“Deep Space Nine” is the subject of some amount of debate amongst Trekkies (Yes, I said “Trekkies.” It’s a perfectly cromulent word). There are those who say it’s the best “Trek” series of all. There are those who say it’s not really “Star Trek,” because they’re not on a ship and they don’t actually “trek” anywhere. I’m more inclined to agree with the former than the latter – if we’re using Gene Roddenberry’s usual western analogy and “Star Trek” is “Wagon Train to the Stars,” then DS9 is “Gunsmoke…in SPAAACE!” I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that I think DS9 is the best series of the lot – I have too much overall fondness for both TOS and TNG to give the nod to another show – but it’s still a really well-written, well-acted, fun and entertaining series, well worth watching.
One of my favorite things about DS9 is the way it stands out from the rest of the TNG-era shows, design-wise. Setting the series on a commandeered Cardassian space station was a brilliant idea, because it gave the creative team the opportunity to break out of the mold of Starfleet-issue design, and create something that truly stands out and looks immediately different from “Next Generation” and “Voyager.”
I also think it was pretty ground-breaking in terms of telling a long-form story rather than sticking to the “must restore the status quo within 43 minutes” episodic nature of sci-fi television. Thanks to the Ron Moore connection, you can clearly see the influence of DS9 on “Battlestar Galactica.” It’s a complete narrative, with interesting little side journeys and digressions, but you can follow a clear through-line from “The Emissary” to “What You Leave Behind.”
So, without further ado…
Top Five Deep Space Nine Episodes:
5. By Inferno’s Light: Finally. After many years of hearing about what a badass Worf is and then seeing him get tossed aside by every monster-of-the-week who comes along, we finally, finally get to see Worf being a total badass. Worf, Bashir, Garak and Martok have been captured and imprisoned by the Dominion. Garak has an opportunity to send a secret distress call, but he needs time to work on it. In order to buy him time, Worf engages in a series of hand-to-hand battles with the Jem’Hadar who guard the prison camp. Worf keeps fighting, his injuries mount and Bashir pleads with him to stop, but Worf simply refuses to yield. Finally under orders to kill the at-last-beaten Worf, the final Jem’Hadar delivers one of my favorite lines from the entire series: “I cannot beat this Klingon. I can only kill him. And that no longer holds my interest.”
4.In the Pale Moonlight: Though this episode is really focused on Sisko entering Garak’s world of espionage, double-crosses, and manufactured evidence, it’s truly summed up by the brief early moment between Sisko and Quark. Trying to convince Quark not to press charges against an unsavory character who Sisko and Garak need for their plot to bring the Romulans into the Dominion War, Sisko offers Quark a hefty bribe, obviously disgusted with himself. Quark cites the 98th Rule of Acquisition: Every man has his price. It’s one of the classic “Star Trek” themes – the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. Is the potential benefit from bringing the Romulans into the war greater than the cost of Sisko’s own values? In the end, he tells us (by way of recording his personal log), “a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I’ll learn to live with it…Because I can live with it…I can live with it.” Avery Brooks is good enough that it’s clear that he’s desperately trying to convince himself that his words are true…and failing.
3. Tears of the Prophets: One of the best cliffhangers in the entirety of “Star Trek,” because it ends not with a bang but a whimper. Gul Dukat has murdered Jadzia Dax – and I, for one, had no idea at the time that Terry Farrell was leaving the show, so her death was really shocking to me. Utterly shattered by her death, Sisko requests a leave of absence and heads home to Earth. There’s a great callback to the previous season’s finale, in which Sisko had left his baseball behind in his office when the Cardassians took the station, as a warning that he was planning on coming back to get it. This time, he’s taken the baseball with him, signaling to Kira that he’s not sure he’s ever coming back. The episode closes, rather than with dramatic music and a big, “Mr. Worf…fire!” moment, with silence. Sisko sits in the alley behind his father’s restaurant in New Orleans, scrubbing clams. It’s a great moment, leaving viewers as uncertain about the future as Sisko himself. Usually, “Star Trek” characters – especially captains – are required to be strong-willed, resolute, single-minded. This show of doubt was a bold and brilliant choice by the writers.
2. The Visitor: One of the best father-son stories I’ve seen on any television show ever. It’s a bit technobabbley, but for once the technobabble is at the service of a great story instead of just a deus ex machina to wrap things up in the last act. Yeah, I don’t know about wormhole inversions and temporal anomalies and all that stuff…but I can definitely understand Jake’s obsession with saving his father, and Sisko’s desire to see Jake live his life. Sisko’s dawning horror at the end as he realizes what Jake has done is another note-perfect moment from Avery Brooks. I’m also a sucker for glimpses into the future – so I love seeing the return of the uniforms from TNG’s “All Good Things…” and bad old-age makeup on Dax and Bashir.
1. Far Beyond the Stars: This episode is a bit of a strange digression from the usual for DS9 – a bit like the TNG episode “The Inner Light” (only not vastly overrated) in that it’s mostly a departure from the usual setting and plot. What really sells this episode, though, is Avery Brooks. He’s absolutely phenomenal here playing Benny Russell, a black sci-fi writer in the 1950s who is asked to “sleep late” on the day of the magazine staff photo in order to keep readers in the dark about his race. I think, actually, I’d like the episode even better if they had been even bolder about it and just dispensed with the silly framing sequence with Sisko “being sent a vision by the Prophets” or whatever it is that’s supposed to be going on here. Why not just do something completely out-of-continuity, a stand-alone episode that gives us a little glimpse of how far the science fiction field has come in forty years, a nod to the history and a fun little “spot the actor” game? Why try to shoehorn this marvellous story into the overall DS9 plot? Oh, well. Even as it is, it’s great.
Filed under: star trek week, top five | Tagged: star trek week, top five
