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

Fuuuuuuck, 'Duet' is so good. Some haters up itt, yo.

I'm finished! Final season spoilers ahead.

I've had my problems with this show and for a while it seemed that despite the increasing gravity of the Dominion war the inhabitants of DS9 were content to carry on dicking around on the holodeck or in the mirror universe, but finally the show rubbed its hands together and got down to business for a pretty compelling season. Nog's holodeck ptsd episode the only Vic Fontaine one not deserving of being destroyed with plasma torpedoes. Some really strong pair-based conflicts towards the end - Worf & Ezri, Dukat & Winn, Kira & Damar. Unfortunately the penultimate episode was a Ferengenoid shitshow and the last one, though a double, felt rushed, Sisko's arc in particular seemed like a complete waste of a 7 season build up. Still, it beats season 6's 3+ Quark episodes, the mirror universe, Vic fucking Fontaine, and "Molly O'Brien disappears in a vortex and reappears as an 18-year-old woman, but she is now feral".

On the whole though I'm going to miss these crazy folks. I might start revisiting TNG...

OMG, how had I never learned before that Alexander Siddig is Malcolm McDowell's nephew?! It's all right there in his face, so obvious!

the last one, though a double, felt rushed, Sisko's arc in particular seemed like a complete waste of a 7 season build up

I think the consensus is that the Sisko conclusion is anticlimactic, though with time and foreknowledge of what ends up happening, the finale feels like a decent conclusion otherwise, especially for the Dominion War.

That said, Ira Behr's original idea for the ending was an enormous missed opportunity: https://trekmovie.com/2018/08/21/ira-steven-behr-reveals-how-he-really-wanted-star-trek-deep-space-nine-to-end-more-ds9-at-stlv-2018/ (spoilers obvs).

I finished the first season, btw, but then I decided to go back and finish up the final season of TNG (which I never completed) before moving on. So I still have a few more episodes of Data hallucinating/dreaming/having a temporary psychotic break (seriously, did these late-period writers just not consult with one another or was this a conscious decision?) until I get back to my Deep Space Cru.

data is a total liability tbh, he should have been fired out of an airlock into the inky vastness after his fourth attempt on the lives of the crew

Seriously, always thought he seemed like a pretty chill dude until the home stretch, I guess starting from the point when Lore reprogrammed him. Now it's like Five Nights at Freddy's on a spaceship.

they did jettison Lore into the inky vastness. it didn't take.

good point

they should have jettisoned both of them into the inky blackness then atomised them with photon torpedoes

thanks for that link Leee. i think i would've been pretty mad if they did that ending though, tbh, lol
seeing little Jakey all grown up still freaks me out

i skipped back to a season 1 episode for some reason, jake suddenly being a little kid again was a shock.

Watched the season 2 ep whispers the other night while high. Great ep

It's starting to pick up a bit.lots of shit in the first couple seasons but season 2 has some bangers for sure

I watched Whispers after reading your post. Good shit! Although I figured out the (pretty obvious) twist annoyingly early.

I wish I still got high, this show seems perfect for that kind of thing.

o shit, odo got laid

gotta be in the top three of worst things to happen on the show.

I watched Whispers after reading your post. Good shit! Although I figured out the (pretty obvious) twist annoyingly early.

I wish I still got high, this show seems perfect for that kind of thing.

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, February 21, 2019 5:42 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think perhaps my cognition was effected because it only dawned on me later in the episode.

it also occurs to me that this episode probably has very little replay value.

the final stretch of season 2 was very strong. I'm looking forward to the later seasons.

I enjoyed how Evil Sisko (or at least in O'Brien's imagination) was hardly less weird than Regular Sisko

This looks pretty decent! https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/15/star-trek-deep-space-nine-ai-remaster/

Halfway through the second season now (wanted to finally finish goddamn TNG until I realized the goddamn Maquis show up in the second-to-last episode, so here I goddamn am again so I can find out who the goddamn Maquis even are). Past Odo on Terok Nor investigating past Kira is some good ass Trek. O'Brien the replicant is some good ass Trek. I like that they seem to be developing O'Brien-Bashir into another Odo-Quark 'I hate your guts except that anyone with eyes can tell that I adore you beyond words' odd couple. Kai Winn is an effing great villain. And I'm apparently not even to the point where the show gets next-level good? Cool.

Anybody read any of the novels and have suggestions? I'm a little curious. But I've only ever read like two Trek novels ever. I have a feeling I'll be a little bit more curious about the post-series novels once I'm done watching the actual show. I like many of the actors and at least some of the characters (as characters, as opposed to entities who catalyze or are catalyzed by the plot of the week) from the previous shows but this is the first time I'm vibing hard with the whole ensemble. Auberjonois might be my favorite. He may have unfair advantage in my esteem from his days as an Altman utility player but the dude commands every time he's onscreen.

Averting eyes from potential spoilers while scrolling up but I see y'all were recently discussing the very O'Brien replicant ep ('Whispers') I just finished. I'm glad I didn't see the twist coming at all. Great, great ending.

Oh! I've read one. Mid-'90s. It's the only franchise tie-in novel I've ever read. I was at a KOA in Maine, and I got food poisoning, and my family left me behind for the day. The novel was wedged beside the dirtiest latrine in Aroostock County. It didn't have a cover, and I don't remember the title. I think I talked about it with Ian once, though.

In the book, some bad one-off aliens slowly infiltrated the entire station and brutally murdered/enslaved the entire crew. Beheadings and burnings and bioweapons, lovingly detailed. Lots of minor characters died, but Jake (I think) spent the middle third of the novel hiding in vents and watching the aliens maim/decapitate the show's main cast, one-by-one, while doling out breadcrumbs of a plan for galactic destruction. And then somehow Jake did some time time-stuff, rewound the clock to before the infiltration and ... failed to stop it a second time. He died just after rewinding the timeline, but second-timeline version of himself found his first-timeline corpse and somehow deduced what was happening. Then, second-Jake watched some of the crew die (again) before second-Jake was convinced, rewound time again, got injured again, but this time managed to utter a few key phrases to third-timeline Jake, who successfully had the info to stop the invasion. The book ended with second-timeline Jake dying happy, convinced his plan worked, and third-timeline Jake setting out to make it so. (D+)

Jesus. That's dark

i've stalled in the fifth season. there are some great moments all along, but somehow i am not inspired to carry on

tbh i think i mostly just don't care about odo. oh, you're grouchy and have daddy problems whatever terek nor sellout bro

I've been increasingly vibing w this show but now the Dominion is here and, well...yes. There's an air of menace lingering in the background, faint perhaps at the moment, but it feels like shit might be getting real. I enjoy earlier Trek stuff but it often has a soporific air (a combination of Roddenberry's indefatigable utopianism + the ever-present ambient hum of a starship's interior) that kept me from being wholly engaged. DS9...you have my attention.

OL > mookie, tbh

(jks of course)

I'm very slowly watching the series, just watched the two-parter that begins the 3rd season and the quark marries a klingon ep after it, and I'm really enjoying the show. it's definitely a bit slow going for a lot of season 1 (although tbh i love the pilot) and the early part of season 2 but has improved drastically since. the introduction of the dominion is very welcome as there isn't really a compelling overreaching narrative yet - bajoran politics, the cardassians, bajoran-federation relations etc. are not hugely diverting imo.

i guess the cardassian-bajoran stuff is quite good, shouldn't have poo poo'd it too much. poster's remorse.

Dude you are literally one episode ahead of me, rad (high fives)

My TNG rewatch stalled mid-season 4 and I’m tempted to skip straight to DS9. I’ve never “vibed hard with the ensemble” (© Old Lunch) so I’m glad that steps up.

Anybody read any of the novels and have suggestions? I'm a little curious. But I've only ever read like two Trek novels ever.

I’ve read a bunch of the PAD novels but no DS9s. Imzadi is classic, obviously; the rest were varying degrees of cheese but the New Frontier short books were fun are probably the closest to DS9 in style (i.e. a bit “adult” as a teen might conceive of adultness). YPADMMV of course.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've only ever read PAD Trek novels. Reading the first original DS9 book (by PAD, natch) atm. It's fine, pretty much like a filler episode. Although also impressive inasmuch as he hadn't seen the show yet when he wrote it and was drawing only from the show bible and a handful of the initial scripts. He captured the voice of the characters surprisingly well.

Yeah, he’s creepily good at that.

I mean, his writing is very often, in a real sense, dreck, but I really enjoy those books.

(And most of the other writers are of course oh so much worse.)

They got Brooks!!!! (Brief spoilers in vid.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4LPDX6uqSM

I want to go to that!

mmmm very tempting

Dude you are literally one episode ahead of me, rad (high fives)

― A Cheetah Drenched in Applesauce (Old Lunch), Wednesday, April 17, 2019 3:25 PM (one week ago) Bookmark

my gf and i went nuts on the rewatch on sunday and monday and I'm now on episode 3 of the 4th season

"rewatch" should be struck from the record, I've never seen this series before

https://io9.gizmodo.com/star-treks-ira-steven-behr-looks-back-on-the-complex-le-1834401786

I'm up to the point in season 3 when Voyager kicked off and I'm wondering: is there any reason I need to start watching Voyager now? Like am I going to miss anything crossover-y if I wait until I'm done with DS9?

No overlap between Voyager and DS9.

Also, don't subject yourself to Voyager.

I'm hesitant to do so tbh.

I like the Maquis stuff and know it carries over to Voyager, and I did watch a little of it when it originally aired and thought it was fine, but I'm still hesitant.

The Maquis storylines evaporate really quickly on Voyager, and the treatment of SF/Maquis is immensely unsatisfying and ill-thought out.

IMO you're better off sticking to DS9, as it dips back into Maquis stuff a little as late as season 5.

Dang the theatrical release is on a Monday??

the portrayal of dukat is so corny

he is the greatest space Nazi ever

Anyone watching the doc in theaters today?

I was very close to doing it, but I'm going to wait for the wider/streaming release.

This is so amazingly perfect and why I'm team #DS9 for life. pic.twitter.com/zPyRkMeAOT

— Charles Evans (@banditref) May 13, 2019

I like both, but stan harder for DS9.