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

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"!
.
.
.
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.
.
.
.

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 liked that one! (Nice to see Sisko get his mack on imo.) And I liked the love virus one too!

DS9 is like TNG in that the show's quality jumps noticeably in the third season.

watching an episode where they find a planet that shifts in and out of another dimension, but their time in the corporeal dimension is shorter every time

as a result, at least one of the inhabitants is.... way horny

he asked dax how far down her spots go and she was like "all the way"

I think the best part of that character is recognizing when you can get away with a tryst because you've honed ephemeral relationships over lifetimes lol

now watching that episode where Dax is working with a trill who was a partner in a previous life

that moment when you'reworking wwith a partner from a past life and they hot as fuk

idk Dax invites Bashir as a neutral third party and why is he not trying hard for a weird trill threesome thing because damn

and TFW you find out the actress that played Lenara also was the Borg Queen in Voyager episodes...

lol of course

I'm closing in on the end of S2 and the show is finally getting more interesting. I've enjoyed how they reference earlier episodes as the characters' understanding of events unfold. The 2-part episode about the Maquis was the best yet. I'm appreciating Gul Dukat and basically the overall shiftiness of the Cardassians.

last episode of S2 is where the 2nd of the show's two overarching plots starts iirc (the first being the bajoran/cardassian political situtation)

Dax hardest to cast because it is hard to find actresses who are beautiful and can act who will do television

http://trekmovie.com/2009/08/26/rick-berman-talks-18-years-of-trek-in-extensive-oral-history/

lol what!?

One of the people transferred in this starfleet coup plot is Snowden, lol

this looks cool. Berman briefly talks about producing this in that interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOSU6QJrOs

"This program is about some of the alternative ways of attaining civilization - different myths, different truths -- even different realities. And it's also about people who lived outside the western world who have some important lessons to teach us all".
Jamake Highwater

Join Jamake Highwater as he explores differences in how American Indians and people of European heritage experience themselves and their environments. Illustrated through contrasting views of time, art, medicine and dance, Primal Mind identifies important distinctions between a mind rooted in respect for nature, sacred myths and rituals, and a mind that strives toward achievement, order and the desire to rise above nature.

http://mashable.com/2017/02/09/deep-space-nine-documentary-news/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#yGmFz7DRQiq3

Netflix is producing a documentary on DS9, and then there's also this:

“A big part of it is Netflix,” said former DS9 show runner Ira Steven Behr, who is now producing the new documentary on the series tentatively titled, What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek Deep Space Nine (a nod to the shows’ final episode, "What You Leave Behind"). And, in a special twist DS9 fans will love, Behr reassembled the show's writers to create a story for what, in another universe, might have been the first episode in a never-produced season eight.

Behr and his production team are launching a $145,000 Indiegogo campaign on Thursday to fund the project and, he hopes, help them complete it for a winter 2017 release. Adam Nimoy, who produced a loving documentary tribute to his father, the late Leonard Nimoy ("Spock" from the original series), is on board to direct.

I'm sure they'll get the funding, but I can't imagine this "episode" will be any good... Seems unlikely they'll get many of the original actors, and even if they did, it'd be pretty weird to seem them almost 20 years older. But if they get new actors to play the parts (so that there's no timeskip), that'll feel weird for fans too. Sounds like lose-lose situation to me.

The whole cast has aged remarkably well. And half will have heavy makeup on. Now do I really want Nana Visitor to cook me dinner? Probably need to decide today.

I looked at some recent interviews of them, and you're not wrong! So I guess it could work, provided they manage to get all of the principal cast to join. (Who would want to do see Odo without Quark, or vice versa?) They'd have to use Nicole deBoer and not Terry Farrell though, unless they want to jump through some ridiculous plot loops... But I'm fine with that, I think deBoer did great with the limited time she had, and the main reason people hated her seems to be that she was not Farrell.

Just animate it, problem solved. (I doubt they'll do this) Happy to see this and the doc

http://2kclbr2v3jm326dz4b2vjriu81d.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CGI-Peter-Cushing-620x349.jpg

i'd watch the shit out of a muppet episode of ds9

Are they suggesting that they're going to actually produce an episode? I read it as the writers just writing a script.

Still doing this but at a much slower rate than before. Just finished season 2, pretty good run at the end. One reminder of bajoran political intrigue (not as dull as it sounds), one reminder that the cardassians really are eeeeeeevil (just in case garak was contributing to a false sense of security), and then an introduction to the badass jem'hadar.

so if i were to watch this, do i need to start at the beginning? heard tell that like tng, it doesn't settle in until season three. i saw a few here and there back in the day; i know who everyone is

and what should i know to skip over, like wesley/lwaxana episodes in tng

not really looking forward to cardassian facial divots and ferengi teeth every damn episode tbh

you have to start from the beginning - it sets up Sisko & DS9 in relation to the Enterprise, etc and gives a lot of context.

it's much more watchable from the beginning than TNG & finds its groove very quickly imo

SKIP NOTHING
WATCH ALL OF IT

:D

when does sisko grow the goatee

i forget but he has it by season 4

you do have to start from the beginning but if you really wanted to you could probably skip all of the season 1 episodes that aren't about the Bajoran/Cardassian political situation. i think season 2 is actually pretty solid.

you can skip the Quark/Ferengi episodes at all points, most of them are pretty lame and none are essential to the story arcs iirc. the one in season 6 that had Iggy Pop in it is the only one i would watch again

boooooo disagree!

disagree disagreee

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