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

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

the people have spoken. ferengi episodes are good now

lol thanks

Ferengi eps are good. Needed to break up the serious eps.

is it okay if i think of him as captain sisqó

(tbh i will always think of avery brooks as hawk from spensaaah)

a while back i compiled four lists of the most-recommended ds9 episodes (from geek.com, medium.com, thr.com, reddit.com/daystrominstitute, trekbbs.com/daystrominstitute) and came up with a weighted stack of best-loved episodes – season 3 onward. have at it:

http://bit.ly/2nObGKu

Don't skip Vic/holosuite eps either. Don't you dare.

there is maybe one inessential one, but the "Nog returns from war" one is among the best episodes

I only recommend skipping one episode.

https://youtu.be/WY4w0RCZTqQ

From my favorite holosuite episode

https://youtu.be/6hPrxYRzuAg

omg who the hell cut these promos

I remember watching them and ignoring the tone and voiceover to try to figure out who the main characters in the episode would be and a hint as to the plot

Still waiting for the third season leap in quality. Dax's featured character episodes reveal her to be a charisma vacuum, and boy am I tired of the running 'gag' of the Ferengi's brutal oppression of their women. Just had to sit through Jake apologising to Nog for being offended when he treated their partners on a double date like shit.

The ol' stranded back in time double bill was ok though, kudos for some creativity in actually setting it in our future.

such a great show, started a couple months ago and am nearing the end of S3 now

i've watched nearly the whole first season now and idk

imo the only *good* episode was the one with kira trying to evacuate the dude from the moon they were going to energy-tap

i guess every show needs a grumpy competent dude who's secretly nice, but in odo and o'brien we have two

quark is okay, but they keep fucking with his character -- sometimes he's arranging a hijacking, the rest of the time he's secretly a good guy who loves our hu-mans. nog and all of the rest of the ferengi suck

never has a creature with the experiences of a dozen lives been as boring as dax. bashir is a puppy. kira moves from shrillness to shrillness, but that one episode was cool and showed promise

sisko is awesome; keep waiting for him to give someone the d'onofrio head tilt when he issues orders

jake is cool too but i am not a child and do not care about his scamming on girls with dumbass nog

oh hey this evil genius discovered a way to transfer his soul into another person's body and then dax figured it out in a few hours and then we never heard of it again. oh hey these gamma quadrant ppl discovered a way to make everyone eternal with nanobots but we're just going to leave the bajoran high priestess here and gtfo

idk man

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