Hey readers, this installment of TVQuesting is going be a little different. Instead of giving you some choices for stuff to watch in any given category I’m going to tell you something specific. Something some of you might not agree with. Something that will shake the very foundations of what you know and love.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series to date.
Star Trek: The Original Series was groundbreaking in a variety of ways. It was what established Star Trek as a thing. It promoted the idea that a starship captain better be trying to hook up with every alien species his ship encounters. It had that episode with the Tribbles in it. It had the first scripted interracial kiss on American television. There’s no arguing that the first series was excellent.
Star Trek: The Next Generation had a bunch of sweet moments as well. It introduced Q. It spawned dozens of memes. It dealt with serious topics all the time, including characters dying, robots getting their groove on, and mid-show capitalized on the jump in quality that became available for television shows. Where The Original Series tended to finish an episode and return to status quo for the next episode, The Next Generation had a bit more of a stricter continuity. Things that happened did, in fact, happen. How many times did Kirk and his crew mention Tribbles after that whole situation? How many times did somebody have to deal with the death of Tasha Yar? There’s the key difference.
Star Trek: Voyager was my favorite series for a very long time. Voyager felt like it had taken the strict continuity to the next level simply because of how the story was set up. They were stuck in the Delta quadrant, always attempting to make it back to Earth. There were characters joining the ship that had histories and ties to the Delta Quadrant which kept coming back around in future episodes. There was a hell of a lot of time travel, which is always fun. Those same characters had flaws they needed to overcome, far more than characters from previous series. You had a pilot who was a reformed criminal and half a crew that were terrorists up until the start of the show. The Next Generation had a neurotic guy and a big dude whose problem was he was too honorable.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine image via FanPop
I had always skipped watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine though. It just seemed antithetical to the premise of the show. Star Trek was supposed to be about a crew on a ship, rolling around in space and meeting new aliens. DS9 instead was more focused on life on a space station. Sure, it had elements of Star Trek but mostly it was just the life and politics centered on and around their station. Then I decided to sit down and watch it through as a marathon, and realized, ‘Holy shit. This is amazing.’
DS9 might as well have not been a Star Trek series. Let’s just put that right out there. Obviously, it having the Star Trek setting helped immensely in setting up what was going on, but all of the faction drama between Star Fleet, the Klingons, Bajorans and everybody else is almost secondary to why DS9 rules. Let’s break it down a bit.
Sisko as The Emissary of The Prophets: This was a subplot through the entire show, and one of the coolest plot devices Star Trek has ever had – and it would work completely without the Star Fleet stuff. If I remember correctly every explanation as to why he was The Emissary was vaguely worded enough that it basically became ‘because he was there’.
Sisko and racism: Dude was the first black lead in a Star Trek show. That’s pretty bad ass. But this could have been any other show and still dealt with issues of racism in as cool a way as DS9 did. There are a few episodes where Sisko hallucinates he is a man in the past named Benny Russell, a science fiction writer who has to deal with prejudice and racism as part of his job, and life. The one specific episode focusing on this hallucination is probably the most powerful piece of science fiction television I can remember ever watching.
Bajor’s rebellion and joining The Federation: I mean, let’s pretend for a second that this was some other space opera. Backstory on The Occupation, the cruelty of the Cardassians, and all of the events that unfold because of that would be just as compelling if they were aliens called anything else.
The invasion of The Dominion: This one is easy. In-universe it’s one of the coolest story arcs ever. It’s like Wolf 359 stretched over an entire arc instead of one climactic event. There are tons of battles, fleet maneuvers, and most of the Alpha Quadrant allying together to drive the Dominion out. And it could have happened in any other show.
This is the point I’m driving at. The other runs of Star Trek are Star Trek shows. They need to be Star Trek shows in order for them to work. It’s all about a Star Fleet ship out in space, doing the Star Trek thing and wrapping up inside an hour. DS9 can stand right alongside those in terms of the series, but I would make the case that DS9 transcended the formula.
It could have been an excellent science fiction show on its own. Being a Star Trek show just propelled it to the top.
Think I’m wrong? Got a good reason why one of the other shows is better? Hit up the comments. Let’s get some serious nerding out going on here, readers.
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