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Atragon9

Reliving DS9

26 posts in this topic

They say that confession is good for the soul, so here goes. I have never seen all of the seasons of Deep Space 9 (and I even missed some of the episodes of the seasons I *did* catch).

 

Anyway, I am making up for that now and I am watching all seven seasons in as much of a marathon that having a job and a family life will allow. I am almost through the 2nd season and going strong.

 

So, for those who are already familiar with the series, did anyone notice the great version of "Casablanca" they did in Season 2? Episode 18 of that season is called "Profit and Loss" with Quark playing the Humphrey Bogart role (after all, he DOES own the bar), smuggling freedom-loving Cardassians off the station safely. It's a great episode!

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::shades of Galaxy Quest::

 

Know what you mean, though, A9. Sometimes it's just great to watch them through. ::will not fess up, herself ;) ::

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The entire series is in my Netflix queue. I've not seen an episode since the series ended. Plan to do some reliving myself soon.

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I just finished watching the whole series myself recently. It takes a little while to pick up, but I have to say once you start getting into the meat of the series it really does the whole political intrigue thing, and the character development is second-to-none in any of the other Star Trek series.

 

Long live Morn!

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If you can get through Season 1, and the pick up in Season 2.......Seasons 3-6 are fantastic. Some of the best trek out there, I just wish Sisko had been a stronger character, always thought he was a bit of a wuss...I kept wanting the strong 'Hawk' character out of him.

 

It was sad that Season 7 just had a 'rushed' feeling to it....so much trying to be crammed in before they got to the end...there was so much potential to make it an epic ending...but..I just got the feel..how much can we stuff in this 45 minutes.... Still....3-6 were good. (and a good number of Romulans popping up here and there!)

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[quote name='KhreRiovtRex' date='Mar 3 2010, 04:32 PM' post='94970'

 

It was sad that Season 7 just had a 'rushed' feeling to it....so much trying to be crammed in before they got to the end...there was so much potential to make it an epic ending...but..I just got the feel..how much can we stuff in this 45 minutes.... Still....3-6 were good. (and a good number of Romulans popping up here and there!)

 

Season 7 started taking a different approach, it seemed to me that they did away with the standard Star Trek formula where there's one story per episode and the story ended after that and had little effect on the preceding episodes and adopted a more "soap operish" sort of approach. It was an interesting experiment, but I agree, it did seem to make the last of the episodes seem crammed.

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I own up, the only DS9 episode I've ever seen was "Trials and Tribble-ations", and the only TNG episode I've ever seen was "Who Watches the Watchers".

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It takes a little while to pick up, but I have to say once you start getting into the meat of the series it really does the whole political intrigue thing, and the character development is second-to-none in any of the other Star Trek series.

 

That's why I love DS9. I feel I got to know the characters much more than I did in any other series. And not just individual characters, but species as well; such as Klingons, Ferengi, and Cardassians. There was more liberties with this since the location for the most part didn't change. There wasn't the constant "lets fix this problem then move onto the next system" like all the others. Not that I didn't enjoy that as well.

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Let me ask this to the DVD-ers and Net Flixers and Streamers at large: which is the better investment?

 

DS9 or Babylon 5?

 

(I've also never seen all the episodes of DS9, or Voyager for that matter)

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Let me ask this to the DVD-ers and Net Flixers and Streamers at large: which is the better investment?

 

DS9 or Babylon 5?

 

(I've also never seen all the episodes of DS9, or Voyager for that matter)

Well, I have the DVD for B5 and I torrented the DS9. I do go back to re-watch some B5's, not sure if I will with DS9. B5 has the 4-year arc story, so I think the writing is better, but as for the acting... toss up. SFX, I think DS9 is better. Oh, but the aliens are much more interesting on B5.

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For the record, B5 season 1-2 is streamed on Hulu for free and I believe the rest of the series is on the WB website. It's too bad that CBS doesn't let DS9 and VOY be streamed. Guess it's because it's still in syndication.

 

B5 is better than any series of Trek, and that's no knock against Trek - B5 is just that good. I've been enjoying watching the B5 TV movies these past couple weeks.

Edited by Grom

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WHOA WHOA WHOA!!! Are you kidding me? Ok ok I can see the appeal of Babylon 5... Walter Koenig, Bruce Boxlietner (seriously doubt i spelled that right). BUT COME ON!! There is no compasison in my mind between B5 and DS9... for one thing there is 7 years in DS9 and regardless if you thought the first couple of years were slow, there is no other Trek show that by the end of it you knew those characters in and out up and down. The single best character development series Trek or otherwise in my opinion.

 

Babylon 5 was a great show... it's been years since I watched it. So maybe I'm not letting it get enough credit here. But to compare it with DS9 with actors like Avery Brooks, Alexander Siddig, and Colm Meaney, Rene Auberjonois, Terry Farrel - I've never seen a cast that full of terriffic talent, TREK was lucky when they landed this series and yet another of Rick Berman's great inventions. Then Voyager skated along and made me almost dispise the franchise :/ . Anyone else think they shoulda just SHOT Captain Janeway and went home like half-way through season 1??

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Dude....I've got to say this right here as well...... I love both series...however....

 

First off......Garibaldi and Marcus, are much better dancers ...(Huff and I have the photos!!).

 

 

Second, I've already stated I love my of all things Trek, and it's a francise that is over 40 years in the making, and I would not have been here doing this for ...omg...over 16 years now!!! I already stated that I thought DS9 Seasons 3-6 were some of the best Trek writing......but, in the overall scheme of things....if you stood the various shows side by side, Trek has many more non-arc episodes, that can stand alone and not contribute to the overall story. Yes, you have the Prophet storyline, or you have the ship has to get home story line, or ...ick...stop the Xindi...pppfft, whereas in B5, virtually every episode continued the storyline, with about 2 non-arc stories per season. That's what makes the two series different. One is totally ongoing, the other, haltingly. B5 had a better overall story arc is all we're saying, and if you followed it as well, you get to know those characters as well.

 

Third....I'd avoid Huff if I were you. She loves all things Voyager, and you've most likely just made her waste matter list...

 

As for the SFX....Mojo did the effects for both DS9 and for B5, so that's a push, since he did them both.

 

lol

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Okay, so I'm halfway through the series now, watching Season 4. I just came upon some of the videos that actually show the opening credits (in the first 3+ seasons, the AVI files skipped the credits). Just after it says "Star Trek Deep Space Nine," it cuts from a wide shot to a close up of the station and what is the one starship parked at an upper pylon, a Nebula Class ship!!! Sweeeeet!! Is that the same CGI from all seasons?

 

Oh and I do have to say, after watching 80 episodes... Avery Brooks really can't act, can he? He's either angry, barking guy or giddy, uber-happy, creepy-smiler, really creepy smiles. He doesn't seem to have the ability to show small, subtle emotions at all.

::dons his asbestos BVD's and waits::

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Sorry....love my Trek...but B5 wins this hands down.

 

B5 was a character driven show and basically owned. It is by far my favorite single sci-fi series. In my own little pipe-dream, I'd start a B5 sim, because I'd just love to play in that universe.

 

As for DS9 -- it's likely my favorite series of trek, especially after it got rolling. Seasons 4-7 are, imo, some of the best writing and character development in the entire franchise.

 

Glad to see you're enjoying your watch through A-9, but I am going to humbly say you're flat-wrong on Brooks. To me, he made Sisko the most compelling Captain of the franchise, especially once you hit the Dominion War and they began letting the character really be human.

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DS9 remains my favorite of the Trek series. It's hard to say exactly why, since it possessed neither the best Trek characters (TOS and TNG), nor many of the best one-shot episodes (again, TOS and TNG). I think it's because it actually stayed with its stories and dealt with the ramifications. Kirk or Picard could run into a new all-powerful energy race or bad guy one week and then we'd never see them again. (But when they DID go back - Mudd, Best of Both Worlds, Q - those were some superior episodes.)

 

DS9 took two new species, the Bajorans and Cardassians - neither if which I initially cared for - and spent seven years adding richness and detail to them. How I wish we knew as much about Vulcans after five series and 11 movies! They also made the Ferengi - which were so unworkable that TNG punted them as the new bad guys after the first season - into a species that reflected well against the perfect Federation. Later, they expanded the Klingons just as much as TNG did.

 

Then, over the course of a five year arc, they added the greatest threat the Federation has ever faced onscreen - the Dominion. (Yes, and I include the Borg since they got so sissified and easily defeatable by the time VOY was finished with them.) The Dominion were a flip-side Federation that were never truly defeated, just driven from the Alpha Quadrant.

 

And then there were deliciously ambiguous characters like Garak and Weyoun.

 

There are Trek fans who didn't care for the Dominion war arc itself, which is understandable, but I still marvel (not to get too political) at how prescient it was with the concept of how war strains the limits of a democracy. And Ron Moore took those ideas right over to BSG, where they blossomed.

 

Trek has always had one-shot episodes about social and political issues that were either obvious (TOS "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "A Private Little War"), ridiculously one-sided (TNG: "Force of Nature") or deeply compelling (DS9: "In the Pale Moonlight"). I still think about cautionary messages from DS9 episodes. My contributions to Aegis and Excalibur have bene largely centered on continuing that series' races, themes, and context. I think it's that staying power that gives DS9 the edge in my ranking.

 

But Spock is still the best. Since I was a boy, he has been and always will be Star Trek to me.

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Okay...these are personal observations, so take them fwtw.

 

I didn't really like DS9 after the first few seasons. I enjoyed everything Sorehl said - the plot arc, the species, and many of the characters - but the lead female characters were a total disappointment. They deteriorated from gutsy kickazz to preppy and I often felt I was watching a pajama party. 'Course Janeway sealed the bargain, but that's another story.

 

On a very personal level I was sorry to see the Dominion enter the picture. To me, shape-shifters are just too much of a deus ex machina. Want someone to hide? Make 'em a shape-shifter. Not much creativity there. Granted, the rest of the Dominion - the Jem Hadar, etc - had much more potential, so yeah, the Dominion in general added to the episodes (the ones I could stand to watch).

 

Another problem with finding the Dominion was Odo. I felt he embodied the "lost" in all of us. When he discovered his heritage I suppose it should have been a dramatic moment, but it seemed such a let-down. The tragic character who had no "roots" suddenly had roots. Granted, the roots were something he really had to deal with on a deep personal level, the whole moral issue, etc. But I was still disappointed.

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Oh and I do have to say, after watching 80 episodes... Avery Brooks really can't act, can he? He's either angry, barking guy or giddy, uber-happy, creepy-smiler, really creepy smiles. He doesn't seem to have the ability to show small, subtle emotions at all.

::dons his asbestos BVD's and waits::

 

Maybe not so much a bad actor, but a student of the Chuck Norris School of Method Acting? Strong, silent, with a straightforward take on the character/acting with all the presence of a brick wall?

 

Definite creepy smile hovering into leer territory.

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Oh and I do have to say, after watching 80 episodes... Avery Brooks really can't act, can he? He's either angry, barking guy or giddy, uber-happy, creepy-smiler, really creepy smiles. He doesn't seem to have the ability to show small, subtle emotions at all.

 

I'm really excited that I"m not the only person to think this. I love DS9, it's my favorite series out of the five, but I've always felt that Brooks was the weakest part of it. He always struck me as very wooden and his diction is too overly precise to seem unrehearsed and natural.

 

I actually saw him live in a production of Tamburlane in DC a couple of years ago and honestly felt pretty much the same about it, though I feel like his acting handles better on a stage where things are a little more spread out and you have to have that kind of over-the-top preciseness in order to carry to everyone in the room.

 

Interestingly, though, no one else (until now) that I know of who watches DS9 has ever commented about this. So I'd kind of come to the conclusion that I was being oversensitive. ;)

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I'm churning through Season 6 now and not looking forward to it all ending, but still enjoying the concentrated ride. Ronald Moore must love classic films, as I am continuing to pick up more and more references to them. In the last episode of Season 5, when Rom convinces Leeta to leave DS9 for her own safety (the war and all that), there is another homage to "Casablanca." In fact, besides saying "transport" instead of "airplane," it is the exact speech that Humphrey Bogart gives to Ingrid Bergman to convince her to leave at the end of the movie.

 

Now, in Season 6, there is "The Magnificent Ferengi." It takes more than the title from "The Magnificent Seven," it also has fun with copying the process of building up the group of Ferengi that are going on the mission and even copying the Yul Brynner-Steve McQueen bit as Quark and Rom keep counting the number in the group on their fingers and increasing as they pick up another member.

 

Great Fun!

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Call it chance, call it fate, but I stumbled across this thread a couple days ago, just as I finished downloading the first season of DS9, with the rest of them in the queue. Considering that it's my least watched series of Trek, I've decided to give it the honor of a full sit through (partially due to this thread), rather then skip to the Dominion War, which is really what I downloaded it for in the first place. I'm only a few episodes into season one, and I wont pass judgement until I'm a couple seasons in and the characters have a chance to set in, and the first season is hardly a good example of an entire seven year run. (TNG "The Naked Now" anyone?).

 

So for now, I think I'll just add little quips and thoughts as they enter my mind as I begin my journey. First, Kiera's magically changing hairstyle from the pilot to the next episode. Second, O'Brien (Whom I've always held a special place of liking as Star Trek's everyman) continues to shine. "Fix the replicator chief...my console is offline chief...eh...should have transfered to a cargo drone. No people. No complaints." Totally believable as a man who can hate his job every bit as much as he loves it. Third, Odo and Quark's interactions. Pure gold. Any scenes with them interacting seem to make the episode worth watching, even if nothing else worthwhile happens. Thorns in each others sides, who cant seem to function without one another.

 

I'll see how the series progresses. Right now Terry Farrell is pushing the "I'm an alien, I'm not like humans" too hard. Jake, Nog and Bashir are just plain annoying. Here's to hoping they manage to fit into their characters more comfortably down the road. If worse comes to worse, I can always look forward to Worf.

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Okay, so I'm almost done (shucks) and it's true that Season 7 doesn't have the big punch of the war arc constantly and it does have Ezri (sigh). However, I like some of this season's episodes that focus on non-Trek things.

 

There's "Take Me Out To The Holosuite," fun just seeing a whole baseball team of Vulcans; "The Seige of AR-558," for it's classic front-line war movie take; and, of course, "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang," since you get to see everyone in 1960's "period" clothing - brings back memories of "A Piece of the Action" and "Patterns of Force"

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And... I'm done. What a ride, seven seasons, 173 episodes, in less than a month (wow, I need to get a life)!!

 

How to sum up the series, huh? Well, they really had fun using my favorite ship class whenever they could, so I guess I'd have to say that DS9 is Crunchy Nebula Goodness!!

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Get a life? Nope, just a dedicated fan...but poke your head outside just in case, y'know, to get some air? <_<

 

Congrats on the marathon viewing end A9.

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