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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the fourth Star Trek series and entered production in 1992 . It was broadcast in first-run syndication from January 1993 until June 1999 .

It was the first Star Trek series created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller rather than by Gene Roddenberry . It was also the only series to air alongside another Star Trek production throughout its entire run, airing alongside Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1993 until 1994 , and then with Star Trek: Voyager from 1995 until 1999 .

• (Themes composed by Dennis McCarthy ).
• 1.1 The characters
• 1.2 Alien races
• 1.3 The mirror universe
• 1.4 Technology
• 1.5 Costumes
• 2.1 Development
• 2.2 Title sequence
• 2.3 Serialization
• 3.1 Starring
• 3.2 Also starring
• 3.3 Special guest stars
• 3.4 Special appearances by
• 3.5 Recurring characters
• 4 Executive producers
• 5 Staff writers
• 6.1 Season 1
• 6.2 Season 2
• 6.3 Season 3
• 6.4 Season 4
• 6.5 Season 5
• 6.6 Season 6
• 6.7 Season 7
• 7 Related topics
• 9 External links

Summary [ ]

Deep Space Nine goes where no Star Trek series had gone before – DS9 was the first Star Trek production not based on a starship , but instead, a starbase , known as Deep Space 9 (the starship USS Defiant was introduced in season 3, but the station remained the primary setting of the series). The show is known for its complex characters and storylines, engaging battle scenes and darker (less Utopian) atmosphere. Unlike its predecessors Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine tended to avoid an episodic format for most of its run and instead featured multiple-episode story arcs .

The show broke the "standard format" for Star Trek shows a number of times as well, with a direct, first-person narrative providing the commentary for the episode " In the Pale Moonlight ", a retelling of a classic TOS episode from a different angle in " Trials and Tribble-ations ", life in the racially segregated 1950s in " Far Beyond the Stars ", and a reintroduction of the concept of "black ops" to the Star Trek universe with Section 31 : " Inquisition ". The show also broke with tradition – and with the two Star Trek series that followed it – by featuring a commanding officer as the star of the show at the rank of commander, rather than captain, for a significant portion of its run, until Sisko was eventually promoted to captain in " The Adversary ". Additionally, a number of the episodes and main storylines focused entirely on characters who weren't members of Starfleet: for example, those revolving around Kira, Odo, Jake Sisko, and Quark. (" Progress ", " Shakaar ", " The House of Quark ", " Heart of Stone ", " Prophet Motive ", " Little Green Men ", " Bar Association ", " Body Parts ", " Nor the Battle to the Strong ", " The Ascent ", " The Darkness and the Light ", " Business as Usual ", " Ties of Blood and Water ", " Ferengi Love Songs ")

The characters [ ]

Unlike other Star Trek series, DS9 also had a large cast of recurring characters . Such characters included Nog , Rom , Elim Garak , Dukat , Vedek Bareil Antos , Winn Adami , Weyoun , the Female Changeling , Damar , Martok , Kasidy Yates , Leeta , Brunt , Ishka , and Zek .

Miles O'Brien , and later Worf , were two characters imported from TNG. Worf – a major character from TNG – played a large role on DS9. Several Next Generation characters also had recurring roles on the show, such as Keiko O'Brien and Gowron . Several other TNG characters made appearances too, such as Captain Jean-Luc Picard , Thomas Riker , Q , Lwaxana Troi , Kurn , Lursa , B'Etor , Admiral Alynna Nechayev , Vash , Toral and Alexander Rozhenko . In addition, Julian Bashir and Quark also had one-time appearances on The Next Generation , in " Birthright, Part I " and " Firstborn " respectively. Quark (and the station itself) also made a cameo in the pilot of Star Trek: Voyager , " Caretaker ". Characters from The Original Series were also re-introduced in DS9, including Kor , Kang , Koloth , and Arne Darvin .

The series also featured a number of episodes in which the character of Miles O'Brien was subjected to particular trauma. This became an in-joke among the DS9 writing staff, who called them "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes and went to great lengths to produce at least one such episode per season. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. ? )

Alien races [ ]

The series focused on several races that were first featured on TNG, such as the Bajorans , the Cardassians , the Trill , and the Ferengi . Later, the Klingons and the Romulans (both created in TOS) became pivotal species in the series. Many other species made appearances on the series, including Vulcans , Bolians , and Benzites . The series also created many species of its own, most notably the Changelings , the Vorta , and the Jem'Hadar , who formed part of the Dominion .

Jadzia Dax and other Trills portrayed in DS9 were distinctly different from how Trills had been depicted in the TNG episode " The Host ". In DS9, the relationship between host and symbiont was described more as a truly symbiotic relationship rather than the symbiont dominating the host. Trills now having spots, rather than prosthetic make-up, was due to studio executives feeling that Jadzia Dax actress Terry Farrell was too attractive to cover her face up. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 21)

Another significant change was the relationship Ferengi had with Humans . The Ferengi on TNG had originally been intended to be a new adversary comparable to the Klingons in TOS, although the writers had quickly realized how ridiculous the Ferengi were as villains. In DS9, the Ferengi were mainly entrepreneurs and the Ferengi Alliance was a politically neutral economic power.

Deep Space Nine also featured several regular characters who were not members of Starfleet , with Kira Nerys , a member of the Bajoran Militia , and Odo , the station's chief of security , as well as civilians such as Quark and Jake Sisko .

The mirror universe [ ]

The series spent some time exploring the mirror universe , which had not been seen since the TOS episode " Mirror, Mirror ". The mirror universe was featured in five episodes of the series: " Crossover ", " Through the Looking Glass ", " Shattered Mirror ", " Resurrection ", and " The Emperor's New Cloak ".

Technology [ ]

The show also focused on a wider array of uses and depictions of functions for holographic simulations (known as a holodeck in TOS and TNG but as a holosuite in DS9). In addition to many obvious activities (such as those referenced by Chief O'Brien and Julian Bashir) which were completely in keeping with holodeck usage on The Next Generation , the numerous applications of the holosuites on DS9 included them being used as: a recurring background for people to hang out in, in the form of a 1960s Las Vegas lounge (in numerous episodes); a weapons showroom (by Quark); and the location for a baseball game between teams assembled by Sisko versus Solok , a long-time rival Vulcan captain (in " Take Me Out to the Holosuite ").

Costumes [ ]

DS9 initially featured a noticeable change in Starfleet uniform to a reversed color scheme of the TNG uniform, which is a black design with the division color on the shoulders and a grayish-indigo undershirt underneath the uniform, resembling the cadet uniforms seen on The Next Generation . This design is called the old DS9-style uniforms . It was mostly implemented as a continuation of Star Trek 's pattern of changing uniforms over time, although factors such as the discomfort of wearing TNG-style uniforms played a role as well.

What came to be known as the DS9-style uniforms were more of a variant than a switch, however, due to the cost of producing all-new uniforms. This is why, for example, the DS9 crew themselves wear old DS9-style uniforms from the beginning of DS9 pilot episode " Emissary " up to the fifth season episode " The Ascent ", and this style was also later used throughout Star Trek: Voyager . Meanwhile, even after TNG had gone off the air, the dress uniforms and flag officer uniforms on DS9 up until the sixth season (as well as uniforms on Earth , as seen in the fourth season episodes " Homefront " and " Paradise Lost ") were " TNG-style ".

These discrepancies were corrected with the later switch to a unified, "gray-on-black" format with the division color undershirts (known as the " DS9-style "), which was used through Star Trek Nemesis and were also used in this series, starting with " Rapture " and for the remainder of this series, though the old DS9-style uniforms in this series appeared four more times following the uniform change in the episodes, " In Purgatory's Shadow " and " By Inferno's Light " as well as seen on a photograph of " Field of Fire " and in the flashback scenes of " What You Leave Behind ".

Background information [ ]

Development [ ].

The decision to set the series on a space station, rather than a starship, spawned when Brandon Tartikoff originally approached Rick Berman about the show, in 1991, and specifically said he wanted it to have a format that was new for Star Trek but was classically western; if The Next Generation was Wagon Train in space, Deep Space Nine was to be The Rifleman in space – a man and his son coming to a dilapidated frontier town on the edge of known civilization. Berman brought this concept to Michael Piller , and together they set about creating a western in space. As Robert Hewitt Wolfe later explained, " We had the country doctor , and we had the barkeeper , and we had the sheriff and we had the mayor , we had it all, it was all there. We had the common man, Miles O'Brien , the Native American, Kira . " Indeed, the producers initially discussed setting the show at a colony on an alien planet rather than on a space station. This idea was ultimately rejected because it was felt that it would involve too much location shooting, and because they felt that fans of Star Trek wanted to see story lines set primarily in space , not on a planet. ( New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine , DS9 Season 2 DVD special features)

The change of venue to a space station was largely intended to differentiate DS9 from The Next Generation , because the producers felt that having two shows about a starship airing simultaneously would be unacceptable. As co-creator and executive producer Rick Berman later explained, " Because there were two years of overlap with The Next Generation , we could not create a show that took place on a spaceship. It just seemed ridiculous to have two shows and two casts of characters that were off going where no man has gone before. It was a land-based show, it was a show that in a sense was taking place on a space station. So it had to be an entirely different concept. " ( Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning , DS9 Season 1 DVD special features)

The decision to set the show on a fixed station rather than a traveling starship was also based upon a desire to look deeper into the actual workings of the Federation and to see how it dealt with the type of problems one wouldn't find in a show set upon a starship. Michael Piller felt that, by having the characters standing still, they would be forced to confront issues not usually applicable to people on a starship. Whereas on The Next Generation , issues raised each week could simply be forgotten about the following week as the ship visited somewhere else, on a space station, events couldn't be forgotten or left behind but instead had to have implications for the future. As Piller explained, " We didn't want to have another series of shows about space travel. We felt that there was an opportunity to really look deeper, more closely at the working of the Federation and the Star Trek universe by standing still. And by putting people on a space station where they would be forced to confront the kind of issues that people in space ships are not forced to confront. In a series that focuses on a starship, like the Enterprise , you live week by week. You never have to stay and deal with the issues that you've raised. But by focusing on a space station, you create a show about commitment. It's like the difference between a one-night stand and a marriage. On Deep Space Nine , whatever you decide has consequences the following week. So it's about taking responsibility for your decisions, the consequences of your acts. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. ? ) Similarly, in 2002 , Piller stated, " If you look at The Next Generation , it's really about movement. You don't ever stay in one place long enough to get to know anybody. Well Deep Space Nine is a show where everybody is forced to stay week after week, so each episode, each show, is fundamentally dealing with the people who have to learn that actions have consequences, and they have to live with the consequences of their actions on a weekly basis. " ( New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine , DS9 Season 2 DVD special features)

Setting the show in a fixed location meant that a large cast of recurring characters could be built up with relative ease; much more so than in The Original Series or The Next Generation before it, or Star Trek: Voyager , Star Trek: Enterprise , or Star Trek: Discovery since. As Rick Berman, speaking in 2002, stated, " The show was land-based, but the benefit we got from that was that by staying in one place, it enabled us to create twenty or thirty secondary and recurring characters, which really enriched the show because of all the multi-layers of relationships that have existed over the years. It's a very character-driven show as a result, and I think that makes it quite unique. " ( Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning , DS9 Season 1 DVD special features)

The decision to set the show in a fixed location was regarded as a benefit by the series' staff writers. For example, Ira Steven Behr , speaking in 1996 , commented, " We have certain advantages that I think no other Star Trek series has had, because we do have a base of operations that doesn't travel through space, which is the space station. Every story we do, the repercussions, the consequences don't disappear. It's not like the other shows where you have an adventure and then you zoom off into the great unknown. We are here, we have made a home, what we do has consequences. And I think we're able to do this mosaic, this fabric of life in the future, which I like. " Similarly, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, speaking in 2002, stated, " I think if Next Generation and The Original Series were about going out there and discovering new things about other races, Deep Space Nine is about staying in one place and discovering new things about ourselves. Not that we didn't go out there and discover things, but we had the same characters, we didn't change location every week. Sisko couldn't just solve a problem and sail off into the sunset, and never have to go back to that place again. That place was always there, and that problem could always come back to haunt him. So, in a lot of ways, it was a more complex show. " ( New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine , DS9 Season 2 DVD special features)

The series was designed to have more interpersonal conflict than its predecessors, while still staying true to the universe that Gene Roddenberry had created. Rick Berman commented, " [Deep Space 9]'s an alien space station that doesn't work the way they want it to, and that in itself created a lot of conflict. At the same, our core characters are Starfleet officers; Sisko, O'Brien, the doctor and Dax in no way vary from The Next Generation in terms of the lack of conflict among themselves. That was a rule we had to follow. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 5) Berman also commented, " What we wanted to do was something that was almost paradoxical – bring conflict but not break Gene's rules. They still play paramount importance in what we're doing. We created an environment where Starfleet officers were in a location that they weren't happy about being in, and they were in a location where the people who lived there weren't all that happy about them being there. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 8)

The show's main cast was intentionally assembled to create conflict (Quark and Odo, Kira and Sisko, etc.), so as to contrast the relatively tranquil atmosphere aboard Federation starships. This was another very specific decision taken by the producers. Gene Roddenberry's golden rule was that there was to be no conflict among Starfleet characters, so the producers decided to introduce non-Starfleet characters so conflict could come from within the show rather than always coming from outside (as it did on TNG). Rick Berman recalled, " We [....] created a situation where we had people who were members of our core group who were not Starfleet: the security shapeshifter Odo; the Bajoran Major, Kira; the bartender, Quark. A group of our integral people are not Starfleet officers, and the ones that are Starfleet officers aren't crazy about where they are, so we have a lot of frustration and conflict. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 8) Writer Joe Menosky explained, " You can see right away they're not the perfectly engineered Humans of TNG. They seem more real. I don't know if that makes them as attractive to viewers or not. But they are really different, and they represent a different way to tell a story. And it was definitely a conscious choice to create that potential for conflict. " Similarly, Berman stated, " Viewers didn't see that group of loving family members that existed on the first two Star Trek shows. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. ? ) Michael Piller also commented on this somewhat controversial aspect of the show; " One of the primary goals of the development process was to come up with a show that had more inherent conflict than The Next Generation . In order to do that, you have to understand that Gene Roddenberry had a very specific vision for Humanity in the 24th century. What that meant for The Next Generation was that everybody gets along remarkably well on the Enterprise . There's very little room for interpersonal conflict between those people. In this series, we set out to create a situation that would provide natural conflict. We've populated the show with several aliens, primarily Bajorans , as we are stationed on the edge of the Bajoran star system . And the Bajorans are very different people than we are. They are people who are very spiritual and mystical and have a whole different way of looking at life than the 24th century humanist views which many of our Starfleet people will have. So immediately, there are conflicts. And then there's additional aliens from elsewhere who are thrown into the mix. So, as regular characters, not all the people are Starfleet, not all the people are Human, and as a result, you have this continuing conflict, because people who come from different places, honorable, noble people, will naturally have conflicts. " ( Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning , DS9 Season 1 DVD special features)

Unlike with TOS and TNG, Gene Roddenberry wasn't directly involved in conceptualizing DS9. Regarding Roddenberry's involvement in the series, Rick Berman stated, " Michael and I discussed it with Gene when we were still in the early stages, but never anything conceptual. " " We never got a chance to discuss it (the concept) with Gene. By the time we had it to the point that it was discussable, he was in pretty bad shape and not really in the condition that it would have been wise to discuss it with him. On two specific occasions I was with him at his house and we tried to bring it up, but it wasn't really appropriate. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 328) Director Paul Lynch remarked, " My gut feeling is that Gene would be jumping up and down. This is definitely a different take on what Gene spawned, but I think he would love it [....] While it's quite different, Deep Space Nine is also, in many ways, quite the same. All of Gene's moral requirements are upheld in this show. If we've done anything, we've expanded on what Gene created. " ( The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 1 , pp. 10 & 12)

Initially, Berman and Piller were at a loss for a title for the series and toyed with calling the series "The Final Frontier". During further development, the station was temporarily dubbed "Deep Space Nine", which not only stuck permanently as the name of the station, but also the title of the show itself. Despite this, the two co-creators were reportedly dissatisfied with the name. ( Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Unauthorized Story , pp. 17-18)

Miles O'Brien was brought aboard DS9 and made a part of the space station's senior staff because the producers felt that Colm Meaney was too talented an actor to confine his character to a transporter room . Additionally, they hoped the TNG crossover would help boost the new series' ratings.

In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. ? , Michael Piller explained the rationale behind each of the principal cast members, why each character was chosen, and what each one was to bring to the mix;

• Jadzia Dax: " The Trill is a great race. They had some interesting ramifications on TNG. A Trill character would provide great potential for dichotomy and paradox. "
• Odo: " We knew that we needed some kind of Data / Spock character who looks at the world from the outside in. And the idea that an alien entity would have to find some way to pass as Human was fascinating, and seemed to give us an avenue into the kind of 'complexion of Humanity' stories that we wanted to tell. "
• Quark: " A Ferengi would provide the show with instant humor and built-in conflict. I saw Quark as the bartender who is a constant thorn in the side of law and order, but who has a sense of humor about it. He'd be someone who could obviously throw lots of story dynamics into play. "
• Julian Bashir: " We decided to create a flawed character. He'd have to be brought down to size in order to grow. And we wrote him as kind of a jerk for much of the first season . "
• Miles O'Brien: " After we decided we were bringing him over to the new show, we thought, 'How do we use him?' We'd already decided to focus on Bajor, with this long backstory, establishing his bitterness towards the Cardassians , so it worked very nicely together. "
• Kira Nerys: " We liked the idea of having somebody working with the commander of the station who would be a thorn in his side, who would represent a different point of view. We knew we'd get conflict and interesting dynamics between the two characters. "
• Benjamin Sisko: " Every hero needs a journey. You want to take your leading man on a quest where he has to overcome personal issues as well as whatever space stuff happens to be out there. The idea of a man who is broken and who begins to repair himself is always a great beginning for drama. "

The first officer aboard DS9 would have been Ro Laren , but she was replaced by Kira Nerys ( Nana Visitor ) because Michelle Forbes did not want to commit to a six-year contract working on DS9. Indeed, the reason the producers had decided to set the show on Bajor in the first place was because of Ro.

Following the highly rated appearance of James Doohan as Montgomery Scott in TNG : " Relics ", it was reported, in 1993, that Doohan had been urging Paramount to add him to the cast of DS9. It was also rumored that William Shatner had expressed interest in participating in DS9 in some capacity. ( Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Unauthorized Story , p. 15)

During pre-production for the series, the producers were especially keen to ensure that the aesthetic of the show was very different from anything yet seen in the Star Trek universe. For example, Director of Photography Marvin Rush said the producers told him that they wanted "a darker, more sinister place" than the Enterprise -D. Rush himself described the final look as "dark and shadowy." Similarly, Herman Zimmerman said, " The marching orders for the station were to make it bizarre. " Finally, Supervising Producer David Livingston summed up the differences between DS9 and TNG by comparing the Enterprise 's bridge with Deep Space 9's Ops ; " The bridge is a very easy set to shoot. It's a three-wall open set with a lot of room, big and cavernous. Ops, on the other hand, is a multilevel set with a lot of cramped areas and very contrasty lighting. It's more interesting visually. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. ? ) As Colm Meaney elaborated, " Because it was an alien space station, it gives the whole thing a very different feel I think to Next Generation or the original show, where you have the Enterprise , which is this very perfect environment. This is much more kind of dark and eerie, and also nothing works, the whole thing is a terrible mess. " ( Deep Space Nine Scrapbook: Year One , DS9 Season 1 DVD special features)

From the very beginning, DS9's darker aesthetic, more antagonistic characters and less Utopian setting were somewhat controversial among die-hard fans of Gene Roddenberry's universe. As Ira Steven Behr, speaking in 1996 (about halfway through the show's seven-year run), stated, " At the beginning of Deep Space Nine 's life, there was feelings that this was not a show that Gene would approve of by some of the fans, feeling that, you know, we had gone away from the image of the future as a paradise, that we had much more conflicts between our people, life isn't always great. But I think Gene, just by his very nature as a creative individual, as a writer, as a forward-thinking person, knows that any franchise has to move forward like a shark, or it dies. And I think he would understand what we're doing, and I think he would like what we're doing, and I think we're in the pocket of the Star Trek universe, and we try to push the envelope. And I see nothing wrong with that, and I have a hard time believing that Gene would see anything wrong with that. " ( New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine , DS9 Season 2 DVD special features) The sense that DS9 was too "dark" to be a Star Trek show only increased over the years, with episodes such as " Nor the Battle to the Strong ", " In the Pale Moonlight " and " The Siege of AR-558 ", and topics such as Section 31 charting territory never before seen on a Star Trek show, and creating a great deal of controversy among fans of both The Original Series and The Next Generation .

Robert Hewitt Wolfe recalled that Sisko holding the rank of commander led to unfavorable comparisons to the other series. " Whenever people would do articles about Star Trek they would talk about the three captains: Kirk , Picard , and Janeway . " The decision to promote Sisko to captain was prompted by the producers feeling that he deserved the higher rank as much as the other lead characters. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , p. 253)

Identifying one way in which he believed DS9 differed from TNG, Colm Meaney stated, " On Next Generation they were dealing with more philosophical ponderings where we on DS9 tend to deal with more hands-on immediate crises that I think of as more resonant with the problems we have in the world today [….] I think that's probably the single main difference. We connect more with contemporary issues, issues relevant to the 1990s, than did Next Generation." ("Mr. Goodwrench", Star Trek: Communicator  issue 105 , p. 20)

Title sequence [ ]

Dan Curry commented on the title sequence: " With DS9 I wanted a ballet around the space station, with elegant moves that wove in and out of each other ". ( Cinefantastique )

Serialization [ ]

The series is best remembered for an approach to serialization, predating the format of the late-2010s Star Trek series. Ira Behr commented: " The fact that Discovery is serialized or that Picard is serialized doesn't mean much to me, because how could they not be serialized in 2019? They get to just stay with the times. It's easy to be serialized now. Thank God they're doing that, but it would only be worthy of discussion if they didn't do it. The serialization was a bold move. I look back at it now and I was really a bit of an asshole, because everyone was saying people can't keep up with it. The show was syndicated and on at different times. I didn't care about any of that. I just wanted to do the best show we could do. I could understand why certain people involved and other producers and studios would feel that that was a little bit of an annoying take, because it did hurt the fan base, but at the time, I wasn't thinking about the future. I just wanted to do the best show we could do ". [1]

Ron Moore commented, " I think a lot of Battlestar was born at Deep Space Nine in that Deep Space started as much more episodic because of the nature of the show, it became more a continuing serialised structure. I really liked that, and I discovered I really liked that style of storytelling, and also particularly when we got into the later years of Deep Space , and we started telling the Dominion War story (1997-99), we would sit and argue and fight with the powers that be at Trek about making it a more realistic war, about making it grittier, and ugly; adding more ambiguity to the characters, and roughing it up a little bit, and I kept bumping my head against the strictures at Trek . What Star Trek is could not accommodate things that I wanted to do, so I started to have this sort of pent up frustration about 'well if we were really going to do it right', these ideas would sit in the back of my head so when Battlestar came along, I could now do all of those things that I was never allowed to do at Deep Space . " [2]

Due to the non-episodic nature of DS9, some of the series was lost on the casual viewer when it first aired. Many also believe that the changing television landscape contributed to DS9's ratings trouble, as local TV stations which had aired TNG in prime time became WB and UPN affiliates and pushed syndicated programming to the margins. Subsequent Star Trek shows Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise had network support from UPN and a guaranteed time slot. DS9 was also the only series to run opposite another Star Trek show (first The Next Generation , then Voyager ) for the entirety of its run (the first twelve episodes of the third season aired without another series on). Additionally, certain markets, notably in the UK, would only play one Star Trek series, in its entirety, at a time. Thus, events alluded to in The Next Generation or Voyager that happened in Deep Space Nine took months to "sync up."

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was nominated for 32 Emmy Awards , mostly in "technical" categories such as visual effects and makeup. It won four: "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music", "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects", and "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series" (twice).

Deep Space Nine remained a fan-favorite series throughout its seven-year run, with reviewers consistently lauding the series for its bold shift in tone from The Next Generation . Most notable among such changes was the concept of inter-personal conflict – something which Gene Roddenberry himself was said to have forbidden.

Said Ronald D. Moore , DS9 producer and screenwriter:

"I'd like us to be remembered as the Trek series that dared to be different. We took chances in a franchise that has every reason to play it safe and spoon-feed the same old thing to the audience week after week. We challenged the characters, the audience, and the Star Trek universe itself. Sometimes we failed (sometimes spectacularly) but we never stopped trying to push the show into new directions."

Robert Hewitt Wolfe remarked, " The truth of DS9 is, we had a great ensemble cast. Michael Piller created all these terrific characters [with the exception of Worf]." ("Flashback: The Way of the Warrior", Star Trek Magazine  issue 127 )

Several former producers and head writers from DS9 have been involved in other sci-fi series, including the creation of the "re-envisioned" Battlestar Galactica , as well as The 4400 , Farscape , Medium and Outlander .

In 2019, the documentary What We Left Behind was released. The documentary featured interviews with the actors, writers, production staff and fans, as well as featuring segments in which the writers pitched a new episode.

There was also a rivalry with another popular and critically acclaimed television series, Babylon 5 , created and produced by J. Michael Straczynski for Warner Bros. The two productions, which ran largely concurrently, were observed to be so similar that Babylon 5 fans accused Paramount, to whom Straczynski had previously pitched his series, of plagiarism. Considering how fellow Star Trek alumni like Walter Koenig and Andreas Katsulas had major roles in the rival series, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry agreed to a guest appearance in Babylon 5 as a gesture of goodwill to encourage a reconciliation between the two sets of fans. Rick Berman commented that rivalry was: " purely a fan thing, " adding: " there was a time when, I don't know whether it was specifically Straczynski or other people, it was implied that he had pitched an idea similar to DS9 to Paramount and that it had been rejected and that, lo and behold, a year or so later DS9 came about. The implication being that Michael Piller and I perhaps stole all or part of his idea, which was always amusing to Michael and I because it was completely untrue. We had no knowledge of this gentleman. If he did pitch something to Paramount, we never heard about it. DS9 was a show that was created by Michael and me and Brandon Tartikoff, who was the recent head of Paramount at the time, without any knowledge of Straczynski or of anything that he had ever pitched. So when we were accused of stealing his idea it was a little sad but at the same time a little comical to us. " [3]

Main cast [ ]

The first season promotional image of the cast of Deep Space Nine

Starring [ ]

• Avery Brooks as Commander / Captain Benjamin Sisko

Also starring [ ]

• Rene Auberjonois as Odo
• Nicole de Boer as Ensign / Lieutenant jg Ezri Dax ( 1998 - 1999 )
• Michael Dorn as Lt. Commander Worf ( 1995 - 1999 )
• Siddig El Fadil as Doctor Bashir

Beginning in 1995, El Fadil was credited as Alexander Siddig and moved between Shimerman and Visitor in the opening credits.

• Terry Farrell as Lieutenant / Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax ( 1993 - 1998 )
• Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko
• Colm Meaney as Chief O'Brien
• Armin Shimerman as Quark
• Nana Visitor as Major / Colonel Kira

Special guest stars [ ]

• Steven Berkoff as Hagath
• Rosalind Chao as Keiko O'Brien
• Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun
• Meg Foster as Onaya
• Jonathan Frakes as Thomas Riker / William T. Riker
• Louise Fletcher as Winn Adami
• Salome Jens as the Female Changeling
• Penny Johnson as Kasidy Yates
• Richard Kiley as Gideon Seyetik
• Richard Libertini as Akorem Laan
• Andrea Martin as Ishka
• Bill Mumy as Kellin
• Brock Peters as Joseph Sisko
• Andrew Robinson as Elim Garak
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• William Sadler as Sloan
• Michael Sarrazin as Trevean
• Wallace Shawn as Grand Nagus Zek
• Kurtwood Smith as Thrax
• Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard / Locutus of Borg
• Leigh Taylor-Young as Yanas Tigan
• Clarence Williams III as Omet'iklan

Special appearances by [ ]

• Bernie Casey as Calvin Hudson
• James Darren as Vic Fontaine
• Robert Picardo as Lewis Zimmerman / Emergency Medical Holographic program
• Chris Sarandon as Martus Mazur
• Vanessa Williams as Arandis

Recurring characters [ ]

• Cecily Adams and Andrea Martin as Ishka
• Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat
• Philip Anglim as Vedek Bareil
• Casey Biggs as Damar
• Jeffrey Combs as Liquidator Brunt
• Max Grodénchik as Rom
• Aron Eisenberg as Nog
• Hana Hatae as Molly O'Brien
• J.G. Hertzler as General Martok
• Barry Jenner as Admiral Ross
• David B. Levinson as Broik
• Kenneth Marshall as Michael Eddington
• Chase Masterson as Leeta
• Robert O'Reilly as Chancellor Gowron
• Duncan Regehr as Shakaar
• Andrew J. Robinson as Elim Garak
• Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn

Executive producers [ ]

• Rick Berman – Executive Producer
• Michael Piller – Executive Producer (1993–1995)
• Ira Steven Behr – Executive Producer (1995–1999)

Staff writers [ ]

• Ira Steven Behr , Staff Writer
• Hans Beimler , Staff Writer (1995–1999)
• René Echevarria , Staff Writer ( 1994 –1999)
• Ronald D. Moore , Staff Writer (1994–1999)
• Bradley Thompson , Staff Writer ( 1996 –1999)
• David Weddle , Staff Writer (1996–1999)
• Robert Hewitt Wolfe , Staff Writer (1993– 1997 )

Episode list [ ]

Season 1 [ ].

DS9 Season 1 , 19 episodes:

Season 2 [ ]

DS9 Season 2 , 26 episodes:

Season 3 [ ]

DS9 Season 3 , 26 episodes:

Season 4 [ ]

DS9 Season 4 , 25 episodes:

Season 5 [ ]

DS9 Season 5 , 26 episodes:

Season 6 [ ]

DS9 Season 6 , 26 episodes:

Season 7 [ ]

DS9 Season 7 , 25 episodes:

Related topics [ ]

• DS9 directors
• DS9 performers
• DS9 recurring characters
• DS9 studio models
• DS9 writers
• Character crossover appearances
• Undeveloped DS9 episodes
• Paramount Stage 4
• Paramount Stage 17
• Paramount Stage 18
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics (IDW)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics (Malibu)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics (Marvel)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine soundtracks
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on VHS
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on LaserDisc
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD

External links [ ]

• List of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at TV.com
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes at the iTunes Store
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at StarTrek.com
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at Wikiquote
• 2 Bell Riots
• 3 Daniels (Crewman)

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Episode list

Star trek: deep space nine.

S5.E11 ∙ The Darkness and the Light

S5.E12 ∙ The Begotten

S5.E13 ∙ For the Uniform

S5.E14 ∙ In Purgatory's Shadow

S5.E15 ∙ By Inferno's Light

S5.E16 ∙ Doctor Bashir, I Presume

S5.E17 ∙ A Simple Investigation

S5.E18 ∙ Business as Usual

S5.E19 ∙ Ties of Blood and Water

S5.E20 ∙ Ferengi Love Songs

S5.E21 ∙ Soldiers of the Empire

S5.E22 ∙ Children of Time

S5.E23 ∙ Blaze of Glory

S5.E24 ∙ Empok Nor

S5.E25 ∙ In the Cards

S5.E26 ∙ Call to Arms

S6.E1 ∙ A Time to Stand

S6.E2 ∙ Rocks and Shoals

S6.E3 ∙ Sons and Daughters

S6.E4 ∙ Behind the Lines

S6.E5 ∙ Favor the Bold

S6.E6 ∙ Sacrifice of Angels

S6.E7 ∙ You Are Cordially Invited

S6.E8 ∙ Resurrection

S6.E9 ∙ Statistical Probabilities

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At Deep Space Nine, a space station located next to a wormhole in the vicinity of the liberated planet of Bajor, Commander Sisko and crew welcome alien visitors, root out evildoers and solve all types of unexpected problems that come their way.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is 738 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved down the charts by -112 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose but less popular than Homicide.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

"Think of it: Five years ago, no one had ever heard of Bajor or Deep Space Nine. And now all our hopes rest here." — Chancellor Gowron

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the second of the "next generation" of Star Trek shows, airing after The Next Generation for two years, then alternating with UPN's Voyager for the remaining five years. The show was aired from 1993 to 1999, and like TNG , was offered through First-Run Syndication as opposed to any exclusive television network. Set on an orbital space station , DS9 traded the Wagon Train to the Stars premise for " Fort Apache in Space ". Ira Behr, the showrunner, cited The Rifleman as another influence (particularly the father-son dynamic).

When we last left Next Gen , the remote world of Bajor had just booted out its occupiers the Cardassian Empire through a war of attrition and a fair amount of terrorism. With the Bajoran people battling the aftermath of several decades of brutal exploitation and spiralling into disorder, Starfleet sends a detachment of officers led by Commander Benjamin Sisko as a diplomatic liaison to provide aid and help Bajor rebuild; they take up residence at formerly Cardassian space station Terok Nor , rechristened Deep Space 9, as a makeshift Starfleet outpost. In the pilot, a one-of-a-kind stable wormhole leading to an uncharted corner of the galaxy is discovered. Instantly, Bajor is transformed from a rustic backwater into the most valuable piece of real estate in the Alpha Quadrant, and DS9 is assigned to monitor the wormhole's traffic. What's more, the appearance of the wormhole is seen by the Bajorans as fulfilling a religious prophecy and Sisko is declared to be " The Emissary ", adding further complications to his duty of mediating relations between Bajor and the Federation. The appearance of the wormhole also catches the attention of the Dominion, a far less cuddly counterpart to the United Federation of Planets, and the tensions between the two governments shape much of the show. DS9 changed the franchise's approach to Worldbuilding , since the fixed location and proximity to one particular planet allowed the show to delve more deeply into the political landscape of the Star Trek universe, fleshing in details and nuance. If you thought of the Enterprise -D (and, later, Voyager ) as out there exploring the frontiers and sketching the outlines of the known galaxy, then this show was coloring in the drawing that had already been made.

At the time, Star Trek tended towards a The Main Characters Do Everything and Monster of the Week approach, with the result that the number of characters who managed to appear in every season of a show, despite not being in the main cast of that show, was very small: four in the three seasons of The Original Series (at least one of whom never spoke a word), and then a nameless (at first) TNG speaking part who went on to operate the transporters. DS9 added the next seven such Fake Guest Stars : Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Aron Eisenberg (Nog), Max Grodenchik (Rom) and Andrew Robinson (Garak) had their characters introduced within the first two episodes and held prominent roles all the way up to the series finale . Relatedly, this is also where that nameless speaking part — Miles O'Brien, played by Colm Meaney — became an Ascended Extra , joining the opening credits of this show and managing to get his wife Keiko ( Rosalind Chao ) and daughter Molly (Hana Hatae) into all seven seasons. (O'Brien appeared in two episodes of TNG Season 6 prior to transferring to Sisko's command, and returned for the Season 7 Series Finale , making him one of the only characters in the history of television to appear in every season of two shows.) The last major recurring character was Morn, the never-heard-but-always-talking extra who hung around the bar; he appeared in more episodes than actual opening-credits star Cirroc Lofton, and even had an episode revolve around him... despite the fact that he never once had a line.

Another part of the Star Trek formula left behind was the sense of actions without consequence, due to former TNG writers (namely Ira Behr and Ronald D. Moore ) rebelling against Gene Roddenberry 's spotless, optimistic future. At the beginning of the story, and continuing for some time beyond the show's pilot, nobody on the station or on Bajor particularly got along with each other; plus, unlike the ship-based series that had come before, the crew couldn't simply jump to warp at the end of the episode and leave the Problem of the Week behind to sort itself out. Rather than simply being standard Planets of Hats, the Bajorans, Cardassians and even TNG's failed recurring villains the Ferengi were thoroughly developed, with their societies, politics, conflicting factions and beliefs becoming crucial aspects of the narrative. The show employed Myth Arcs more extensively than other Treks , and by shifting the focus away from Starfleet's bold explorers to DS9's overworked jarheads, living among and interacting on a daily basis with people who at first regarded them with varying levels of suspicion, resentment and contempt, the writers were able to scrutinize the Federation as it appears to outsiders: a toothless alliance which still has problems with bureaucracy and some skeletons in its closet . Though the show still comes across as optimistic about the future of humanity, it asks several questions about the Federation's place in the galaxy and the capacity for humans to accomplish great things — even if those great things become I Did What I Had to Do .

The show originally aired in syndication but has gone on to be shown in reruns and on numerous streaming services.

In 2017, Ira Behr and Adam Nimoy announced they were crowdfunding a documentary about the series, What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , which was released in June of 2019. In addition to bringing back most of the major players (including Aron Eisenberg and René Auberjonois before their untimely deaths), the film examined DS9 's cultural impact, particularly its post-wrap rise in popularity in syndication and streaming, and featured Behr getting the old writers' room together to plot a "what if" season 8 pilot.

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

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Video Example(s):

"especially the lies".

Garak tells several contradictory stories about his past and how he came to be on DS9. To this day, we still don't know how much of any of them is the truth.

Example of: Riddle for the Ages

Never Tell the ...

Cardassians Are...

Worf Meets Jadz...

"They'll Buy An...

Dukat's day off

"It's the Kling...

Quark isn't dying

"How old are you?"

Quark and Grilka

Sisko's communi...

The modified TR...

Ezri Dax vs. Ch...

Ezri dreams of ...

"Julian, you're...

I Have Eaten Her

What kind of pe...

"Odo could be a...

"Our gods are d...

Debriefing the ...

Star Trek: Deep...

General Martok

Dukat is speech...

Nog on Humans

Finding the rig...

Worf joins the ...

"I'm not Picard!"

Quark's worthle...

Suffer Horribly...

That's Why You ...

Odo does have a...

That's Assuming...

That's a Stupid...

Kira and the Ro...

The Karemma vie...

The Romulans Jo...

Alternative Title(s): Deep Space Nine

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Star Trek, deep space nine : warped

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