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

Whomst among us has not...

Watched the documentary on the show which I thought was very good. Check it out if you have the chance

Full yet incidental series spoilers but amusing: https://youtu.be/bQPB5xzxlQQ

is ezri dax a manic pixie dream girl y/n

besides the haircut? nah

yes and no

yes outwardly v pixie dream girl
no bc inwardly = old man

manic pixie dream girl old man

i think the inner old man only really emerged when convenient, as with the *insanely* over-the-top joran manifestation or when prodding worf. which is fine

that said i think she and they did a pretty great job with her character

tbf an aspect of mpdg is always ~unknown knowledge~ but hedged behind a social anxiety that makes them accessible to dorks

as i'm rewatching S07 after like a year and a half it seems i too want to live in the holosuite

the inherent thing isn’t “wow I can introduce this girl to things only I know” but “this girl has the secret keys to fixing my internal problems” so she’s definitely mpdg

so say we all xpost

xp you and Nog just chilling in there

I've decided the only way I'll get through this series is by turning my internet-browsing procrastination into DS9 procrastination for a couple of months. Just watched the pilot. It's pretty charming, tantalising setup for all the political stuff, likably stupid but not-TNG-season 1-stupid, and some of the dialogue is... quite good? I think I will split the diff between these two watchlists.

I've seen the pilot three times, when it first came out, for previous failed rewatch sometime in the past decade, and yesterday. The only things I ever remember are the shot of Sisko in the escape pod at the start, Sisko's swimsuit, and the "OW!".

yeah i just rewatched emissary again the other day and that shot from the pov of the escape pod is stunning

For a bad first season, this is a pretty great first season, so I’m excited about when this actually gets good.

I have a watchlist of which episodes to skip, but after watching ”Progress” (moving!) and an actually enjoyable Lwaxana episode (!), neither of which were on the list, I’m thinking I might as well watch the whole lot.

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