Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season One DVD review

Posted by Scott Rutherford on 11.05.2008

When Trek was still good.

A couple of years ago I decided to do a big run through the Star Trek world and review all seasons of Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine. I started with Voyager thinking if I did the one I hated first, the run home would be easy because I would be enjoying DS9, my very favourite Trek series.

Problem.

Voyager sucked so hard it became increasingly like a chore to get through seven seasons of that show and by the end I really didn’t want to watch any Trek, let alone DS9. However, I caught a couple of the final episodes of DS9 on cable recently and it has managed to rekindle that fan spark within me.

DS9 for its part started life a couple seasons before The Next Generation ended its run. Since the Cult of Trek was riding a massive wave of popularity, the powers that be decided to see if two seasons could work simultaneously. This had the inherent problem of how to have two shows running and not have them contaminate each other.

The solution came in the form of a space station and Spock-on-a-stick, Trekkie nerds were pissed. The claimed it was against the laws of nature to have ANY Trek show set anywhere but a space ship. So believe it or not a large chunk of the Trek fan base never gave this show a chance. You couple that with the fact that Babylon 5 was rocking the space station angel and people invoked the common sense “it was first so it has to be better, so I will never watch DS9 in my life” rule of thumb.

For those of us that gave DS9 a fair go (and managed to push past the first two seasons), we were rewarded with a rich tapestry of characters and storylines that could have only been possible because of the station setting. By being anchored down in the one place, it gave time for writers to develop story arcs and recurring characters because the secondary characters were always around. So a character like Nog, who was the son of the brother of one of the main cast, might not have had anything to do past the pilot episode if for the fact he had to be around all the time.

The heavy serialization of the show really came into play as DS9 took some dark roads into areas like spirituality, war, corruption and the evil things that good people do when placed in a bad situation. This was also part of the problem for a group of Trek fans because it dared to step on the toes of Gene Roddenberry’s visions of “Paradise” that the Federation supposedly was.

We’ll cover all this in the season reviews to come.

For ease sake I am going to quickly run down the main characters of DS9 plus set the story up. This will help when reading recaps of season one because then I don’t have to side track myself to explain basic points.

The Characters
Commander Ben Sisko: Assigned oversee the restoration of Bajor after the Cardassian occupation. Isn’t a career climber like Picard or Kirk and in fact he’s the first lead in a series that wasn’t a Captain straight out. Has a son Jake and is very big on family.

Kira Nerys: Was a freedom fighter in the Bajoran underground during the Bajoran occupation. Became a member of the Militia and was requested by Sisko to be his second officer. Does not want the Federation involved in Bajors politics what so ever.


Lt. Jadzia Dax: It a joined Trill and the station chief science officer. A joined trill happens when a small symbiont gets passed from host to host and it retains all the memories and lifetime experience of everyone it has been with. So while Jadzia is about 28 years old, the Dax symbiont is over 300 years old.

Chief Miles O’Brien: Comes over from the Enterprise (and Next Gen of course) to be the chief engineer for DS9. Also brings over Keiko and that little snot/brat Molly as well. Adds the “everyman” touch to the cast as he like the simpler things in life and takes no shit.

Dr. Julian Bashir: Fresh out of med school, our good Doctor is more than a little wet behind the ear. Has an interstellar hard-on for anything female but has zero game to back it up. No one dislikes him but his over-eagerness puts off everyone but Jadzia who sorta gets off on his attention.

Odo: Is the station security chief. Also had this role during the Cardassian occupation and was respected by everyone for being fair no matter what. Is a member of the Bajoran Militia and also …a shape shift. Basically he can transform himself into anything. This makes more than one person uneasy. Is very much respected if never completely trusted.

Quark: Ferengi who owns the bar. Perpetual thorn in Odo’s side. Probably spent too much time around other aliens and has lost his commerce instincts.

Jake Sisko: Son of Ben. Regular barely teen kid that has no special abilities other than to keep his dad on his toes.

The set-up for DS9 is this, Cardassia has finally ended its occupation of Bajor and pretty much pillaged the planet of most of its natural resources. Being more than a little defenseless, Bajor enlists the help of the Federation to protect them with a view of Bajor becoming a full member in the future. Most Bajorans’ are pissed because they believe they’re trading one set occupiers for another.

The man selected by the Federation to oversee this process is Commander Benjamin Sisko. He lost his wife at Wolf 359 in the Borg attacks, led by the assimilated Cpt. Piccard. Three years later he’s assigned to DS9 but is still grieving the loss of his wife, to the point where he’s about to give up his commission and become a civilian. He arrives on the station to find pretty much everything is destroyed by the vacating Cardassians, his first officer hates the federation, his son is UNIMPRESSED with his new digs and life is just shit in general.

The Bajorans themselves have a deeply held religious belief. They claim Prophets that live in a celestial temple look after them and send them help in the way of orbs. These orbs all offer different powers and all bar one of the 9 found have been stolen by the Cardassians.



The Emissary
Sisko arrives onboard and is quickly whisked away to Bajor by the spiritual leader Kai Opaka. She claims Sisko is an emissary from the Prophets that will heal his pain and he will look after Bajor and guide the planet and its people. She gives him the last remaining orb in the hopes he can find the Celestial Temple. With the help of Dax they narrow down a dot on the interstellar map and go to investigate. They quickly discover a stable wormhole that leads to the Gamma Quadrant and all off a sudden the Cardassians are keen on DS9 again. Kira manages to get the station from Bajor to the mouth of the wormhole to claim ownership while Ben is inside speaking to the Prophets. They have no concept of space and time and think Ben is an ant to be squash. But Sisko talks them around by explaining what linear time is by using baseball as an analogy as they confront him as to why he won’t let go of his dead wife. Thus starts the healing process for Ben who decides to stick around to see how shit rolls.

Solid start to DS9. As with all Trek shows, the first season is all about establishing tone and characters and is more often miss than hit. Some characters here are almost fully formed (Quark, Kira, Sisko), some that are nearly there (Odo, Dax) and some that are just plain off the mark (Bashir). This would all be tweaked in the seasons to come as the writers were still unsure of exactly what this show was about. The main thing about this episode is that much of what we watched comes back into play as the show progresses and there is no re-writing history later on. We also got introduced to three characters that would play major supporting roles in the future of the series (Gul Dukat, Rom and Nog). (6.5/10)


Past Prologue
Tahna Los, an old member of Kira’s terrorist cell suddenly appears and a Cardassian ship is attacking him. He has trouble understanding that Bajor won and the Cardassians are gone and still makes runs into Cardassian space to inflict damage. The Cardassians want his head on a plate but at the urging of Kira, Sisko will grant Los asylum if he promises to stop the destruction. Things however go astray as Kira soon learns that Los is still fighting the same war and she learns she no longer wants to be the freedom fighter she once was. Eventually she turns in Los as he tries to blow up a Bajoran outpost. The subplot of the show introduces Garak to the character mix. He’s an exiled Cardassian working as tailor on DS9. He picks newb Bashir to strike up a friendship with and helps nail down Los’s collaborators to prove he isn’t a spy. (6/10)

Another OK episode. It was important to distance Kira from her “RAH RAH LETS FITE” past although this soon in the series it comes off as a little pat. However the big thing about this episode is the introduction of Garak who will become more important as the show progresses. His relationship with Julian and his overall duplicity adds a great layer into the mix.


A Man Alone
Ibudan, a murderer/criminal Odo put away when he was head of security during the occupation comes back and makes some threads against Odo. When the man winds up dead in one of Quarks hollosuites Odo becomes prime suspect and soon mob violence rules DS9 as everyone wants the shape shifter dead. Sisko steps up and says “not on my watch” as Bashir discovers Ibudan cloned himself, kills himself in the hollosuites (thus no trace evidence) and sets up Odo to take the fall. (5/10)

Cookie cutter Trek. Basically an Odo episode for character establishment. We learn that while Odo is respected he’s not really accepted. We also see glimpses of the Odo/Quark relationship, which remains one of respect and loathing for the whole series run.


Babel
While repairing a food replicator, O’Brien accidentally sets off an old Bajoran booby-trap that releases a virus onto the station. Suddenly people start coming down with aphasia, which in this case is deadly. With more people becoming less incomprehensible, it’s left to Kira to find the Bajoran scientist who created the virus but runs into a brick wall when he’s been dead for 9 years. She goes postal and kidnap’s his assistant, infects him and makes him help find a cure. (7/10)

Much better episode see’s focus on telling a story rather than setting up character development. However, because the writers were more intent on the story we saw great character moments from O’Brien who establishes his earthy personality, Odo who panics outside of his comfort zone, Quark who’ll take advantage of any situation to turn a profit and Kira who’ll stop at nothing to do the right thing. Good stuff all round.



Captive Pursuit
An alien ship comes barreling out of the wormhole from the Gamma Quadrant; he’s in trouble but doesn’t want to trust anyone. O’Brien manages to engage him and bring the ship in safely. We soon find out that the alien named Tosk and that he’s wholly different in his approach to everything. O’Brien trusts him but he’s quickly arrested after trying to break into the weapons locker. Soon enough another ship comes out of the wormhole and they quickly burst through all of the station defenses. They are The Hunters, and they hunt Tosk. This Tosk is disgraced for being captured so easily, but O’Brien is having none of this shit and breaks out Tosk and gets him to his ship so he can die a good death. (6/10)

Much like Babel, this is more about the story although both these alien races are quickly forgotten about after this episode. The only reason I mention this is because The Hunters PWN!!1 the DS9 defenses in spectacular fashion, which would normally cause alarm in most circles. Overall this is decent and a great study of the O’Brien character as his earthy, everyday guy who just happens to be a technical engineering genius.



Q-Less
Arrggh, I hate Q episodes. Unless this guy is sparring with Piccard it’s just crap. Former Piccard flame Vash shows up on DS9 pulling Q along with her. No one’s pleased to see Q while Vash is still in it for the money. Q actually is just a by-stander in this episode as Vash is the one that’s up to no good as she knowingly hawks a relic from the Gamma Quadrant that’s sucking the power from the station. Eventually she gets found out and they beam the artifact into space, where it turns into butterfly thingy’s and fly back through the wormhole.(2/10)

This episode is Voyager bad right down to the lame ending. Q as a general rule sucks balls and this episode reeks of a NextGen throwaway script than something the DS9 writers came up with themselves. Avoid.



Dax
The first real episode focusing on the Dax character, Jadzia is being held accountable for the murder allegedly committed by the previous host Curzon by a race called the Klystron. Dax is tight lipped about the whole thing and is willing to take the heat for Curzon but Odo finds the widow of the murdered man as she confesses to having an affair with Curzon and killing the husband to be with him.(6/10)

This was really about explaining what a co-joined Trill is and what it means. Pure exposition with a story threaded through it and not much else. Was nice to see Sisko and Kira act like leaders and Odo be the hound for clues. All important character moments. Pity the story sucked.



The Passenger
Kira and Bashir beam onto a disabled ship and attempt to save the life of a prisoner there. The guard tells Bashir that the prisoner committed murder to prolong his own life, and that she has been pursuing him for years. Then, much to Quark's amazement, he is contacted by the dead man, who wants to hire mercenaries from him. When chaos erupts on the station, Dax discovers that the "dead" alien has possessed Bashir, who seizes a shuttle and attempts to steal a shipment of a precious element before the DS9 crew force the alien to leave the doctor's body.(3/10)


I didn’t recall much about this episode when I re-watched it and with good reason. Seriously, the “mystery” episodes don’t do it for unless there’s really something to grab hold of story wise. While it was nice to see Julian act a little different and not so wet behind the ears it ultimately wasn’t Julian himself that grew. Not terrible it was just there and not very excitingly either.


Move Along Home
The first official visitors from the Gamma Quadrant arrive. The Waddi are a race that love to play games, so they’re more interested in seeing Quarks bar than anything else. They become bored with the simple games on offer and persuade Quark to play their game. Unbeknownst to Quark, members of the command crew have become characters in the games and the stakes are high as it appears their lives are at risk if Quark loses. All ends well as we learn that Sisko and the gang were never really in danger even though they had no idea at the time. (5/10)

The issue I have with the first season of DS9 is that no episode really grabs you and makes you want to watch. This episode had more of a feel of TNG cast off script that has been bashed into DS9 shape. It’s neither good nor bad but inconsequential. While it was refreshing to see a race interested in something other than wormhole domination. It’s hard to believe they would only be interest in one thing only and not what other opportunities lay in the Alpha Quadrant.


The Nagus
Grand Nagus (Ferengi leader)Zeke visits the station to find out if his son is a worthy successor to the Ferengi throne. Surprisingly, Quark turns out to be a better Nagus than the son and suddenly finds himself Nagus. Typical Ferengi madness ensures as the other jealous Ferengi try to off Quark to become Nagus themselves. Zeke makes a sudden comeback to power to end the madness. (7.5/10)

The first really good episode as we are introduces to the Wallace Shaw created Zeke full throttle. Almost any Ferengi episode is gold because of the talents of the actors involved and they get close to a home run first time at bat. This also had a good serious b story of Jake and Nog and another sub plot with Miles becoming a substitute teacher. All round great stuff showing you can blend multiple story threads within the same episode and have it swing from amusing, funning, slapstick and serious.


The Vortex
Gamma Quadrant native Croden kills a Miradorn when a theft goes awry. Odo captures Croden and prepares to extradite him when Croden pulls a rabbit out of his hat…which is more like a more like a stone, which morphs into other shapes. Croden insists he’s met more of Odo’s kind and he can lead him to a hidden colony of Changelings. Things get complicated with the twin of the dead Miradorn demands blood for the murder of his brother. Odo is charged with taking Croden back to his home world for trial but gets caught up in the talk of meeting someone of his own kind. Croden manipulates him into a Vortex and proceeds to get him to land on a planet. We soon find out Croden has been feeding Odo a line but his people have talked about shape shifters being on his planet but driven away. The stone turns out to be a key to a stasis chamber that holds Crodens daughter. Odo suddenly has a crisis of morality over duty and helps Croden escape to a Vulcan ship so he can live in peace elsewhere. (8/10)

Easily the best show of the season so far. This had all sorts of good stuff and showed the first hints of the direction the show would take. The Croden/Odo relationship was great as Croden played on Odo’s need to have companions and Odo’s turn around at the thought of meeting a similar being was great. We also got some cool intrigue and action from the dead Miradons twin who was constantly in chase.


Battle Lines
Kai Opaka comes to the station to see the wormhole and convinces Ben to take her through and have a sticky-beak. Kira and Julian come along for the ride and then all shit breaks loose as a planets defense systems knock them out of the sky and kills the Kai upon crash landing to the planet. Suddenly things go really haywire as war amongst the inhabitants breaks out and they all kill each other in a ground skirmish. Kira flips over her newly deceased religious leader and wonders how the fuck she’s going to explain this to Bajor. Suddenly, the planets inhabitants and the Kai are alive as Julian discovers this planet has been set up as punishment for its people so they can never die, the only hitch is that they leave the planet they’ll die instantly but…you can leave the planet due to its defense system. The Kai sees this as a new phase of her life as she advises Kira that she should do the same and leave her violent past

This was another strong episode once you engage your Star Trek Leap of Faith in regards to storytelling. I get that the planets people can’t die from a gun wound but you telling me if someone had their head lopped off they would survive? ‘Cause they expressly state the planet regenerates not resets. The stuff with Opaka is good as it foreshadows one of the key themes in DS9, the all things are destined to be and you should just follow that path. Storyline wise the big development of the Kai not returning leads to a massive upheaval on Bajor and the introduction of Winn in the coming episodes.


The Storyteller
While on a medical away mission to a village on Bajor with Bashir, Miles suddenly becomes replacement to the villages dying spiritual leader, The Sirah. This does NOT sit well with Miles as Julian thinks its more than a little amusing. The actual Sirah in waiting is more than a little pissed at Miles but O’Brien is more than happy to step down except the village leader wont let it happen. The main role of the Sirah is to word off the Dal’Rok who threatens the village. This Dal’Rok can be defeated if the Sirah manages to focus the villagers thought into a whole which the Sirah does by telling a story that unites them. Miles’s first attempt at this nearly kills them as the discarded apprentice suddenly jumps up and units everyone and ward off the Dal’Rok.(6.5/10)

Basic Trek but done well. We see Miles being openly flippant of Julian and Julian being completely oblivious to this. There were also some great comic moments as any occasion Miles is uncomfortable is gold. The story is very old time Trek and a little hokey but the actors involved made it work.


Progress
Bajor has plans to turn one of its moons into a power source, they discover a stubborn old man and a couple of his farm hands will not leave the land they plan to use. If he doesn’t the toxic gases created will kill him. Kira is asked to go and talk him around but the old man name Mullibok says he will die on the planet. Kira, who still has more than a bit of her anti-authoritarian streak in her sympathizes with him. She reports back to Sisko she can’t betray him or her beliefs. Sisko isn’t happy about this and send Kira back, this time with back up, to take care of the matter by force if she has to. Things don’t go well and Mullibok is shot. He accuses Kira of turning her back on her true beliefs but ultimately she does what’s best for Bajor not the man.(7.5/10)

Really strong episode here as we look deeper into Kira and her internal struggle between her new duty as a member of the Militia and the fighting for what is right. In this story you could make an argument for either but they let the character play it out perfectly. I especially dig the end where Kira destroyed a kiln that she and Mullibok had been making throughout the show and then her destroying his house and beaming him away. Good storytelling without any grandiose proclamations from the writers and a strong decisive ending.


If Wishes Were Horses
Strange happenings are afoot on DS9 as people’s imaginations start manifesting themselves in reality. Snow on the promenade, fairytales characters comes to life, everyone winning a Dab, Quark in a prison Cell, a Dax more receptive to Julian’s come one, all come to life. Soon a void appears outside DS9 and as more people believe the void is there the bigger it gets. Sisko puts two and two together and gets every one to wish the void to disappear and it does. We also find out that a race from the Gamma Quadrant were making everyone’s imagination a reality so they could better understand what imagining is. (4/10)

This storyline is a staple of any Trek show and it’s no better for being used here. Not that’s it’s horrible just boringly predictable. Some comic highlights at the start as everyone fantasies started coming true but not enough to pull the show up from mediocre.


The Forsaken
A probe comes through the wormhole and duly DS9 captures that bad boy and scan its files and download anything of use. Turns out, there’s program-like life form in the probe that has the personality of a child. It reeks havoc with the stations systems trapping a VERY uncomfortable Odo in a turbo lift with an extremely full-on Lwaxana Troi making a crossover appearance from TNG. Odo starts to panic as he is soon nearing the time he will need to regenerate and does not want anyone seeing him in that way. Lwaxana wins his confidence and Odo uses her dress to regenerate in. As for the program, Miles figures out a way to fool it off the stations system. We also see a sub-plot with a very reluctant Julian acting as host for Federation ambassadors which goes accordingly bad until Julian saves them from peril and they label him a hero. (5/10)

This episode is a great primer on why DS9 worked so well over the years. The storyline is pretty crap and has been done to death many times before and after. However, because the characters of this show are interesting it still remains very watchable. The stuff with Odo and Troi was absolute gold and we got to see Odo in a completely different light, unguarded and vulnerable. Having characters that are interesting and we care about makes things work so much better because of this script was used on Voyager, it wouldn’t have worked.


Dramatic Personae
After a Klingon ship comes tumbling out of the wormhole with all but one of its inhabitants dead. At this time, Kira believes a Valerian ship contains weapons being smuggled to Cardassia but Sisko wont search unless she has proof. All of a sudden the crew starts behaving strangely and a power play for the station erupts with Kira against Sisko. Odo, who is unchanged manages to play off both sides until he finds out a “telepathic matrix” was beamed aboard with the sole Klingon survivor, which influences every ones behavior. Odo manages to right the situation and everyone eat brownies to celebrate. (5.5/10)

Like last episode, this is a done to death premise but it works again because of the strong characters. With this scenario the writers made the strange behavior an extension of character themselves instead of something random and showy. We see Kira become aggressive and pro-active against Sisko, Sisko barely cares, and Miles stands up for his superior officer and see’s Kira coming from a mile off and plots to thwart her. Julian just wants to be liked and Jadzia is stuck reliving the past. So while the story doesn’t really work we do get great character moments that help flesh out the cast and who they are.


Duet
When a Cardassian arrive on the station, he’s promptly under suspicion since he has a rare Bajoran disease you could have only caught during the occupation at one of the worst labor camps. We soon learn he was the leader of the camp Gul Darhe’el. Kira flips her wig and this man is FUBAR once he gets to Bajor. After some probing by O’Brien we soon find out that this man isn’t who he said he was but in fact was Darhe’el’s file clerk at the Gallitepp internment camp. Aamin Marritza was so appalled at what he saw he changed his appearance to mimic that of his long dead leader and wants to be taken to Bajor and put to death to shine a light on the horrible atrocities he saw. Kira wont allow and he is set free and to be killed by a drunken Bajoran who thinks being Cardassian is reason enough to kill Marritza. Kira for her part doesn’t believe so.

Really powerful stuff as this is what DS9 really turned into. While most trek shows deal in black and white, this show was very much about the shades of grey and that was well brought into effect with this episode. The writing is fantastic as shown form this excerpt when the Cardassian was pretending to still be Darhe’el…


Marritza: I would order them to go out and kill Bajoran scum. And they'd do it! They'd murder them! And they'd come back covered in blood. But they felt clean. Now why did they feel that way, Major? Because they were clean.

...

Marritza: We had an empire to protect! We needed your resources! Everything I did was for the greater glory of Cardassia! And if you spineless scum had to be ground under, so much the better. All that mattered was Cardassia. I loved my homeland. That's what justified my actions. That's what gave me strength.

Kira: Nothing justifies genocide.

Marritza: What you call genocide, I call a day's work.


In The Hands Of The Prophets
Tension arrives in the form of Vedek Winn and her objections to the teachings happening inside the DS9 school. She specifically objects to Keiko O’Brien (who assumed teachers status during the first series) referring to the prophets as “wormhole aliens”. Sisko has a tough line to talk as he is revered in Bajor as The Prophets emissary but he himself doesn’t believe them to be gods. When Keiko rejects out of hand the suggestion she teach about the Prophets being Gods, things go haywire as a bomb is planted and exploded at the school and a member of Chief O’Brien’s engineering team is killed on duty. Winn for her part is playing politics and supports whatever she thinks the people want. Meanwhile another Vedek, Bariel who was initially reluctant to enter into the conflict does so in support of Sisko and the Federation earning an enemy in Winn who sees him as direct competition at her becoming Kai. We soon learn a Bajoran national working in engineering has been aiding the attempts at violence on the station and tries to kill Bariel but gets stopped short. Kira and Sisko know Winn is behind the attempted assassination but can prove it.

Awesome show. Easily the best of the whole season and full of story threads and character moments that influence the whole series. Winn and Bariel become important pieces of a greater puzzle as Sisko, who has avoided his status as Emissary to the Prophets like a plague, has to stand up and do his duty making a direct enemy in Winn. The darker tone of the episode showed a marked shift in the philosophy of DS9 as they weren’t afraid to leave things open ended and more than a little fuzzy.


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The 411: Even if unspectacular start to this series. The good thing about running through these old episodes is seeing how much character ground work was put in place which paid off in spades in years to come. While we got hints of what was coming in terms of the overall feel, this was very much Star Trek on a station as they tried to adapt “space ship” type stories into the static setting. Which for the most part really didn’t work. Recommended based on the fact you need to watch most of this stuff to understand what’s happening later.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]