Stuff What Used to be on Telly - DS9 from the perspective of someone who hates Trek.

Hopefully the first of many TV and Film related posts including reviews, points of interest (interest probably being a flexible term in this case) and rants.

Lately I've been inspired to go back through the last 5 decades and look at some telly, mainly to get a look at how it was written.

The 90's was probably the most inventive era with shows like The X Files, The Simpsons and even *Shudder* Star Trek (I really hate the franchise).

I've found myself a nice little series to watch through though, Babylon 5. I've seen the first episode or two and I can't waited to get started properly. I've other things to finish first.

As I said, I hate Star Trek with a passion. It's dull, pretentious and the politics is very dodgy, basically meaning that the humans think they're right when they're in fact wrong. The audience of course is supposed to empathize with every human character however as they're human. It's amazing how 'racist' characters can be at times, but because it's not real then it's ok... right? The Majority of Star Trek is a worrying metaphor for the xenophobic and paranoid state of the world in the 1950's in a more ironic way than the series creators probably intended.

However, a friend has recently being pestering me to give Deep Space 9, the mid-90's spin-off a try. When I decided to check out 90's TV I thought it may be time to succumb to the pestering and I therefore gave the first 5 episodes a shot, just to see if it was really all that different to the tedium of the other series.

Sad and simple fact is: It's brilliant. It's not even simply 'good'. It's too good to be called just 'good', it's phenomenal. It's a shame that it carries the Trek logo because that does a lot of work in itself to drag the series down. Firstly, instead of being set on a space ship with some idiotic and 'inspiring' name, this series is set on the space station Deep Space 9 (Usually abbreviated to DS9 as the cast could be bothered saying the full name over and over again about as much as I can be bothered to type it, even the aliens get in on it pretty quickly). This immediately takes away the "going where no daft sod has gone before" setup of its parent shows.

We get things that other Trek series weren't even capable of giving us, like well written characters that actually develop and are even likable. We get many complex storylines that weave together in well written ways. The series builds up to a war, the polar opposite of what many judge what Trek is meant to be. However you can't help but feel that a bit of the stupidity of other Trek shows leaks through at times but all parts of production, particularly writing make up for it.

So what we have in effect is a fantastic series that's dragged down by a logo that it bears. Which brings me to what I mentioned earlier, Babylon 5. This series accused DS9 of ripping it off. Both series went out at almost the same time and the setup is very very similar. B5 has an advantage though, it doesn't have the disadvantage of inevitable pomposity brought about by a series of parent shows and the oh-so-unfortunate Trek logo. I actually can't wait to get started on it, although I feel I should give DS9 the respect of finishing it before I start on B5. In the case of DS9 the Trek association really is a hideous scar on an otherwise beautiful face.

So while I do like DS9, I still detest all other elements of Trek. In fact, I probably dislike it more now as it's one of the few things that drags down a fantastic show. If only DS9 could have not had the Trek association and therefore not the irritatingly obsessed over Trek canon.

Perhaps I'll just watch Lost like everyone else when this is over.