In the three years since losing his wife in the battle with the Borg at Wolf 359, Benjamin Sisko has grown detached from most everything but his son Jake. Now he's been assigned to command a remote space station, abandoned by the Cardassians in orbit of Bajor... and this may just be the last straw before he leaves Starfleet for a civilian life. But then the spiritual leader of the Bajorans, Kai Opaka, sets him on a quest that may change everything for him, Bajor, and the galaxy: he must find the Celestial Temple, home of the god-like Bajoran Prophets.
It may be for the better that I didn't start watching Deep Space Nine again until Discovery came along, because Star Trek's newest series provides interesting context for this older one. Many of the criticisms leveled at Discovery today were leveled at Deep Space Nine back in 1993. It's so dark and gritty. The theme song isn't adventurous enough. The characters don't feel like a happy family. Where's the "boldly going?" Why do they wear different uniforms? Deep Space Nine grew into something amazing, of course, despite these initial signs that turned some Trekkers off. Here's hoping Discovery does the same.
Deep Space Nine was designed to be different, of course. The creators felt they couldn't have two exploring starships on two different series at the same time, and so deliberately designed this "Western in space" show to be The Rifleman to The Next Generation's Wagon Train. Deep Space Nine would stay in one place and have to live with consequences, where the Enterprise could just forget about the ramifications of anything they did and warp to the next adventure.
The creators did want to use some elements of the parent show in the spin-off. They'd hoped to bring Ro Laren over as the station's first officer, but actress Michelle Forbes turned down the offer, not wanting to be tied to a single series for years. (Major Kira was created in her place, and this was likely a better thing for the show, having a Bajoran character who was not a Starfleet officer.) The creators also decided to have a Trill in the main cast, though the makeup was redesigned from its original Next Generation appearance after two days of filming, once the executives decided it detracted too much from Terry Farrell's appearance.
But mostly, Deep Space Nine was intended to be new and different. And it would include a mix of Starfleet and non-Starfleet characters, to skirt Gene Roddenberry's edict that future humans wouldn't have conflict (the lifeblood of good television drama) with each other. The rough circumstances of life on the station would also give the human characters permission to be less than their idealized Starfleet selves. This falling apart alien station, a steampunk-like contrast to the comparatively antiseptic Enterprise, made it okay for O'Brien to kick the machinery, for Bashir to unthinkingly flaunt his privilege by calling someone's home a "wilderness," and for Sisko to not want to be there at all.
Right out the gate here, we have Sisko and Kira feuding with each other. We have Odo sparring verbally with Quark (though it's the performances of Rene Auberjonois and Armin Shimerman that rightly shade this for comedy rather than venom). We have Kira and O'Brien bonding over, essentially, racism -- a mutual hatred of Cardassians. You even have the star of this new series actively hating the star of the existing one, depicted in Sisko's anger (irrational, though understandable) at Captain Picard over the death of his wife. (For Picard's part, this is a truly terrible reminder of the worst event of his life.) I suppose if one could only see Star Trek as what The Next Generation was offering, then yes, this was a real shock to the system.
But there were ways in which this first episode of Deep Space Nine actually wasn't all that different from the series that spawned it. Many of the elements introduced here were also part of The Next Generation's pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint." You have characters with one kind of past relationship now trying to forge a different one. (Riker and Troi; Sisko and Dax.) You have a single parent who has lost a spouse trying to raise a kid alone. (The Crushers; the Siskos.) There's an "outsider" character who doesn't know the full details of his origins. (Data; Odo.) Some characters aren't introduced until partway through the episode (Riker, Geordi, and the Crushers; Dax and Bashir.) And then there's the fact that Deep Space Nine would actually go on to have a mostly "Next Gen" first season of not-always-inspired adventures of the week.
Still, a lot of what would become core to Deep Space Nine was here, in some form, right at the beginning. Religion played a major role in the story, for the first time in Star Trek. Recurring characters, significant and minor, appeared for the first time: Dukat, Nog, and barfly Morn. Quark is conniving, and less of a caricature than Next Generation Ferengi. Avery Brooks is pouring his soul into an emotional performance. Kira is all hard edges and emotional barriers.
Not everything gels right out of the gate, though, and the script itself isn't top notch. The emotional content of the scenes with the wormhole aliens is great, but the actual dialogue is rather rough. (Does Sisko really do convincing a job explaining the nature of linear existence? I mean, if you really have no understanding of it at all?) And not that this show ever pretended to have a "grand plan," but various details here, major and minor, don't quite fit with things we later learn. The Prophets would later be revealed to be much more in touch with existence beyond the wormhole than you'd ever guess. Sisko's father, though established here as a chef, is implied to be either dead or retired. Dax's previous host would eventually be said to have died in a far less peaceful (but happy; ahem) way. Quark's makeup looks different (with Armin Shimerman wearing the prosthetic for his brother Rom). Still, there's much more good than bad here, and plenty of promise for the future of the series.
Other observations:
- This pilot had a huge budget for the time, particular compared with The Next Generation's premiere. You see the money on screen in lots of location shooting, and in the on-screen realization of the Battle at Wolf 359. (In Next Gen, we saw only the aftermath.)
- The captain of the Saratoga is played by J.G. Hertzler, the actor who would go on to play Martok in later seasons of the show.
- O'Brien's goodbye to The Next Generation -- first, to the bridge itself, and then to Captain Picard -- is a wonderfully poignant moment for fans of that series.
- The idea that Sisko and Dax see different landscapes when they exit the runabout inside the wormhole is an interesting one, but isn't really explained. My thoughts: maybe Dax sees a paradise because she's happy to be out there exploring, while Sisko's desire not to be on the station at all is reflected in the bleak wasteland he sees.
- Michelle Forbes wasn't the only "first choice" actress to turn down a role on the series. The creators originally sought Famke Janssen to play Dax, but she too didn't want to be tied down to a series. Interestingly, the character Janssen played in The Next Generation would clearly inspire the redesigned Trill makeup.
2 comments:
Wow you're actually going through this whole series again? You seemed to slow down towards the end of TNG and I thought that meant to were completely fed up with it :)
What a racist article.
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