Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 1 (DVD)

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Paramount was one of the last major studios to support the DVD format, but it certainly knows how to release TV shows on DVD. Unlike companies that release either "best of" compilations or entire seasons with months of waiting between sets, Paramount is doing fans a great service in releasing entire RUNS in one calendar year. 2002 saw the release of all seven seasons of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and 2003 will see the release of all seven seasons of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Coupled with the special edition re-releases of the "Star Trek" feature films, there´s an average of one new "Star Trek" release every month--a definite cause for celebration.

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" was doing so well in syndication that Paramount wanted a new show to expand the franchise. The powers that be launched "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" on January 3, 1993. Since "DS9" began its run while "TNG" was still generating new episodes of its own, a couple of crossover episodes were filmed for both "TNG" and "DS9". Some "TNG" episodes even dealt with the Cardassians (an alien race meant to be the villains in "DS9") without mentioning anything that might be happening on DS9 or on Bajor, a planet considering joining the United Federation of Planets.

"DS9" focuses on the Federation presence in the Bajoran system. The Cardassian Empire left Bajor after a brutal sixty-year occupation. The withdrawing Cardassian forces left behind a space station orbiting the planet, re-named Deep Space Nine by the Federation. Starfleet dispatches Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) to oversee DS9. His arrival in the Bajoran system was foreseen by Bajor´s spiritual leaders, who think that he is the Emissary to the Prophets, the gods of their religious system. Sisko´s arrival on DS9 triggers the opening of the Bajoran wormhole/Celestial Temple, the only known stable wormhole in the universe (i.e. its beginning and end points don´t move or disappear). The "discovery" of the wormhole, which connects the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, suddenly turns Bajor into a strategically important planet.

Sisko runs DS9 with the help of First Officer Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), the Bajoran liaison and a former freedom fighter. They are joined by Chief of Operations Miles O´Brien (Colm Meaney from "TNG"); Science Officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), a symbiont with a worm living inside of her; Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig or Siddig El Fadil--the man changed his name sometime during the show´s run); the shape-shifting Security Chief Odo (Rene Auberjonois); the Ferengi barkeeper, Quark (Armin Shimerman); Rom, Quark´s brother; Nog, Rom´s son; and Jake Sisko, Benjamin´s son. Recurring characters include the Cardassians Gul Dukat and Garek, DS9´s tailor.

The "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" Season One box set includes the following episodes:

Disc 1: "Emissary" (1.5-hour pilot), "Past Prologue", "A Man Alone".

Disc 2: "Babel", "Captive Pursuit", "Q-Less", "Dax".

Disc 3: "The Passenger", "Move Along Home", "The Nagus", "Vortex".

Disc 4: "Battle Lines", "The Storyteller", "Progress", "If Wishes Were Horses".

Disc 5: "The Forsaken", "Dramatis Personae", "Duet", "In the Hands of the Prophets".

The entire first season feels like an extended pilot. While the characters are strongly developed by the writers, there´s also a lot of exposition that could have been done with more action, less talk, and more panache. Instead, we´re given plenty of sub-plots that laboriously detail this little thing and that little what-not, an exercise that takes on the attributes of a dog chasing its own tail. Some episodes used the exact same mini-themes or ideas as installments in The Original Series as well as "TNG". For example, "Dramatis Personae" involved spirits possessing the people on DS9, something already done on "TNG"...and Miles O´Brien was possessed in both episodes!

There are great moments in Season One, though. "Emissary" begins with a bang with its depiction of the Borg attack on Wolf 359. (We never actually saw this attack in "TNG" since the Enterprise was temporarily disabled, preventing it from joining the fight.) We see Sisko having to leave his wife behind in an about-to-explode ship--an act that scars him for a very long time. The last two episodes of Season One, "Duets" and "In the Hands of the Prophets", are also quite riveting in their own right. In "Duets", Kira confronts a Cardassian who may have been responsible for monstrous atrocities. Kira must deal with her own violent feelings in the process of uncovering the truth behind the Cardassian´s past. "In the Hands of the Prophets" will seem especially relevant to today´s audiences as religious fanatics attack Federation "secularism". However, bear in mind that Christian institutions in the past caused as much grief as Islamic ones today. The point of "In the Hands of the Prophets" is that any sort of fanaticism is undesirable.

Some details in "DS9" bother me. For example, the Cardassian occupation of Bajor will remind viewers of Nazi rule and Japanese aggression during the first half of the Twentieth Century. Yet, the "Star Trek" portrayal of the Ferengi race (greedy aliens) will remind viewers of ugly stereotypes about a certain group of people persecuted by the Axis powers.