Why Deep Space Nine is the best of the Trek series

Now I already wrote an entry about Captain Benjamin Sisko (see here) but I wanted to expand further on why I liked this series the most of all the Star Trek series. I may have to turn in my geek card by the time I am done (or perhaps apply for some sort of gold/diamond/platinum geek card). But this was an awesome television series and it deserves all the praise it can get. Especially since so many fans seem to overlook it.

The first major difference between DS9 and all the other series is that it takes place far away from the Federation. I know Star Trek: Voyager also took place away from the Federation but they were still onboard a starship, not all that different from the other Trek series. DS9 takes place on a space station built by an alien species, the Kardassians. It is primarily inhabited by another alien species, the Bajorans, who for many years had been enslaved by the Kardassians. There is still bitter tension and anger over the years of military occupation. These are completely foreign concepts in the Star Trek universe before now. Everyone in the Federation mostly lives in peace and prosperity. There is no war and there certainly is no slavery. This gave the writers of DS9 a brand new fertile ground for storytelling.

In essence the world of DS9 is the dirtier side of life in Star Trek. On this station there is crime, racism, religious extremists, greed, all things that are completely absent from the rest of the Trek series. The social issues that Gene Roddenberry explored with the original Star Trek still exist in the world of Deep Space Nine. We also have a new theme of religious extremism, which is absent from most of the other series.

One of the nice things about Deep Space Nine was that it was often the neglected child of the Star Trek franchises. Between The Next Generation and Voyager, Deep Space Nine got lost in the shuffle. This allowed the writers to take risks with the stories. One such example is “The Siege of AR-558”, which if you removed the aliens and ray guns could have been a scene from a film like Platoon or Apocalypse Now.

Another great part of DS9 is Klingons. I explain in another article (see here) why Klingons are so bad ass and DS9 has them in spades. Starting with season 4 and going all the way to the finale, the Klingons become a major presence in the storylines. The Next Generation had Klingon episodes but they were usually few and far in between.  Deep Space Nine was seeped in Klingon culture. There was a Klingon restaurant on the station; the character Dax had been an ambassador to the Klingons; they even imported the character of Lieutenant Worf from The Next Generation and made him a series regular.

Along with the Klingons, we also learn about another alien race that only made a few appearances in The Next Generation, the Ferengi. The Ferengi were first introduced in The Next Generation episode “The Last Outpost.” According to cast and crew members these aliens were meant to be the major villains of The Next Generation just like the Klingons had been the major villains of the original series. Unfortunately when the episode debuted the Ferengi were viewed as inept and comical. They were used in several more episodes of TNG but were never seen as the threat they were supposed to be.

It wasn’t until Deep Space Nine that the Ferengi got the chance to become important aliens in the Star Trek Universe. At the beginning of the series it is established that DS9 is an important port of trade for aliens of all species and the Ferengi are a species that are obsessed with the pursuit of profit. No more so than the stations resident Ferengi, Quark (played by Armin Shimerman). He owns the local bar and runs a black market trade out of it. Quark can be seen as a parody of almost any venture capitalist and is a reminder that while the humans of the show have evolved beyond greed, not all species in the universe have done the same. Also, which I feel needs to be mentioned, the Ferengi seem to be the one species in the galaxy that use the holodeck for the purpose that every fanboy would probably use it for. One can only hope they have good cleaning supplies in the 24th century.

Star Trek, the original series, was always about examining the human condition using aliens and space travel as substitutions for real humans and real situations. Some of the most memorable episodes were about racism, or greed, or civil rights, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine proudly carries the torch established by that first series. Gene Roddenberry sadly passed away before this series went on the air, which is ironic because of all the spin-offs of  his vision, this is the one that I feel most captured his initial intent behind Star Trek.