It said, “Face Your Greatest Fear!” and it was like a carnival place. He went on this vacation and there was a holosuite there - or a holodeck - I guess a holosuite, we called it. The captain was stressed out and needed a vacation. I created this planet called Risa, which was a pleasure planet.

Here’s an anecdote that I love, from Next Gen writer (and future DS9 showrunner) Ira Steven Behr: He started to believe the stuff that he was creating a utopian future and wanted the Next Generation universe to be reflective of the utopian universe that so many people had told him he had been creating for all these years.” And my personal theory was that Gene sort of started to believe in himself as more of a visionary than a writer at a certain point. And we were always bitching and moaning about it. It never made any logical sense or any dramatic sense. Moore (who would go on to write for DS9 and create Battlestar Galactica) said, “It was a constant problem that we just sort of gnashed our teeth about. He banned “stories in which our characters do something stupid or dangerous.” The Next Generation writers hated these rules, because, to put it lightly, conflict and danger are traditionally considered important components of a good story. Roddenberry also decreed that among the enlightened members of the Federation, there would be no interpersonal conflict. After Roddenberry cast Patrick Stewart as the captain in Next Generation, a reporter joked, “Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century!” Roddenberry replied, “In the 24th century, they wouldn’t care.” There would be no smoking, no piracy, no religion, and no prejudice. Roddenberry said that in the 24th century, there would be no money because futuristic technology would provide for people’s material needs. Gene Roddenberry, the utopian visionary/despotic lunatic creator of Star Trek, established a set of strict rules about how people would behave in the future.

A little bit about Star Trekĭeep Space Nine was born out of the politics of the Next Generation writers’ room, which writer Tracy Tormé described as “an insane asylum.” But in order to understand what Deep Space Nine is all about, you have to know a little bit about Star Trek. I want to make the case that Deep Space Nine is worth your time in 2016, and give you my list of the essential episodes to watch. Best of all, Deep Space Nine is impeccably structured, with a beginning, middle, and end (when Deep Space Nine ends, it ends). It has a pleasing continuity, so that episodes build upon one another - characters make mistakes and then they grow and learn over time. It has some of the best plot twists in the history of television. DS9 introduced long, serialized stories about morally ambiguous characters to network television ten years before Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones.ĭS9 is funny, exciting, and mysterious. It is unfairly overlooked as one of the foundational programs (like Buffy, The Sopranos, and Hill Street Blues) of our current golden age of television. Moore called Next Generation’s “bastard stepchild,” Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.ĭeep Space Nine is a remarkable show. That title belongs to what writer Ronald D. From Star Trek.”Īs a kid, Star Trek: The Next Generation was my favorite show, but some time between fifth grade and now, I’ve come to recognize that while Next Gen holds a special place in my heart, it is not the best incarnation of Star Trek. Everyone in class asked me, “What are you?” and I said, “I’m a Borg.

When I was in fifth grade, my Dad helped me build a homemade costume so I could go as a Borg from Star Trek for Halloween.

Deep space nine