My partner is into DS9 and suggested we watch some last night. For some reason episode 1 was not available on Amazon Prime.(?) We watched Past Prologue and A Man Alone. As someone who is only barely familiar with the Star Trek universe, here are my thoughts:

  • Sisko is a fantastic leader and also terrifies me. His smile makes me uneasy. “Go over my head again, and I’ll serve yours on a platter.”

  • Kira’s morality is super questionable and I’m amazed they didn’t kick her off the station after episode 2.

  • Bashir is a dork and also needs to take a hint and leave Dax alone. Clearly they aren’t interested.

  • I do love Dax as a sort of early mainstream media conversation starter on gender. The Trill overall are just a brilliant way to frame the idea of how gender and sex work.

  • It’s rough seeing Odo so accustomed to hatred. When he just dips behind a glass door to watch as a mob call for his death…

I’m surprised by the level of dysfunction in the crew. I sort of always saw Star Trek as a bunch of Space Paladins that always did the right thing but in DS9 everyone has their own motives and interests and it’s super interesting to watch them come together. I think I’ll keep watching and see where things go.

  • QHC@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    TNG had some multipart episodes and some plot lines that ran across the better part of a season, but the entirety of DS9 takes place against a continuous plot line.

    “Entirety” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, IMO. While there is a general setting and eventually a serialized plot, it really doesn’t get to the point where there’s a continuous story until at minimum season 3 and in practice doesn’t stop being episodic until even later.

    Even once the main baddies are introduced–which does not actually happen until the final episode of season 2–there are still multiple self-contained episodes that have nothing to do with any kind of ongoing story or character development.

    Don’t get me wrong, compared to TNG and even Voyager or Enterprise, DS9 definitely had a story in mind that took multiple seasons to tell, but it’s not like things were carefully known from the beginning. Lots of details change or are quietly retrofitted to fit better once the writers knew where things were actually headed. And that’s fine, by the way! There is still a great story to be told.