STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
Complete First Season DVD Gift Set
6 discs
20 episodes, 7 extras
Retail: $99
Streets: February 25, 2003 (U.S.)

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Ten years ago the STAR TREK franchise embarked on its first expansionary endeavor: could another TREK series thrive at the same time as the phenomenally successful NEXT GENERATION? Long before another spin-off could be taken for granted, Paramount ventured into uncharted territory with what eventually became the most daring of all the TREK series. In these pioneering days they didn’t play it safe and they didn’t try to replicate past glory. In fact, they set out on an entirely different voyage altogether, and created the only STAR TREK series to significantly innovate and deviate from the TOS/TNG mold.

From the very beginning moments of “Emissary” we know we’re seeing our favorite universe with fresh eyes. Our protagonist is a tortured man with heavy baggage and he’ll go on a strenuous arc not only in the series pilot but throughout the entire series as well. Our crew is not polished and confident; rather, several of the main characters have divided loyalties and there are more alien regulars than humans. When Odo shouts “who the hell are you?” to Sisko on the Promenade, there’s no mistaking this for the cool serenity of TNG, where even the Klingons have better manners. The characters aboard Deep Space Nine are rougher than anything ENTERPRISE has produced and the concept is imbued with more interesting villains, intellectual and spiritual explorations, and intriguing character dynamics than anything we’ve seen on TREK.

“Emissary” is likely the superior STAR TREK pilot, presenting more back story for all its characters in an hour and a half than most TREK series do in an entire season. Sisko grows more in this one episode than some of our captains did in the lives of their characters. O’Brien is probably the most satisfying follow-up to James Doohan’s Scotty we’ve ever seen, and Quark is a theatrical dynamo who provides comedy and more personality than half the characters on VOYAGER. Some things aren’t quite right, like Odo’s early make-up and performances that haven’t quite been figured out yet. Some of these problems show themselves in later episodes, but it’s in shows like “Emissary” and "Past Prologue" and “Babel” and “Vortex” and “Duet” that we see the genesis of greatness to come.

“Babel” seems like a standard TREK disease story on the surface but turns into a delightful repertoire between Quark and Odo, culminating in the simultaneously suspenseful and humorous conclusion that pokes fun at the standard STAR TREK plot itself. You can’t help but laugh when the station is about to explode and we cut to a close up of Quark grabbing his head in an over-the-top expression of horror—will we survive? My god! Of course we will. That’s why it’s so effective. Even “Q-less,” the obligatory Q episode, manages to escape cliché with witty dialogue like, “Picard and his crew would’ve figured out all this technobabble hours ago.” Not even Lwaxana Troi (“The Forsaken”) can make the show seem stale; much the contrary, DS9’s premise predicts the appearance of familiar TREK characters as passerby from time to time. Rather than gimmickry, such indulgences serve to broaden the tapestry of the series. Innovation is the key word here; finding ways to tell stories in new ways, anticipating audience expectations and then thwarting them with an enjoyable twist.

The crossover that works the best in the first season (and there are several) is in the third episode, “Past Prologue.” Duras sisters Lursa and B’Etor come aboard to make a deal with a Bajoran terrorist and in the process we get the first glimpse at Andrew Robinson’s ‘Garak’, the character so omnipresent in later seasons that he probably qualifies as a regular for most DS9 fans. Weaving a story of political intrigue and testing the loyalties of Kira, “Past Prologue” is an excellent piece that serves as a model for many of the show’s best episodes to come.

“Duet” is often looked upon as the first season’s shining moment and one of the franchise’s best episodes; and for reason. Despite the occasionally over-emotive Nana Visitor early in the script, the last half explores the two sides of hate without preaching to the viewer, and the twist makes both the characters and the audience challenge their preconceptions. “Vortex” offers the first inklings of knowledge about Odo’s mysterious people, who would become so integral later in the series, and when he disregards orders and quietly allows his prisoner to escape aboard an unsuspecting nearby ship, you may be thinking, “He can’t do that; he has to fulfill his mission.” Indeed, characters do the opposite of what we’ve come to expect of TREK characters, making DS9 all the more enjoyable. Patrick Stewart’s several guest scenes in the pilot pass the torch while brilliantly highlighting the differences in the two series, proving that indeed there is room for both the nobility of the Enterprise and the cowboy diplomacy of Deep Space Nine in Gene Roddenberry’s universe.

Packaging and Menus

The production values of the set are a mixed bag from the start. You’ll initially be impressed with the streamlined all-plastic case housing the set’s six discs and convenient flap design of the disc containers. This makes flipping through to pick a disc much easier than with the TNG sets, which required you to completely remove and unfold a cardboard case that quickly became unwieldy. The DS9 set is also thin and easier to remove from the outer case, while the plastic design is more substantial and indicative of the price tag attached to this product.

But once you put the discs in the machine the shine begins to dull. The menus are not particularly interesting, featuring plain visuals of the station and an overlaid Cardassian-style menu system. The TNG sets typically changed from season to season and we’ll see what the next DS9 set has in store but this first presentation isn’t very imaginative. Functionally the menus are not nearly as useful as their TNG predecessors. Where those sets employed looping clip shows from each episode in the four quadrants of the menu to aid in recalling the plot of a particular show, the DS9 set offers no such convenience, making you guess from the title whether you want to watch the installment. Whether you’re a rabid DS9 fan or not, chances are the episode titles alone are of little use to you. Once you click on an episode, the rendering of the DS9-style console is pretty, but not much more helpful.

The Extras

Unfortunately, the bonus materials on this freshman effort don’t quite do the ambitious storytelling justice. We begin with DEEP SPACE NINE: A BOLD BEGINNING, which is the set’s meatiest presentation at 18 minutes and covers the concept of the show from inception to production. Generally divided into two parts, the first half includes archival interview footage with co-creator Michael Piller and Avery Brooks and some new footage of Rick Berman. Piller’s 1992 interview is revealing about the idea of DS9 and it clearly served as some sort of “pitch session” for the series to fans a decade ago. Brooks’ footage is also valuable because the subtle actor talks about his excitement for the show’s premise, and because he has given so few interviews over the years. What’s mainly missing, however, is any new interview footage with Piller, who was such a fixture on the last four seasons of the ST:TNG sets. Berman talks about the need to have the show not take place on a starship due to its proximity to TNG, something that seems wholly forgotten by the time 2001 rolled around.

The second half ramps up as we are presented with new interviews of set designer Herman Zimmerman, artist Mike Okuda and illustrator Rick Sternbach. Filled with concept sketches, these segments guide us through the development of the design of the space station inside and out. Originally the thought had been that many species contributed to the station’s design and thus a hodgepodge look was envisioned; at one point the Promenade was even to have a monorail going through it. There are plenty of behind the scenes photos and interesting sketches combined with the multiple interviews to make this a real delight for DS9 fans and, not surprisingly, the best of the set’s bonus offerings.

Next up is the CREW DOSSIER—KIRA NERYS, which is the first of what will hopefully be a special dossier on all seven regular crewmembers by the time all seven seasons are released. At 14 minutes, Nana Visitor certainly has a lot to say in both 1992 and 1999 archival interview segments. She chats about the basics of her character in the early footage, her real-life pregnancy, which was worked into the show’s storyline, in the 1999 footage, and she even says she thinks DS9 could’ve gone on for several more years. Writer/producer Ira Steven Behr makes an appearance here, highlighting the Kira episode “Duet,” but those are really the only specifics. The main problem here is that we have no new footage with Visitor; 1999 is already four years ago and one of the joys of the TNG sets was the actors’ reflections on the series several years hence.

MICHAEL WESTMORE’S ALIENS: SEASON ONE is an excellent concept. After all, the whole idea of DEEP SPACE NINE meant a plethora of alien extras and all the latex to outfit them would be required in just about every episode. So this is an appropriate featurette very tailored to DS9. Here we get new footage with Westmore and he demonstrates and explains the inspiration behind many of the first season’s notable guest aliens like ‘Tosk’, the ‘Miradorn’ and even the ‘Tailheads’ seen walking around the promenade from time to time. Special attention is given to the Bajoran and Cardassian make-up, which are pivotal to the show from the very beginning. At only 10 minutes, however, it becomes increasingly annoying when the “Michael Westmore—Make-up Artist” caption swooshes onto the screen every time the shot returns to Westmore’s interview. This is a problem in just about all the extras.

These are the three main documentaries on the set and although the package touts six such features, the rest are decidedly marginal. Let’s start with the mediocre. SECRET’S OF QUARK’S BAR is a 4-and-a-half minute lecture by STAR TREK archivist Penny Juday on the various props found in the Bar set and used throughout the series. Juday does her best but the static camera trained on her as she stands behind a table of props interspersed with scenes from the show is only vaguely engaging. Why not get Armin Shimmerman to take us on a tour of the bar in archival footage and interview Juday on her prop selections (she found the candle-holders that when turned upside down made Quark’s glasses) to make this documentary not only longer but more dynamic? It also would’ve alleviated the absence of one of the season’s standout performers in the rest of the extras--Shimerman is nowhere to be found in either archival or new footage and yet it is his Quark that imbibes the first season with more than a healthy swig of intelligent humor in episodes like “Babel.”

The DEEP SPACE NINE sketchbook is a far better production, mainly owing to the fact that Rick Sternbach, in new footage, discusses prop drawings for specific episodes along with a plentiful amount of sketches to keep things interesting. Five minutes is about as long as you need and had it been married to the underwhelming 2:33 ALIEN ARTIFACTS feature the set may have been improved slightly. Propmaster Joe Longo rummages through his workbench at Paramount, taking us from one dusty prop to another with what appears to be little or no direction from the documentarists. Frankly, all three of the latter features should’ve been combined into a single, more polished presentation. The PHOTO GALLERY tacked on the end is a nice addition since the TNG sets but half the photos and sketches were seen in the programs.

This brings us to the SECTION 31 HIDDEN FILES, which—while fun to “find” at first—amount to little more than ten minutes of archival footage, half of which should’ve been edited into previous presentations or together. There are ten of these little trinkets and you get to them by exploring around the Disc 6 menus, waiting for unnamed sections of the space station to highlight. Each one contains a brief profile of one of the show’s characters (minus Quark) with footage from 1992. File 08 is a virtual waste of time at only a minute in length and since it is basically just another minute of Nana Visitor talking about Kira, there’s no reason it shouldn’t have been added to her character DOSSIER. Odo has two features totaling 4:00 that should’ve been edited together and Dax has two that also should’ve been combined. Alexander Siddig on File 07 offers some of the more interesting comments, relaying the story of his unlikely casting in the role of ‘Bashir’ and Avery Brooks really seems like he cares about his work in his 3 minute affair. Most notable is a 2:33 new interview with Jennifer Hetrick, who guest-starred in the first season as ‘Vash’ alongside ‘Q’ (John deLancie) in “Q-Less.”

Final Thoughts

After seven sets of THE NEXT GENERATION, the major flaws have been remedied. The sets are now plastic instead of cardboard and the design makes it easier to get at the disc you want. There are more extra features even if we still don’t get any bloopers, but even so, we never hear writers talking about specific episodes like we did on the TNG sets and beyond the pre-production talk, there isn’t much revealed about the rest of the season on this set at all. Nor is there any talk of how the show premiered or performed in this first season. This was new territory for the STAR TREK franchise, launching a very different spin-off while TNG was about to jump into cinemas, and yet there is very little mention of this daring or how the gamble played out in the early weeks of 1993.

What’s good, however, is the show itself. If there’s anything that can raise the quality of this set beyond the mediocre extras, it’s the quality of the series pilot and the rest of the season. More different than any TREK before or after it, DS9 brought a type of grittiness and character drama that you just don’t get anywhere else in the TREK universe. Whether it’s Quark commanding ops in a crucial and humorous moment or Sisko muttering around in an angst-filled stare, DEEP SPACE NINE season one admirably tackled conflict and character like no other series and set the stage for what would become quite possibly the best of the five STAR TREK series.

Episode listing: Emissary, Past Prologue, A Man Alone, Babel, Captive Pursuit, Q-Less, Dax, The Passenger, Move Along Home, The Nagus, Vortex, Battle Lines, The Storyteller, Progress, If Wishes Were Horses, The Forsaken, Dramatis Personae, Duet, In the Hands of the Prophets.

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