DS9 : Better than I remembered. WOW!

[RCmodeler]

I just finished watching 7 years worth of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DVD). WOW. I remembered it was a good show, but forgot just how good. The Dominion War continuing story was excellent of course, but so too were the stand-alone short story episodes. The only "flaws" were season one which was filled with a lot of crap...and the ending to the 6-episode season 6 arc: having the wormhole aliens save the humans was a huge disappointment. Overall though I consider DS9 as the best series ever produced with "Trek" in the title. Solid stories/outstanding acting/tons of variety episode-to-episode.

Final Tally:
DS9: 131 episodes I liked/176 produced = 74%

Comparison:
B-5: 90/112= 80%
DS9:131/176= 74%
TOS: 55/79 = 70%
TNG:105/178= 59%

[Bear]

DS9 is definitely my 2nd fav. series ever, after B5. (Although Firefly and SG-1 are close on the heels of my beloved station-based shows.)

[CRONAN]

I got your Starfleet mandate right here

I dont know if i could put my self through buying $700 worth of star trek, let alone brainwash myself watching it for 176 hours.

One of the things that kind of puts me off with star trek is the push and shove combat, which almost always involve two ships circling eachother, remodualating shields, recalibrating fazors, shooting back and forth and back and forth. Every. Single. Time.

Also, the constant regurgitating of technobable and filler episodes is enough to make anyone uneasy.

Though in all fairness I only saw the first few seasons of Deep Space, so maybe my cynicism is undeserved.

[RCmodeler]

Re: I got your Starfleet mandate right here

Originally posted by CRONAN
maybe my cynicism is undeserved.

Pretty much. When Foundation Imaging quit B5 and moved to Trek, the battles vastly improved (models replaced with computer images). Plus, DS9 copied the B5 arcing story in seasons 5/6/7. About equal to B5 season 2 with stand-alone vs. arc episode ratio. Anyway if you like B5, I think you'll like DS9. They have a similar style where the focus is on *characters* instead of effects.

If you can't justify $700, then just buy the last 3 seasons for $300 which are DS9's best.

[Dr Maturin]

<<If you can't justify $700, then just buy the last 3 seasons for $300 which are DS9's best.>>

Ouch. Save for the final arc eps, season 7 is substandard to 4, 5, 6, maybe 3, and in some ways 2. 2 was a great season. TNG got worse in season 2, but DS9 improved exponentially from its first season. Heck, I may as well rate them.

6
4
5
3
7
2
1

Everyone rate'em!

By the way, if you buy the sets used, you can snag them for a lot less than $700, if you do that kind of thing.

And just so everyone knows, I am selling TNG S4 and S6 and maybe a few TNG goodies all for $150. I only used a few of the discs for episodes I really liked, but I am bored with them now and I have them on VHS anyway.

[RCmodeler]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
<<If you can't justify $700, then just buy the last 3 seasons for $300 which are DS9's best.>>

Ouch. Save for the final arc eps, season 7 is substandard to 4, 5, 6, maybe 3, and in some ways 2. 2 was a great season. TNG got worse in season 2, but DS9 improved exponentially from its first season. Heck, I may as well rate them.

Well the best seasons are 4/5/6.... but if you want to see how the war ends, you have to buy season 7.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Well the best seasons are 4/5/6.... but if you want to see how the war ends, you have to buy season 7.>>

Right you are, Ken.

[RCmodeler]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
Ouch. Save for the final arc eps, season 7 is substandard to 4, 5, 6, maybe 3, and in some ways 2.

I reviewed my notes on DS9... list of my favorite episodes. Here's the breakdown:
season = episodes liked
7 = 23
6 = 18
5 = 20
4 = 21
3 = 18
2 = 19
1 = 12
Ranking: 7, 4, 5, 6, 4, 2, 3, 1

I obviously liked season 7 better than you. I liked the final 10-episode arc, the 2-part premiere, plus the episodes about Ezri, Nog's losing his leg, Bashir's Section 31 trip to Romulus, and Quark's trip to the alternate universe. That all adds up to only 3 episodes that I disliked.

Troy

[Dr Maturin]

<<I obviously liked season 7 better than you.>>

Strangely, you like the whole show better than me going by that.

Here goes mine:

6. 19
7. 19
4. 18
5. 17
3. 17
2. 16
1. 8

But the deal is that, sans final arc, I only really liked 9 season 7 episodes and some of these are iffy. In fact, I was very generous in counting episodes that I liked. The thing about shows like DS9 is that even if the episode sucks, some B story or a single scene can make it worth watching. And most of the time, good old Quark is to be thanked for that. But I still like S4 and S5 best, despite there being less picks in my rankings on them. This is because of the quality and personal interest in the eps I like. The eps I have watched more than any others in the series are "To the Death" and the two-parter "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light." The 7-episode arc from "Call To Arms" to "The Sacrifice of Angels" is probably a close second.

Something DS9 has never done -- and no other show will probably ever be able to do -- is run a whole season of pure excellent programming. JMS did it with Babylon 5's Season 4. I've heard 24 is pretty consistenly good, but I can't comment on it as I've never seen it.

I have my $20 coupon for DS9 S7 and when I purchase it, my DS9 collection will be complete. When I watch it, maybe I will realize I was wrong about some of the eps. We'll see.

Just when I thought I had all the DVD's I'd ever want, they had to release GI JOE and Seinfeld (coming soon). Man, who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?!

[RCmodeler]

I didn't like that final episode "Sacrifice of Angels". To me, having the prophets snap their fingers and disappear the Dominion ships is equivalent to a deus ex machina. I'd prefer a human-based solution.

Season 7's 10-episode arc starts out quite slow. The first two episode nothing really happens...I could probably delete them from my roll.

And finally, it didn't make sense that the Dominion did not pull in reinforcements from the wormhole. If they had, they'd probably smash the Fed/Rom/Klingon alliance. (shrug) Oh well. It made for good entertainment seeing the Cardassian Liberation and destruction.

[jal]

it is better than any other incarnation of trek, but i would put it at the bottom of my list every time, it did get progressively darker and more ambigious towards the end, which i liked, but i measure it against B5 and it doesn`t make the grade for me.

i did watch the entire series, beginning to end, it had less technobabble than the rest, the space combat was good cgi (WAY TO GO FOUNDATION IMAGING! ) but i found the fights to be uninspiring (yes even the big ones at the end were boring).

B5
Farscape
SG1
DS9

[RCmodeler]

Originally posted by jal
B5
Farscape
SG1
DS9

That's a short list. What about Quantum Leap or X-Files or Red Dwarf or Doctor Who or the other Star Treks?

(just curious)

You mentioned Foundation Imaging. It's interesting that they did most of their CGI for Voyager. DS9 did not use CGI until seasons 6-7. All the rest was models! That takes a lot of work.

[Stunaep]

Remind me, was Foundation imaging the company who used stock explosions or the one who didn't (for the most part).

Or for those CGI'cally challenged, was Foundation pre S4 or post S4?

[RCmodeler]

Stock explosions?

Foundation Imaging worked for Babylon 5 seasons 1/2/3. Then they moved to Voyager. Then DS9.

[jal]

That's a short list. What about Quantum Leap or X-Files or Red Dwarf or Doctor Who or the other Star Treks?

didn`t mention any treks as i don`t have any particular fondness for the trek universe, TOS i liked, most of the stuff that came later i found to be too bland to watch more than once.

as for quantum leap, x-files, red dwarf and dr who, well nobody else mentioned them either, so why should i?

but, just to answer your query; red dwarf was a great show, it always had me in stiches, i liked dr who and x-files as well, i never thought much of quantum leap.

should also mention Blakes Seven, a very good show.

one of the people who worked on it was a guy named Ron Thornton, he went on to form Foundation Imaging, the ones who did the cgi for B5, DS9 and Voyager.

if you add all of them to my list you can take it for granted that DS9 is pretty near the bottom of it, everyone has their likes and dislikes, i`m no different.