Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Complete Series (Seasons 1-7) [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Amazon.co.uk Review

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

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant.......2006-10-09

Who would have thought a series set on a space station would fire the imagination. But it definitely does. A testimony to the quality of script writing. From the outset the interaction and chemistry between the characters, thrown together through events, shows through.
A must for all Trekkies and lovers of space adventures.

A Mixed Season.......2005-08-08

While I consider Deep Space Nine to be the greatest ever thing to happen to Star Trek, like the other series in the franchise, it's first season was a bit of a mixed bag.

The opening feature-lengthed movie "Emissary" is the best starting episode out of all five Star Trek incarnations. Other great episodes in this season include: "Past Prologue", "Babel", "Captive Pursuit", "Dax", "The Nagus", "Battle Lines", "Progress", "Duet" and "In the Hands of the Prophets".

The weaker episodes include: "Q-Less" (DS9 doesn't need Q), "Move Along Home" (A typical alien-of-the-week episode) and "If Wishes Were Horses" (A bit silly really). Other episodes range from ok to middle of the ground, however this season was strong enough to keep me hooked on the series when it first began in 1993.

The second season is the same as this one, with some excellent episodes and some not so excellent ones. It is during season three and beyond that the show really comes into it's own.

At the edge of the Final Frontier.......2005-06-25

This is something all DS9 mostly agree. The show's first season starts kinda boring (except for the intro) The battle of Wolf defines the show acctually.
Battle, emotion, war, terror, loyalty and honor. I watched the show for about 4 episodes and then quitted because it got soo boring. After a few years i picked it up somewhere at the fourth and I was HOOKED FOR LIFE! I downloaded the entire show and now, Im getting the boxes. If you never watched Star trek before, get DS9 and continue afterwarts with Enterprise. Except for a few Borg episodes from TNG and Voyager these are the best Star Trek has to offer.

Average start to a great series.......2005-06-01

Despite all the problems DS9 would receive until the beggining of the deminon war arc that would commence in next seasons cliffhanger season 1 was a great series that would get better as it went on despite only having 19 episodes my favourites this season are as follows Emissary the feature length pilot that takes us back to what we didnt see in the next gens best of both worlds i.e the battle at wolf 359 where all 39 starships were destroyed station commander Ben Sisko was the first officer of one of those ships the uss saratoga we see as he starts to come terms of the death of his wife in that battle and the beggining of his title as bejoran emissary the other episode i like is q-less as we see the conclusion to a next gen story which has q and vash come to the station.

All in all an avarage season and a must have for all fans

DS 9 - The Best of Trek.......2004-09-22

I never caught much of DS9 when it was first shown on TV, mainly due to being out of the country and not having English TV to watch. The episodes that I did catch I enjoyed, although not having senn many episodes much of the back story was a mystery to me. So when the DVDs came out I decided to buy them all and watch it from the beginning.

What can I say but wow! The way the overall story arcs interweave through out the series, such as Dukat and Kai Winn, the emmisary story lines and the Dominion war puts it streets ahead of the "Pick up and Drop" nature of TNG. In a way it reminds me of the Babylon 5 (which is my all time favourite SF show) story lines were something happens and in a few more series it gets referred back to and suddenly it all makes sense.

Also, unlike TNGs "everything always turns out alright in the end" typical Star Trek stories, in DS9 sometimes things go tragically wrong (Duet springs to mind).

The evolution of the characters throughout the series is far superior to other ST franchises. Lets face it in TNG, apart from Data getting a little more human and Worf occasionally smiling, the characters ended the series much as they started it. The fact as well that the characters in DS9 frequently conflicted with each other and had their own agenders other than the perfect idea of Federation paradise added a grittier feel to the series.

Customer Reviews:

The first season of the best Trek show out there.......2004-11-30

The first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a very interesting beginning. We discovered in the first episode that we would be staying in one place, exploring a little but dealing much more with the Bajoran people and how they are recovering from years of occupation, along with their grooming to be new members of the United Federation of Planets. Past Trek shows have been on a ship, but this show would take place on a space station. One thing this means is that they can't run away from their problems. If something comes up, they have to deal with it, and the consequences of the problem could very well come back and haunt the crew later on. Recurring characters (Garak and Dukat are introduced in the first season, along with Keiko O'Brien coming over from Next Generation) abound, and relationships are allowed to grow and change. These characters are not static like the Next Generation characters generally were. I can't see much of a difference between William Riker in season 1 and William Riker in season 7 of Next Generation. Kira Nerys, on the other hand, has changed greatly just within season 1 of Deep Space Nine

I was really glad when all seven seasons came out in DVD boxed sets. The presentation is wonderful, with four episodes per disc (except the first one, which includes the 2-hour premiere). The menus are great, with the Deep Space Nine theme projecting majestically from the speakers. It's always been my favourite of all the themes anyway. After you choose an episode, you then can either play it, press "set up" (where you set up your audio and subtitle options), "chapter log" (where you can go to any scene), or return to the main menu.

There are six discs in the set, with the first five containing the episodes and then the sixth being a bunch of specials. There is a documentary on the first season, called "A Bold Beginning." There's a crew dossier on Kira Nerys, the secrets of Quark's bar, a sketchbook of production sketches and a little bit about alien props. There are also a bunch of easter eggs on this disc, with other crew dossiers and little interesting tidbits about the actors and their roles. We hear about how they got their part and what their feelings are about their characters. Some of the interviews are from the first season, when the actors didn't know where their characters were going. Others are from after the show, or during the last season. They're par for the course for actors' interviews, so if you're naturally bored by them, you won't find much of interest here. If you like the show, though, they're intriguing.

All in all, this is a wonderful collection of episodes. The picture quality is wonderful, with the exception of one episode, but I'm sure that's just on my edition. "The Storyteller" made my DVD player have conniptions, and I had already had so much hassle with Columbia House that I wasn't going to try and deal with them to get a better copy. It's just one episode, though. The packaging is interesting and sturdy, with two fold-out covers revealing the plastic disc trays. The overall quality of these discs is quite high. Only the quality of some of the episodes themselves brings the rating of the boxed set down to 4 stars. They had a rough patch in the middle of the season.

As for the episodes themselves, they are like many first seasons of shows gone by, with some standout episodes, some strong ones with weaknesses, and quite a few misses as they try to find their legs. The best two actually end the season, as "Duet" (the story of a Cardassian war criminal coming back to Bajor which is not necessarily what it appears) and "In the Hands of the Prophets" (dealing with the mixture of religion and schools, but also showcasing just how far Federation/Bajor relations have come, and how far they have to go). There are definitely some strong ones near the beginning, too, but there is a string of misses in the middle of the season that just makes you wonder. If it hadn't been for the strong opening, I may have really despaired.

This is a wonderful beginning to the Deep Space Nine odyssey, in my opinion the best Trek series out there.

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