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?
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.