussion of the show's O'Brien-torturing always revolve around the psychic prison stint or the fact that he sees his own dead body like 3 times across the course of the series, but the feral-Molly thing is actually up there!

The moment from this series that I probably think about the most = Dukat casually calling Kira on her dead mother's birthday and being like "hey, I was just thinking about how today was your mom's birthday. Interesting thing about me and your mom..." (They did a lot of great and nuanced things to develop that character, but the undertow that he was always trying to win the love and affirmation of the occupied by getting with Bajoran women was a fantastically interesting one, culminating in that equally memorable moment in the Pah-Wraith cult episode when the baby is born.)

I’m just mid-season 4 in my slow rewatch and got to the two-parter Homefront/Paradise Lost, which, imo, is the first real clunker in a consistently great season - which is a shame, because it’s just such a rich text! It’s a Starfleet conspiracy episode that somehow manages to allude to almost every aspect of American history over the next 20 years: 9/11, homeland security, Iraq, the pandemic, trump, the January coup…

(Xpost, I’ll come back and read that when I’ve finished season 7!)

Suprised I never commented much in this thread given I did a first-watch of DS9 a few years back over a few months.

I wouldn't call it my fave Trek, and my (contentious) opinion is that, at its heights, babylon5 did the longform story better, but DS9 had some really good moments. The whole Dukat/Kai Winn thing, especially how it ended. Nog's war fallout. Any time Weyoun was on screen. Iggy Pop! That early episode with the Cardassian who pretended to be a war criminal guy because of his unbearable guilt.

i did end up liking it, quite a lot! there's some stuff i dislike about the first couple seasons (bashir was almost unbearable, quark *really* should have been put away for letting that dude on board to steal jadzia's symbiont, and thank god they finally let avery brooks shave his head) but they were still better than those of TNG/VOY/ENT

that said, i never liked odo -- he was a fascist! -- and i thought the writers used keiko's character very poorly. and all of kira's boyfriends were stiffs. but! damar's season seven arc was great, they eventually figured out how to use worf (except for that horrible episode on risa) and i even truly liked ezri. won't even complain about vic fontaine! and of course garak is incredible

i guess i kinda pick on the weak spots because i think it's pretty great but could have been even better