Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ended in 1999 after 7 seasons but didn’t jump into feature films like The Next Generation. Here’s why.
Just as well, given the state of Trek movies by that time. DS9 was never ruined.
Very true. All Good Things is in my opinion better than all the TNG movies.
Hell I’d take any TNG two-parter over any of the TNG movies. Even a mid one like Gambit or Descent.
There is palpable fan interest in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine getting a revival of some sort
They mentioned Avery’s willingness as an impediment but even if he’s onboard I don’t see it without René and Aron, among other reasons.
As much as I wish they could all be in a DS9 revival I don’t see why they have to. Sisko ascended, Odo returned to the founders, and it would be easy to say that Nog is just stationed on the far side of the Federation or on a deep space mission. The first two could easily be off screen presences who effect the story but are never seen. That still leaves Bashir, Dax, Kira, Worf, and Jake. Could be a smaller, more personal story that follows up on plot elements from DS9. Like what they tried to do with the first two seasons of Picard, just hopefully better written.
If they hire outstanding writers then I’d be interested in a show about Jake after his dad disappeared. Follow that timeline and show Jake’s struggle. It doesn’t really need to happen though and it would be very high risk.
Please don’t. They’ll fuck it up with poor writing, thinking SFX alone is enough to carry it, when DS9 was always about the writing.
Nog I think is the easiest recast. It could be explained just that the character aged. Odo would be harder. He could be a CGI character with a voice actor but that doesn’t sound good. It could be a plot point that both characters are killed prior to the beginning of the story and the story involves resolving the mystery of what happened and why.
All and all I think it’s unlikely we’ll see any kind of continuation of DS9, which is unfortunate because it’s my favorite series.
I would have misgivings of using the character with René, but it wouldn’t be hard. He’s changeling, god dammit. It was one of the weird conceits of DS9 that odo kept the same humanoid form, and so the changeling who interacted with him did too (along with implausible excuses about “not being able to master the humanoid face”, or the changing virus).
Having spent time with the founders, you could easily recast “Odo” as a dozen different characters of different species and genders. Perhaps he has transcended the attachment to a single form that he developed from living among solids? I feel like watching some good actors do Odoesque performances could be quite interesting!
Yeah, that’s a really good solution. There would have to be something that gives the audience a clue that we’re dealing with the same character I think so the actors would have to really collaborate on their collective characters. That’s really a great idea.
odo is easier. Find a similar looking actor who can do a similar voice and say he got better at making a realistic human look. no more makeup needed even.
That’s possible. Rene gave odo a real presence though. I don’t know how well another actor would mimic it. They could always do something like interstellar. That character who was left on the ship by himself for all those years was markedly different from the character before they left for the water planet.
yeah I was even thinking why would he necessarily even keep with the look and voice once he was adept at forms.
You’re right!
René’s son is basically a clone of his dad, appearance wise.
That didn’t work out so well with Tony soprano in the HBO movie though.
He can act.
Who Gandolfi’s son or Rene’s son?
René’s.
“Rémy-Luc Julian Michel Auberjonois is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring role as Mr. Albin in the television series Weeds and as Dr. Emerson on the television series Mad Men.” - Wikipedia page.
I looked up Dr Emerson and you really can see the family resemblance. Mad Men was a fantastic show.
He does like so much like him, however with Odo that isn’t the most important thing. The voice is much more important and René’s voice is so very distinctive.
“After rejoining the Great Link, I carry with me now the voice of all my People. I apologize if I… if we… sound… different.”
Problem solved.
@Salamendacious @Evilcoleslaw In Ira Steven Behr’s doc “What we left behind”, he get the original writers brainstorm a new season of DS9 and they promptly kill Nog in the first episode.
Yeah that’s always a potential thing they could continue from, or scrap at will. (I watched that again just this weekend lol)
I remember that. He came out of the wormhole, making a warning, and his ship exploded if I remember right.
@Salamendacious yup
I mean, DS9 wasn’t as popular as TNG back then – both in terms of ratings and fan reception. Many considered it the black sheep of the Trek family. Berman focused on Voyager. So it was chrystal clear to every fan with even half a brain that DS9 would never get a movie. Perhaps Voyager had a tiny chance but by the time it concluded its run viewership had been in steady decline, and then Nemesis tanked.
Voyager had consistently mediocre writing. I, somewhat cynically, always thought the reason moore did Battlestar was to show everyone what Voyager could have been.
Wow I have to agree with this. Voyager episodes often start out with an interesting premise, the show progresses too slowly then in the last 2 minutes: “I have to go now my planet needs me.” and the episode is over instantly.
The writing is horribly unsatisfying.
Ohh man, the “demon planet” melting voyager clone episode really set my teeth on edge with this.
Super interesting premise, the metal clones fly out on their own ship, invent/discover new warp tech that is super useful, almost get to earth, but then begin to melt. People die, Tom gets dark and broody in a realistic way, but then as its getting good they all start to die to wrap it up in one episode. So they super warp home to the devil planet, but they realize they arent going to make it, so they fire off a “stable bouy” about who they are/what they learned. By pure, totally realistic happenstance, this buoy both doesn’t survive and the actual voyager is passing nearby at the time, just close enough to see their destroyed remains.
In the insane vastness of space, the chances of these two ships with vastly different propulsion capabilities passing by each other in the very minutes one of them disintegrates is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible, and of course it failed in a way that fully resets any boons actual voyager might have gained from it.
It would have been way more poignant to have the bouy survive, but to have voyager well past it, not able to learn from it because they had gone beyond. To never have them even see or interact with their copies, just to have those copies set out on their same journey but fail, with only a lone bouy to remember them by. A true reminder, a real boon, but one outside of voyagers reach by random chance. Actual life.
But nah, just reset the whole promise of the episode in the last 2 minutes instead.
The worst for me was the episode where Tom Paris breaks the trans warp threshold and becomes an omnipresent god and starts evolving 1000 years a minute.
Janeway realizes it and says- this will change our very existence. Wow! but instead of exploring this they turn him and Janeway into giant lizards then in the last few minutes the doctor just magically changes then back- The end.
WTF, such a waste. There must have been a writers strike that year.
@Melco @mosiacmango The amount of mockery and opprobrium this episode has gotten over the years is entirely justified.
However what I don’t think is justified is the label as one of the worst Star Trek episodes. Is it nuts? Yes. Is it annoying that they have the technology to bring everyone back to Earth and simply de-lizard them after the trip, and then it’s never brought up again? Also yes.
But it’s nowhere near the worst episodes because it’s neither offending and un-Star Trek (like TNG’s Code of Honor) nor is it boring. It’s actually pretty entertaining for the first 35 or so minutes. It just goes off the rails at the end.
Paris is genuinely entertaining in it. The look of perverse amusement as he pops his own tongue off, total brilliance. It’s the exact amount of goofy that the premise demands.
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If it weren’t for tuvok and the doctor I don’t think I could have finished that series. It’s the only trek I’ve never really rewatched too. Not counting the modern shows.
I think you’re not too far off.
Here is an excerpt from The Fifty Year Mission (book 2) by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. I highly recommend those books. They are super insightful about the behind-the-scenes stuff from the first 50 years of Star Trek.
I want CBS to, on hands and knees, beg RDM to fix Trek now. Oh I’d squeal like a 60s girl at a Beatles concert.
That’s really interesting, thank you for going to the effort to share those page.
God damn. I’m almost done watching DS9 for the first time right now and was planning on diving into Voyager right after. But this makes me not want to.
Voyager is alright. It’s just very uneven. What drags it down is that the producers only very rarely took big swings that had a lasting impact on the characters or the show. Voyager excels at being episodic television. There are a bunch of stinkers (as there are on any TV show) but when it’s good, it’s really good. It has some of the best Trek episodes.
Maybe use an episode guide with ratings (for example Jammer’s Reviews, Ex Astris Scientia or IMDb) and skip the episodes with low ratings.
Its odd that Voyager had a better chance at a film. DS9 had better ratings when they were both on and received more critical acclaim. Yet somehow Voyager has remained more in the popular consciousness and had more enduring popularity. I think a lot of it had to do with Berman favoring Voyager. Its reruns also saw a lot more syndication. I was a teenager in the 2000’s so I only ever saw reruns of 90’s trek growing up and it was usually Voyager and rarely TNG. I never saw any DS9 until it became available on streaming.
Financial reasons played a major role in the lack of a DS9 movie, as the sets for the show were extremely expensive and surpassed those of TNG.
wonder if they can make a budget utilising the backdrop live screen that is used in the “mandalorian” and the “ashoka” starwars movie today
IMO, it wouldn’t work well.
The DS9 set was complicated. You had obstructions and levels. Those would need to be replicated with green screen props and they tend to not bother with those. At best you’ll get uncanny valley like the Romulan Bridge in S1 Picard. Works for a specific scene, but isn’t something to dwell in.
Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I doubt Brooks would want to be involved though.
Which is too bad. A movie would be the perfect way to wrap up the Ben Sisko story.
Personally I’d be okay recasting the role. I’d totally buy that his experiences with the founders could change him physically.
