I never meant there was no character development. There has to be character development for a show to succeed. What I meant was that the Dominion War never seemed to have any real consequences for anyone. Sure they would throw out absurdly large casualty numbers, but noone seemed to care. Sisko would spend an episode reflecting on how much damage was happening and the psycological toll it was taking, but then next episode he was back to his usual self. Basically you never felt like the Federation was at war unless they were specifically talking about the war.

Yeah, I could totally see that. The baseball comment was especially amusing. The episode just came out of left field.

To the war's credit, it was interesting to see how it evolved over the seasons. The initial menace of the Dominion. Early concerns that they'd join the Romulans. The Klingons suddenly becoming the main concern, and the Cardassians losing all political standing. Then finally, the open war. But yeah, it seemed a little odd that they would be at war with a species that controlled most of the other side of the galaxy, but they could still send random science and trade vessels into their territory with little problem.

Another complaint would be that the war seemed laughably one-sided in the beginning with the Dominion being able to pierce most cloaks and casually ignore a Galaxy-class ship's shields, but randomly, the Feds and Klingons were able to start holding their own when the real fighting began..

I have been watching from S1E1 and am in the middle of S6. Lots of good points above. One of the things I found most bothersome, is the amount of hits a ship could take before blowing up.

When we watch our crew, their ship gets hit 6, 8, 10 times and is still ticking. But during the big fight ships would get hit 2 or 3 times and completely blow up. This seemed a little out of sync for me. I was also bothered by the crazy tight formations in the big battles. It made some sense for the Cardy/Dominion side with their big flying bricks, but the Feds more nimble fleet should have been in looser formations to allow for maneuvers.

Sorry, geeked out a bit there.

The struggle to get home wasn't a plotline of the scope of the Dominion War? If anything, it was even a larger scope. Am I misunderstanding what you are trying to say?


I agree with this. It's one of the things that always felt a little off about the show to me. I mean, I LOVED the Dominion War storyline, but the inconsistency of the emotions surrounding it, especially among the crew of the space station right at the border, always struck me as a bit odd.

Great thread, BTW. I am motivated to watch all the Dominion War episodes again. DS9 was by far my favorite ST series, though I loved them all (even Enterprise, which is probably top 3 in my list, even with its shortcomings).

I imagine it depends a lot on how you watched the series. If you watched it when it aired, then when the entirety of a week's episode had essentially nothing to do with the war, yeah, I can imagine how it felt a bit off.

I watched DS9 most recently on netflix, and being able to watch the series over a shorter span of time makes the episodes that focus on the war seem closer together, and the episodes not focused on the war as only brief diversions.

Well, I finished up season 7 this weekend.

Dukat's storyline just seemed to come out of left field but it was interesting in that it kept you wondering if the outcome of the war was even going to matter in the long run.

I think Season 7 is likely a great watch for players of the game. Lots of space battles but part of me thinks I saw the same ship blow up several different times in exactly the same way. Recycled footage, anyone??

Now I'm on to Voyager. I've seen the first season and then an odd episode here and there but my son's really hyped to watch it so I'll likely watch every episode rather than skip "fluff" stuff like I did for DS9. That should keep me busy until the next event series starts.

Probably true. I haven't watched most of the episodes of that show since they originally aired.

Respectfully, I disagree. To me, Voyager getting home was only larger in that it took up more seasons. Ultimately, the ship getting back mostly only mattered to the Voyager crew. By the time the Federation even heard from them, they'd already given up on the idea of ever finding Voyager again. The Dominion War affected the several Empires and the Federation in very large ways. Cardassia went from conquerors to being in recovery and questioning their ideals, the Klingons violently changed Emperors to someone with no noble blood, the Dominion was forced to re-evaluate their "conquer everything so solids can't harm us" policy, the Breen went from isolationists to taking a direct role in events, and the Federation was able to use this to further joint operations or peace with Cardassia, the Klingons, the Founders, and the Romulans. I'm trying not to count things that weren't directly a result of the war like the major changes to the Ferengi.

Now, Voyager had a lot of good plot points about getting back, especially in the early seasons where the crew is asking if they'll see their loved ones again, or if they should start "pairing up" with other members of the crew, and what will happen to the Maquis aboard the ship if they return. However, those were just questions, not an overarching plot. Pardon the pun, but I feel like Voyager getting home was less a large plot, and more of a direction. The journey was a string of random things that could have mostly happened in any order. When they did make headway in cutting time off of their 65 year trip, more likely it was because they randomly stumbled on some kind of shortcut as opposed to figuring out how to break Warp 10 or fold space.

Even at the end, they found a direct shortcut back home in a nebula that they were going to pass by until someone literally showed up and told them to take it. They fought their way through to the end, but it wasn't a direct result of choices they made over the course of the series; it was something that could have happened regardless of where they actually were. They didn't use their time in the Delta Quadrant to discover a new technology that propelled the Alpha Quadrant forward (except maybe the mobile emitter, but that was downplayed in significance), they didn't meet a new species that formed a long-term alliance with the Federation, they didn't discover some metaphysical truth about themselves, or even patch things up with the Caretaker's gf. They got home, but that really only affected 140-ish (they kept changing the number) people and their families. The only significant galactic change as a result of Voyager getting back was bringing up the question of whether sentient holograms deserved rights.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Voyager or that I wouldn't recommend it. The Doctor is one of my favorite Trek characters ever. TNG didn't have much in the way of large over-arching plots either. They were just smaller and intimate because there was less idea of the political situation around the characters.

Okay, then we don't really disagree. By larger scope I thought you meant "connected across different seasons", not "impact to the larger universe". I get you.

Any episode descriptions that have the word Keiko in them should be avoided at all cost....in fact any with O'Briens family should be avoided.

I agree 100% with the above. This bothered me more than any fluff episode, O'Briens family, or the slow build in the first 2 seasons.

1: Initially phased polaron beams pierce shields, and I'm fine with that. However, once they deploy the minefield I think it's Guld Dukat or Damar says the stations shields are holding. Clearly their shields are effective against dominion weaponry, but once the warring fleets meet both Alliance and Dominion fleets fly apart like confetti. There is absolutely no consistency with damage distribution or protection.

2. If 2/3 of your fleet(Romulan and Klingon) can cloak you win. Period. I realize once or twice they say that the Dominion can track certain cloaked ships, but again there is no consistency. The Rotarran and Defiant both cloak and escape through what 50+ ships after deploying minefield? Clearly at least SOME of the time the cloak is completely effective. There is no way the Dominion could keep up with even the Klingons. Dudes would be behind their lines 24-7 blowing $hit up.

...to be continued.

you did see the same ship blow up repeatedly. They reused footage from Sacrifice of Angels etc. in the final episode. I was very disappointed with this as well as The Sisko's ending.

Reading through this, I now realize how very little of DS9 I actually watched.

I'm familiar with the characters, but I don't remember most of what's being discussed here.

(Attack Wing DID get me to go out and buy ToS re-mastered editions, though. My wife is now a fan!)

DS9 is the epitome of Star Trek greatness. Voyager on the other hand bugs me to no end. The ship spends all these years being rocked by Kazan and Borg weapons, yet comes out the other side looking as though she just pulled out of the shipyards, despite not having a federation repair facility within 70,000 light years? By the end of the series, it should have looked like the Millennium Falcon: patchwork hull, burn marks across the bow, etc... But that's just the tip of that particular iceberg. The thing that bothered me most was the character of Tom Paris. He was beloved by all when he should have been treated as the despicable, cowardly piece of garbage that he is. It was a wasted opportunity on the writers behalf. Here is a man that betrayed the Federation and became a Maquis and then turned around and betrayed THEM to bring the Federation to their doorstep and drop them in the Delta Quadrant. Yet by the end of the first episode, all is forgiven. He should have been showing up every day to his duty shift with new bruises and broken bones. He should have had no friends. he should have been checked into the bulkheads by someone every single episode. But no, because the Captain gives a speech, not only is all well, he is actually beloved. Forget that. I've watched the series through twice and just can't get over it. Voyager sits at the bottom of my list for Trek and it's well below anything else.