Deep Space Nine or Voyager?

Apr 22 02:10 UTC 1996

  Okay, a question for the trekkies...which show do you like better,
Voyager or Deep Space Nine?  This is a question that starts wars at
Trek conventions.  Both shows have followings.  I think some of Voyager's
scripts have been weak, and I dislike some of the domestic storylines
on Deep Space Nine, but both have their merits.  Kathryn Mulgrew and
Avery Brooks are both good leads.  The Deep Space cast is deeper though,
especially now that Michael Dorn has joined the cast.  

I think Deep Space Nine is better this season then it was in the last 
two, and that Voyager's been uneven.  But that Voyager episode recently
where they meet another Voyager in an alternate time line was really
good.

I guess on the whole, I like Deep Space Nine better at the moment, but
if I was a writer, I'd rather work on Voyager because I like the premise
and the potential of it better.

response 2 of 57:

Apr 22 07:35 UTC 1996

I agree with Robh. B5 is so superior to *any* other SF show that it's like
comparing classical music to "which channel of elevator music do you like?".

response 4 of 57:

Apr 22 11:06 UTC 1996

None of the above.

response 6 of 57:

Apr 22 18:24 UTC 1996

DS9 seems to be getting into some 'meatier' stuff this season...I was
initially a little disappointed that they brought Worf on but he's working
out okay. Voyager has been...I'd agree with 'uneven'. Some good, some
lame, mostly avoiding anything even slightly controversial. Gotta protect
the franchise, I guess. Vote goes to DS9.

(For the record, I'm with the 'Babylon 5 has spoiled me for any other SF TV'
crowd. :) I'm not as much into either DS9 or Voyager as I was before I got
hooked on B5.)

response 8 of 57:

Apr 23 07:30 UTC 1996

<robh wonders whether the Babylon 5 plot of people breaking away
from their old loyalties was intentionally reflective of real-life
people breaking away from their Star Trek loyalties...>

response 10 of 57:

Apr 24 01:02 UTC 1996

hey! ds9 and voyager are well written, you dont give them enough of a chance
this is star trek! wiuthout which b5 wouldnt exsist!

response 12 of 57:

Apr 24 06:06 UTC 1996

Only if we let it.  I say we ignore that response.

response 14 of 57:

Apr 24 13:22 UTC 1996

B5 would not exist without original Trek, but I'm not sure that B5 would
not have been created if TNG had not been made.  And the idea of B5 is older
than DS9.  But these issues deserve a separate item.  Back to the question
in #0....

I think there's no question that DS9 is better than Voyager almost any
way you compare them.  Exploring the Bajorans and Cardisain societies as DS9
has been known to do leads to deeper stories than anything Voyager could hope
to do as it passes by a planet on the way home.  And the relationships among
the characters are more interesting on DS9 than Voyager.

response 16 of 57:

Apr 25 09:41 UTC 1996

Yeah, if forced to choose between the 2, I have to say that DS9 is hands
down better than Voyager. I still try to watch DS9, I only watch voyager
if I'm bored and there's *nothing* else on. (Late Night and BAD SF is better
than late night and no sf at all.)

response 18 of 57:

Apr 29 18:04 UTC 1996

I rather like DS9.  Of course, I've been watching it all along, since it
started.  Due various weird things I couldn't get TNG, Voyager, or B5 until
recently.  As Jeff says, DS9 gets very deep into the Bajoran and Cardisain
(are those spellings really right?) societies, and those episodes are always
fine.  We also learn a lot more about the Ferengi and various other races.
Plus most of the characters are really fun.  True, Dax is amazingly boring
for a good looking woman with a worm, and Worf appears to have a broomstick
up his butt, but I have really come to like most of the rest.  (And though
Worf is dull, the actor who played his brother in one episode was really
good).

Voyager seems really lame.  There is only one good character (the Doctor).
The writing is just crummy.  Even the previews for next week's episode are
tacky.

I sort of half like Babylon Five.  They had the good sense to give up the
notion that everything had to end up exactly the way it started in each
episode.  This Star Trek habit often grates, though both DS9 and Voyager have
started backing away from it a little and occasionally allowing things to
change.  But B5, always changes things, and I think much of the fascination
of the show operates at the level of wondering what is going to happen next
in the big story.  But on the level of the individual episodes, the writing
and charactization seems kind of sketchy.  It's like the writers were assigned
to get the big story line from A to B and they are just moving the characters
through the steps from A to B, with a bit of witty dialog and the occasional
cool special effect tossed on along the way.  Few individual B5 episodes, on
their own, are anywhere near as good as the better DS9 episodes.

response 20 of 57:

Apr 30 08:15 UTC 1996

  I've watched fair number of Voyagers, and little of the DS9 or B5 (I
don't have a TV, but routinely hang out at a friend's house on Mondays,
and we watch an hour of TV before finding other diversions).  Voyager's 
a really bad show in many ways, but even so, we enjoy it, as it gives
plenty to talk and think about.
 
  The show's low point was when they found Amelia Earhardt (sp?).  I was
hoping she'd decide to join the Voyager as a crew member, as it would
have ensured even more absurdity added to every show.
 
  I agree with Jan; my fave character is also the holo-doctor.  He's the
only one on the ship with a decent sense of humor and sarcasm.  Ironic,
since he's a the output of a computer program.  His mere existence is so
illogical that I'm amazed they have him...with Data, a plausible explanation
was given of why there was only one of him (well, two of him, if you count
his Evil Twin), but with the holodoc, he's federation technology.  Why send
out real people on explorations if you can outfit ships with holocrews that
are probably better at their jobs?  Maybe there's an inscrutable economic
explanation, though holotechnology in general in the Trek universe is quite
inscrutable.
 
  Least fave has got to be Neelix...I await the day when Janeway wises up
and says "wait a minute, you're a lousy cook, and an idiot who's caused
more catastrophes than you're worth...Chikotay, jetison Neelix at once!"
 
  DS9 seems to have more varied and more everyday interpersonal problems.
Voyager plots are more often related to external problems.  The three
main plots that they rotate are "gee, I wonder if the voyager can squeeze
through this narrow opening," "oh my, a hitherto unknown form of energy,"
and the ongoing saga of the Bad Hair aliens.

response 22 of 57:

Apr 30 19:03 UTC 1996

#21...no Roddenberry died before they shot the pilot, although he was
(according to rick berman) shown the pilot script and liked it.

response 24 of 57:

Apr 30 23:37 UTC 1996

For my money, DS9 is absolutely the best Trek around. I knew within
two episodes of its appearance that I was going to love this show
and its characters far beyond any lingering loyalties I had for
TNG. The characters on DS9 are nice and edgy, and they seem more
like real people than the squeaky-clean types featured on both TNG
and Voyager. I have objected on various occasions to DS9's being
labeled "soap opera" -- because its exploration of characters and
their relationships is exactly what I *like* about the show. Other
incarnations of Trek skirt or barely acknowledge personal
relationships. On DS9 you get people with genuine histories. Sisko,
Quark, and even Miles O'Brien all have intriguing dark sides to
their personalities -- and my favorite aspect of the show continues
to be the increasingly complex and messy relationship between Odo
and Major Kira. Not coincidentally, I belong to an electronic
mailing list for fans of Rene Auberjonois -- basically we're a
bunch of people who sit around worrying and wringing our hands over
Odo's fate. (It's so much fun! :-) I can't *conceive* of such a
group forming around any Voyager character. No one on that show has
the slightest bit of angst.  

I actually think, however, that the quality of DS9 has gone *down*
since the introduction of Worf. This year's episodes have been
consistently well-written in terms of plot, but some of the
characterization has become a bit shallow. I don't necessarily
*dislike* Worf himself, but his presence has led to taking the
emphasis off Bajor and focusing instead on a macho Klingon ethos as
the show's predominant theme. This change has all but destroyed the
character of Kira -- who formerly was the strongest and most heroic
woman in the Trek universe. This season Kira has become a shadow of
her old self -- dressed in a slinky outfit and high-heels to boot.
So much for the elimination of sexism in Star Trek. If this
character doesn't get some of her old grit back, I'm going to be
seriously...displeased.

As for B5 -- I think the early episodes were shaky and that the
pilot stunk to high heaven -- but it has slowly emerged as one of
my favorite sf shows. I tend to think that B5 suffers a bit from
treating its characters as plot devices before they are people, but
I *like* the fact that the B5 universe allows for genuine change
and far more open conflict among the series regulars. In fact, I'm
wishing that DS9 would allow a bit more of those B5 qualities to
sneak into their own scripts -- but I simply don't care about the
B5 characters the way I care about the denizens of DS9.

Voyager is slowly becoming watchable, but I nearly always come away
from it thinking: "Well that's mighty clever -- but am I supposed
to *care* about any of this?" I have a fondness for both Belana
Torres as another of Trek's "new breed" of assertive and capable
women (how long, I wonder, will it be before they turn *her* into
a sex kitten?) -- and also for the holographic Doctor. Neelix
doesn't bother me -- what bothers me is that he's supposed to be
part of a couple -- yet we hardly ever see him with his mate. When
is Trek going to grow up and quit being afraid of relationships,
especially between regular characters? As a wannabe fiction writer
and the author of a fair amount of fanfic, I am compelled by the
DS9 characters, but could never get interested enough to write
anything for Voyager. Science fiction, like all fiction, is about
*people* -- not special effects.

Anyway -- Odo rules! This vote goes to DS9.