Episode 1: Emissary

Quick Plot summary:  3 years after his wife died at the battle of Wolf 359, Ben Sisko is given command of Deep Space Nine, near newly independent Bajor, and he'd really rather be anywhere else, but he'll do the job until they replace him.

Turns out while trying to make sure the Bajoran government doesn't collapse, he discovers a stable worm hole, energy based aliens, and a new purpose.   Deep Space Nine is now the entry point to the Gamma Quadrant, and soon will be quite important, if Sisko can keep the Cardassians out of the way.

Running Commentary:
Awesome opening scene, reminicient of Star Wars, but man did Brooks ham it up on the drama...
so... over....dramatic.

It's hard not to compare this to Babylon 5.... B5 is WAY more impressive looking, that's for sure.

I love Chief O'Brien... nice call having him cross over.

What's up with Jake and those overalls... he looks like Space-Huck Finn

Major Kira is just as annoying as I remember her...Odo, OTOH, is just as cool as I remember.

Sisko clearly holds Picard responsible for the Borg... very interesting. I didn't think anyone in Starfleet disliked him. Very refreshing.

Kai Opaca reminds me a lot of Guinan

I was waiting for a big 'Hey, Mon' in the holodeck-y beach scene. I know, it's a religious artifact that reveals your treasured memories or something, but whatever. It's a good plot device for background info.

Bashir reminds me of the guy that plays Baltar in the new Battlestar Galactica

I remember really liking Dax as a concept, but not having it work... I hope it'll be better than I recall.

Yup, Bashir is just like Baltar. At least he gives the writers a chance to bash us over the head with the analogue, in case anyone missed it.

Things really drag in the middle... I didn't need 4 minutes of Picard awkwardly saying good bye to O'Brien.

Kira says 'Ducat' like a curse... nicely done.

Business is picking up...Sisko telling Ducat 'Drop by any time your feeling homesick' was pretty sweet

Dax figures out a the big puzzle by having the computer figure it out in 2 hours? The Cardassians must have pretty lousy computers if that's all it took.

I HATE the shuttles are 'runabouts'... what not just call them shuttles?

While it was pretty awesome to have Odo do his thing, why get the Cardassians all suspicious... why not just wait until they leave? I didn't NEED to have O'Brien do fancy transporting in the first episode.

You'd think Dax and Sisko would be a bit more excited about going into a wormhole by accident.

Yeah, this is some pretty medicore (bordering on bad) acting

O'Brien defeats the computer! Awesome.

Bashir is just too damn cute.

I could do without the attempted explanation of how time works.. too philsophical for me.

Explaining baseball is more my speed. You know, Sheridan over on Babylon 5 likes baseball, too... but that was later, so maybe B5 was copying there.

OK, so Kira's a bit better than I thought... I think I could learn to like her.

Why would O'Brien refer to some random pretend game instead of poker, which we know they still play? Illogical.

Bashir gets to do some doctoring, he's not TOTALLY useless.

Quark hitting on Kira... priceless.

Dramatic Handshake! Super corny, but fits in.

First Impression:  I definitely remember some of this.. it's pretty good for a first episode.. we get an in  depth look at Sisko, a bit on everyone else, and the stage is set.   OTOH, the effect were pretty sparse, there's a few weird things, and the acting is pretty meh.   A solid B, anyway.

I watched "Of gods and men" yesterday on Youtube; it's a fan-made Star Trek film that stars several of the actors involved in the official series.

I was floored to see a few Deep Space 9 actors playing supporting characters: Ciroc Lofton, in particular, has grown a lot since he was playing young Jake Cisco!!! (Chase Masterson (Leeta in DS9) stole the show for me, though, for reasons that would get me in trouble with my wife).

I'm pretty sure Enterprise's shuttles have Warp... and the name 'runabout' doesn't imply any longer use, IMO.   The inside looked just like the shuttles, with a table in the back instead of storage space... maybe they'll look more different later.

As far as the B5 thing goes... it did come out later (though when Strazinski wrote it I don't know), I'd image things bounced back and forth.   I'll definitely be likely to make a fair number of comparisons, since that's one of my favorite sci-fi shows ever (in a close battle for 2nd with Trek after ).   You should totally do a thread and start watching it... I've watched quite a bit of it recently (my wife is currently re-watching it with my 14 year old)
 
I definitely remember liking Dax alot in the bits I've watched before, but that was when I was young and more tolerant of bad acting... Kira's portray (at least here) if far better.   Good to know Sisko gets better... he was reaching Kirk levels of melodrama a couple times.

I'm pretty sure the Next Gen shuttlecraft had impulse engines only.

Runabouts are much larger. They "runabout" because they are not limited in their range. Such a vessel makes more sense for a stationary setting like DS9 than a starship that doesn't usually require a shuttle to do more than fly to the nearest planet.

Do you recall the Next Gen episode where Picard, Troi, and Data were on a runabout and were losing their sense of time? Much larger space than a shuttle. If I recall, though, the Emissary episode only portrayed the front flight cabin.






I believe Straczynski's story was that he pitched B5 to Paramount prior to DS9 being created.

I'm a fan of both series, and apart from the setting (a space station), I really don't see much resemblance between DS9 and B5...

I wouldn't say Firefly and ST:TNG are copied on each other either, even if both SF shows are starship-centric.

The mythology in DS9 is peripheral; in B5, it is the core of the plot. If TOS is "wagon train to the stars", then to me DS9 would be "Casablanca in space" and B5 is "Lord of the rings with ray guns".

A long way to go to "In the Pale Moonlight", but "Trouble with Tribbles" is closer by. I hope you can work your way through the first season (though really, comparing it to some of the series that came after, it's really not that bad.) to get to those episodes.

Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye!