Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the third live-action Star Trek series and entered production in. It was broadcast in first-run syndication from until.

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 from  until, and then with  from  until.


 * (Themes composed by Dennis McCarthy).
 * (Themes composed by Dennis McCarthy).
 * (Themes composed by Dennis McCarthy).

Summary
Deep Space Nine goes where no Star Trek series had gone before – DS9 was the first Star Trek not based on a starship, but instead, a starbase, known as Deep Space 9 (the starship USS Defiant (2370) was introduced in season 3, but the station remained the primary setting of the series). The change in the setting spawned when Brandon Tartikoff originally approached Rick Berman about the show, he specifically said he wanted it to have a new format; if The Next Generation was in space, Deep Space Nine was to be  in space – a man and his son coming to a dilapidated town on the edge of a new frontier.

The series was designed to have more interpersonal conflict than its predecessors, while still staying true to the universe that Gene Roddenberry 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. We needed to create a series that wasn't a franchise based on people aboard a starship, because we knew there would be a couple of years of overlap between the two series". (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p 5)

Berman also commented: "The problem with Star Trek: The Next Generation'' is Gene created a group of characters that he purposely chose not to allow conflict between. Starfleet officers cannot be in conflict, thus its murderous to write these shows because there is no good drama without conflict, and the conflict has to come from outside the group. 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. We also 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)

Regarding Gene Roddenberry's involvement, 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)

Initially Berman and Piller were originally 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 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)

The show is known for its complex characters and storylines, engaging battle scenes and darker (less Utopian) atmosphere. Unlike its predecessors 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. Unlike other 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, such as Jean-Luc Picard, Thomas Riker, Q, Lwaxana Troi, Kurn, Lursa, B'Etor, Admiral Alynna Nechayev, Vash, and Toral. In addition, Julian Bashir and Quark also had one-time appearances on The Next Generation, in and  respectively. Quark (and the station itself) also made a cameo in the pilot of,.

Characters from The Original Series were also re-introduced, including Kor, Kang, Koloth, and Arne Darvin. Following the highly rated appearance of James Doohan as Montgomery Scott in, 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)

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.

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 series spent some time exploring the mirror universe, which had not been seen since the TOS episode. The mirror universe was featured in five episodes of the series:, , , , and.

In addition to the visits to the mirror universe, the DS9 writing staff wrote a number of episodes in which the character of Miles O'Brien would be subject to particular trauma. This became an in-joke among the 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)

The show also focused on a wider array of uses and depictions of functions for the holodeck. 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 holodeck was used as a recurring background for people to hang out in in the form of a 1960s Las Vegas lounge (numerous episodes), as a weapons showroom (by Quark), and as the location for a baseball game between teams assembled by Sisko versus, a long-time rival Vulcan captain. 

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, a retelling of a classic TOS episode from a different angle in , life in the racially segregated 1950s in , and a reintroduction of the concept of "black ops" to the Star Trek universe with Section 31:. 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. Robert Hewitt Wolfe recalled that this 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." Feeling that Sisko deserved the higher rank as much as the other lead characters, the producers decided to promote Sisko in. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 253)

Due to the show's non-episodic nature, much of the series was easily lost on the casual viewer. 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 Trek shows Star Trek: Voyager and 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."

Despite these problems, 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.'"

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 Trek alumni like Walter Koenig and Andreas Katsulas had major roles in the rival series, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry agreed to a guest appearance as a gesture of goodwill to encourage a reconciliation between the two sets of fans.

Several former producers and head writers from DS9 have been involved in other sci-fi series including the creation of the "re-envisioned", , , and.

Deep Space Nine was the first live-action Star Trek series to feature a fully-animated sequence in its opening credits, as opposed to the simple flashcards accompanied by rapid flypasts of the Enterprise used for the opening sequences of both The Original Series and The Next Generation. Subsequent series Voyager also had a fully animated credit sequence.

In the DVD season special features the creators talk about the similarities between Deep Space Nine and an old Western setting Sisko as the mayor, Kira as a Native American, Bashir as a country doctor, Odo the lawman, Quark as the local barkeep, and Miles O'Brien the everyman wed to the local schoolmarm Keiko.

Starring

 * Avery Brooks as Commander/ Benjamin Sisko

Also starring

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


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

Recurring characters

 * Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat
 * Andrew Robinson as Garak
 * Casey Biggs as Damar
 * Max Grodénchik as Rom
 * Aron Eisenberg as Nog
 * Cecily Adams and Andrea Martin as Ishka
 * Wallace Shawn as Grand Nagus Zek
 * Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn
 * Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun and Liquidator Brunt
 * Salome Jens as the Female Changeling
 * Robert O'Reilly as Chancellor Gowron
 * J.G. Hertzler as General Martok
 * Rosalind Chao as Keiko O'Brien
 * Hana Hatae as Molly O'Brien
 * Penny Johnson as Kasidy Yates
 * Kenneth Marshall as Michael Eddington
 * Barry Jenner as Admiral Ross
 * Louise Fletcher as Kai Winn
 * Philip Anglim as Vedek Bareil
 * Duncan Regehr as Shakaar
 * Chase Masterson as Leeta
 * James Darren as Vic Fontaine
 * David B. Levinson as Broik

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 (–1999)
 * Ronald D. Moore, Staff Writer (1994–1999)
 * Bradley Thompson, Staff Writer (–1999)
 * David Weddle, Staff Writer (1996–1999)
 * Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Staff Writer (1993–)

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 performers
 * DS9 recurring characters
 * Main character crossover appearances
 * DS9 directors
 * Composers
 * DS9 studio models
 * DS9 novels
 * Undeveloped DS9 episodes
 * Paramount Stage 4
 * Paramount Stage 17
 * Paramount Stage 18

Media

 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on VHS
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on LaserDisc
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine soundtracks