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To Boldly Go…Yada, Yada, Yada |
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Thursday, 04 May 2006 |
By D. W. O’Dell
 One of the biggest upsets in electoral history occurred when TV Guide took a survey to determine the single best episode of any Star Trek incarnation ever. Everyone assumed the winner would be the original series’ award winning episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” or possibly The Next Generation’s movie-quality two-parter, “The Best of Both Worlds.” No one was prepared for the winner to be “The Visitor,” an episode from the series often looked upon as Gene Roddenberry’s ugly stepchild, Deep Space Nine.
I, for one, was not surprised.
Of the five Trek TV incarnations (Classic, Next Gen, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise) I have always felt that DS9 was the strongest entry. I realize this is at variance with the majority of Trek fans out there, but I stand by my opinion.
Classic Trek was great, a major innovation in prime time TV. It is easy to forget that before Classic Trek, there were no adult-oriented science fiction shows in prime time (I consider The Twilight Zone to be more fantasy than SF). This was a major boon to Trek, as there were no hack science fiction writers working in television; that meant they had to rely on real science fiction writers like Jerome Bixby, Theodore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison for scripts. The racially integrated bridge crew of the USS Enterprise was another innovation that looks obvious today but was a breakthrough in 1966. Add to that the idea that a non-human character, Mr. Spock, would become one of the most popular characters in science fiction history, and you have one of the greatest science fiction shows of all time.
But the series only ran three years, and the third year was pretty bad. So, a tip of the cap, but it isn’t the best.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was also a major risk, being set approximately 75 years after Classic Trek and disposing with the tried and true characters of the original (okay, Bones showed up in the pilot, and Spock eventually made an appearance as well). Instead of just repeating the Star Trek formula, Roddenberry dared to deviate in ways that might have alienated rabid Classic Trek fans (he never was forgiven for Wesley Crusher, nor should he be).
As good as Next Gen was, the first two seasons were weak. I remember reading about Gene Roddenberry’s death and Next Gen producer Rick Berman assured fans that Roddenberry had stopped being directly involved with the show before the third season; I then realized that the show hadn’t really gotten good until after the ‘Great Bird of the Galaxy’ stopped butting in. By the seventh season, the show was showing signs of fatigue, and the powers-that-be wisely decided to end it. “The Best of Both Worlds” was a brilliant episode, but it presaged a constant problem with Next Gen - their big two parters always seemed to fall flat in part 2.
Another problem with Next Generation was that only episodes that revolved around Picard, Data or Worf were any good; Riker-centric, Troi-centric, Geordi-centric and (shudder) Crusher-centric (either one) episodes were almost always of minor interest.
To the contrary, Deep Space Nine featured excellent episodes centered around Sisko, Odo, Quark, Worf (again), Bashir, O’Brien, Kira, and even the characters played by the two (relatively) weaker actors on the set, Jadzia and Jake. As with Next Gen the first season was relatively weak, but DS9 found its legs faster and ran further with them. The show featured some of the best comedic episodes in the Trek universe (“House of Quark,” “Our Man Bashir,” “Trials and Tribble-ations”) and also some of the most dramatic (“Duet,” “The Visitor,” “Far Beyond the Stars”). DS9 also did a brilliant job of developing episodes set in the “Mirror Universe” created for the Classic Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror.”
DS9 avoided emulating Next Gen’s complete collapse in later seasons by adopting a multi-episode, multi-season arc concerning the Dominion War. As with Babylon 5, multi-season arcs avoid weak episodes, but at the expense of avoiding great episodes as well. The quality of DS9 suffered a little once they were hamstrung into episode after episode concerning the battle between the Founders and the Federation, but they never produced any really embarrassing episodes in Season 7 (okay, there were a couple but I’m making a point here).
Voyager was always too hamstrung by its premise to really take off: every week there would be a possible way to get back to the Alpha Quadrant; every week something would happen to prevent them from making it. Despite attractive characters inhabited by good actors, the plotting seemed stiff and unimaginative. I suspect that, in contrast to Classic Trek, the Trek universe had become so populated that they could rely on writers thoroughly familiar with the Star Trek universe but who had little knowledge of science fiction or of dramatic writing in general.
Enterprise was probably doomed when they chose the theme music (I liked Enterprise’s theme song; so sue me). The concept was a bold one, and once again they created interesting characters; but the plots were uninteresting and the whole premise was simply too tied up by knowledge of the history of the Federation. Scott Bakula failed to find the spark he delivered on Quatum Leap, and the plots all seemed to revolve around finding reasons for T’Pol to take off her clothes (not that I’m complaining). Enterprise has the distinction of being the first Trek incarnation since Classic Trek to be cancelled.
DS9 produced more high quality episodes than any other Trek incarnation, and provided the deepest insights into alien cultures (Klingon, Bajoran, Cardassian, Ferrengi). As much as I admire Classic Trek, Next Gen, and (a little bit) Voyager and Enterprise, I believe Deep Space Nine is the Trek incarnation that produced the highest quality television.
That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
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