star trek voyager vs ds9

Outside the Beltway

Why ds9 was better than voyager.

James Joyner · Sunday, December 22, 2013 · 24 comments

This video touts itself as “A comparison of Trials And Tribble-ations and Flashback, but ultimately a comparison between the approaches of Deep Space Nine and Voyager.” While the reviewer goes out of his way to make clear he thinks Voyager was a perfectly good show, the comparison makes it clear why there’s almost universal agreement among Trek fans that Voyager is by far the worst series in the canon.

As a bonus, the video more or less captures why “Trials and Tribble-ations” was my favorite DS9 episode, although it oddly gives short shrift to its deft humor.

via Alex Knapp

About James Joyner

When I read the title I thought DS9 was some new satellite I missed the launch of in all the excitement over Gaia . I wonder what that says about me?

Voyager was the worst series in the canon? It was worst than every series before it, I grant you, but worse than Enterprise?

Two points:

1. Neil’s right, Enterprise was the worst series in the canon.Voyager wasn’t TNG, TOS, or DS9,but it had its moments and, thanks to actors like Robert Picardo some quite memorable episodes.

2. Arguably, DS9 was, in terms of consistency, better even than TNG. Let’s face it, the first season of TNG was weak (although given that it was the first Star Trek on television in some 20 years I don’t think anyone really minded) and the second season was spotty at best. The height of TNG came during Seasons 3 to 5. After that, it really began to go downhill. And, aside from exceptions like “Lower Decks,” “Parallels,” “The Pegasus,” Pre-Emptive Strike,” and “All Good Things,” large parts of Season 7 were really quite bad.

With DS9, though, things were a bit different. The first season was slow and had some real clunker episodes, but the second season was much stronger and introduced an idea that TNG never adopted, the multi-episode story arc. The second season also gave us the beginning of the Dominion arc in its final episode, a story arc that lasted until the end of the series. Indeed, the show was probably at its best during the Dominion War arc (see e.g., “In The Pale Moonlight”).

Finally, it’s worth noting that DS9 was arguably the most un-Roddenberry of all the Trek series. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’m binge watching ST Enterprise now.

Personally, I think it will stand the test of time, but to each their own.

BTW… if anyone wants a kick, here is STAR TREK CONTINUES…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G-ziTBAkbQ

…with actors trying their best to portray the original ST series.

Quite a hoot, for those of us who sat glued to the Star Trek reruns in our youth.

Why DS9 was better than Voyager or Enterprise can be said in one word, six letters: A..C..T..I..N..G. Avery Brooks. And Rene Auberjonois could read the Reykjavik phone book and make it interesting. They kept the best actors from TNG (other than Patrick Stewart) and added those two.

Libertarian? Ok. Atheist? None of my business. Yankee fan? Misguided. But DS9 better than Voyager? Blasphemy!

@ Doug Mataconis :

With DS9, though, things were a bit different. The first season was slow and had some real clunker episodes, but the second season was much stronger and introduced an idea that TNG never adopted, the multi-episode story arc.

This, coupled with great writing and @ Dave Schuler’s “one word, six letters,” make it my favorite of the post-TOS Star Trek series. But I think most Star Trek fans would agree.

If you want to start an argument in my house, start talking about the theater films…

Personally, I loved “Enterprise”. It showed that humans were still cutting their teeth when it came to space. They screwed up – many times. The Prime Directive hadn’t been established. They were fighting the Vulcans to be let off the leash.

And, of course, there was always Jolene Blalock…so there.

Agree with Doug and say that DS9 is my favorite. It’s also the most topical, with its Section 31 which is similar to our discussion of what we want in our intelligence branches. Gene Rodenberry would never have had a Section 31 in his series. Frankly, I would like to see a Section 31 series.

Pretty topical, as I just started rewatching DS9 last night on Netflix, once I realized that they had the full run. I’m pleasantly surprised so far as to how well it holds up.

I never really got into Voyager. Janeway was too reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn for me to take seriously as a Captain, and post-DS9 it was too episodic to really hold my interest. The Doctor and the Vulcan were the only two characters I found really interesting.

Tim Lynch, who was well known for his ST reviews, found Voyager so appalling that he stopped reviewing the show after its second season.

I myself stopped watching Trek after DS9. The last movie I watched was Nemesis and I hold it in lower regard than Lynch does Voyager.

BTW I love DS9. When I shut down my laptop, the wav file of Weyoun saying ‘Time to start packing’ plays.

In addition to a strong cast DS9 also had darker, more complex plots and genuine character development.

Garrick was my favorite; Andrew Robinson does subtext with the best of them.

Enterprise would have been a good series if you could throw away the pilot, Broken Bow, along with the 2nd and 3rd seasons. They should have started the series later in the Trek time line and focused on the Earth – Romulan war. You don’t start off a series by trampling all over pre-existing cannon events, like first contact with the Klingons, right out of the gate, only to jump into the ridiculousness of the temporal cold war plot line.

DS9 was often far too dark as a Trek series for my tastes and the whole “Emissary” plot throughout the series really turned me off due to the over religiousness of it, but it is better overall than Voyager.

In the end though my favorite will always be TOS. I grew up watching it’s rerun’s in the 70’s along side other great shows like Mash. Nothing in any of the series has ever come close to replicating the sense of family between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever”, “Miri”, “Bread and Circuses”, “Space Seed”, and “Plato’s Stepchildren” to this day I can watch them again and again and never get tired of the stories they told.

@ Gromitt Gunn : Yeah actually I just re-watched the whole series a couple months ago. My issue with DS9 was how they turned Gul Dukat into an anime villain and straight up contradicted earlier scenes with the prophets. Not a big fan of the ending of the series. Another thing that annoyed me was that one episode the defiant takes out a flight of Jem’hadar fighters with ease and then four episodes later is nearly destroyed by one fighter. The actors that played Sisko and Odo did a fantastic job though. Bringing back Worf and O’brian was a good idea too.

I personally preferred Babylon 5 by many many lightyears. While the special effects were no where as good the writing was superior overall. Honestly though much like DS9 the first season of B5 was spotty.

@ BIll : Were you the one I made the audio file for? Someone on this site had mentioned they desired that piece of audio so I ripped it for him.

DS9 is the best Star Trek series bar none, and that includes TOS (although we really do have to judge that by different standards since it aired, what, 30 years prior?)

Voyager, on the other hand, was pretty much a wreck. There were a few great episodes, a handful of good ones, and then a lot that were just really, really bad. I actually think that Enterprise–at least after Season 1 and “A Night In Sickbay,” which was beyond boring–was overall better than Voyager. I think if they did a fifth season it would have gone really well.

@ Matt : I thoroughly enjoyed Babylon 5, as well. Have you watched Farscape? The full run is on Amazon Prime.

@ Gromitt Gunn : I keep meaning to give farscape a try but every-time I do something happens which prevents me from watching it.

Also when did they figure out how to fire weapons in warp? I remember that not being possible and then suddenly in DS9 it’s possible.

I’m pleased to find so many DS9 fans here. It’s my favorite Strek series, including TOS. The cast was, collectively, easily the most accomplished group of actors in any Trek series. It really hit its stride when it moved away from the “alien of the week” type of episode in the second season, which is my complaint about Next Gen. A few too many “we welcome you to the Federation” type moments, then you never saw or heard of them again. Getting rid of Tasha Yar was also a bad move. That left a real void of strong female characters in Next Gen.

Enterprise had its moments, though not enough of them. Voyager was just awful.

I just finished DS9. I agree it is the best of the Star Treks. What I marvel at was that they produced 26 episodes a year. Two episodes that struck me around Veterans Day were the Siege of AR-558 and two episodes later, It’s only a Paper Moon. Made me tear up.

I thought that Voyager was OK. However, it did produce Treshold, which might the worst hour of Star Trek ever.

I love DS9, one of my favorite shows. Also, the pilot managed to compress Solaris down to an easily digestible 20 minute subplot — and that was well worth the long slog that was Season 1.

Enterprise never really found its footing, and was lurching from one thing to another too often. I really enjoyed the third season, and was disappointed by the unambitious fourth season.

Voyager, however, pretty quickly figured out what it wanted to be, and was fairly consistent through the whole show. Unfortunately, it was consistently terrible. But, still better than the new movies.

@ Matt : I’m not sure. I’m not enough of a hard core Trekker, I guess. Heh.

I think that part of why I enjoy DS9, Babylon 5, and Farscape compared to a lot of sci-fi television is that each have multiple well-rounded, well written female characters who get semi-regular point-of-view story arcs / character development.

Well, BSG, also has that, as far that goes. But BSG is probably my favorite TV series of all time, so that’s an entire other conversation. I could talk about BSG for hours without a break. Heh.

I get why some folks love DS9. When it was good, it was very, very good and it did try and do a few different things with the brand. But I preferred the consistent quality of Voyager, low as it was, to the wild gyrations of DS9.

Bashir a genetically engineer superman?

The destiny of The Emissary of the Prophets was to fly down and knock Gul Dukat off a cliff?

The fact that after 7 seasons the two main alien species of DS9, Cardassians and Bajorans, had less defined personality types than Klingons, Vulcans, Ferengi or just about any other alien race had after one scene on Classic Trek or DS9?

That lounge singer guy from the Holosuites?

There was A LOT of awful stuff on DS9 that gets passed over when folks try to elevate it to top of the Trek heap.

The problem I had with Voyager was not taking advantage of the “trapped far away from Starfleet, with a crew mixed of Starfleet personnel and rebels, with a ship that would not be able to be repaired, and with neuropacks that would eventually allow her to develop sentience so as to refuse orders or have her own ideas for attacks and defense”….but maybe that’s just me?

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DS9 and Voyager in Chronological Order

Discussion in ' General Trek Discussion ' started by DigificWriter , Sep 10, 2016 .

DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

Hi, all. Just for fun, I ended up putting together a Chronological Guide for Deep Space Nine and Voyager that covers the first 5 seasons of DS9 and the first 3 seasons of Voyager, and figured I'd share it with my fellow Trek fans. [Deep Space Nine Season 1] Emissary (Deep Space Nine 1x01/1x02) Past Prologue (Deep Space Nine 1x03) A Man Alone (Deep Space Nine 1x04) Babel (Deep Space Nine 1x05) Captive Pursuit (Deep Space Nine 1x06) Q-Less (Deep Space Nine 1x07) Dax (Deep Space Nine 1x08) The Passenger (Deep Space Nine 1x09) Move Along Home (Deep Space Nine 1x10) The Nagus (Deep Space Nine 1x11) Vortex (Deep Space Nine 1x12) Battle Lines (Deep Space Nine 1x13) The Storyteller (Deep Space Nine 1x14) Progress (Deep Space Nine 1x15) If Wishes Were Horses (Deep Space Nine 1x16) Dramatis Personae (Deep Space Nine 1x17) The Forsaken (Deep Space Nine 1x18) Duet (Deep Space Nine 1x19) In the Hands of the Prophets (Deep Space Nine 1x20) [Deep Space Nine Season 2] The Homecoming (Deep Space Nine 2x01) The Circle (Deep Space Nine 2x02) The Siege (Deep Space Nine 2x03) Cardassians (Deep Space Nine 2x04) Invasive Procedures (Deep Space Nine 2x05) Melora (Deep Space Nine 2x06) Rules of Acquisition (Deep Space Nine 2x07) Necessary Evil (Deep Space Nine 2x08) Second Sight (Deep Space Nine 2x09) Rivals (Deep Space Nine 2x10) Sanctuary (Deep Space Nine 2x11) The Alternate (Deep Space Nine 2x12) Armageddon Game (Deep Space Nine 2x13) Paradise (Deep Space Nine 2x14) Whispers (Deep Space Nine 2x15) Shadowplay (Deep Space Nine 2x16) Playing God (Deep Space Nine 2x17) Profit and Loss (Deep Space Nine 2x18) Blood Oath (Deep Space Nine 2x19) The Maquis, Part 1 (Deep Space Nine 2x20) The Maquis, Part 2 (Deep Space Nine 2x21) The Wire (Deep Space Nine 2x22 Crossover (Deep Space Nine 2x23) The Collaborator (Deep Space Nine 2x24) Tribunal (Deep Space Nine 2x25) The Jem'Hadar (Deep Space Nine 2x26) [Deep Space Nine Season 3/Voyager Season 1] The Search, Part 1 (Deep Space Nine 3x01) The Search, Part 2 (Deep Space Nine 3x02) The House of Quark (Deep Space Nine 3x03) Equilibrium (Deep Space Nine 3x04) Second Skin (Deep Space Nine 3x05) The Abandoned (Deep Space Nine 3x06) Civil Defense (Deep Space Nine 3x07) Meridian (Deep Space Nine 3x08) Fascination (Deep Space Nine 3x09) Defiant (Deep Space Nine 3x10) Past Tense, Part 1 (Deep Space Nine 3x11) Past Tense, Part 2 (Deep Space Nine 3x12) Caretaker (Voyager 1x01/1x02) Parallax (Voyager 1x03) Life Support (Deep Space Nine 3x13) Time and Again (Voyager 1x04) Heart of Stone (Deep Space Nine 3x14) Phage (Voyager 1x05) Destiny (Deep Space Nine 3x15) The Cloud (Voyager 1x06) Prophet Motive (Deep Space Nine 3x16) Visionary (Deep Space Nine 3x17) Distant Voices (Deep Space Nine 3x18) Eye of the Needle (Voyager 1x07) Ex-Post Facto (Voyager 1x08) Through the Looking Glass (Deep Space Nine 3x19) Improbable Cause (Deep Space Nine 3x20) The Die is Cast (Deep Space Nine 3x21) Emanations (Voyager 1x09) Prime Factors (Voyager 1x10) State of Flux (Voyager 1x11) Heroes and Demons (Voyager 1x12) Explorers (Deep Space Nine 3x22) Family Business (Deep Space Nine 3x23) Cathexis (Voyager 1x13) Shakaar (Deep Space Nine 3x24) Faces (Voyager 1x14) Jetrel (Voyager 1x15) Learning Curve (Voyager 1x16) Projections (Voyager 1x17) Elogium (Voyager 1x18) Twisted (Voyager 1x19) Facets (Deep Space Nine 3x25) The Adversary (Deep Space Nine 3x26) The 37s (Voyager 1x20) [Deep Space Nine Season 4/Voyager Season 2] Initiations (Voyager 2x01) Non Sequitur (Voyager 2x02) The Way of the Warrior (Deep Space Nine 4x01/4x02) Persistence of Vision (Voyager 2x03) The Visitor (Deep Space Nine 4x03) Hippocratic Oath (Deep Space Nine 4x04) Partuition (Voyager 2x04) Tattoo (Voyager 2x05) Indiscretion (Deep Space Nine 4x05) Rejoined (Deep Space Nine 4x06) Cold Fire (Voyager 2x06) Little Green Men (Deep Space Nine 4x07) Maneuvers (Voyager 2x07) Resistance (Voyager 2x08) Starship Down (Deep Space Nine 4x08) Prototype (Voyager 2x09) The Sword of Kahless (Deep Space Nine 4x09) Our Man Bashir (Deep Space Nine 4x10) Alliances (Voyager 2x10) Homefront (Deep Space Nine 4x11) Threshold (Voyager 2x11) Meld (Voyager 2x12) Dreadnought (Voyager 2x13) Death Wish (Voyager 2x14) Paradise Lost (Deep Space Nine 4x12) Lifesigns (Voyager 2x15) Investigations (Voyager 2x16) Crossfire (Deep Space Nine 4x13) Return to Grace (Deep Space Nine 4x14) Deadlock (Voyager 2x17) Sons of Mogh (Deep Space Nine 4x15) Bar Association (Deep Space Nine 4x16) Innocence (Voyager 2x18) Accession (Deep Space Nine 4x17) The Thaw (Voyager 2x19) Tuvix (Voyager 2x20) Rules of Engagement (Deep Space Nine 4x18) Hard Time (Deep Space Nine 4x19) Resolutions (Voyager 2x21) Shattered Mirror (Deep Space Nine 4x20) Basics, Part 1 (Voyager 2x22) The Muse (Deep Space Nine 4x21) For the Cause (Deep Space Nine 4x22) To the Death (Deep Space Nine 4x23) The Quickening (Deep Space Nine 4x24) Body Parts (Deep Space Nine 4x25) Broken Link (Deep Space Nine 4x26) [Deep Space Nine Season 5/Voyager Season 3] Apocalypse Rising (Deep Space Nine 5x01) Basics, Part 2 (Voyager 3x01) False Profits (Voyager 3x02) The Ship (Deep Space Nine 5x02) Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places (Deep Space Nine 5x03) ...Nor the Battle to the Strong (Deep Space Nine 5x04) The Assignment (Deep Space Nine 5x05) Sacred Ground (Voyager 3x03) Trials and Tribble-ations (Deep Space Nine 5x06) Let He Who is Without Sin (Deep Space Nine 5x07) Things Past (Deep Space Nine 5x08) Flashback (Voyager 3x04) The Chute (Voyager 3x05) Remember (Voyager 3x06) The Ascent (Deep Space Nine 5x09) The Swarm (Voyager 3x07) Future's End, Part 1 (Voyager 3x08) Future's End, Part 2 (Voyager 3x09) Warlord (Voyager 3x10) The Q and the Grey (Voyager 3x11) Rapture (Deep Space Nine 5x10) The Darkness and the Light (Deep Space Nine 5x11) Macrocosm (Voyager 3x12) The Begotten (Deep Space Nine 5x12) Fair Trade (Voyager 3x13) Alter Ego (Voyager 3x14) For the Uniform (Deep Space Nine 5x13) Coda (Voyager 3x15) Blood Fever (Voyager 3x16) In Purgatory's Shadow (Deep Space Nine 5x14) Unity (Voyager 3x17) By Inferno's Light (Deep Space Nine 5x15) Rise (Voyager 3x18) Doctor Bashir, I Presume (Deep Space Nine 5x16) A Simple Investigation (Deep Space Nine 5x17) Business as Usual (Deep Space Nine 5x18) Darkling (Voyager 3x19) Ferengi Love Songs (Deep Space Nine 5x19) Ties of Blood and Water (Deep Space Nine 5x20) Favorite Son (Voyager 3x20) Before and After (Voyager 3x21) Real Life (Voyager 3x22) Children of Time (Deep Space Nine 5x21) Soldiers of the Empire (Deep Space Nine 5x22) Blaze of Glory (Deep Space Nine 5x23) Distant Origin (Voyager 3x23) Empok Nor (Deep Space Nine 5x24) Displaced (Voyager 3x24) In the Cards (Deep Space Nine 5x25) Worst Case Scenario (Voyager 3x25) Call to Arms (Deep Space Nine 5x26) Scorpion, Part 1 (Voyager 3x26) Note 1: This chronology attempts, whenever/wherever possible, to order things by Stardate, and relies on a number of "missing" Stardates that may or may not be Canonical depending on your own point of view. Note 2: Any assistance/suggestions people could give me in terms of arranging/ordering the episodes for DS9 Season 6/Voyager Season 4 and DS9 Season 7/Voyager Season 5 would be greatly appreciated. Note 3: First post updated to place Dax back in production/story order in spite of its Stardate. Note 4: First post updated to correct an unconscious error I'd made in accidentally flipping Sanctuary and The Alternate  

Tosk Admiral Admiral

Regardless of stardates, I wouldn't split multi-parters that way. No way there's time for four eps of VOY between Homefront and Paradise Lost , or seven eps of DS9 between Basics part 1 and 2 .  

^ Actually, there is. Homefront's Stardate is 49170.65 (placing its events in March), while Paradise Lost's Stardate is 49364 (placing its events in May). That's a gap of a little more than 2 months. As for Basics 1 and 2, the Stardate I have for Part 1 is 49700.0 (placing its events in September), with the listed Stardate for Part 2 being 50032.7 (placing its events in January, which is a gap of about 4 months. Both DS9 and Voyager had a habit of jumping ahead significantly in time between the events of Parts 1 and 2 of some of their multiparters.  

DigificWriter said: ↑ As for Basics 1 and 2, the Stardate I have for Part 1 is 49700.0 (placing its events in September), with the listed Stardate for Part 2 being 50032.7 (placing its events in January, which is a gap of about 4 months. Click to expand...

Aside from Lifesigns and Investigations, Voyager was diligent and meticulous in its use of Stardates (as was DS9), so it makes no sense to ignore Stardates because you're basically ignoring narrative intent by doing so. If Stardates weren't important, they wouldn't have been used. Anyway, this is getting somewhat off-subject. Does anybody have suggestions as to how to chronologically arrange DS9 Season 6/Voyager Season 4 and DS9 Season 7/Voyager Season 5?  

http://thestartrekchronologyproject.blogspot.com.au/ Also, where does your stardate for Basics part 1 even come from? The ep doesn't actually have one.  

^ The problem with that particular listing is that it isn't "technically" chronological given that it more or less just relies on airdate rather than actual storyline narrative relative to individual arcs, episodes, and events. Regarding the Basics 1 Stardate, I cribbed it from another user's post in a thread that was posted on here a few years back: http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/chronological-viewing-order-missing-ds9-voy-stardates-found.212584/  

TonyLeung82 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

DigificWriter said: ↑ ^ As for Basics 1 and 2, the Stardate I have for Part 1 is 49700.0 (placing its events in September), with the listed Stardate for Part 2 being 50032.7 (placing its events in January, which is a gap of about 4 months. Click to expand...

ok, you already answered my question. Nevertheless it is not really convinving...I also would not put Basic Part 1 in September and Part 2 in January.  

DigificWriter said: ↑ Regarding the Basics 1 Stardate, I cribbed it from another user's post in a thread that was posted on here a few years back: Click to expand...

I'm choosing to assume that the person who posted the Stardate for Basics 1 and others didn't just arbitrarily make up the number he/she gave, meaning that it came from somewhere at least semi-official, even if it wasn't ultimately used in the episode itself.  

retroenzo Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

Didn't the video releases of the time have stardates printed on them? Unfortunately if nothing was ever specified in the episode then the video company made them up. Ah here we go. Found it. This was the cover of Voyager 3.1 released in the UK by CIC video. http://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2015/2/23/2/a/2/2a2e7a3e-bb61-11e4-8480-b77c24f60d99.jpg  

retroenzo said: ↑ Didn't the video releases of the time have stardates printed on them? Unfortunately if nothing was ever specified in the episode then the video company made them up. Ah here we go. Found it. This was the cover of Voyager 3.1 released in the UK by CIC video. http://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2015/2/23/2/a/2/2a2e7a3e-bb61-11e4-8480-b77c24f60d99.jpg Click to expand...

Just trying to find a picture of 2.11 (with Basics, part 1) and failing.  

Hmm it's not great but here's the cover on Amazon. I can't make out the stardate listing as the image is so poor but there's definitely a stardate there. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trek-...96&sr=8-1&keywords=star+trek+voyager+vhs+2.11  

retroenzo said: ↑ Hmm it's not great but here's the cover on Amazon. I can't make out the stardate listing as the image is so poor but there's definitely a stardate there. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trek-...96&sr=8-1&keywords=star+trek+voyager+vhs+2.11 Click to expand...

TonyLeung82 said: ↑ Yeah true, difficult to read. I can not read it either Click to expand...

You can't go by made up stardates for a VHS cover. Not unless you're willing to accept that DS9's fourth season episodes Little Green Men, Crossfire, and Return to Grace actually happened during the first half of DS9's third season. Not to mention the VHS cover placing Homefront and Paradise Lost in the same period despite having proper on-screen stardates given.  

retroenzo said: ↑ Ah I just found it. Scroll down to the product description and it says this. Click to expand...

Tosk said: ↑ You can't go by made up stardates for a VHS cover. Not unless you're willing to accept that DS9's fourth season episodes Little Green Men, Crossfire, and Return to Grace actually happened during the first half of DS9's third season. Not to mention the VHS cover placing Homefront and Paradise Lost in the same period despite having proper on-screen stardates given. Click to expand...

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Deep Space Nine vs. Voyager

• Thread starter Nikkolas
• Start date Feb 23, 2009

• Feb 23, 2009

Which was the better second-class ST show? (well it seems TOS and TNG are agreed to be the best so these two are second-class) I've seen some of Voyager, namely the eps with S8472, and it looks okay. I've yet to see any of DS9 however and am curious about which would be more enjoyable to watch.  

I ain't your average sicko

Second class? DS9 was easily the best of the Trek shows IMO. It had long overspanning story arcs, complex grey characters and moral dilemmas. Not to mention it had the most and best space battles, and the most awesome starship of them all. EDIT: Above all, DS9 had Garak!  

I feel DS9 is better than TNG which is in turn much better than Voyager. I know a lot of people who considered DS9 to be the best Trek show- it didn't get the ratings TNG did while it was on, but it did have an overarcing story and some great characters.  

Missing & Presumed Dead

DS9 was the best Trek. Voyager and TNG were much the same, except TNG was lifted by Picard and Voyager dragged down by Janeway.  

I'm rather fond of milk

Hm. Didn't expect this. Gues I'll watch DS9.  

DS9 will always have a place in my heart. Just remember Plain, Simple Garak for all your clothing needs. Also, the endless arguments between Quark and Odo canNOT be beat by anything else, well...maybe Q and Picard.  

DrToxicophilous

DS9 definitely  

DS9 was good for people who didn't really care for Trek that much. I think I may actually enjoy Voyager more in the long run only because I *LIKE* Star Trek because it doesn't have all the dark elements that every other sci-fi franchise does. DS9, while a good show, became more of a generic sci-fi show.  

Lorgar Aurelian

Book of lorgar.

God Emperor of Earth

• Feb 24, 2009

DS9 is the best TV series out of all the Trek shows.  

I'm Captain Basch! Don't listen to Ondore's lies!

...Not much love for ENT, is there?  

THeSquirrelKing

Tyrranical rodent.

Crazy Tom said: Once I was old enough to appreciate story arcs, grey characters and lack of a reset button , I got into DS9 a lot more... Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Fuckin' Lurker

TNG> DS9 > TOS > Voyager/ENT as far as I'm concerned.  

THeSquirrelKing said: Oh come on, how many times tit DS9 push the reset button? "Here's a brand new Defiant, also named the Defiant!" Click to expand... Click to shrink...

High Admiral

Damar said: Actually it was officially called the Sao Paulo, and Sisko had to get Admiral approvement to rename it Defiant again. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

murtalianconfed

I must admit, I do prefer DS9. Its not fantastic compared to other francises, and the need to try and wedge the Bajoran's religion into almost every episode tended to grate, but it was okay.  

Dark Asendant

DS9 is a thousand times better than Voyager if you let your brain do even a tiny amount of thinking while watching television. Voyager is...brainless.  

murtalianconfed said: I must admit, I do prefer DS9. Its not fantastic compared to other francises, and the need to try and wedge the Bajoran's religion into almost every episode tended to grate, but it was okay. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Friendly Oppressor

I'm going to leave TOS in it's own little category, because it never really clicked, but I know what it meant. Out of the second generation series, I've always viewed it thus: DS9 was probably the best overall. I tend to tie TNG and Enterprise. As bad as Enterprise was often claimed to be (and I never thought it was as horrible as some people claimed) it never dived into some of the pits that the first two seasons of TNG did. That said, I'm not sure it ever quite climbed to same heights, though under Manny Coto it looked like that was a real possibility. Voyager in a lot of ways was like TNG in that kind of dithering respect, until somewhere near the end of the fourth season, it finally got shot down and began a long slow plunge. And I don't blame seven for that, if anything she helped keep a dying ship afloat longer then it otherwise should have been able to.  

...Not much love for ENT, is there? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

DS9>TNG=TOS>ENT>>>>VOY imo ofcourse, I always enjoyed DS9, the characters were made much better than anything in any other ST and the universe was more "grimdark" beacose of the war not the happy hippie place TNG was. "In the pale moonlight" is probably the best ST episode ever made but I did read that a lot of ST fans don't like DS9 beacose of the darker aproach to it compared to other ST works, some even say that Gene wouldn't aprove of what they did with DS9.  

FleetAdmiral

Serving the imperial navy.

To be honest, I only found a few episodes of TNG good - the Wolf 359 issue, "Yesterday's Enterprise", Klingon Civil War As for DS9, I personally preferred the episodes near and during the Dominion War. DS9 had excellent characters in the form of Garak and Gul Dukat (who was an always entertaining villain). Garak was always full of surprises and always did the right thing, from a certain point of view. Later with the introduction of (later) Legget Damar was another villain that everyone learned to like. Especially with this speech ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlbEzNHvrUE ). And the always entertaining jest between Quark and Odo. Plus DS9 showed what lengths (to a point) the Federation would go to, to win - IE Tricking the Romulans into joining the war on their side. Voyager had some good episodes, but it is a less series.  

Cap'n Chryssalid

The armor piercing wang.

DS9 is still my favorite; a few years ago, I'd probably have put TNG ahead of it, but really, looking back it is easier to re-watch a lot of DS9 episodes than it is TNG. Maybe its because you can remember where an individual episode fits within the season and the broader story, rather than it just being another episode that could have happened... whenever...  

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Deep Space Nine was ahead of its time for all the reasons it was Star Trek’s ‘problem child’

The show’s commitment to complexity defines the series’ best episodes

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Last week, when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine celebrated its 30th birthday, the official Star Trek social media presence marked the occasion with only the barest of acknowledgements: a congratulatory tweet asking fans to name their favorite episodes, a new listicle of great quotes from the series, and not much else. An official anniversary logo and merchandise were rolled out, but with relatively little fanfare. There are, after all, five new Star Trek shows to talk about , including a reunion of the beloved Next Generation cast due in February on Star Trek: Picard. Paramount’s relative quiet about the anniversary is disappointing, but hardly surprising. As fans of the series — or its stars and producers — will tell you, it’s always been this way. Deep Space Nine was Star Trek’s problem child from the very beginning, and that’s exactly what made it so ahead of its time.

The show’s struggle for recognition is detailed in the 2018 documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Deep Space Nine , which is essentially a love letter from the show’s former showrunner Ira Steven Behr to his cast and crew. Spinning out of the smash hit Star Trek: The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine launched in first-run syndication on January 3rd, 1993, and it was immediately apparent that this wouldn’t simply be the same premise with a different cast. (This was before Law and Order, CSI, or NCIS found massive success with exactly this model, juggling as many as three series at once with the premise Crime: But Elsewhere.)

Rather than simply send another Starfleet crew on a mission to go boldly where no one has gone before, creators Rick Berman and Michael Piller decided to take Star Trek back to its roots as a space western. If Star Trek was “ Wagon Train to the Stars,” as Roddenberry had often pitched it, Berman and Piller wanted their series to be Gunsmoke . Instead of riding into a new town/planet, confronting a problem, and moving on, their new heroes would live on space station Deep Space 9, the future equivalent of a frontier settlement where adventure comes to them. Consequently, this would leave the characters unable to simply wash their hands of the consequences of each episode and move on down the space trail. They’d be forced to clean up their own messes and rebuild the place — and themselves — a little differently each time.

But, for a franchise whose heroes champion “infinite diversity in infinite combination,” Star Trek’s fanbase has a predictable habit of dismissing the new and different. Viewers rejected DS9 for a variety of reasons, from the reasonable (“What happened to that tireless Star Trek optimism?”), to the ridiculous (“You mean the station just sits there? ”). Even after The Next Generation came to a close in 1994, Trekkies who were resistant to the off-beat space drama could simply wait for the premiere of its more familiar, less ambitious successor, Star Trek: Voyager , the following January. Deep Space Nine enjoyed a few scant months as the only new Trek on television, after which it was essentially buried in favor of Voyager , the flagship series of the new UPN television network.

Just as importantly, the launch of both UPN and The WB in 1995 meant that first-run syndicated dramas were muscled out of prime time slots, and where Voyager aired nationwide on Mondays at 8 p.m., DS9 ’s schedule was erratic. (In my market, DS9 ran on Saturday nights at 7 p.m., unless the Mets were playing a night game.) This was particularly problematic given Deep Space Nine ’s commitment to serialized storytelling, which only deepend across its seven seasons. If a viewer missed an episode, which was likely to happen, they could potentially miss key story or character developments, and even showrunner Ira Steven Behr admits in What We Left Behind that it was not a boon to the show’s ratings at the time.

It is, however, perfect for streaming television, where Deep Space Nine found a new lease on life in the 2010s. Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation are timeless, but decades after their release, Deep Space Nine is the classic Star Trek series that feels the most modern . While certainly not the first of its kind, it’s an early example of television’s growth from a medium for short stories to a canvas for sprawling odysseys. Moreover, existing in the very ’90s middle ground between story-of-the-week and full serialization puts it in the now-precious sweet spot in which every episode feels like a satisfying dish rather than a single bite of a meal that’s being spread out across ten courses. This is closer to the model being employed today by its younger cousins Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Prodigy , and Lower Decks , which have overall enjoyed a warmer reception than their fully serialized older sisters Discovery and Picard .

Though the depiction of an inclusive future for humanity has been one of Star Trek’s watchwords from the very beginning, Deep Space Nine is the classic series that comes the closest to meeting today’s standards for diversity. The series doesn’t just give the franchise its first Black leading man but also its most conflicted and textured, in single dad/station commander In That Order Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). In What We Left Behind , Cirroc Lofton, who portrays Sisko’s son Jake, laments that Deep Space Nine is rarely mentioned in conversations about Black television shows despite the prominence of a Black family and the multitude of storylines involving exclusively Black actors. (In fairness, behind the scenes, DS9 was almost exclusively white.)

DS9 offered its female characters far more interesting and prominent roles than its predecessors. Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) is a former terrorist who now serves the planet that she killed to liberate, but the new government is a shambles and ghosts from her violent past seem to hide around every corner. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) has lived half a dozen lifetimes, both as a man and as a woman, and grows over time from a dime store Spock to the show’s endlessly lovable rogue. Recurring character Winn Adami (Louise Fletcher) might be Star Trek’s most fascinating antagonist, a religious leader whose faith and judgment are clouded by insecurity and political ambition.

But, above all, what makes Deep Space Nine feel the most urgent of all Star Trek shows past and present is that, more than any of its siblings, it embraces nuance. Star Trek is, and has always been, didactic, a means by which storytellers can approach delicate or controversial topics from a safe distance or with a new context. Deep Space Nine is no exception, but rather than spending 40 minutes attacking a social problem head-on and having the captain deliver a clear thesis statement before the credits roll, DS9 tends to leave the audience with room to draw their own conclusions. The dilemmas faced by Captain Sisko and company are more complex, as are their resolutions, which often do not fully satisfy the characters. Not only does this make for more interesting television, but it also tends to age much better than clear-cut “message episodes,” which are necessarily painted by the specific biases and blind spots of their time. There are still some absolute groaners in the bunch (“Profit and Lace” comes to mind, in which Quark goes undercover as a woman and predictable sexist hijinx ensues), but Deep Space Nine shows its age less than other Star Trek shows because it explores complex issues through complex characters and over extended periods of time, rather than simplifying and moralizing.

Captain Sisko is forced to make terrible choices — up to and including an outright war crime — in order to save the Federation from being conquered by the totalitarian Dominion. Like the violence performed by Kira Nerys during the occupation of her homeworld, these dark deeds are framed as both shameful and necessary. The same ambiguity applies to the Maquis, antagonists of the early seasons of the series who wage war against the Cardassians after the Federation trades away their homes as part of a peace treaty. It’s Sisko’s job to protect that peace, but even he must agree that the colonists are justifiably enraged by being betrayed by their own government. The righteousness of the Federation itself is called into question when Dr. Julian Bashir uncovers its amoral secret intelligence branch, Section 31, whose own actions are downright evil. Deep Space Nine never surrenders to full, nihilistic, ethical relativism; there is always a line between right and wrong. But, unlike on The Next Generation , where the strict Kantian philosopher Jean-Luc Picard sits in the captain’s chair, that line is not static.

This, too, attracted the ire of the Trek faithful back when the show was on the air. Star Trek sometimes feels like a cult, not only because of the dedication of its fans but because it does, in fact, try to tell you how to live. That a new installment of this quasi-holy text — the first composed entirely after the death of creator Gene Roddenberry — would question or contradict this vision of the future was abhorrent to some, but it in fact adds an ingredient that is essential to any faith or philosophy: doubt. Doubt that our heroes are incorruptible. Doubt that our current values are the best ones. Doubt that our own experiences are universal. Deep Space Nine does not throw away the ideal future of Star Trek, but it does attack its dogmatism. And, at a time when the only thing that moves faster than information is judgment and we are increasingly desperate for new ways of thinking and living, there’s never been a better time for a long, interrogative look at the world of tomorrow.

Star Trek: Discovery is cracking open a box Next Gen closed on purpose

Star trek: discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants, the 10 horniest episodes of star trek, ranked by cultural impact.

Screen Rant

Discovery's ds9 & voyager references make it star trek's biggest show.

Star Trek: Discovery's jump to the far future lets it incorporate DS9 and Voyager's legacies, which makes it the new center of the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Discovery is now the biggest show in the franchise, thanks to how it incorporates and honors the legacies of the Star Trek series that came before it. When it launched in 2017, Star Trek: Discovery was a 23rd-century prequel set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series that many fans dismissed for how it disrupted established canon and the way it deviated from prior Star Trek TV presentations. But now that season 3 is exploring Star Trek' s future era circa 3189, Star Trek: Discovery is clearly the flagship leading the way for the Star Trek universe on CBS All-Access.

Visually and stylistically, Star Trek: Discovery has far more in common with the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie reboot trilogy, and the show took on the daunting task of modernizing Star Trek for the Peak TV era. But in this way, Star Trek: Discovery was kindred to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , which broke the established and highly successful TOS and Star Trek: The Next Generation episodic formula to deliver a more serialized, complex, and character-based saga - one that plays as intriguingly today as it did in the 1990s. Star Trek: Discovery took bold chances with a few missteps in season 1 but, in season 2, the addition of classic characters Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) excited fans and helped create a superior adventure with just the right amount of callbacks and references. Still,  Star Trek: Discovery was hampered by being a prequel - a problem the series ingeniously solved by leaping 930 years into the future, beyond all established canon.

Related: Star Trek Discovery: Every Starfleet And Federation Change In The 32nd Century

Star Trek: Discovery season 3 is now writing the new canon but it also proudly carries its heritage with it. Even better, Star Trek: Discovery season 3 has begun honoring both DS9  (with the addition of Trill characters) and Star Trek: Voyager  so that the two TNG sequel shows are finally getting their overdue recognition for how vital and influential they are to the franchise. Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 5, "Die Trying" showed the 32nd-century incarnation of Captain Katheryn Janeway's (Kate Mulgrew) starship, the U.S.S. Voyager-J , which implies that it could see action as season 3 progresses. And, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo, the U.S.S. Discovery also cruised past another starship, the U.S.S. Nog , which honors DS9 's first Ferengi in Starfleet, who was played by the late Aron Eisenberg. The message is clear: Star Trek: Discovery is Star Trek now, but everything that came before counts and is in play in the 32nd century as needed.

Trekkers rejoiced when Star Trek: Picard joined the CBS Trek franchise and, while it did bring back the TNG fandom who wanted a dose of nostalgia, the series about Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was not at all like Star Trek: The Next Generation by design, which some fans found disorienting. Star Trek: Picard wasn't set on a Starfleet ship and it's about an eclectic cast of misfits including Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), which is a dream team-up of the most popular TNG and Voyager icons. But TNG guest stars aside, Star Trek: Picard feels more like an outlier show, and not the true center of the Star Trek franchise despite being about Picard.

After Abrams rebooted Kirk and Spock in an alternate timeline and then Star Trek: Discovery launched in the 23rd century, DS9 and Voyager just didn't get a lot a franchise love for years and both felt forgotten outside of the occasional Easter egg. Even Star Trek: Enterprise got more attention since, as the earliest prequel, it had canonical elements Discovery and Abrams' films could draw from. However, that tide has happily been changing; Star Trek: Lower Decks joyously references all aspects of Star Trek including DS9 and Voyager , although, as an animated comedy series, it isn't held in quite the same regard or seen as true canon by many Trekkers.

There was a fear that jumping 930 years into the future would further divorce Star Trek: Discovery from the mainline franchise but, instead, Disco has truly assumed the role of the flagship of optimism that is leading the way and bringing all of the past Star Trek with it in the new final frontier. The U.S.S. Nog isn't just a shoutout; it means that the beloved DS9 character became so important in-universe that a starship was named after him as the ultimate honor. The possibility now exists that the Voyager-J and the Nog will soon see action and fight alongside Discovery , a symbolic melding of Star Trek shows that were once looked down upon but are now recognized for how important they are to the franchise and to fans. This makes Star Trek: Discovery the biggest and most important modern Star Trek show and the sky's the limit of how far it will all go.

Next: Star Trek: Discovery Season 3's New Starfleet Officers Guide

Trek vs Trek

I watch 2 episodes of Star Trek from 2 different series, and write about them.

“You’re too late, we’re everywhere”: The Adversary (DS9) vs. State of Flux (VOY)

*This post contains heavy spoilers for the Voyager episode, “State of Flux”, as well as for Deep Space Nine’s third-season finale, “The Adversary”. It also contains moderate spoilers for ongoing storylines through the first three seasons of DS9.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – “The Adversary” (season 3, episode 26)

Written by Ira Stephen Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe; directed by Alexander Singer; first aired in 1995

( IMDb | Memory Alpha )

Sisko is promoted from Commander to Captain, but his day goes downhill from there. A Federation Ambassador brings news of political upheaval among a race called the Tzenkethi, and delivers Starfleet’s orders for Sisko to take the Defiant out to the Federation-Tzenkethi border, just in case. It turns out, though, that Starfleet gave no such orders, and that the Ambassador is really a shape-shifting Changeling sent by the Dominion to wreak havoc in the Alpha Quadrant. Now, with a sabotaged Defiant set on autopilot to attack the Tzenkethi, and its crew pointing phasers and wild accusations at each other, Sisko might just have to blow up his own ship to avoid starting a war. Turns out being the Captain kind of sucks, sometimes.     

Star Trek: Voyager – “State of Flux” (season 1, episode 11)

Teleplay by Chris Abbot; story by Paul Robert Coyle; directed by Robert Scheerer; first aired in 1995

Ensign Seska, Chakotay’s old Maquis pal (and more, apparently), steals him some mushroom soup, and it’s all downhill from there. After an away team has a close call with some Kazon while foraging for mushrooms and poison apples, Voyager responds to a distress call from a Kazon ship whose crew have been fused into their ship’s walls. It seems this weirdness was caused by some malfunctioning Federation technology … technology the Kazon could only have gotten from someone on Voyager. Chakotay is forced to suspect Seska, since she was unaccounted for on the away mission when the Kazon showed up. Or, it could be … no, it’s pretty obviously Seska. But that doesn’t make it any less shocking when she turns out to be a Cardassian spy, surgically altered to look Bajoran. Seska berates Janeway for letting Federation ideals get in the way of their voyage home, and then beams off Voyager to a Kazon ship, leaving Chakotay to wonder if anyone in his old Maquis crew wasn’t a double agent.

When we looked at the Original Series’ “The Enemy Within” and The Next Generation’s “Second Chances”, I was impressed by the way those episodes start from the same basic sci-fi premise – a transporter malfunction creates 2 Kirks, and 2 Rikers – but take it in such different directions: where “Enemy” asks broad philosophical questions about identity and leadership, “Chances” simply spends some time with Troi and Riker (and Riker) as they’re forced to revisit their past and take stock of their future. In DS9’s “The Adversary” and Voyager’s “State of Flux”, we see almost the opposite: two episodes that each explore the fear that those around us might not be who or what they seem, but do it through two very different sci-fi conceits.

In “The Adversary”, this takes the form of a story of infiltration and paranoia, told through the tried-and-true device of a shape-shifting intruder. The episode’s most obvious inspiration, of course, is John Carpenter’s 1982 film, The Thing , with this inspiration reflected in details ranging from its choice of title to the use of a blood test to identify the shape-shifter by isolating a part of it. But beyond these specific details, “The Adversary” seeks to create a general atmosphere of oppressive tension in much the same way. The threat here is about as ‘alien’ as any threat can be, when the story takes place in a multi-species society; a non-humanoid (the Changeling) from a distant sector of space (the Gamma Quadrant) sent by a mysterious and threatening foreign power (the Dominion). This political element to the plot – the Dominion’s plans to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant, as preparation for an implied, impending invasion – is something that wasn’t explicit in Carpenter’s film, though viewers at the time, before the Cold War had ended, might have picked up on some political subtext related to the threat of infiltration by outsiders. Viewers today, of both the film and the DS9 episode, might pick up on similar subtext, if for different reasons, and DS9 would go on to explore the societal fallout from such fears and paranoia in a fourth-season two-parter – “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost”, which I’ll write about soon – that probably resonates even more so now, post-9/11, than it would have when it first aired, in the mid-90s.

“State of Flux” first aired in the same year as “The Adversary” – 1995 – and its own premise might also resonate more now than it did then. But where “Adversary” creates suspense via claustrophobic crawls through Jeffries tubes while the Defiant ticks ever closer to self-destruct, “Flux” takes a quieter, less heightened approach. “Adversary” begins with a formal (if fun) ceremony marking Sisko’s promotion, during which he’s pulled aside by (what seems to be) a Federation Ambassador with pressing political matters to discuss. In contrast, the first few scenes of “Flux” are mostly more everyday – foraging for food on a (seemingly) uninhabited planet; or more domestic – Seska bringing Chakotay his favorite soup in his quarters. While the Kazon present a potential external threat throughout the episode, its main focus (and by far the most interesting and compelling part of it) is the specter of betrayal by a member of the crew. Like “Adversary”, “Flux” depends on creating a level of suspicion and paranoia among the crew, but here it’s the quieter, more careful (but equally claustrophobic, if in a different way) paranoia of suspecting a betrayal from within, rather than an infiltration from without.

Appropriately, then, the sci-fi conceit of “Flux” is one for which Trek is uniquely suited, with its heavy reliance on practical makeup and prosthetics: radical cosmetic surgery, to the extent of passing not just for another person , but for another species . The idea that, even in the 24 th century, cosmetic surgery could be so extensive and convincing, and yet so easily reversible, is famously implausible. But it’s become one of the franchise’s staple tropes anyway, and it’s not hard to understand why. On a meta-level, of course, it’s fun to see familiar actors in unfamiliar makeup (as we will in my very next post!). But more than that, the idea that someone could misrepresent themselves so completely as to appear as a different species allows, at its best, for some interesting exploration of how well we can ever know anyone. In “Flux”, we never actually see Seska’s true, Cardassian face, though the actor Martha Hackett communicates a great deal through Seska’s body language after her cover’s blown; once she drops the act, she very obviously becomes Cardassian in the way she holds herself, even without the makeup and prosthetics. At any rate, the revelation that a member of this crew – this stranded crew, whose survival depends on their ability to cooperate – is, and always was, a Cardassian secret agent, is impressively disorienting.

And it’s made all the more disorienting, I think, by the fact that she honestly believes she’s helping Voyager, not working against it, when she collaborates with the Kazon. “If this had been a Cardassian ship, we would be home now,” she says, and argues against Captain Janeway’s insistence on observing the Prime Directive by making the case that it’s well worth trading “some minor technology” if it makes them some “powerful friends”. The fact that her actions are morally ambiguous, betraying the crew’s ideals rather than causing physical harm (except to those poor Kazon stuck in the walls, of course), makes “Flux” much more effective than it might have been if she were working against Voyager in a more overt, hostile way.

And it was another good choice by the writers, I think, to have Seska’s affection for Chakotay be genuine, and not just an act. Again, this episode could easily – and probably more predictably – have ended with Seska revealing that she was only ever using Chakotay, and have her mock him for trusting her. The fact that she doesn’t, that she seems to truly regret that she must leave him behind, allows the episode to say something more interesting about the unknowable inner complexity of the people we think we know. This point is subtly driven home in Tuvok’s exchange with Chakotay, at the end of the episode:

Chakotay: Can I ask you to be honest with me, Lieutenant? Tuvok: As a Vulcan, I am at all times honest, Commander. C: That’s not exactly true. You lied to me when you passed yourself off as a Maquis to get on my crew. T: I was honest to my own convictions within the defined parameters of my mission. C: You damned Vulcans and your defined parameters! That’s easy for you. T: On the contrary. The demands on a Vulcan’s character are extraordinarily difficult. Do not mistake composure for ease. How may I be honest with you today?

Just as Chakotay thought he knew Seska, he thought he knew Tuvok; he read Vulcan composure as coldness, missing the deliberation and self-control behind that composure, as human characters have tended to do with Vulcans throughout the entire Trek franchise. And the unsettling, bittersweet moral to this story is summed up by Tuvok’s dubious attempt to reassure Chakotay about his character judgements of the Maquis crew: “Like all humans, you depend on feelings and instincts to guide you, and they invariably let you down.” As much as we might try to avoid it, it is simply a fact of life that we will  trust the wrong people sometimes (just as Tuvok admits that he, too, was fooled by Seska).

One of the few problems I have with “Flux” is the sense I get that Chakotay’s romantic relationship with Seska might have been added somewhat late in the writing process; while their scenes together are good, I’m not sure I believe (especially in that final conversation with Tuvok) that Chakotay has just found out that his lover, and not just a member of his Maquis crew, wasn’t who she seemed to be. Their relationship pulls some of the focus away, I think, from an interesting reflection on Chakotay’s uniquely difficult position as an authority figure to both the Maquis and the Starfleet officers on board Voyager. “Adversary”, too, subtly grounds its suspense story in an exploration of the impossible positions commanding officers can find themselves in. Okay, maybe starting the episode with Sisko’s promotion to Captain isn’t subtle, exactly … but for the rest of the episode, while we focus on guessing who the Changeling might be at any given time, Sisko’s terrible responsibility – stop the Changeling from starting a war, even if it means blowing up the ship he just became Captain of, like, earlier that day – is allowed to simmer in the background, just behind the ticking clock of the self-destruct sequence.

A significant turning point for the entire Trek franchise, I think, came with the introduction of the now-famous Kobayashi Maru training simulation in 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The fact that a commanding officer’s composure in the face of a no-win scenario had now been established both as a part of Starfleet training, and as an expectation for our lead characters in future Trek films and series, slightly tempered some of the franchise’s adventurous optimism, I think. Trek could still be about good people doing good things, but that goodness would sometimes carry a cost. At the time it first aired, DS9 was arguably the darkest, and unquestionably the most serialized, of any Trek TV series up to that point, which made it uniquely qualified to explore this aspect of the franchise, and it makes perfect sense that this series would ‘celebrate’ Sisko’s promotion from Commander to Captain by turning his ship into a deadly weapon that he can’t control, and making him unable to fully trust any member of his crew. The fact that he would rather destroy the ship (and his crew, and himself) than let it be used to take innocent lives says a lot about Sisko, of course. But it also says a lot about what it means to be a leader on DS9, a series which was arguably more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity than Trek ever had been before. Faced with so many unknowns – unable to tell the Changeling from anyone else on board, able only to guess what the Changeling was planning to actually do with the Defiant – Sisko’s responsibility as Captain is to act on the only thing he does know for sure: that the Changeling could use the Defiant to hurt a lot of people, and that he can’t allow that to happen.

Of course, the Defiant doesn’t end up going the way of the Kobayashi Maru after all; Sisko’s no-win scenario is averted, if only at great personal cost to Constable Odo, who must now live with the knowledge that he is, apparently, the only Changeling ever to have killed one of his own. But even for Sisko himself, safe as his crew might be for the moment, “The Adversary” doesn’t end with a true victory. Just as Chakotay is told by Tuvok, at the end of “State of Flux”, that he can never know for certain who to trust, Sisko learns at the end of “The Adversary” that he can no longer trust that anyone in Starfleet – anyone in the Alpha Quadrant , even – is who they appear to be. Where the end of “State of Flux” does introduce a new antagonist who (without spoiling any details) will appear again in Voyager , the end of “The Adversary” is a profound change to DS9’s status quo. When Odo tells Sisko the hostile Changeling’s last words – “You’re too late, we’re everywhere” – the uncertainty of this episode is projected forward into the rest of the series; and, again without spoiling any details, both the looming threat of Changeling infiltrators and Odo’s status as the first ‘murderer’ in Changeling history will factor significantly in later episodes.

And not only will the fear of shape-shifting spies be a literal plot point going forward, but it also serves as a metaphor, I think, for DS9’s unique place within the Trek franchise. “Final Frontier” marketing notwithstanding, the Original Series and TNG tended not to deal all that much with the kind of uncertainty and fear of the unknown one might face on an actual frontier; to the contrary, Captains Kirk and Picard often seem at least partly defined by their unwavering faith in their crew, in their ship, and in the ideals of the Federation (as is Captain Janeway in Voyager , where Seska’s anger at Janeway’s faith in the Prime Directive, more than her secret identity as a Cardassian spy, makes Seska a villain). Captain Sisko’s career, on the other hand, will be at least partly defined by the fact that it truly does take place against a backdrop of uncertainty, where a fear of being betrayed by those around you – just like Major Kira’s mutual mistrust of the Bolian crew member she’s buddied up with in “The Adversary” – is both sensible and potentially destructive. Which is, I suspect, at least part of what makes DS9 as a series feel surprisingly fresh and relevant now, even after its 25 th anniversary. As much as I might admire and envy the confidence and clearness of vision of a Janeway or a Kirk or a Picard, I think it might be Sisko whose place in the universe I can understand, and relate to, the most.

Next time, the face-swapping espionage continues, as both Captain Kirk and Counselor Troi turn Romulan in the Original Series’ “The Enterprise Incident”, and The Next Generation’ s “Face of the Enemy”!

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2 thoughts on “ “you’re too late, we’re everywhere”: the adversary (ds9) vs. state of flux (voy) ”.

I wonder if Hackett spent much time watching Gul Dukat episodes to get her smile down.

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I love that moment, where you can see her channelling the performance someone like Marc Alaimo would give under all that Cardassian makeup. There’s something eerie about watching that performance given by someone in Bajoran makeup. It’s a bit over-the-top, but I think it’s just over-the-top enough.

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8 New Details Star Trek: Discovery Revealed About DS9s Breen

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery, season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors".

• The Breen from Star Trek: DS9 make a proper return in Discovery, revealing their secrets and motivations.
• L'ak is a unique Breen who fell in love with Moll, breaking the standard mold of his species.
• Discovery reveals the Breen have two faces, one translucent and one solid, hinting at a deeper evolution storyline.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors" reveals a raft of new details about the Breen from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The Breen are the latest DS9 aliens to appear in Discovery , making their proper return in the flashback sequences that fill viewers in on the backstory of Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis). Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco, and directed by Jen McGowan , "Mirrors" finds Moll and L'ak stranded in interdimensional space with Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala).

With the four treasure hunters forced to work together, there's a chance to reveal more about Moll and L'ak's motivations in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5 . The bombshell reveal that L'ak is actually Breen is the first of many revelations about the enigmatic Star Trek: Deep Space Nine aliens in the episode. The flashbacks to Moll and L'ak's burgeoning romance shed light on a number of aspects of Breen culture in the 32nd century , including just what sits underneath those helmets.

Star Trek: Discovery Vs. DS9's Breen Is Now Inevitable

L'ak is a breen, but he doesn't fit the mold of a traditional breen..

As Burnham and Book try to reason with Moll and L'ak, the couple reveal that they're trying to outrun an Erigah, a Breen blood bounty. This confirms to Burnham that L'ak is a Breen, albeit without the helmet and refrigeration suit . The flashbacks to how Moll and L'ak met reveal that L'ak was a member of the Breen royal family, but he didn't fit the mold . Demoted from his royal duties, L'ak was assigned to shuttle bay duty, where he met and fell in love with Moll.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) once stated that nobody had seen a Breen without their helmet and lived to tell the tale. The revelations about L'ak's origins mean that half the cast of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 have managed to do just that. However, as the flashbacks show, the Breen are still incredibly secretive about showing their faces, which makes L'ak a unique member of his species .

Moll Used To Sell Dilithium To The Breen Imperium

It's how she made her living during the burn.

During the time of scarcity following The Burn, Moll supplied the Breen with dilithium for use in their starships. However, Moll was cutting her dilithium supply with " impurities " , meaning that the Breen's supply was considerably watered down. Confronted about this by L'ak, Moll offered to go into business with the mold-breaking Breen to make things go smoothly. L'ak agreed, partly due to his desire to get payback for his demotion, and partly due to his immediate attraction to Moll.

Moll and L'ak became a courier couple like Burnham and Booker, giving Book hope that he could get through to his new "sister".

Moll and L'ak were eventually found out for their scam, for which the punishment was execution. However, as L'ak couldn't bring himself to kill the woman he loved, he turned on his own people, instead. In response, the Breen placed an " Erigah " on L'ak, a blood bounty that could never be cleared . While Burnham and Booker offered Federation protection from the Breen, Moll and L'ak were unconvinced that they could truly help erase the Erigah.

Star Trek: Discovery Stars Eve Harlow & Elias Toufexis Break Down Their Villainous Romance

The breen placed a blood bounty on moll and l'ak, "can they erase an erigah".

Although the Erigah was placed on L'ak, Moll refused to leave his side, meaning that the Breen blood bounty was placed on them both. This explains Booker's assessment that the couple were having fun and engaging in " cliffs-edge kind of stuff ". Moll and L'ak's devil may care attitude so far in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is likely driven by the fact that they're on the run for their very lives . Moll and L'ak are so committed to each other that the Breen tells Burnham that he'd " rather die " than be separated from Moll in a Federation prison.

An Erigah is an aspect of Breen culture that wasn't previously mentioned in the species' multiple appearances in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . It's therefore unclear how one collects a blood bounty, but Moll, L'ak, Burnham, and Book all seem troubled by the mention of the name. Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 7 is titled "Erigah", so it will presumably shed further light on the blood bounty placed on Moll and L'ak's heads, and who will attempt to collect it.

The Breen Atmosphere Is "Quite Comfortable"

Just as ds9's weyoun said it was..

It's long been speculated that the Breen lived in sub-zero temperatures, with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters like Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) and Quark (Armin Shimerman) referring to their planet as a frozen wasteland. While Moll doesn't visit the Breen homeworld in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, she is in their territory and doesn't need to wear any protective clothing to cope with the temperatures. This, therefore, confirms something that Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs) said in DS9 season 7, episode 20, "The Changing Face of Evil".

The Breen were also said to wear refrigeration suits to cope with the higher temperatures of other planets, something which is also seemingly contradicted by Star Trek: Discovery .

The Breen were powerful allies of the Dominion in the latter stages of their war with the Federation Alliance in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . After the Breen and the Dominion had signed their alliance, Weyoun reflected that the temperature on Breen was "quite comfortable". It was always possible that this was wry sarcasm on Weyoun's part. However, the atmosphere inside Star Trek: Discovery 's huge Imperium spaceport appears to confirm Weyoun's assessment of the temperature on Breen .

Star Trek: The Dominion War Timeline, Explained

The breen primarch is l'ak's uncle, part of the yod-thot royal caste..

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 1, "Red Directive" revealed that the Breen Confederacy had become the Breen Imperium in the 800 years since the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Not much was known about the inner workings of the Breen Confederacy in DS9 , other than negotiations with the Dominion were led by Thot Gor (Todd Slayton). In the 32nd century, the Breen Imperium is run by the Yod-Thot royal caste, suggesting an ancestral link with DS9 's Breen .

One of the key members of the Breen Imperium is Primarch Ruhn (Tony Nappa), the uncle of L'ak in Star Trek: Discovery season 5. The Primarch is disgusted by L'ak's relationship with Moll and his insistence on denying his heritage . L'ak stopped short of murdering his uncle while escaping with Moll, meaning that Primarch Ruhn may return later in Discovery season 5. Especially if Moll and L'ak open negotiations with the Breen Imperium to provide them with the Progenitors' powerful technology .

The Breen Imperium Destroy The Federation In An Alternate Future

They're the "wrong hands" that the progenitors' technology must not fall into..

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange" revealed that the Breen took possession of the Progenitors' technology in a timeline where the USS Discovery never defeated the time bug . The Krenim chronophage, left over from the Temporal Wars, was supposed to keep Discovery out of the treasure hunt until Moll and L'ak could secure the Progenitors' technology. The Breen Imperium then used the powers of the Progenitors to destroy the entire Federation in one of the most striking scenes from Discovery season 5, episode 4 .

The Breen previously launched an attack on Federation Headquarters in Star Trek: Discovery season 7, episode 20, "The Changing Face of Evil".

At the opening of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", Burnham and Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) reflected on the stakes of their mission. "Mirrors" also revealed that Moll and L'ak are still determined to use the Progenitors' technology to bargain for their lives with the Breen Imperium. As Moll and L'ak escape the ISS Enterprise at the end of "Mirrors", they are more desperate than ever, making Discovery 's bleak future look like a serious possibility.

Star Trek: Discovery Reveals A Voyager Enemy Played A Big Role In The Temporal Wars

The breen do bleed, or leak, at the very least..

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 14, "In Purgatory's Shadow", Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) confidently states that the Breen have no liquid circulatory system . Conducting blood screenings to root out Changeling infiltrators in the Dominion prison camp, Bashir says everyone bar the Breen prisoner has been tested because they have " No blood ". Star Trek: Discovery appears to reveal that this isn't the case, as L'ak appears to bleed after falling on his own knife during the fight with Burnham .

Given the revelations about the Breens' physiology in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, there are some possible explanations for the contradiction. Firstly, the Breen are an incredibly secretive race, who were largely unknown to the Federation in the 24th century. The Breen prisoner in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could, therefore, have just been lying to Bashir about not having any blood . The other explanation is that L'ak isn't bleeding, rather he's leaking the gelatinous organic material that constitutes a Breen body.

The Breen Have Two Faces

One solid face, one translucent face, both green..

The biggest reveal about the Breen in Star Trek: Discovery is what they keep underneath their helmets. It's stated that a Breen has two faces; one which is translucent and gelatinous, and another which is solid and firmly humanoid. This revelation is delivered as if the viewer was already aware of such a fact, which means that Discovery doesn't dive deeper into the reasons for the Breen having two faces . Primarch Ruhn tells L'ak that the Breen have evolved past their solid forms, and that their translucent form is a sign of strength.

Star Trek: Discovery doesn't reveal what role the Breen's armor plays in maintaining their form, translucent or otherwise. Still, the idea that the Breen's softer, more vulnerable face is stronger than the hard shell is a decent sci-fi concept that will hopefully get further exploration later in Discovery season 5. However, both faces are very clearly humanoid, which heavily implies that they may also originate from the Progenitors. Whether this information will lead to peace between the Breen and the Federation remains to be seen as Star Trek: Discovery season 5 continues.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Streams Thursdays On Paramount+

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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, Ren Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.