Deep
Space Nine Season 1 is a Bit of a Hot Mess
By
Kristin Battestella
Yes,
many elite fans find the second Star Trek
spinoff series Deep Space Nine to be
superior Trek TV. However, when the show first began in 1993, I
found myself disinterested and never went back.
Now, we’ve decided to try this debut season again, and thus far, DS9 still has a lot- perhaps too many-
growing pains.
Cardassia
has finally withdrawn from its half-century occupation of the planet Bajor, and
the Federation sends widowed Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) along with
his son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) to the newly rechristened space station Deep Space
Nine to ease the transition for former resistance fighter Major Kira Nerys
(Nana Visitor) as Bajor rebuilds towards Federation membership. Also along on the Federation’s frontier are
newly reassigned from the Enterprise Chief
Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) and a fresh out of the academy doctor, Lieutenant
Julian Bashir (Siddig El Fadil). Sisko’s
old friend, a Trill named Dax (Terry Farrell), joins him as they discover the
first known stable wormhole- a passage to the Gamma Quadrant created by aliens
worshipped as prophets on Bajor.
Interstellar trade, tension, and exploration to the newly contacted
region are only the beginning.
Whew!
It all sounds magical and promising, I know. Unfortunately, the writing and
storylines from longtime Trek producers
Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Ira Stephen Behr, and their team are awfully slow
and dry. There’s a feeling of busy space station happenings off screen- but the
viewer gets to see a lot of Star Trek:
The Next Generation filler instead.
At worst, it’s too much of TNG’s
leftovers; at best, there are too many TNG
déjà vu similarities. It’s as if the
direction and initial planning for Deep Space
Nine is torn at the foundation. Yes, we want DS9 to attract Next
Generation fans- the akin science fiction ideals and explorations are there
of course. Out the gate, however, DS9 simply
doesn’t have the allure. Core characters
here are too broadly written, with little more than their bland show profile
information given. Though interesting,
the titular “Dax” feels like an inferior “Measure of a Man” trial, and “Q-Less”
completely screws the fun out of prior Q appearances. Likewise, Deep
Space Nine’s built-in Bajoran and Cardassian nucleus feels barely touched
upon except for the solid “Past Prologue”, “Duet”, and “In the Hands of the
Prophets.” Looking back, even the Trek crew admits the inferiority of this debut season, but it
doesn’t take much to see it. Useless episodes like “Move Along Home”, “If
Wishes were Horses”, and “Dramatis Persona” are dream/games/crew possessed and
acting weird shows that do nothing to advance narratives or characters. Of course, this format is nothing new in
genre television and especially Trek.
In fact, such unusual or diversionary bottle shows are often welcomed- but later
in a series, when one can deviate from the firmly established source. In this first season, how many people going
wonky on a space station bottle shows can one have before the audience realizes
we know nothing about the players? What’s going on on this space station and
why should we care? Perhaps “Babel” is the exception
here, as it comes early enough in the season to show viewers how our players
react in a crisis. Otherwise, the episodes themselves are uneven, imbalanced,
or poorly planned depending upon which characters are leading the A and B
storylines. Some parts and players in
some shows are better than others, creating a serious inconsistency. In today’s desperate and changing television
model, these 19 episodes would not have survived in syndication or on cable,
much less prime time. DS9 stands up
best when it sticks to its own budding Bajoran/Cardassian mythos, creates
interesting characters on its station, and explores the unique SF concepts
within those dynamics. It is quite ingenious that we’re supposed to see more politics,
religion, spiritualism, disagreements, and confrontation on DS9 instead of the longstanding ideal Trekdom.
So why is this first season deviating from its plans with funny filler knock
offs every other episode?
Naturally,
the cast is hampered by all this indecision.
Avery Brooks (Spencer for Hire)
is the man, and yet Benjamin Sisko- a mere commander despite DS9’s increasing strategic importance-
is meh. It’s surprising because we know Brooks can be so glorious, but Sisko is
too dry, made too everyman and uninteresting somehow. Despite a lovely father and
son dynamic, Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko is inexplicably barely there, too. Why
are we not seeing this unique
relationship if the show is about life on a space station? It is mostly juvenile
adventure when we do see Jake, yes. Fortunately, he and Aron Eisenberg as the
young Ferengi Nog are a lot of fun together. It’s not the annoyance of Wesley
Crusher on TNG at all, and it’s as if
the writers don’t know what to do with their players. Sure, Trek audiences already know and love
Chief O’Brien, but Colm Meaney really only excels in “Captive Pursuit.”
Otherwise, he’s the same old lovable Chief with lots of techno babble to do,
and again, it is a little weird that a would-be lowly NCO has a barely there
team for his pseudo chief engineer role on a space station. Likewise, one would
presume his wife Keiko would be a major character on the show. But alas,
Rosalind Chao is only a guest star, leaving Keiko more often than not just an
on-camera dialogue reference. You would think there would be a lot of use for a
botanist from the Enterprise to grow plants on a space
station, but apparent not so on Deep
Space Nine.
Thankfully,
Armin Shimerman (Buffy) as Ferengi
bartender Quark and Rene Auberjonois (MASH)
as the shape shifting head of security Odo know their characters’ unique
complexity and bemusing antagonism. Ferengi
centric episodes like “The Nagus,” with Wallace Shawn (Clueless) as Zek, enlighten us with wit and otherwise new and
unseen Ferengi intricacy and charm. Though
also fringing on a ‘Data esque’ feeling, “The Vortex” and “The Forsaken” are
great Odo shows. He’s special, he’s crabby, he’s alone, and the seed is there
for years of fine development. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Terry
Farrell (Becker) as Trill Jadzia Dax
and Siddig El Fadil (24) as Doctor
Bashir. We can forgive the changes to
the Trill design, sure, but Dax isn’t very interesting beyond her spots.
Seriously, she does almost nothing but sit in the same place and press
buttons. And Bashir, I must say, seems
like a real jerk, even a quack. He
almost always doesn’t know what he’s doing, and nearly every case is something
he has never dealt with before. Really,
how can a junior grade lieutenant be your only doctor anyway? Part of the stagnancy
in DS9’s first season is simply that
the undercooked players aren’t developed or even that likeable. Wild card Nana
Visitor (Wildfire) as Major Kira is
both annoying on her Bajoran high horse and layered with sympathy, anger, and
pain. Beyond “Progress” and “Duet,”
however, too little time is spent with Kira’s history and wartime complexity.
We know we’re supposed to like Bajor and hate Cardassia, but recurring guests
Marc Alaimo (Hill Street Blues) as
Gul Dukat and Andrew Robinson (Dirty
Harry) as the supposedly simple tailor Garak add much more dimension. Honestly, the audience wonders why they just aren’t
regular characters.
Looking
back on these early 1993 models and computer effects, any flaws are forgivable.
The visuals are, in fact, just fine most of the time. Unfortunately, the set design and costumes
are woefully futuristic nineties dated. I know it is meant to be a clunky Cardassian
space station, but Deep Space Nine doesn’t look well. The Promenade is supposed to be a bustling
interstellar hub, but it’s kind of bland and underdone. Instead, Operations has
a lot of cluttered and useless Cardassian design for the sake of it junk, and Quark’s
Bar looks like a dated discothèque. Now that I think of it, we don’t really see
that much of the eponymous station at all, much less Bajor or the Gamma
Quadrant. Despite those uptight, unnecessarily belted and big shoulder pad
Bajoran uniforms and all these new opportunities, what we see still looks
decidedly Trek. There’s not much stylistically to set Deep Space Nine apart, and I’m sorry, I
have to say it, these credits are slooowwww.
Certainly,
that lingering Trek feeling and TNG kinship is perfect for longtime fans
and Trek enthusiasts tuning in for DS9’s debut. Die hard fans can begin
anew and casual audiences can start with the galactic possibilities and Trek spirit. There are new hints of explorations
to come, yes- though the presentation is uneven with directionless ill
footing. Except for its flaws, nothing
much stands out this season for Deep
Space Nine. Were it on television
now, it would be very easy to give up
on this spinoff and change the channel. Truly, it isn’t rerunning on numerous
cable channels like its two predecessors. However, now affordable DVD sets and Netflix
streaming options combined with the shorter episode order here make it easy for
a general SF fan or a new to Trek layman
to give DS9 a whirl. It gets messy before it gets good, but why not
begin the beguine with Deep Space Nine.
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