Several more years have passed, and after I tried and failed to get into
Star Trek: Diversity Discovery, I decided to re-watch a couple of the series, namely
Voyager and
Deep Space Nine. In the interest of full disclosure, I am still working my way through
DS:9 as I write this, and I am just starting season 5.
Voyager, on the whole, still holds up fairly well for what it is. Alas, it suffers from the same problems I have with
TNG. It is mostly episodic, and it leans heavily on the reset button, in that events from previous episodes have little to no lasting effect. The series contains some great episodes, fairly good character arcs, but as I noted earlier in this thread, perhaps some of the worst episodes of any Trek series. It's a good cast, with Janeway and Seven getting the best overall arcs, while Harry Kim easily comes in dead last in that regard. Poor Harry.
Voyager's later seasons deliver some of the best Borg content, but the show's over-reliance on the Borg can also be listed as a shortcoming.
Voyager was never able to elevate its own antagonists (namely the Kazon and the scavenger race, whose name escapes me at the moment) to a level that did them justice. Unlike...
Deep Space Nine.
DS:9, while having perhaps the most uneven season 1 of all the programs, steadily improves over time, culminating in the fantastic (from what I recall, as I am not yet there on this re-watch yet) Dominion War, arguably
Star Trek's finest serialized run of episodes ever. I recall back when this series first aired, my
Star Trek watching friends and I found the serialized format annoying, as we were all young and super busy wasting our time in other ways, so we couldn't dedicate ourselves to catching every episode. The show also flew in the face of what made
Star Trek, well,
Star Trek at the time. There was no ship (although a ship, the Defiant, eventually shows up), no actual Trek to speak of, and at first, the cast came across as abrasive and in the case of one character, annoying and melodramatic. This combination had us dropping the show entirely pretty quickly.
Fast forward to 2019, and the format problems are actually more in line with television today. As far as serialization, the show was truly ahead of its time. Also, it's Not so Trekkieness has also proven to be a boon, as after
Voyager and
Enterprise, the whole crew on a ship exploring space thing has been done to death. This fact alone would be enough to keep it interesting today, as its whole frontier town on the edge of hostile territory format would keep it feeling fresh, this isn't where
DS:9 stopped with its unique attributes.
Ben Sisko is perhaps the least archetypal, and therefore most human of the captains. His emotional aspects are primarily driven by a tragedy (the loss of his wife at the hands of Picard, no less), and of the two primary roles he ends up taking on, that of the Federation Commander of
DS:9, as well as the B'joran Emissary, he doesn't actually want either role. In fact, due to the machinations of his wife's demise, he views the Federation with a modicum of disdain. Sisko is a man of duty, however, so he does his job when asked. Alas, he is a far cry from Picard's dedication to flag and station, or Janeway's almost over-the-top, I can solve any problem instantly Uber Captain. For this reason, Sisko comes out of the gate with plenty of depth, something that only deepens as the show moves along.
The rest of the characters range from good to great. From Odo, the sort of town constable, to the nationalist Kire Nyres, the gruff, slightly xenophobic Miles O'Brien, wise-cracking and tough Jadzia Dax, and Mr. starts weak but is eventually great Dr. Bashir. Let's not forget Armin Shimmerman's excellent turn as Quark, and last but certainly not least, Cardassian tailor Garek, who is more than he seems...or is he?
TNG alum Worf eventually joins the cast in season 4, where he slides right in and becomes a great regular cast member.
DS:9 is also the only
Star Trek show to actively involve both commerce and religion into its mythos, with a fair amount of the content involving these concepts. Time and time again, the show subtly presents multiple points of view when conflict arises in these arenas, and then let's the viewer decide what to think about it. This is pretty much the opposite of what I have seen in ST: Discovery, which hammers its viewers with current day political issues, usually presented from one point of views, and then insists there is only one correct way to approach the issue. Remember, back when they aired, the Star Trek shows were considered outspoken progressive programs. Today, they seem more center right on today's political compass.
Add to this the introduction of the Jem Hadar, and the Founders, along with a fully realized and multi-dimensional fleshing out of the Cardassians, and
Deep Space Nice emerges as the most well-written and most fully realized show in the Star Trek universe. I don't know about anyone else, but
DS:9 has won me over as the best of the bunch, standing the test of time, and still delivering thought provoking and interesting science fiction ideas. The sands of time have not been kind to
TNG and
Voyager, but these years later, for the best of Trek, make mine
Deep Space Nine!
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