The first problem with DS9 is that it takes place on a space station. I never minded that much, but it leads to other flaws: the original mantra "to boldly go where no one has gone before" is cast by the wayside, and exploration and science fiction are largely ignored in favor of domestic drama and political tedium.
I watched DS9 faithfully throughout its original run. I liked most of the characters, such as the feisty ex-terrorist Major Kira, and the naive young Doctor Bashir. But after a few seasons I realized that I no longer cared for these people. Kira seemed to grow middle-aged overnight, and her violent temper had given way to self-righteous complacency. Bashir was revealed to be a genetically enhanced super-doctor, and his entire life up to that point was a lie.
I got the feeling that the writers were trying their best to distance themselves from the show they'd created. Not only did characters suffer drastic changes, but the show's plot switched direction so many times that keeping track just got frustrating. At the start there were political and religious issues with the Bajorans and their former oppressors, the Cardassians; in the second season we were introduced to the Maquis, a group of human freedom-fighters who would go on to reappear only once per season. After that came the Dominion, but little was done with them for about three years, and in the meantime there was a brief conflict with the Klingons. Eventually the writers decided to tie all these dangling plot threads together and start an interstellar war. If only they'd had the budget and the writing talent to make something of it.
It's difficult to summarize a seven-season TV series in just a few paragraphs without sounding harsh. Most of its characters aren't bad, but their behavior from one episode to the next is often inconsistent, and the writers seem too concerned with relationships and love affairs that are tawdry rather than compelling. The insistence on romantic subplots edges out the science fiction; the writers forgot that half their characters were aliens with radically different biology. Instead of exploring the idea of interspecies romance, they focus solely on the characters as if they were all humans. Altogether the series gets a little too comfortable in its stationary setting, and loses itself in minutiae; perhaps the biggest flaw of the format is that the writers never had to come up with anything new.
The war is DS9's real problem. It's the biggest, most explosive, and most elaborate conflict ever seen on Star Trek, even including "Enterprise" and the JJ Abrams movies. So why do I find it underwhelming? The battles are huge mêlées that closely resemble something out of "Dawn Patrol" or "Hell's Angels" rather than what you'd expect from futuristic starships. Despite the frequent discussion of strategy and tactics, the war itself always feels like it's in the background: everything happens elsewhere, to other people, and we only hear about it in stilted dialogue. The result is an uncommitted show, a series with no real story, and for all its action, its characters, and its intrigues and melodrama, it's not really about anything.
I watched DS9 faithfully throughout its original run. I liked most of the characters, such as the feisty ex-terrorist Major Kira, and the naive young Doctor Bashir. But after a few seasons I realized that I no longer cared for these people. Kira seemed to grow middle-aged overnight, and her violent temper had given way to self-righteous complacency. Bashir was revealed to be a genetically enhanced super-doctor, and his entire life up to that point was a lie.
I got the feeling that the writers were trying their best to distance themselves from the show they'd created. Not only did characters suffer drastic changes, but the show's plot switched direction so many times that keeping track just got frustrating. At the start there were political and religious issues with the Bajorans and their former oppressors, the Cardassians; in the second season we were introduced to the Maquis, a group of human freedom-fighters who would go on to reappear only once per season. After that came the Dominion, but little was done with them for about three years, and in the meantime there was a brief conflict with the Klingons. Eventually the writers decided to tie all these dangling plot threads together and start an interstellar war. If only they'd had the budget and the writing talent to make something of it.
It's difficult to summarize a seven-season TV series in just a few paragraphs without sounding harsh. Most of its characters aren't bad, but their behavior from one episode to the next is often inconsistent, and the writers seem too concerned with relationships and love affairs that are tawdry rather than compelling. The insistence on romantic subplots edges out the science fiction; the writers forgot that half their characters were aliens with radically different biology. Instead of exploring the idea of interspecies romance, they focus solely on the characters as if they were all humans. Altogether the series gets a little too comfortable in its stationary setting, and loses itself in minutiae; perhaps the biggest flaw of the format is that the writers never had to come up with anything new.
The war is DS9's real problem. It's the biggest, most explosive, and most elaborate conflict ever seen on Star Trek, even including "Enterprise" and the JJ Abrams movies. So why do I find it underwhelming? The battles are huge mêlées that closely resemble something out of "Dawn Patrol" or "Hell's Angels" rather than what you'd expect from futuristic starships. Despite the frequent discussion of strategy and tactics, the war itself always feels like it's in the background: everything happens elsewhere, to other people, and we only hear about it in stilted dialogue. The result is an uncommitted show, a series with no real story, and for all its action, its characters, and its intrigues and melodrama, it's not really about anything.