For Every Warrior There's a Way: Worf's Initial Influence on Deep Space Nine

"Just what the station needs - more Klingons."

Quark's words as a certain Lieutenant Commander set foot on Deep Space Nine for the second time couldn't have been more correct. It was precisely what the station - and the show - needed.

The Way of the Warrior is not just a high-point of the show but of the franchise as allies became foes and the paranoia and preparations for war slipped up a notch. You could tell it was getting serious because Sisko shaved his head, Kira got a new uniform (in The Visitor) and even Bashir and Dax got promotions. Def Con One, people.

There were even new, less casual titles with ships and workbees buzzing around the station - we even saw the Defiant docked which was nice and amalgamated with the thumping undertones of the remixed theme, everything pointed to a new beginning.

The double-length season premiere did punch out a new era for the show. The board and the pieces had all been laid out over the course of the first three seasons - and then we took a huge left turn and went to war with the Klingons. Like we all saw that coming after The Adversary...

It made perfect sense in hindsight for the Dominion to kick back and let the two remaining Alpha Quadrant superpowers duke it out and then take on whoever was left standing but we were all ready for huge battles and - oh, hang on...that's what we got.

Bringing Worf over from The Next Generation might have been a plot device to draw in some of that show's viewers who hadn't migrated to the Bajoran Wormhole but his appearance did change the dynamic of the show. The grit was there as ever but now there was more heart; Avery Brooks stepped up his game, Dax got frisky and made Kira play Guinevere at Camelot, Bashir became more cynical, Odo tried to forget killing one of his own and got slapped down for it and O'Brien took more of a beating from the writers and his wife to boot. To be fair to the chief, this was pretty much business as usual for him until Keiko got pregnant.

While that didn't all happen in The Way of the Warrior it is a key turning point, one of the significant game-changers in the history of the show alongside Call to Arms and In the Pale Moonlight at the very least. J G Hertzler and Robert O'Reilly bring a lot of fight and honour to the roles of Martok and Gowron here as their return to the Old Ways take hold and that's only multiplied with the first appearance of the mammoth Negh'Var.

The series opener is bleaker, there's less musical scoring and Quark has taken to much darker observations which conversing with Garak can only magnify. Not only does the former spy take a pummelling from some Klingon opportunists, but we even see the tailor taking up arms alongside long-time adversary Gul Dukat to save the Cardassian civilian government. It's a great moment that seethes with tension and hatred but also a begrudged admiration between the pair. It's a change - not only in the way our core of characters have had to mature and evolve but also in the very geography of the galaxy. The Cardassians are the ones in need of help (enter Dukat) and worth risking life and limb for while avoiding Klingon disruptor fire. It's a blaring contrast to Emissary where we were firmly told these guys were not to be trusted and that Deep Space Nine was only significant for the fact it was close to Bajor who wanted in on the Federation's act ASAP. That pilot is a lot calmer in comparison and to some degree closes a lot more optimistically.

How times have changed. The once six-torpedo defended station is now bristling with armaments that would make a weapons dealer blush and has a captain who chews out Klingons for breakfast (wait til we get to season five's Apocalypse Rising...). I for one was in fan heaven back in 1995 when I cracked open the VHS case and slotted the tape in for the first time. They'd even changed the cover art for volume 4.1 going for the full on war effect, tilting the station and sticking a ton of Klingon ships around Deep Space Nine. Another tick on the Impressed List.

Worf has lost none of his gruffness and seems to fit much better here in the darker, less "perfect" environment of Deep Space Nine. Dorn's arrival might have been a shoehorn in for ratings at the time but he kicks more butt in this episode than he managed in a couple of seasons on board the Enterprise. Once he stops moping around and gets into command red it's all plain sailing. I love The Way of the Warrior just as much now as I did back on the first run and to this point it was my favourite episode of the show. As the script suggested, Worf did indeed have a purpose again although he effectively became a galactic traffic warden as Strategic Operations Officer and while it wasn't security it allowed the role to grow and Dorn to explore the Klingon a lot more. The station suited his ways but we wouldn't get many indications of that for some time as the producers chose to move Worf-centric episodes to later in the year so as not to ignore the rest of the ensemble.

Over on Voyager at the start of their fourth year we saw the introduction of Seven of Nine to do a similar thing and reboot the show. That meant the exit of Jennifer Lien's Kes and a focus on the character from day one. Seven provided the much-needed human observer role that the show had lacked from Caretaker. Both the former Borg and the ex-communicated Klingon changed the feel of the show, leading them both into a darker period where their main adversary would rear its head but in Seven's case her appearance put a new character at the forefront of the show and a lot of the stories - there was a lot that could be done with the character.

But let's stick with Worf in this fourth season because he becomes much more a part of the wheel rather than the axle if you forgive the analogy. His appearance is a big hit in The Way of the Warrior and brings the Klingons closer into the story for the first time, perhaps obviously developing the bond to the seven year voyage of The Next Generation further by having two of its former cast among the crew. Placing Worf alongside Kor in the Klingon-heavy The Sword of Kahless allows for more exploration of the culture but it doesn't do much to back the reasons for bringing him on board but Sons of Mogh and Rules of Engagement do add some layers to the character but again there's not much keeping him around in these Worf-driven stories.

The bigger influence he has comes when placed in conflict with the established senior staff or when put into a military command position. Here he truly flourishes during the year and I would highlight Starship Down and Paradise Lost to see these moments in action. In fact To the Death works because of his inclusion among the crew and adds true edge to the story which is one of Deep Space Nine's more violent episodes. Having the Jem'Hadar relishing a fight with a Klingon here paves the way for By Inferno's Light in season five as well as making the relationship with Gowron even more delicate when he turns up from time to time and of course we would get the semi-regular full-blooded General Martok to bounce against Worf in the future.

Seven in comparison has to be at the core of an episode to make her character work but Worf is a team player through and through even if he doesn't agree with everything that happens.While Worf wants to be accepted by the culture he left, she wants the exact opposite - to leave the Collective behind and never return even though it's offered on a plate several times.

Worf isn't a revelation to the show but instead reinforces it's darker, more hard-edged tendencies and almost drags the show towards the inevitable war with the Dominion. His attitude towards the Klingon Empire might not sit too well initially but the role of the outcast is perfect with the withdrawal from the Khitomer Accords and, absolutely, the Dominion's desires to spread discontent in the Alpha Quadrant ahead of their invasion. While glory might await on Cardassia according to one Klingon Chancellor, Worf's true virtues hold out when he, as we all knew he would, picks the Federation over his people.

And while Worf has influence on the direction of the show, the show likewise has designs on him. This is initially a troubled and lost Worf doing his duty by the numbers than because he wants to be in Starfleet but season four allows him a great deal more openness and perhaps closer,  more emotional relationships than he experienced on the hi-tech Galaxy Class USS Enterprise. It would take perhaps another year for Worf to fully integrate and maybe the arrival of an occularly challenged general might have further effect on his development but with The Way of the Warrior leading the season it was easy to see that Worf was one of the team and we were in for a change of pace like never before.


Was The Way of the Warrior such a key moment in the history of Deep Space Nine? Let's talk below...

Deep Space Nine: Season Three: Step Away from the Changeling

For me the third season of Deep Space Nine is the turning point in quality.

I enjoy watching seasons one and two but with the third year the show came into its own whether by chance, design or because it knew it had to with The Next Generation finishing the previous year. Deep Space Nine was now the flag-bearer for Star Trek on the small screen and expectation was high. Very high. After all Sisko had declared at the close of The Jem'Hadar that the station would need to be ready for any attack from the Gamma Quadrant...

The overall quality of the show is much steadier and there is a tighter focus and a clearer sense of direction. While season two had dropped in references to the Dominion with infrequent irregularity that viewers easily blinked and missed, this year stepped the reveals through the 26 episodes. This made for much easier viewing, not having to wait a full season for the payoff that you might or might not have remembered and allowed for a steady buildup to The Adversary. I much prefer the way that the producers phased season three, giving us milestones to reach which acted as pieces to the larger "puzzle" of the year.

The Search started that trend immediately, announcing Odo's people as the Founders of the Dominion and killed two birds with one stone - we knew where he was from and got the brains behind the whole operation in one. Opening the year with another multi-part story as with The Homecoming, The Circle and The Siege was a masterstroke to beef up the series and introduce some key new features. I missed this on it's UK VHS launch day and spotted it randomly in a local shop a week or so after it came out. I'd not seen The Jem'Hadar by that point either so ended up watching them out of sequence - my next purchase was that aforementioned season finale!

Aside from the new briefing room we also gained a new Starfleet security chief and a Romulan. One of those managed to become a decent recurring guest cast member while the other faded into obscurity as a character. It's only when you watch this episode back that you recall they had someone specifically to look after the cloaking device who vanished after only a pair of episodic appearances. Dropping the Defiant off at the station to defend the sector allowed better storytelling that couldn't be achieved on those suped up shuttlecraft, the runabouts and providing her with a new phaser effect truly stuck the mid-digit up at the established laws of Star Trek. Watching those shots of phaser fire slam into the Jem'Hadar ships gave me literal jaw-drop. It's the moment that changed my views on this show and the whole franchise. Hooked for life.

But season three isn't just about that. The characters seem more real, Sisko has become a stronger, determined (and angrier) leader and less of a builder; it's as if everyone woke up on the right side of the bed for the first time in two years, smelt the raktajino and decided it was time to make a difference and do what this show was supposed to have done from Emissary - be unique and challenge the Roddenberry philosophy. There's a different feel here and even Odo seems to have become grumpier for the season kick-off. Luckily that only lasted until the second part of The Search or it would have been one very long, annoying year.

Season two had managed to pull the threat/hint of the Dominion out for a full 26 episodes and there was no chance of repeating that kind of temptation without fans going up the wall so instead it's a season of dangled carrots with sooner payoffs. Defiant is the prime example to hold in case here. The fleet being built in the Orias system and Riker's target would eventually be revealed as a secret armada constructed as part of a Romulan/Cardassian intelligence service alliance to destroy the Founders homeworld in The Die is Cast. That Romulan presence which we have on the Defiant at the season opener is revisited during the intelligence debriefing that happens during Visionary and again leads into the events of the two-parter Improbable Cause opens a few stories later. Those in turn spiral into The Adversary and by circumstance into The Way of the Warrior and then Homefront.

The budget was splashed out for The Die is Cast, making it the most strategic episode of the year although the limited battle scenes in the second half are nothing in comparison to the events in the following fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh seasons. I recall there being a lot made of those sequences as they took six months (reportedly) to film using miniatures. Odo's torture was one of the most uncomfortable moments of the show's whole run but was incredibly watchable since it pushed the dark aspects of Deep Space Nine even further. It would have been beyond any of our thoughts in The Next Generation for one of the recurring cast to be as multi-faceted as Elim Garak, truly one of the greats of the franchise and pairing him with the constable provides an uneasy, distrustful duo.

One thing that The Search, Heart of Stone, The Die is Cast  and The Adversary all have in common which threads the season through is the "No Changeling Has Ever Harmed Another" line. From the start of the year you just know that it won't take long for this one to be broken and with the sporadic mentions akin to the name-dropping of "the Dominion" in season two it hits a crescendo with the season finale. It never got that good a press back in the 90's but I really loved it then and do just as much now. The fallout from that would rear it's head in the fourth season closer, Broken Link illustrating the importance of Odo within the main plotline. It's most definitely the tag of the year but in comparison to the subtlety of the Dominion references in season two this one is made a lot more transparent.

That said, I don't think this year is overpowered with Dominion stories and that's an intelligent move as many would have expected the opposite after the doom-and-gloom foreboding that closed The Jem'Hadar. It also establishes the Dominion up as more calculating, political and devious than the Borg or the Klingons sets them up as a very different kind of foe. But the not-so-Dominion-dominated season allows for some diversions into the cast, gearing them up for the darker upcoming events while also closing off some lose threads.

The average Equilibrium gets a payoff in the same year with the later and better role-changing Facets revisiting the buried Trill host personality of Joran Dax among others. To that point, it's one of Avery Brooks' best and most sinister performances although it's all over and done in a matter of four minutes. Maybe these were hints at the darker tones of the Sisko character he would draw out in seasons five and six.  Facets is a mix of light-heartedness and personal revelation for Dax and is a better shot than the Equilibrium mystery.

For the captain though the beard arrival in Explorers did move the character forward and I couldn't imagine that scene in the holding cell possessed by Joran without it.  Originally Explorers bored me to tears but on my recent run through it does have it's moments - perhaps it's that I'm now in the father role now myself that it struck a chord but not as much as The Visitor. The CGI ship is a wonder and I only sat and watched Explorers shortly after I'd received the model from the Eaglemoss collection. It's a rare, lighter story for the pair and when you look back it's amazing how much more hopeful this year is.

Aside from the The Search, The Abandoned, the two-part obliteration of the Tal-Shiar and Obsidian Order and the brilliant season finale, The Adversary, (recently covered in its own post), this year does allow us to explore the build up to war and the behind the scenes machinations much more than we got to with the expected arrival of the Borg in The Next Generation. While the preparations for that happened off-screen, it seems that here on Deep Space Nine we get to see it warts and all. Beside that we do get some momentous character segments into the pot too.

Maybe the biggest losers this year are the Cardassians and the Bajorans with only three episodes from the season highlighting the former's existence in the franchise; Civil Defence, Second Skin and Destiny and Life Support, Explorers and Shakaar for the latter. Of those six it's Second Skin the easy standout with another superb performance from Nana Visitor and some sublime dialogue between Sisko and Garak as they head to Cardassia to rescue her. This is one of those great moments I mentioned just a paragraph ago and one I had totally forgotten about until recently. In fact I love it so much I'm reprinting it here.

SISKO

We'll be travelling under false transit documents prepared by Starfleet Intelligence. Mister O'Brien's reconfigured the shield harmonics of the Defiant so that, on long-range sensors, it'll appear to be a Kobheerian freighter. We leave in three hours. 

 Garak weighs his options, then reluctantly takes the dataclip from the desk.

GARAK

Fine. I'll go along on your little fool's errand. But I want one thing to be perfectly clear... I have no intention of sacrificing my life to save yours. If it looks like we're in danger of being captured... if there are any signs of trouble at all... you're on your own. 

SISKO

Mister Garak, I believe that's the first completely honest thing you've ever said to me. 

GARAK

How perceptive of you, Commander. 

It might seem like a knock-off version of Face of the Enemy from The Next Generation but this does make a more compelling story and frankly I never found Troi a convincing officer to kidnap given her position on Enterprise.

On a second watch through Destiny was a little more interesting and I've been finding the Bajoran elements easier to follow and comprehend (the benefit of middle age I guess!) but there are lows to the year. It's still 44 minutes that isn't up to the bar; nor is the slushy political/romance Life Support which does at least see the exit of Phillip Anglium as Bareil. I was never a fan, he was way too mediocre a character and his mirror version killed Resurrection in season six dead. For one of the few times in Star Trek I didn't mind that he was being written out. Anyway, Louise Fletcher's Kai was always going to win and this one does act as a reminder as to why Starfleet is hanging around in the first place. We'd have to wait until Rapture in season five though for Federation admission to be pulled from stasis.

Actually, while I'm droning on about poor episodes, what was the crack with Meridian?!

Giving column inches to that one, directed by Jonathan Frakes and penned for the screen by Mark Gehred-O'Connell (who also wrote Who Mourns for Morn?) is sacrilege in itself. One thing Deep Space Nine seemed to do badly at this stage was romance. Whether they got any better is also a debate for another time, but the drippiness of both Meridian and soon after the kissy-kissy-fest that was Fascination were again low marks for the series. I know for sure that Meridian is an episode I would shelve alongside Voyager's Threshold and The Next Generation's Justice. Shoddy, poor and we know Dax will never leave the crew (at least not at this stage and for this guy...).

Talking of second watchings, there are a ton of great moments and stories here before you think I'm season-bashing. Defiant was class and made up for Frakes having to direct the trashy Meridian (which has more mentions in this post than any other ep oddly).  I do chastise the writers for not showing the USS Defiant taking on the Cardassians onscreen and instead placing us in a command station with Sisko and Dukat but this episode is much more about seeing Tom Riker back, stripping those beard pieces off and going hunting. I must've watched this one more than a dozen times over the years and it still holds it's own. Why Tom Riker never got a third outing is criminal but here the relationship he has with Kira makes you want to see more of Frakes' slightly different transporter twin.

Fascination which followed it was an OK Lwaxana episode (and I'm far from a Troi fan at the best of times) and her last but one if memory serves. Comedy never seemed to fit with this show which is why I never took to the Ferengi shows (see below) and felt Lwaxana was a bit out of place on the station. For note the Bajoran festival of gratitude would also show up in Tears of the Prophets. 

Moving swiftly along though we have one of the great unexpected classics of the show in Past Tense. Set on Earth rather than the station which in itself is more than a little unusual, it gave Avery Brooks a real chance to spread his wings and channel a little of his inner demon in 21st Century San Francisco. Again, one of my earlier Deep Space Nine VHS purchases (UK volume 3.6 for the record), Past Tense was a revelation and showed just how far the show could go and that Star Trek hadn't lost it's abilities to touch on issues - and closer to home than usual in some respects. The story was helped by a great guest cast especially during the claustrophobic siege in the concluding part and those little aside comedy scenes as Kira and O'Brien try to locate the missing Sisko, Bashir and Dax (who's wardrobe is exceptionally bizarre). Avery Brooks is magnificent here as the replacement Gabriel Bell and commands Past Tense from start to finish. Brilliantly realised, Deep Space Nine could hit where it hurt.

And what of the others? The House of Quark, Distant Voices, Prophet Motive and Family Business? Average again I'm afraid. I recall seeing promos for the Bashir 30th birthday episode which saw him delve into his inner psyche thanks to an attack from a Lethian but the actual story didn't work as well as I hoped. Nice makeup, great chance for Siddig to spread his wings but not a patch on some of his later work in Our Man, Bashir, Dr Bashir, I Presume or Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges. But it's a start and a few levels above his shadowy (read shaky) performance in The Passenger.

Then there's those three Ferengi shows. I could just leave it there but they are worth a couple of lines. Quark-Ferengi stories were my least anticipated. I found the humour forced and weak and the aspects they explored cringeworthy. Have my thoughts changed? No. Grand Nagus Zek is a quirky character once or twice but after that I preferred scraping my nails on a blackboard - and equally as dubious was the introduction of Quark and Rom's Moogie. Total gagh. That's all I can say. I really, really tried but these kind of stories were rock bottom for Deep Space Nine and fortunately they were few and far between, moreso with the oncoming war. Saying that I did enjoy The House of Quark both in the '90's and now. It's an unusual mix of Ferengi and Klingon but seeing Gowron attempting to understand Quark's financial records and just being utterly confused is priceless.

I love Shimerman and Grodenchik as actors and their roles in other episodes are brilliant especially where they act as the audience onscreen, passing judgement and opinion on the events unfolding but the Ferengi dominated stories tend to be the weak links. I would suspect this is because it usually comes down to greed and strained humour , the latter of which Star Trek generally never excelled. Shimerman and his Ferengi co-stars would get some better material in season four with Little Green Men but it would only be a small break from the norm.

Twenty years on, the 1994-1995 season has stood the test of time well and I'm certain it's better than I remember it. Heart of Stone, Destiny and Explorers were definitely stronger than I thought they were but I was really itching for the later part of the year and more than that, season four. The stand out pieces were Past Tense and The Search for me but I would be hard-pushed to pick a standout single-length story. Even writing this I'm debating how high up I would place Visionary with its clever little time travelling twist that rivalled the one in Voyager's Deadlock. Character-wise, Garak was a show stealer on more than one occasion as he would be every year but also kudos go to Nana Visitor particularly for Second Skin and Rene Auberjonois for all the work as Odo coming to terms with the fact that his people are the Dominion's Founders - and when he harms another, boy does he do it well.

Whatever you say, season three is still a mark up in quality and placed all the key players for the advent of war. Just a minor issue of some Klingons to sort out first though I believe....

What are your memories of the third season? Was it a turning point or are we just spouting gagh? Why not drop a line below...

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Trekollections V: Two Captains, Three Series

"I don't need to be lectured by you. I was out saving the galaxy when your grandfather was still in diapers."

I saw the trailer for Star Trek: Generations on The Big Breakfast, Channel 4 in the UK (Google it) back in mid-1994 just as The Next Generation was winding down on TV. It was the ultimate Star Trek fan moment - Kirk and Picard both on screen in the same movie at the same time; a visual torch-passing from one captain to the next. This was going to be the cinematic Star Trek moment of the decade, nay ever. The trailer had some random clips from The Next Generation episodes but the main clip was all about that now infamous horse-riding scene.

Back before the internet was the rumour mill it has become today, you had to rely on, amazingly, one to one communication, to find out anything about what was happening if it wasn't in the pages of TV Zone, Starburst or Starlog magazine. I was fortunate that Dad had a guy working for him who was a fan and a member of a club. The preview of the expected movie was pretty shocking - Data having sex with the Duras sisters, Kirk skydiving, the Enterprise-B, a mad scientist and oh...Kirk dies!!!!

Personal library photo

Big stuff. Luckily some of that came to pass, some of it got rewritten and some if it never happened. Back in the day some genius released the novel of the film before Star Trek: Generations arrived on the silver screen. Due to the late reshoots the novel had the original opening segment and the original ending (here, left). Now I really enjoyed the way it all played out in the book accompanied by some nice glossy photos from the adventure. Even though I effectively knew the plot inside out from fan-written news via Dad's work or from the magazine racks in the newsagents I still went to the cinema and enjoyed it. We can easily say it's not the best of the movies but I have a soft spot for it even if the Nexus makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Even at the age of 15 I knew it was a total bats-arse idea but hey, Kirk and Picard were in the same film!!!

I'd taken quite a liking to Star Trek literature and visits into Lincoln would inevitably end - or begin - with a trip into Ottakar's (now Waterstone's) bookshop on the High Street. I bought both Star Trek Memories and Star Trek Movie Memories from there at least and I would suspect that some of the books that arrived on birthdays and Christmases might have found their way off the shelves from the same shop. I really had got to saturation point around the time of Generations and if it had the words Star Trek on it, it was fair game.

At school Steven Bond and myself would indulge in conversations at break about what the film was going to be like and he was even lucky enough to get to see it on a preview night while I had to wait another week to see it - I was utterly jealous of course but there wasn't much I could do. As with Star Trek VI I saw it in Lincoln but at the recently built Odeon. It had been a week or so since theatrical release but there were still two audience members who turned up in full The Next Generation uniform. Kirk's reshot death was ok but someone seemed to have taken all the lights off the Enterprise bridge and stellar cartography had received one heck of a facelift. It wasn't the experience that I'd expected however there was still Deep Space Nine to fulfil my weekly desire for new Star Trek. 

That second season (1993 - 1994) lifted my spirits immensely. The stories seemed sharper; deeper, the characters were settled and being explored well. Necessary Evil showed how different the series could be and how it could use the past to develop its own personality. The Next Generation would never have attempted a three-part story to start the year and even more prominently the show embraced The Original Series more openly than the crew of the Enterprise-D had ever been allowed to. In the space of a handful of episodes we not only got the return of the three Klingons from the 60's series but our first trip back to the mirror universe since approximately the same time. Perhaps this was one of the early things which endeared me to this darker offspring - it wasn't afraid to try something and adjust it as events took hold. There seemed to be a bigger plan which would become more apparent at the end of the year with The Jem'Hadar. Oddly though I would see that finale after The Search. 

My video buying had of course moved from The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine. Volume 22 was the first one I bought for £12.99 from Boots in Sleaford. It was Crossover and The Collaborator and would be watched fairly regularly. The quality of the Deep Space Nine series was superb. Great individual character art, a quote from one of the episodes on the back and then a character biography inside. It was almost as interesting finding out what was featured on the box as it was seeing some new Star Trek. I bought two more volumes from season two which included The Maquis before The Search came out. Reading Starburst, TV Zone and the superior Dreamwatch, there was a big change for the new series as the station was getting a starship all of its own. For two years they'd had to manage with three piddly runabouts but this was a bad-ass out and out warship. The USS Defiant was nothing like we'd seen before and before we move on, there's an important moment in my personal Star Trek history I need to talk about. 

Picture the scene: It's a Saturday. I've been down to Woolworths and picked up volume 3.1 of Deep Space Nine. Actually, I didn't know it was out until I saw it on the shelf and there wasn't even a question as to whether or not it was going to be bought. CIC Video have made some changes to the cover art as well as the numbering system but that's no biggie. Looks pretty decent and it's been a while since my last video purchase.  I get myself home and settle down in front of the TV with Dad to watch the new two-part season opening episode. There's a catch-up from the end of season two (Last time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine...) which is useful as we've both missed it (wow - they blew up a Galaxy-class starship?!). Dax has new hair, some Romulan had turned up to look after the Defiant's cloaking device, Odo's uniform is a bit different and there was a new security guy called Eddington hanging around. Ok.... Not too bad so far but nothing that's going to make me think this is more than average. Wouldn't you agree?

While I was enjoying Deep Space Nine to this point it I'd found it never hit the mark like The Next Generation consistently had (barring season five's soap opera period). I kept watching - then things changed. About 15 minutes in the Defiant came under attack from a couple of Jem'Hadar warships. Sisko took the ship to battle stations and ordered the crew to engage. With one word and ten seconds of screen time he changed my entire perception of the show and I was from that second onwards a converted Niner. 

"Fire!"

What we all expected was little orangey-red phaser beams to shoot out and the Jem'Hadar ships to be disabled. This was Star Trek and it was about removing threat not blowing stuff up. What we got was a rapid fire Gatling-gun style onslaught like nothing we'd ever seen. This ship was cool. This series was different and I LOVED it. That was it, I was in raptures. This was the BEST Star Trek series ever. It was a great opener and the revelation around the Founders of the Dominion was sorted out a lot quicker than we expected which was a change so we could get on with the nitty gritty of the story a lot sooner without getting wrapped up in a "Who Are They?" story. 

Personal library photo

I also seem to think that it must have been around this time that I won my first Star Trek themed competition which was a copy of The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers Volume Two. The first one had been a great read and funny at times with some thought-provoking points on the series as well as pointing out some absolute onscreen clangers. Author and fan Phil Farrand later produced a Deep Space Nine volume which covered everything from Emissary through to season four's cliffhanger, Broken Link as well as a book for Classic Series fans however neither of them ever managed to capture the nuances and individuality of the two The Next Generation editions. Phil, if you're reading, you made me watch the show in a very different light! I'd switched to Dreamwatch fairly recently after following the increasingly poor Star Trek magazine called The Final Frontier. It started well but rapidly got thinner and relied on poor quality images to sell copies. Expensive and rubbish by the end of it's short run.

School-wise I was now heading into two years of GCSE courses between 1994 and 1996. The workload was increasing and evenings were being taken over by mounds of paperwork, coursework, revision and the like. It wasn't getting any lighter I can tell you, even to the point where weekends were getting chunks devoured by essays for English or Technology diagrams. Since I had a zero-level social life it didn't really matter and any time that I did have left was devoted to catching up on Stat Trek news or watching a film or episode in a spare hour or two. Whatever hassles I was getting thrown at from school it was always eased by a bit of relaxation with the crew of an Enterprise. Now this might seem to be ultra-geeky but I managed to get myself a lunchtime job helping out in the school library during this time. It meant if I needed somewhere quite to go on lunches when I was "offduty" it was a suitable bolthole but also, importantly, there was a TV.

It wasn't connected to the main aerial so a bit of daytime telly was out of the question (fortunately) but it was hooked up to a video player. Star Trek:Generations made its way onto video sometime in mid to late 1995 and then only onto rental initially. Hard to imagine but there was a massive gap from its appearance in the cinema. Dad's work contact came in useful however as he did a seriously dodgy copy for me within days of it getting into rental shops and it was of excellent quality. This is where the library TV came in very handy.

Since this was the only copy in known existence (of course) Bondy wanted to watch it. Not willing to hand over the copy I brought it into school and over the course of a few lunchtimes we sat and watched the movie. Initially on Day One of the viewing there was myself, Bondy and a couple of our other friends who had "nothing better to do" than watch Star Trek: Generations. At the end of that lunch hour we were joined by a couple of the younger kids from the school Day Two began with our group plus a couple of hangers on...and, well, over the course of three days the viewing circle had expanded up to the point where people were having trouble getting to the shelves. We realised that there might be a secret audience within the school and over the next few weeks we would spend lunchtimes at the library TV showing a variety of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes to the hungry crowd of Star Trek fans amassing from the lower school years. I still recall watching a group of 20 kids jump about a foot in the air at the "Barclay Spider" moment in Genesis. Sadly as we edged into 1996 this was curtailed severely with first up, our mock exams at the start of the year (just after Christmas believe it or not), then the full-blown GCSE exams in May and June. What we didn't realise at this time was what we'd started.

For those of you in the know, you'll have spotted my glaring(ish) omission. Star Trek: Voyager. While it's not the top of my choice list I still believe that it's a valuable asset to the Roddenberry universe. I first heard about the series in a clipping from Starburst magazine as the seventh season of The Next Generation was coming to an end. Judging from the clipping, which now resides in one of my well-thumbed Star Trek scrapbooks I might have been initially distracted by Borg Universe Riker's incredibly fake super-beard before getting to see what the plan was for the third spin-off. The crew as described were actually pretty spot on to what appeared on the screen just a few months later. The Next Generation finished in 1994 and Voyager premiered in 1995. Bondy was immediately a fan and preferred it over Deep Space Nine anyday. This "disagreement" over the better show was good for a lunchtime discussion and the odd bit of Star Trek related banter and didn't stop us from still lapping up any videos the other bought of the series or magazines we found that covered the latest news. I think it was much more fun looking up new information this way than a few taps of the keyboard and allowing the internet to work its magic. Bondy bought (the last I can remember) every volume of Voyager from the pilot through to at least when we left school in June 1998. For a lot of the time I was probably more up to date with this series than I was with my preferred Deep Space Nine.

That third season of Deep Space Nine was immense and it just got better and better. There were a few duffers but I was at the stage where I would be counting down to a VHS release. After The Search I bought Defiant and Fascination (3.5) if only to see Tom Riker in action (should've had a follow up to this episode) and then Past Tense which had both parts on one cassette. Watching the season was sporadic due to the restrictions of a 15/16 year old's cash flow and parental concern that I was spending too much time and money on Star Trek. Of course in my eyes I wasn't and wished they would just let me get on with it. I managed to get hold of just one more video that year, the finale of the season, The Adversary. I sent Mum to Tesco with some cash when she was doing the weekly shop and was probably waiting on the doorstep to get my hands on it. Impatiently I opened the box....and it was The Die is Cast and Explorers on the VHS label. 

The wonderful people of the supermarket world had failed to check what I'd bought (and so had Mum to be fair). Once the shopping was packed away I demanded a return to Tesco for the correct volume in the correct box (they had managed to give us the right case). Presenting the incorrect cassette it took the shop several attempts before they admitted defeat - and about an hour of wasted time. I was not happy especially after counting the days to see the last episode of the year. Mum demanded the store manager who promptly arrived and offered profuse apologies. He disappeared off following a detailed Trekker explanation of what was wrong and returned five minutes later with the correct tape and a refund. I'd secured £12.99 of Deep Space Nine for nothing. Definitely a result in my book.

Now Voyager does come under a lot of fire, most probably from Niners but even from the start it had some great and unique points that made it stand out and differ from its peers. The Doctor was a stoke of genius as a character, the ship's engines folded up, they were somewhere completely new and Caretaker was a great pilot episode (because they started from Deep Space Nine of course). However, Janeway's accent grated on me like nails on a blackboard and don't start me on Neelix, Over seven years I'd soften considerably mind and come to appreciate the show a lot more. When I get round to the full rewatch I'm certain it'll be a very different experience from 20 years ago. The first year of Voyager wasn't without incident however for the most part it was a bland affair with not much happening. It had similarities to Deep Space Nine's inaugural year with an alien of the week and little else to report...apart from the landing of the ship in the season-straddling The 37's (the only other video I bought from that year of Voyager). Now that was a great touch and I heard about it first through Dad. He came home from work one day and dropped that bomb over tea. Definite kudos was due at that time and like the Defiant opening fire in The Search, Part I, this was one of those series defining moments - but it didn't have anywhere near the same effect on my loyalties and got used sparingly over the following six series. At least it became something to look forward to and not relied on.

The year had much more to offer in Trekdom and I'll explain more next time but there were GCSE's always lurking in the background which meant my focus was elsewhere for a good deal of the time. There was also another challenge rearing its head that would align itself with my journey through Trekdom - girls. Surely I could combine the two without any troubles at all? How wrong can one person be....