Deep Space 9 interview

[the game]

So I'm watching an interview that the DS9 cast did recently and it's great to hear the cast's thoughts about doing the show. Deep Space 9 and Voyager were great tv shows but I think DS9 was way more of an achievement for a star trek show. The Dominion war arch was just fantastic and all of the characters were all on point for the entire series. The only casting decision I dislike was swapping from Jadzia to Ezri. I liked Ezri and she was a great character when she got going (which she didn't have alot of time to do so), but Jadzia was a much more interesting character.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

• Conceptually, DS9 is great: a broken widower on the brink of rage quitting Starfleet is given a relatively easy job out on the frontier (Starfleet: "Are the Bajorans ready to join the Federation?" Sisko: "No." Starfleet: "Okay we'll call back in six months, keep chilling in orbit, good work."), and is utterly unprepared for the role he is about to be thrust into. He must come to grips with the nature of his existence as an emissary of the Prophets and his role as the Alpha Quadrant's first, and really only last bastion against the Dominion.

Positives

• I love the presentation of the Prophets. We never see their form, only see them speak through people Sisko knows (excellent use of actors btw), and the fluid scene transitions during the visions really helps sells their supernatural nature. It's unfortunate that the show didn't really explore Sisko's role as the Emissary that much.

• It is also unfortunate that we don't really get to see life in the Gamma Quadrant under Dominion rule. They are the Federation's counterpart, but their culture and people aren't detailed. We only get to see their aggressive military in action.

• In the pilot for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the script for Gul'Dukat made him out to be a bland, stereotypical villain, but Marc Alaimo was able to take virtually those same lines and add nuance to the character, make him into a person you cared for. One of the best performances in the series and far and away the most compelling antagonist in the franchise.

• The recurring cast really makes the world feel alive.

• Ezri Dax is one of my favorite Star Trek characters. Nothing was really done with Jadzia; she was just "there", and a really dull character. Didn't have much range either. Ezri is vibrant and very expressive, and has a compelling story. She's really sympathetic, being a newbie Ensign suddenly thrown into an intense situation with a lot of people she has never met before depending on her and treating her like she is more important (due to Dax's accumulated lifetimes of knowledge and skills) while also trying to discern her feelings from the feelings of Dax. Yet, she is optimistic and brings very much needed life and levity to the main cast. It is most unfortunate that she was brought in during the final season, where the showrunners tried to fit her story in to what should have been the final act of the DS9 story. As such, her story doesn't get room to breathe and feels very rushed, and it bogs down the pacing of the final arc. She should've been introduced in season 6, but ofcourse Ezri was completely unplanned in the first place.

Negatives

• Unfortunately, the show meanders a lot. Whereas TNG was a consistently great show - to the point where'd you list to your friend the handful of episodes to avoid - DS9 is overall "fine", where you would list to your friend the standout episodes worth their time.

• I like Odo, but he doesn't have much depth. He's always either talking in a serious, formal voice, or he is growling. He didn't have much range as a character. I really like how in "The Search", he showed anticipation, excitement, wonder, and how he stood resolute at the end.

• I've mixed feelings on Section 31. I like Sloan as a character but hate Section 31 as a concept, as it further makes the Federation just another modernist nation, but in space. Part of the core appeal of Star Trek was that the Federation was near perfect utopia, where you woke up in the morning and didn't have to worry about paying taxes or competing with your co-workers for that promotion. You just did whatever without fear of anything. DS9 had already retconned money back into the Federation and re-contextualized the insane admirals as the norm, reflective of the Federation just being another bureaucracy (looking at you, Admiral Ross), but Section 31 was the final nail. I prefer to think that there is no Section 31 and that Sloan made it up to persuade Bashir; he's just an insane, high ranking, rogue Starfleet officer with access to a wealth of resources who is on a one man crusade to "save" the Federation but whatever means necessary.

• The battle scenes are disappointing. It's just a bunch of ships flying towards and shooting at another bunch of ships, with maybe some technobabble tossed about by bridge officers. It would have been amazing if the battles had been presented as in The Legend of the Galactic Heroes, where we see characters spend time planning out individual fleet movements, orientations, calling out targets to focus fire on, taking into account the geography of the battle (such as a small fleet fighting against a far larger fleet with their back against a Black Hole, baiting the enemy fleet too close, using asteroids and limited sensor range to obfuscate line of sight, etc), and so on.

• The final arc is overall good but the actual ending isn't satisfying. The Pah Wraiths were never developed. Gul'Dukat is infused with the powers of the Pah Wraiths and faces off against the Emissary of the Prophets, but the religious layer of this conflict is never involved in the actual resolution. Gul'Dukat and Sisko just wrestle each other and that's it. Sisko then goes to train with the Prophets/become a Prophet, but this development was never set up, so what ends up happening is that one moment Sisko was going into the battle praying for the Prophet's help and then very suddenly tells Kasidy that he's leaving. In the original script, Sisko was to die, but that wouldn't have been any better given just how unsatisfying that entire confrontation was. If was to die, he should've died like Admiral Nelson, leading his fleet to victory in the final decisive battle, being injured on his bridge as his ship was falling apart (though I would've preferred to see Sisko live, more on that below). The story pretty much ends with the signing of the peace treaty, so we never get to see the impact of the story on the world or our characters. It could've been great if there had been a two/three year time skip where we got to check in with how the Federation/Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians/Dominion were recovering, personified by seeing how our characters have adjusted to post war life. Maybe a Weyoun clone was petrified in fear of being killed by the Jem-Hadar after they were cured of their Ketracel White addiction, only to be spared and have a new outlook on life, and settles on a Dominion world among the people. Perhaps Garak becomes one of Cardassia's political leaders. Perhaps Ezri and Julian had a family. Perhaps Sisko returned to bring the Prophet's teaching to the Federation, etc.