the star trek sci fi series

‘Star Trek’ at 50: How the Sci-Fi TV Show Changed Everything

By Chris Klimek

Chris Klimek

In the beginning, only Mr. Spock was spared.

It was early 1965, and NBC had just passed on “The Cage,” the pilot episode for a science fiction show the network had been considering picking up for their fall season. “Too cerebral,” they said. But they let creator Gene Roddenberry try again. He kept the starship Enterprise, but recast its crew, save for the grinning, excitable science officer played by Leonard Nimoy .

The Spock audiences met on the night of Sept. 8, 1966, when “The Man Trap” became the first Star Trek episode broadcast, was far more sedate and enigmatic character than he’d been in the pilot, and so he would forever remain. Several of the 13 movies and most of the seven small-screen series have been Spockless, but the half-Vulcan, half-human scientist is the franchise’s ambassador in perpetuity. When the 83-year-old Nimoy died last year, he got a eulogy from President Barack Obama — like the Enterprise’s Executive Officer, a pioneer of mixed parentage with a reputation for keeping cool in the face of hostility and panic. “I loved Spock,” the president said.

Who didn’t? The guy with the bowl cut and the pointy ears is the walking embodiment of all the aspirational beliefs every iteration of Star Trek has shared, and that have made the franchise endure for half a century: Optimism. Respect for diversity. Faith that reason shall triumph over ignorance. Confidence that our destructive emotions can be mastered without denying us the benefits of more saintly ones like loyalty and love.

Frankly, these sunny assurances feel no more plausible in 2016 than they must have in 1966. But to paraphrase the tagline from a later cult-inspiring sci-fi show: We Want to Believe.

Roddenberry believed. Swept up in the social and technological progressivism of the of Kennedy era, the bomber pilot-turned-police officer-turned-TV screenwriter maintained against all evidence that by the 23rd century, humankind’s moral maturation would begin to catch up to its scientific advancement. He was a big-picture guy. He had good ideas but was a crummy writer, and insecure about it. It took scribes with a lighter touch than his — and who were far less sold on the notion of humankind’s perfectability than he was — to turn his grand concepts into great stories, or even just decent ones.

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But no one else had Roddenberry’s gift for fan outreach. Star Trek was the first modern, well-organized fandom, and Roddenberry treated them like his valued constituents. Paramount Pictures and NBC both believed he had the power to command armies of geeks, in an age when “geek” was still very much an insult. The producer did not try to convince his bosses otherwise.

Sometimes it was even true: A historic letter-writing campaign had persuaded NBC to grant the on-the-bubble series a third season in 1968. The network been so besieged by letters and calls that it actually announced on-air that Star Trek would return in the fall, something they did for no other renewing series. They still pulled the plug after that year, but the show became more powerful and omnipresent in death than it had been in life. Syndicated reruns were ubiquitous, with many stations burning through its 79 episodes every few months by airing it five nights a week. The first dedicated Star Trek convention happened in 1972, some two-and-a-half years after the last new hour had been produced. Sci-fi conventions were already a thing, but the idea of packing a hotel with people whose common trait was ardor for a defunct TV show? That was new. The Internet was still a couple of decades out, but there were fanzines, many of them of professional quality. Roddenberry encouraged his acolytes. He sold them Star Trek merchandise and ephemera (including props and whatnot that were not necessarily his to sell) through he and his mistress-turned-wife Majel Barrett’s mail-order business. He spoke at college campuses, urging his audiences to lobby for Star Trek to return.

The deference Roddenberry showed to Trekkies did not extend to his staff. Producers and writers who worked for him — particularly on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was set 100 years after the “Original Series” and aired in first-run syndication (another quiet Trek innovation) from 1987 to 1994 — complained that his notion that in the 24th century everyone would be too pious and secure for workplace infighting or even private self-doubt made it almost impossible to create conflict. This is why the LBJ-era original, with its cardboard planets, rubber monsters, short skirts, and torn tunics — and critically, its lovable bickering among Captain Kirk, Spock, and his tormentor, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy — is eminently more rewatchable than the polite and sleepy TNG. (All apologies, Patrick Stewart.)

50 Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All Time

Roddenberry died in 1991, which coincidentally was the same year the relentless turnover among Next Generation ‘s writing staff finally stopped, and the writers began to operate as a cohesive unit. (In its final season, TNG would get an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.) This was also the year of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last feature film starring the original cast who’d begun their storied “five-year mission” some 25 years before. But it had long been clear this point that Star Trek was a living document, a beautiful framework of an idea that demanded to be amended and improved and refined.

Its original iteration left plenty of room for that. From a distance of even 25 years it no longer looked quite so woke: Seeing Nichelle Nichols’ Lt. Uhura or George Takei ‘s Mr. Sulu in key positions on the Enterprise bridge was progressive for 1966, but in other areas, the original Trek inevitably resembles the product of the Don Draper era that it was. Nichols has often told the story of how she had decided at the end of the first season to return to musical theatre. A self-identified Trekkie by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. talked her out of it, telling her she was an inspiration to black viewers and that Star Trek was one of the few TV shows he and his wife allowed their children to watch.

But the franchise progressed. In the mid-1990s, spinoffs like Deep Space Nine and Voyager focused on Starfleet vessels commanded by a black man and a woman, respectively. Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Bryan Fuller, a veteran of both those spinoffs, has intimated that LGBT characters will be well-represented in the upcoming series. Roddenberry had sought “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations,” and each new version of Star Trek inches a little closer to that goal, noble and unachievable.

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When the National Air and Space Museum unveiled its newly remodeled Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall on July 1, one of the new displays was dedicated to physicist and astronaut Sally Ride, not only the first American woman to fly in space but — as her long-term partner revealed after Ride’s death in 2012 — the first LGBT astronaut. Included among Ride’s personal effects was a Star Trek: Voyager communicator-pin prop that had been presented to her at a 1995 screening of the show’s premiere episode by Kate Mulgrew, who played Kathryn Janeway — the first female starship captain to get her own show.

The Ride display sits directly opposite another artifact: The newly restored, 11-foot-long studio model of the U.S.S. Enterprise used in the production of the original show. Prior to the two-year restoration effort, the 200 lb. model was in danger of falling apart. It had been built out of poplar wood and vacu-formed plastic five years before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. It was never intended to be preserved in situ for half a century. It was meant to evolve. It was meant to take us where no one has gone before, and our children, and our great-great-grandchildren, too.

Watch William Shatner explain his love for Leonard Nimoy in this animated video. 

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The Best Sci-Fi TV Shows of All Time

T he science fiction genre is every bit as expansive as the worlds, galaxies, alternate realities, timelines, pasts, and futures that it explores on screen. TV shows in the genre have been made on almost every budget tier, often appeal to everyone from mainstream viewers to the most niche subcultures, and evoke tones from playful to thoughtful to downright disturbing.

Selecting a definitive best from such a wide range of worthy contenders is an almost impossible mission. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from watching copious amounts of sci-fi TV, it’s that the journey is at least as important as the destination—and there’s always value in trying. 

So with a method that admittedly leans more toward artistic subjectivity than scientific objectivity, we sought out the most qualified candidates by posing a number of qualifying questions: Does it say something interesting about the world in which it was created? Does it say something interesting about humanity in general? Has it added something unique to the genre? Has it changed the way people make TV? Has it changed the way people watch TV? Does it make us laugh, cry, think, have nightmares, or otherwise engage our minds and emotions? Could we reliably use it to convince alien invaders that there’s something about humanity worth saving?

In honor of a strong potential contender for future lists, 3 Body Problem , premiering on Netflix, here are the results of that effort to name the best sci-fi TV shows.

Read more: The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

Lexx (1997-2002)

If science fiction truly is about all that humanity is and and all that we are capable of becoming, then you have to leave a little room for perverts and trash connoisseurs. At a time when Canadian TV was ripe with competent and tasteful co-productions like Earth: Final Conflict and Highlander: The Raven, this Canadian and German collaboration, in which a motley crew of underlings, an undead assassin and a lovesick robot set out to combat an evil religious cult, injected some much needed unapologetic shlock with a clever edge into the proceedings. 

Stream it on Prime Video .

Æon Flux (1991-1995)

This Liquid Television animated staple about a sexy secret agent with nebulous motives and morals was so stylish, strange, and entrancing that it managed to convince a pre- X Files -pilled MTV generation that sci-fi could be cool. That cache was strong enough to inspire a video game, comics, and a big-budget live action movie adaptation starring Charlize Theron. And also strong enough to survive the more polarizing reception those spinoffs received. 

Stream it on Paramount+ .

Severance (2022-present)

Building on the uncanny nature of real-life office spaces and adding a lightly speculative spin on work/life balance, Dan Erickson’s Apple TV+ series , which counts Ben Stiller as a director and Adam Scott as a lead, paints a deliciously nightmarish portrait of corporate culture. While it’s still too early to tell where this show is going to take us—we’re still waiting for a release date for the second season—it has the potential to be an all-time mundane dystopian classic.

Stream it on Apple TV+.

Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)

A TV show so groundbreaking that it managed to change both what we watch and how we watch it. At the height of the Cold War, Gene Roddenberry and crew gave viewers an optimistic glimpse into a future that included equality, adventure, compassionate and thoughtful conflict resolution, and a dash of sexiness. They also took the occasional concrete step toward making such a future possible, like producing one of the first interracial kisses broadcast on television . The show’s viewers responded by helping to establish some of the more wholesome hallmarks of current fandom culture, including write-in campaigns, conventions, fanfiction in general and slash in particular.

Farscape (1999-2003)

The foundational show from SyFy (f.k.a. Sci-Fi Channel), courtesy of The Jim Henson Company, mixed snappy dialogue and dark themes as seamlessly as it blended its human and puppet cast. In true cult classic fashion, it went on to leave its undeniable mark on a number of more widely known successors, most notably James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films . It also transformed how certain pockets of the internet swore for a good decade or so.

Stream it on Peacock .

Firefly (2002-2003)

Given what we know now (the massive abuse allegations against creator Joss Whedon , some of which he has denied and some of which he has said he should have handled differently) and what more fans really should have recognized at the time (that worldbuilding a future in which Chinese language and culture are pervasive but very few Chinese people appear to exist is a failure of both representation and imagination), it’s probably more accurate to classify this one-season wonder from Fox as more of a (truly) guilty pleasure than the widely beloved cult classic it once was. But it didn’t seem accurate to completely ignore the impact that the space Western had on its passionate fanbase and the next generation of sci-fi writers. And that is to say nothing of the greatness of Gina Torres as Zoe Washburne.

Stream it on Hulu .

Andor (2022-present)

The Disney+ prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , led by Diego Luna, is proving to be a welcome expansion to the greater Star Wars universe, both in terms of characters outside the usual suspects and darker, meatier thematic territory.

Stream it on Disney+.

V: The Original Miniseries (1983)

Kenneth Johnson’s sobering parable about encroaching fascism, featuring not so subtly Nazi-coded lizard aliens, is unfortunately even more relevant today than it was when it first aired on NBC in 1983. 

Buy it on Apple or Amazon .

The Expanse (2015-2022)

There’s a lot that you can learn about people through their hopes and fears for the future, and the best sci-fi shows give us valuable insights into the eras in which they were made. In that sense, this complex Syfy turned Amazon Prime Video space opera about humanity trying to navigate the politics of a colonized solar system hundreds of years from now has established itself as the defining sci-fi series of the millennium so far. Half a century removed from space-race optimism and Cold-War paranoia, it offers a more realistic—and chilling—exploration of what could come next: What if humanity continues almost exactly as we are now, having learned nothing but the ability to take our problems further into the universe? 

Sense8 (2015-2018)

An early high mark in Netflix’s original programming (and one of the earliest and most heartbreaking victims of Netflix’s capricious cancellations), The Wachowski sisters’ supernatural spin on interconnectedness and empathy was bold and creative enough to envision a fictional universe that was at least as diverse as ours.

Stream it on Netflix .

Lost (2004-2010)

In light of Maureen Ryan’s meticulous and sobering reporting on the set’s toxic culture , this one has become another problematic fave. But the flagship series of J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof’s collective mystery box show oeuvre, Lost combined deeply human interpersonal drama, non-linear narrative flourishes, slowly but meticulously assembling puzzle pieces, and a touch of the unknown to make one of the most compulsively watchable series of the 2000s. It also made stars—or even bigger stars—out of the likes of Naveen Andrews, Evangeline Lilly, Daniel Dae Kim, Harold Perrineau, Lance Reddick, and many, many more.

The X-Files (1993-2002)

The sheer breadth of what this seminal Fox series accomplished both within the show and in the greater pop-culture universe is almost an otherworldly phenomenon itself. Led by indelible performances from Gillian Anderson and David Duchovy as agents Scully and Mulder, it smoothly blended episodic and serialized storytelling, juggled ever deepening (and occasionally well-crafted) conspiracy plots with slow burning romance, and had the ability to effortlessly shift from broad comedy to existential terror to skin-crawling horror. It left its mark on everything from the shifting demographics of sci-fi fandom, to primetime serialized TV narratives, to dorm room decorations , and catchy alt rock songs from underrated Welsh bands.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996)

It’s almost impossible to explain the unsettling genius of this classic anime series about giant robots combatting giant bug-like aliens in a disaster-ravaged Tokyo, or the power of its impact, without sounding hyperbolic to the uninitiated. Yes, it really did play a major role in the revitalization of the anime industry and evolution of the mecha genre. The range of religious, psychological, philosophical and pop-culture influences that informed its exploration of the individual vs. collective consciousness really was that incredibly wide and multifaceted. And yes, the ending is probably going to mess with your head for a while. 

Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

With a mix of respect for the 1978 original series, and a willingness to take those characters and concepts in bold new directions, Battlestar Galactica launched its series proper with one of the most breathless and anxiety-inducing (in a fun way) 45 minutes of TV ever broadcast. The show spent the next 4.5 seasons unraveling intrigue after intrigue, sinking its teeth into the nature vs. nurture debate, and giving Edward James “Martin Castillo” Almos a well-taken opportunity to add another iconic TV role to his legendary arsenal while the rest of the talented cast kept up with him as well as anyone could. Sure, people will be debating the ending for as long as people are talking about science fiction at all, but what great sci-fi show finale didn’t polarize and confound its audience at least a little?

Doctor Who (1963-present)

Sixty years in—minus a six-year hiatus and another nine-year hiatus briefly broken up by a canonical if not universally beloved run by Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor—the BBC stalwart is starting to resemble its titular character: a significantly longer lifespan than most of the similar-looking creatures that surround it, an endless fascination with human beings and how they work, and an impressive albeit imperfect ability to adapt to the times. And if you’re willing to tag along, it will take you on one hell of a journey. This May will see the 15th Doctor, Sex Education ’s Ncuti Gatwa, continue his brilliant turn in the franchise, which kicked off at the end of last year.

Stream it on Britbox or buy it on Amazon or Apple .

The Twilight Zone (1959–1964)

Six decades ago, the first big—and still the best—sci-fi and fantasy-tinged anthology series gave the world 156 episodes’ worth of expertly crafted stories, clever twists, morality plays, ironic repercussions, and nightmare fodder. Neither television nor viewers’ psyches have been the same since.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

Every addition to the Star Trek franchise has contributed something new and valuable to that universe, and you could make a solid case for almost any of the series appearing on this list. What gives DS9 the edge here is just how much it expanded the themes and concepts that Trek could tackle. It was fascinating to watch the optimism and relatively straightforward moralism of the original series and The Next Generation forced to grapple with fundamentally more complex intergalactic conflicts and moral gray areas that couldn’t be solved over the course of an episode, or even a multi-series arc. Plus this show gave us whatever was going on with Garak and Bashir.

Stream it on Paramount+.

Fringe (2008-2013)

A mystery box show co-created by J. J. Abrams in the 2000s, Fringe was like Lost’ s nerdier, weirder kid sister (meant in a completely complimentary sense). Over the course of five seasons, it blossomed from an intriguing mystery-of-the-week production into a timeline- and alternate universe-spanning story that grappled with questions of family, identity, and ethics augmented by career-defining performances by Anna Torv, John Noble, Joshua Jackson, and Jasika Nicole. It also pulled off one of the most satisfying conclusions in sci-fi television history by weaving all of its wide-ranging threads together in a way that remained true to its characters, themes, and overarching narrative. 

Stream it on Max .

Red Dwarf (1988-1999)

This beloved British comedy doesn’t dig too deeply into the science part of the sci-fi equation. All of the space stuff is mostly an excuse to develop the characters, give the performers amusing things to do, and occasionally explore the human condition. But when the show dabbles in the futuristic and intergalactic, it does so to great effect. For example, it takes a genuinely terrifying classic sci-fi premise—what if you woke up alone on a spaceship three million years removed from everything you’ve ever known?—and makes it hilarious. 

Stream it on Britbox or Britbox via Amazon or buy it on Apple .

Black Mirror (2011-present)

Present-day Netflix Black Mirror isn’t quite the unfailing juggernaut that it was in its early seasons on Channel 4. When it comes to anthology shows with British comedy pedigrees that are known for their twist endings, Inside No. 9 has the better batting average these days. But when this show is good, it is wickedly good, and its hits more than justify sitting through the occasional misfire. At its best, Black Mirror has given us brilliantly incisive reflections on the murky relationship between humanity and technology, some of the best TV to tackle the struggle between surveillance and autonomy since The Prisoner , and a thoroughly refreshing spin on the bury your gays trope. It’s not creator Charlie Brooker’s most prescient show—that honor now goes to 2005’s influencer-predicting and skewering Nathan Barley —but that’s an indictment of all of us, not Black Mirror.

Lost In Space (1965-1968)

Sure, the perfectly competent 2018 Netflix remake has things like comprehensive storylines, a special effects budget, and the inspired choice to place the inimitable Parker Posey in the Dr. Smith role. But the original brainchild of disaster movie and adventure TV king Irwin Allen, who took the basic concept of The Swiss Family Robinson and flung it into the stars, has a sassy robot, space-age mod-influenced costumes , delightfully scenery-chewing villainy from the OG Dr. Smith Jonathan Harris, and a campy charm as limitless as the universe that the Robinsons are doing their best to navigate. So it gets to represent the franchise on this list. 

Stream it on Hulu or buy it on Amazon or Apple . 

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004)

The best parodies reflect a deep knowledge and at least a touch of affection for the object of their mockery. This 2004 comedy about a pompous shlock writer’s long lost vanity project about a supernaturally plagued hospital is a perfect example. The precision and attention to detail of every aspect from author Marenghi’s pompous declarations to the obvious strings on the no-budget effects makes it obvious that creators Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade have watched at least as many horror and sci-fi shows as they’ve written. 

Stream it on Prime Video or Peacock .

Life On Mars ( 2006-2007)

The BBC’s time-traveling procedural drama about a cop who gets hit by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973 combines sophisticated writing, 1970s fashions, classic rock, John Simm (best known to sci-fi fans as one of the Masters from Doctor Who ) at the height of his dramatic and charismatic powers, and a gleeful exploitation of the British public’s collective fear of the test pattern girl and her creepy clown to make a solid case for the idea that one’s own past and/or mind are the biggest uncharted territory of all. 

Stream it on Britbox or Britbox via Amazon.

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968)

Supermarionation masterminds Sylvia and Gerry Anderson’s follow-up to their breakthrough hit, Thunderbirds , about an elite security unit who must defend Earth from a series of alien terrorist attacks that they unwittingly triggered on a previous mission, tackles issues like culpability and mortality more thoughtfully and more creepily than many live-action shows could manage at the time. It also gave the world a puppet that was more handsome than most human men .

Stream it on Fubo or buy it on Amazon .

The Prisoner (1967-1968)

Brilliant, twisted, and slightly adversarial creator and star Patrick McGoohan’s sui generis series plunked a freshly resigned unnamed spy in the middle of an eerily plucky and scenic penal colony and forever changed the way that viewers thought about individualism vs. collectivism. And privacy vs. surveillance. And individualism and autonomy. And charming Welsh tourist destinations . And weather balloons. 

Sapphire & Steel (1979-1982)

Armed with little more than a budget that would make early Doctor Who seem like a Marvel movie by comparison, a moderate grasp of some of the trickier science that fuelled its plots, and dynamite performances by stars David McCallum and Joanna Lumley, Sapphire & Steel managed to pull of some of the most quietly unsettling television of all time. This supernatural thriller about a pair of anthropomorphized elements who have been sent to Earth to address anomalies in the fabric of time can be a hard sell thanks to its concept and extremely slow-burning storytelling. But those who are willing to be open-minded and patient will be rewarded with some of the purest, most haunting existential dread that TV can provide—and the inability to ever look at a gas station the same way again. 

Futurama (1999-2003, 2008-2013, 2023-present)

Matt Groening’s fish-out-of-water comedy about an accidentally cryogenically frozen present-day pizza guy who wakes up in the 31st century, featuring the vocal talents of Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Lauren Tom, might be one of the most versatile shows ever made in any genre. The futuristic workplace comedy about a group of misfit humans, a crustacean-like alien, and mouthy robot is equally capable of making you cry with laughter or heart-ripping, gut-wrenching grief (looking at you, “Jurassic Bark”).

Orphan Black (2013-2017)

This Canadian drama starring Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, and more of the brilliant Tatiana Maslany as a con artist who discovers that she’s one of a series of clones, delivered both thrills and thoughtful explorations of the ethics of cloning and the concept of identity. Maslany was nothing short of a revelation in all of her roles.

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Screen Rant

Star trek: ds9 has a disappearing brothers problem.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine revealed that Captain Sisko, Chief O'Brien, and Major Kira all had brothers, then promptly forgot that they even existed.

• Sisko and O'Brien share a strong bond, but their unnamed brothers are mysteriously absent from the storyline of DS9.
• Quark and Nog are not the only brotherly relationship in DS9, as Sisko, O'Brien, and others also have unseen siblings.
• The missing brothers of Sisko, O'Brien, and Kira in DS9 may be due to writers forgetting or logistical challenges of space travel.

For a TV show that contains so many strong family units, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a weird problem when it comes to the brothers of many of its characters. DS9 has one of the largest ensemble casts in the entire Star Trek franchise, introducing multiple non-Starfleet characters with personal and familial connections to the regulars. Joseph Sisko (Brock Peters), the father of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) was a recurring character from DS9 season 4 onward. The Sisko family were the heart of DS9 , but Chief O'Brien (Colm Meaney) and his wife Keiko O'Brien (Rosalind Chao) also had an important role to play.

Sisko and O'Brien were strong father figures, particularly in a touching moment from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 15, "Paradise", in which they compare notes on fatherhood. However, Sisko and O'Brien were also brothers to unnamed siblings, something that never factored into their storylines . Quark (Armin Shimerman) and Nog (Max Grodénchik) are the best known brotherly relationship in DS9 , but Sisko, O'Brien and other Deep Space Nine characters had brothers who were never seen on-screen.

Quark's Brother Became A New Kind Of Ferengi In Star Trek: DS9

Star trek: ds9’s missing brothers problem explained.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 15, "Paradise", Sisko reveals that he used to pick vegetables in the garden with his two brothers . This fact never comes up again, even when Sisko voices concerns about his father's health in "Homefront", and again when he recuperates on Earth after the death of Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell). Sisko plans to visit his sister Judith in "Past Tense", but never mentions his brothers, and again suggests to Joseph that Judith, rather than his unnamed brothers, help with the restaurant in "Homefront".

The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko by Derek Tyler Attico gives Sisko's brothers the names Elias and David Sisko.

Chief O'Brien and Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) also mention their brothers in the episodes "Invasive Procedures" and "Shadowplay", respectively. O'Brien's brothers are never named, or mentioned again, while Kira's brothers, Pohl and Reon never appear barring a brief glimpse of them as infants in "Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night". When Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) joins Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in season 4, the show literally disappears Kurn (Tony Todd) by genetically altering him to be someone else. Only the brothers of Ensign Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer), Norvo and Janel avoid being disappeared in DS9 season 7.

Why We Never Meet Sisko, O’Brien, and Kira’s Brothers

The most likely explanation for why audiences never meet Sisko and O'Brien's brothers in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is that the writers forgot they existed . However, in terms of an in-universe explanation for Sisko and O'Brien never receiving a visit, one need only look at where the former Cardassian space station is situated. Deep Space Nine is out on the frontier, and Sisko and O'Brien only ever make it back to Earth for official Starfleet business. Therefore, their brothers are unlikely to make the long journey, especially if they're civilians.

Major Kira's brothers are a more interesting case, as they presumably live on Bajor or one of the nearby planets. Kira never states that her brothers were killed during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, so they're presumably still alive throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Given Nerys' initial hostility toward Sisko and the Federation, it's not too big a stretch to imagine that Kira Pohl and Kira Reon also opposed the Federation's involvement, and chose not to visit DS9 in protest.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.