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?
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.