I watched DS9 when it first came out and I was... underwhelmed.
But then I caught a few episodes in syndication, and it seemed pretty good -- the captain shaved his head; there was this guy (Gul Dukat?) who had really interesting conversations; there seemed to be action everywhere.
Is there a season where I can start without all of the boring stuff?
A fun fact about TNG and DS9, they only became really good once the respective commanders grew beards.
nigga just start at episode 1. don't be a consooooooooomer only interested in a quick fix.
TBF the 1st season is pretty boring.
Season 2 finale The Jem'Hadar is where the main arc gets going in earnest and the show is really starting to find its voice.
There's stuff you don't want to miss before that though. You'll want to know about the Maquis. You'll want to catch all the foreshadowing about "The Dominion." You'll want to watch every episode involving Nurse Ratched cuz you'll just love to hate her stupid face. And yes, Dukat is easily one of the most fleshed out and nuanced Trek villains of all time.
If you wanna cut some of the fat, just go through everything and once you figure out that one is gonna be meh-tier episodic filler, leave it on in the background and utilize that time for something else. Just watch out for character development and ignore obvious one-off aliens with terrible costumes or design. (i.e. those board game people, the matriarchy people with terrible psoriasis, etc...) Pay attention to stuff with Cardassians or Bajorans for the most part.
Until the end of the series, when they turn him into a cartoon evil villain. I'm surprised they didn't have an episode that centered on, "this week Gul Dukat kicks a puppy and steals an old woman's cane."
One of the earliest modern cases of "oops, we made the bad guy too cool, time to character assassinate him".
You have a point there.
I think mostly this is a symptom of the 'bad Bajoran spirits' (Kosst Amojan) being kinda one-dimensional morally speaking, which is annoyingly conspicuous in juxtaposition with how they fleshed out 'The Prophets' better - mostly in line with how Cisco sometimes complains about their moral ambiguity.
Holy shit I knew I recognized her from somewhere
Yeah, this seems like good advice. Thanks.
I’d personally suggest trying it from the beginning again. I enjoyed the first episode with the fifth dimensional beings
I think I'll do that. u-schmendrick_lamar, below, gave a pretty good reason.
DS9 has a lot of Lore that is explained in the pilot so is best to start at the beginning.
And then skip the second episode...
Like Babylon 5, you kinda need all the establishing material.
Unlike Babylon 5, the first season isn't awful, just dumb.
Also, they keep having dumb episodes. Anything that deals with Dax is inevitably the worst episode of the season. It's a little weird how consistently bad the writers are whenever they have to deal with trill lore.
Sisko family episodes, Julian Bashir episodes, Ferengi episodes, O'Brien episodes, Bajoron faith episodes, Cardassian episodes.
The list goes on, though.
I can't resist a ferengi episode. Space jew comedy of errors
Sometimes the Ferengi were amusing but it was hit-or-mess, e.g. the Ferengi feminist movement.
Bald and Beard Sisko is definitely when things ramp up. Can't remember when he changes the look though. Season 2?
Season 1, episode 1 is the best starting point,
When Benjamin gets his Hawk look back the things get rolling. But there are a few episodes where he goes Total Hawk and it gets a bit cringe. But that isn't often.
Which eps were Total Hawk?
I know some people don't like In the Pale Moonlight because he goes too far for their plebian tastes...
Nah it's mainly Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang where he has a hang up over the nightclub everyone else enjoys
Best case scenario, you're going to be "whelmed". You gotta understand people had less entertainment options in the 90s.
You should start with Babylon 5.
Saving the best for last, eh?
The first season of every single sci-fi show is cringe awful. TNG, DS9, VOY, BAB5... every single one.
After season one, things get so much better.
Sadly, this includes B5: Crusade.
Galactica s1 was the best. Every episode raised the stakes. Otherwise you're correct.
The Kazon makeup from Voyager looked so terrible, as if on shoot day they realized they hadn't actually designed anything about how they should look so they used leftover bits left around the wardrobe and fx shops.
I started at episode one and got to like season four before giving up. It may have been good if you were watching it week to week in the 90s, and of course in people here's recollection.
Apparently it starts getting good right after I stopped. So like season 5+ maybe.
I rewatched it last year. Still good. First 1.5 seasons are rocky, but that's standard.
I finally convinced my friend to watch DS9 after he swore he never would, and he told me he thought it was the best Trek series once he finished it. IMO it was the crowning achievement of Trek and will never be topped. It has its stinkers but as a complete product, it was something special and is still way too under appreciated because it wasn't set on a ship with a registry ending in 1701.
I feel like DS9 is appreciated more when one was already introduced to the Trek world through TNG. The fact it came out during the peak of TNG was both a blessing and a curse. Curse because it could never outshine TNG but blessing because it was able to use the already existing world in a way TNG never could this giving people a whole new perspective for the aliens/politics of the Trek universe.
I almost feel like TNG and DS9 should be watched in tandem. Watch some TNG until getting a little bored of the mould then watch some DS9 until some of the episodes are getting a little dry then flip back. Taken together, they represent the best Star Trek has to offer imo. On a standalone, DS9 is better but it's also not Star Trek, which is also why it is underappreciated. When it first came out it presented itself more like all the other Star Trek spinoffs and some people didn't even realize it was actually Star Trek.
SPOILER Did you see the Klingon fleet attack Deep Space Nine? That's the only two-parter you would at least had to have seen. Not that the Trek hand-to-hand combat was any good, but it was still one of the best battles in DS9.
I thought the same as you, though I did a rewatch in 2010-ish and liked it more that second time around. Then last year I found the entire DVD box set at Goodwill and snagged it, and I'm slowly rewatching it again.
DS9 was probably the first Trek show where you kinda have to watch the episodes in broadcast order. You can skip episodes because there's still filler, but I don't think I'd skip seasons the way I would with TNG (where you're better off acting as though the show started with Season 3).
Also probably the most right-wing Trek show.
First ferengi starfleet ensign(?)
Pretty awesome, I didn't appreciate the series as a kid but re watching as an adult it was pretty good
For as not great as the first season was, I'd still recommend watching from the beginning. You'll have to watch Move Along Home, but the DS9 characters are so endearing and well written that it's worth sitting through the stinkers. Skipping the first season will leave you in the dark about things that happen in later seasons. DS9 being far more serialized (at least as far as Trek was at the time) makes skipping episodes more difficult than what you could get away with watching TNG or Voyager.
If you feel you need to cut the fat and are willing to miss things, late season 2 is where it starts to hit its stride.
Imo, the best place to jump in if you refuse to watch all the episodes is S1 E1-2 (the opening episode for the series) then immediately skip to S2 Last Episode of the Season. That's where the main story-arc of the entire series begins. Unfortunately, I think some of the next Season 3 episodes might be a little dry but they're still better than some of the worst episodes of Season 1 and 2.
I'm in the works of rewatching DS9. I'm into season 3 now and so far there's only been maybe 1-3 terrible episodes I had to skip through.
I would caution you away from skipping too much. Part of what makes the characters so good in DS9 is their character development and understanding the historic basis for some of their actions. If you skip too much, you'll lose a lot of the subtlety of the character interactions which is arguably the best part of the series. On a higher level, it's as if the whole space station is a bunch of misfits with completely different agendas that in the beginning causes conflict and misunderstanding but as time goes on, they find common ground to work together in their own way. Seeing that develop is worthwhile, imo and that's where a lot of S1-2 comes into play.
Instead of hopping in at a specific point in the series, I would suggest you watch the Dominion War arc. It's a good way of filtering out the fluff episodes.