Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 1 [DVD] [1995]

Of all the spin-off TV incarnations of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine had the hardest job persuading an audience to watch. By all accounts, Gene Roddenberry had concerns about the idea before his death in 1991. It took two more years to develop, and when it finally aired in 1993 reasons for that concern were evident right away. The show was dark (literally), characters argued a lot, no one went anywhere and the neighbouring natives were hardly ever friendly. Yet for all that the show went against the grain of The Great Bird's original vision of the future, it undeniably caught the mood of the time, incorporating a complex political backdrop that mirrored our own.

In the casting, there was a clear intent to differentiate the show from its predecessors. Genre stalwarts Tony Todd and James Earl Jones were considered for Commander Sisko before Avery Brooks. The one let down at the time was that Michelle Forbes did not carry Ensign Ro across from TNG, but when the explosive Nana Visitor defiantly slapped her hand on a console in the pilot episode, viewers knew they were in for a different crew dynamic. In fact, the two-part pilot show ("The Emissary") is largely responsible for DS9's early success. Mysterious, spiritual, claustrophobic, funny and feisty, it remains the most attention-grabbing series opener (apart from the Classic original) the franchise has had. The first year may have relied on a few too many familiar faces--like Picard, Q and Lwaxana Troi--but these were more than outweighed by refreshingly detailed explorations of cultures old and new (Trill, Bajoran, Cardassian, Ferengi). As it turned out, Deep Space Nine was the boldest venture into Roddenberry's galaxy that had been (or ever would be) seen.

On the DVD: Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Series 1's hour of special features is split between seven featurettes that really would have worked better edited together. Covering the show's origins and most aspects of Year One's production design, they all crib from interviews with actors and crew from the 1992 shoot (exclusively so in the 10 "Hidden Files"). Other interviews conducted in 1999 and 2002 tend to be more revealing, although the solo section on Major Kira is curiously lacking in recent input. While the designers describe their work with passion, creators Michael Piller and Rick Berman come off as stiff and lacking in knowledge. Hopefully this is something that will improve through the next six box sets. The interactive CD-ROM to build a DS9 database on your PC is something that will become more involving, too. Obviously the most important thing is the episodes themselves, and despite the lack of a commentary to enhance the best of them, sound in 5.1 and the crisp full-frame picture do them ample justice. --Paul Tonks END

Complete Season 1 on 6 discs, containing all 19 episodes and exclusive extra features.

Six-disc box set plus 12-page collector's booklet
Six brand-new featurettes:
Deep Space Nine: A Bold New Beginning
Crew Dossier: Kira Nerys
Michael Westmore's Aliens: Season One
Secrets of Quark's Bar
Deep Space Nine Sketchbook
Alien Artifacts: Season One
Section 31 Hidden Files
Original Deep Space Nine Preview
Free Interactive CD-ROM
Section 31 Hidden Files
Original Deep Space Nine Preview
Picture: Full screen
Sound: Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround and Dolby Surround
English Subtitles

In this first instalment of the Star Trek spin-off, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), commander of the starship Deep Space Nine, discovers the first known stable wormhole--a virtual shortcut through space that leads from the Alpha Quadrant to the Gamma Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy. The Gamma Quadrant is governed by the Dominion, a group led by the Changelings--a group of shape shifters which counts DS9 crew member Odo (Rene Auberjonois) as one of its own. The Dominion has become a violent force in the galaxy, and the Deep Space Nine and its crew is the only hope of upholding the way of life established by the Federation. This collection includes all nineteen episodes from the first series.