Anybody else think this was the best Star Trek ever? It was the only show to have a real continuity between episodes (OK this really happened late in the series).
Best acting and story line of any series.
Definitely. TNG’s usually considered the pinnacle of the Trek franchise but it was a little too episodic. Not to mention utopian.
Give me the gritty realism (ignoring the Bajoran mumbo-jumbo) of DS9 with its rich tapestry of characters over the Villain of the Week of Voyager and The Next Generation anyday*.
*TOS doesn’t merit any mention and I haven’t seen enough Enterprise to comment on it.
I think the continuity thing is great, but I can’t catch every episode of any series, so I appreciate episodic programming as well. I don’t think that there’s one right way to run a series, and I’m glad there’s been some variety in Star Trek.
DS9: Half of the episodes were pretty good. The other half - the ones used as “filler” episodes that took a little detour from the overriding plot - sucked. And the Bajoran sailship was ridiculous. And it was a ripoff of Babylon 5. But it was much better than Voyager… though that’s not saying much.
Yes, DS9 is the best Trek, even better than TOS.
I have watched all five series, and all Trek shows are either incredibly stupid or incredibly intellegent and real. The good episodes usually teach a good moral or lesson on life in our world.
I know of two real stupid DS9s, one is where Kiko’s unborn belly is somehow transformed into Kira’s body, and the second is where Bashir and O’Brien capture the Section 31 asshole and had to go inside his brain when 31 was comotose to find a cure for Odo.
I love any episode that has to do with Quark and the Ferengi. Pure sitcom madness. I also like the Dominion war, and many other episodes. DS9 is usually funny, intellegent, and good science fiction.
SP
Deep Space Nine at its best is intriguing, intelligent and thrilling in a “will the mental strain do him in?” sort of way. At its worst, it’s downright boring, condescending, and amazingly full of itself. I’d say the latter happens more often and is more likely to stick to the mind than the better episodes, which of course is a definite disadvantage. As Shep Proudfoot rightfully pointed out, the episodes revolving around the Ferengi are laugh-out-loud funny (love the episode in which “Vorta” Iggy Pop raises his hand and says “I am the Passenger” without even blinking). All in all, the negative tends to outweigh, I’m afraid.
Even counting the numerous “silly” episodes, the best Star Trek series IMHO is Voyager. (Although in all fairness, I haven’t seen Enterprise yet, and surprisingly little of TNG) Nothing matches the terror of the great unknown as a handful of personality-lacking idiots try to find their way back home (okay, some sarcasm there. But overall, it was a good show).
Having said that, I’m still waiting for the day when Enterprise starts airing in Europe.
For everyone knocking TOS, remember: there wouldn’t have been TNG, DS9, Voy, movies, novels, Trekkers, etc… without it.
Some of the characters of DS9 were just irritating (Kira, Odo, Kai Winn…) others were fascinating in later shows (Bashir, Jake, Sisko…).
So far, the best Treks have been individual episodes in TOS, TNG, Voy, DS9, and some of the movies.
DS9 was my favorite of all the Trek shows, and my favorite TV show for several seasons.
Unlike most people who like it, though, I prefer the early shows. I’ve just been watching the 1st and 2nd seasons again on DVD; while they have some trouble finding a direction to take the show in at first, and there are some lame episodes in there, the best shows of this era are at the heart of what I loved about DS9. Some examples: “Duet,” “Necessary Evil,” “The Wire.” There was a darker side to things, a grittiness, some moral complexity. There was also the suggestion that the wonderful, perfect Federation wasn’t always right. The main characters didn’t all get along. I suppose it was only natural that they’d become closer as they worked together, but I liked Kira’s disagreements with Sisko, and that everyone was annoyed by Bashir.
I enjoyed the first three series, but I really got into DS9 moreso than the others. The original Star Trek was fun, Next Generation was pretty cool and imaginative, but DS9 was just captivating. At first, it was as episodic as any of the other series, but it had some great characters. Otto was pretty damn cool to begin with,and I liked seeing the developement of O’Brian. But most impressive was Sisko. His voice in itself was just amazing. THIS is what a captain/commander is supposed to sound like.
The show just got incredibly better once continuity and an actual story started to develope, and once the war storyline came up…damn! This show was just great. The characters developed even more (even Bashir became interesting), the interpersonal relationships were better than any of the other shows, and the battles were VERY impressive. Sure, there were a lot of really stupid episodes even later on (pretty much everything dealing with the alternate reality), but there were still some very impressive episodes apart from the war at that time as well.
I do have to say, though, i was rather dissappointed with the way they finished it off. But it did prove that Sisko was definitely the badest ass mo-fo out of all the commanders in the Trek series so far.
The best Star Trek show ever (although I have to confess That I have never seen TOS).
TNG
Worf: Sir the romulans are raising us, they want us to surrender
Picard: Romulan commander can’t we just ge along, as Shakespeare once said “peace be unto you brother”, that is the essence of our federation, loving each other and raising few kids while enjoying the benefits of our classless society… BLA BLA Bla.
DS9
Worf: Sir the romulans are raising us.
Sisko: Arm torpedos and prepare to blow them of the sky.
No point of comparison.
I too was dissappointed in the end of the series. Gul Dukat was wonerdfully evil, and he was wasted. “Killing” Sisko was a waste. The Bajoran stuff was used too much; the time travel orb, for example. Overall, my facorite series. Garak lives!
I would have to agree, of the 4 Star Trek series Deep Space 9 was the best out of them, for the reasons mentioned above. Also, it was a show that was willing to take risks and had some truly bad ass moments. Two I can think of are the Klingons attacking DS9 (when Worf joined the crew), and the season ender that had a massive fleet assembled to attack the Jem’hedar. But that being said, Babylon V drove me away from DS9. After really watching B5, I just had a really hard time going back to DS9, which is unfortunate since I missed the last 2 seasons, well there’s always DVDs I suppose.
I just got the first season DVD set of DS9 (in the really cool R2 packaging). I started watching the shows (which I hadn’t seen since they were first broadcast) and I was reminded how much I hated Kira. A lot of the credit goes to Nana Visitor. She mentions in interviews that she was a stage actress first. It shows. In a bad way. Way too much Method acting for me. Every emotion is wrung out like a soggy dish cloth. She could’ve dialed it back a little bit.
I really liked Garek. Andrew Robinson has a knack for playing slimey, disagreeable characters (he was, as you may recall, the villian in Dirty Harry and later played Liberace - how’s that for range?).
It took a while for Sisko to grow on me. Same for Dr. Bashir.
I liked Odo pretty much from the start, but he did seem to be a bit grumpier early on. Quark was okay, because you knew none of his scams would work (with a few exceptions).
Keiko I could have done without.
Marc Alaimo was brilliant as Gul Dukat, though. One of the best Trek villians.
Well, I have to weigh in here, because DS9 is definitely my most favorite TREK series (so far :)). I grew up with TOS (which I watched during it’s -original run- thankyouverymuch LOL no age remarks, folks!), and was a ST “purist” until 1992, when I started watching ST:TNG. IIRC, DS9 started in 1993 and I watched it from the beginning.
I love Avery Brooks as Sisko! I can’t think of a better actor for the role and Brooks carried him quite well, rising above the writing again and again (IMHO). I enjoyed stories about the Bajorans and loved the setting of DS9 because there were so many possibilities with all the different beings who passed through the station. And I absolutely love the Ferengi! They couldn’t do enough stories about them, for me. 
I really loved “Moogie,” Quark and Rom’s mother.
I do enjoy Enterprise; probably the sole ST series that I haven’t really liked as much was Voyager, but I still watched. LOL
One of my favorite Ferenghi scenes is Quark and Rom carrying the working cloaking device through the station.
Okay, I know you’re trying to make an incredibly clever point (like there is no sequel to Highlander. Har har har.) by discounting one of the five series, but would you please tell us which one?
There was far too much airplay given to “Vic Fontaine” in the later seasons. He’s a freakin’ hologram, people!
Him singing Just the Way You Look Tonight in the final episode as Bashir and O’Brien look wistfully at each other was just creepy.
DS9 was also my favorite of the Trek series, despite some of its weaknesses. It had the best battle scenes (massive fleet battles that even the movies haven’t been able to match), the most consistency, and the best overall plot of any of the series thus far. Voyager had potential early on, but rapidly wasted it.
And while I see what NoClueBoy is saying about the Original Series, I have to disagree that this means we can’t criticize it for its faults. TOS was remarkably inconsistent from one episode to another, and while it had a few truly excellent episodes (“The Doomsday Machine”, “Gary Seven”, “Balance of Terror”, “City on the Edge of Forever”, among others), it also had more than its fair share of stinkers, and had no real overarching story. I have no problem with saying that DS9 was better television that TOS, even though the former would not have existed without the latter. In fact, one of my favorite DS9 episodes is the one in which members of the DS9 crew go back in time to take part in “The Trouble with Tribbles.” A true classic, with some great funny moments (especially addressing the disparity between TOS Klingons and more “modern” representations of Klingons.
Some of my favorite DS9 episodes were the Klingon war 2-parter, the one in which Odo regains his lost changeling abilities, the one in which Dukat makes himself into a Bajorran religious leader, and most of the Dominion War episodes, particularly when Sisko has to surrender DS9 for a while.
I do agree with Bryan Ekers that Vic Fontana was an overused character later in the run, but he wasn’t a bad character for all that. Just used too much. However, the last episode was actually pretty good, ignoring the overly long “farewell song.” The last episode of TNG was the best of all the series for me, but DS9 remains my favorite series overall, because of stronger characters and a better storyline.
Oh yes, thanks <b>Archernar</b> for catching my um… clever point. Ok fessing up, I just completly forgot about Enterprise. So to correct the post, DS9 is the best of the six Star Trek series (don’t want to leave out the animated series lol).
Pssst: JB, they don’t call it “Star Trek Enterprsie”, just “Enterprise”.
This rebuttal courtesty of Carnivorousplant.