Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Summary
The original plan forStar Trek : Deep Space Nine ’s season 1 stopping point was to haveDS9crossover withStar Trek : The Next contemporaries . Rick Berman rightly forbid the idea of Picard and the gang of the USS Enterprise - ergocalciferol help Commander Benjamin Sisko ( Avery Brooks ) to repel a Cardassian intrusion , which would sure have countermine theTNGspinoff show at a crucial present moment . Instead , DS9producer Michael Piller conceptualise of a dissimilar type of time of year finale that was vastly dissimilar fromTNG , and also reflectedDeep Space Nine ’s more serialized approach to storytelling .
We ’ll never know if Gene Roddenberry would approve of Star Trek : DS9 , but the time of year 1 finale perfectly embodies his sight of infinite diverseness .
DS9 Season 1 Broke A Star Trek: TNG Season Finale Tradition
By 1993,Star Trek : The Next Generationwould finish each time of year with a cliffhanger , butStar Trek : Deep Space Nineseason 1 did something very dissimilar . WhileDS9season 1 , episode 20 , " In the Hands of the prophet " , does gear up up the political and religious turbulence that opens time of year 2 , it has a understandably define conclusion . This was at the behest ofDS9producer Michael Piller , who want to end time of year 1 with an installment that would service as a bookend to the airplane pilot , " Emissary . " Robert Hewitt Wolfe fulfilled that brief utterly , by revisiting Sisko ’s newfound religious status , and revealing that he , and some Bajorans , are grapple with the implications of his confluence with the Prophets .
Rather than end on a vast cliffhanger , Star Trek : Deep Space Nine ’s season 1 finale ends with a unruffled minute between Sisko andMajor Kira Nerys(Nana Visitor ) . Kira and Sisko muse on the event ofDS9season 1 , and Kira wryly states that she does n’t see the Starfleet commander as " thedevil . " It ’s a scene that brings the first chapter ofDeep Space Nine ’s story to a satisfying near rather than trust on a openhanded cliffhanger , or what Ira Steven Behr once call up a " gimmick " in the Holy Scripture , Captains ' Log Supplemental : The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages . Across all seven seasons , Star Trek : Deep Space Ninerejected the cliffhanger end tradition ofStar Trek : The Next Generationin favour of chapter conclusion , in the style of " In the Hands of the Prophets . "
How DS9 Season 1 Finales Differed From TNG & Voyager
Star Trek : Deep Space Nineseason finales do have cliffhangers , but broadly speaking they ’re on a much larger scale than those ofStar Trek : The Next GenerationorVoyager . For example , DS9season 5 terminate with the Cardassians retake the blank space place . If " Call to arm " was aTNGorVoyagerfinale , the floor would be purpose in next time of year ’s premiere . Instead , Sisko and the work party do n’t get the station back untilDS9season 6 , installment 6 , " Sacrifice of Angels . “DS9season finales do n’t just wear out a story in two , they get the lead characters to where they need to be for the tarradiddle to proceed .
That ’s something that was demonstrate inStar Trek : Deep Space Nine ’s time of year 1 finale , which establish the political and spiritual conflict on Bajor . It ’s an coming that was reflective ofDS9 ’s refusal to hitStar Trek ’s occasional reset release . Events inDS9had far - accomplish consequences , and so gimmicky , easily resolvable cliffhanger would n’t be appropriate . Instead , the terminal of each time of year acted like the end of a chapter in a novel , throw off things up and setting its characters on a new route . It ’s something that continues to this solar day in modernStar Trek , particularly inStar Trek : Discovery , showing thatStar Trek : Deep Space Nineremains hugely influential .
All episodes ofStar Trek : Deep Space Nineare streaming now on Paramount+
