I am going to keep this relatively short, because it involves two things that, at times, have limited circles: Star Trek and LGBT things.
Deep Space Nine is the gayest Star Trek.
I say this as a queer male, not as someone who uses that word like junior high school kids use it. After all, I became quite used to a particular homonym for French cigarettes and bundles of sticks in my youth, earning that cute little nickname before I was remotely out as…something not straight.
There probably needs to be some context here, which will certainly not span the history of the franchise. In Deep Space Nine, the action is not onboard a starship exploring the galaxy, looking for new life / new civilizations. Instead, the setting is a dingy, rundown space station which formerly served as a military base for a race known as the Cardassians, who are basically imperialist space iguanas. They were the former captors of a race known as the Bajorans, who look human, except with nose ridges. When the Cardassians were deposed from the station after a guerrilla war against the Bajorans, the Bajoran government took it over. The United Federation of Planets, the parent organization of Starfleet (aka, semi-military doofuses like James T. Kirk) was sent in to assist with control of the station.
There are two factions at play in the station: the Bajoran government and Starfleet. Starfleet are stodgy diplomats-meet-Army people, and the Bajoran government are former radical revolutionaries. They struggle at first to get along, but mutual military goals strengthen their ties, especially when they find a portal to another part of the galaxy with lots of weird bad guys on the other side bent on a quest for dominion. They’re called…the Dominion. There’s a black commander who pulls off “bald and goatee” without looking like a dorky Satanist, and a ragtag crew crammed together into a station that only half works. Now, back to my central point.
“Gay” is obviously a loaded term, but Deep Space Nine is really into queer politicking.
Even if you don’t like any Star Trek series, or sci-fi in general, there are still things to capture your attention in Deep Space Nine. The glistening, utopic hope of previous incarnations is replaced with a run-down, post-industrial surrounding. Military figures work alongside freedom fighters and form dark alliances with sometimes-enemies against mutual adversaries. Lots of wonderfully queer things happen in the space in between.
Warning things: ugh, the producers at some point came up with this “no gays in space” thing that meant that most of the time, everybody had to dance around the issue. So everyone just has to kind of hint or flirt to it or straight-act or whatever.
Which is why no one is just all “SURE, I’M SPACE GAY.” Gene Roddenberry, aware of his previous homophobia, wanted to start to put some gays in space, but most of the attempts before he died floundered. As, to be fair, did most of the attempts after he died.
No concrete gays in space ever really transpired aside from subtle hints, loose allegories, a couple “it’s ok to be gay…but I’m not gay!” moments and some other random smatterings. Like Data in TNG building a robotic child and letting it choose its gender. Or Beverly Crusher falling in love with a man whose essence is later put in a woman and deciding that she can’t hack the “being with a woman” thing. (That character is a Trill, we’ll talk about it later, and about this sort of essence-exchange thing.) Or an AIDS allegory that was supposed to be a much better AIDS allegory until it got toned down by squeamish producers.
What does this mean? Most queerness in Star Trek was relegated to Kirk/Spock slash fiction, half-fulfilled ideas…and not so subtle innuendo throughout Deep Space Nine. Which is what I’m here to talk about!
Everyone’s a little bit gay. Everyone. The doctor (Bashir) and the engineer (O’Brien) who hang out together all the time? The engineer already said he wishes his wife were more of a man. See this clip:
It’s an expression of subconscious desire for an “otherness” from his partner, and a confirmation that there’s at least a bit of a homosocial undercurrent between the doctor and the engineer. There are qualities to the doctor that the engineer wants to see in his wife, things he’s finding desirable from his friendship that he wants in his relationship. You know, like he’s just compartmentalizing in his mind “Man” and “Woman” out of an awkward way of classifying his Feelings. Capital letters are important here, obviously.
But it’s just a friendship! Which is exactly why his wife is afraid he likes the doctor more than her. (Starts at 1:30)
… and the doctor agrees. Then later, after they’re out of their whole “hostage situation” thing (which, I’m not a super-fanfic-y person, but like, that’s some real slashfic set-up there!) and they’re back home safe and sound, the engineer’s wife makes him a nice dinner. And then the engineer invites the doctor to join him for it. Sort of like a somewhat more optimistic version of Giovanni’s Room, where instead of completely hiding his love (Giovanni / Bashir) from his partner (Hella / Keiko) resulting in–well, you can go spoiler that for yourself–he just invites him to the same dinner of his own accord. How romantic!
That doctor is also friends with the iguana alien tailor and they go on cute little not-quite-romantic lunch dates together. The guy who played the tailor, Andrew Robinson, has said in interviews that he pretty intentionally played him as a queer character. Like, seriously:
He’s not gay, he’s not straight, it’s a non-issue for him. Basically his sexuality is inclusive. But–it’s Star Trek and there were a couple of things working against that. One is that Americans really are very nervous about sexual ambiguity. Also, this is a family show, they have to keep it on the “straight and narrow”, so then I backed off from it. Originally, in that very first episode, I loved the man’s absolute fearlessness about presenting himself to an attractive human being. The fact that the attractive human being is a man (Bashir) doesn’t make any difference to him, but that was a little too sophisticated I think.
So there’s that. This video also tells you a lot of what you need to know, with a weird song to boot:
Robinson even took this a step further, writing an autobiography for the character, detailing his little male and female crushes along the way, all written as a letter to his only-sort-of-secret love, Dr. Bashir.
Then there’s the major, Kira, one of the ridge-nosed freedom fighter aliens. At many points she calls herself a terrorist, and is steeped in the language of revolution. Constantly. She’s also suuuuuper badass. See her beat everyone ever up better than anyone else in the show:
While any dalliances she may have had are pretty relegated to the realm of fanfic, that’s not the case for her evil doppelganger.
Ok, this is about to get (more) geeky. You PROBABLY know about the Star Trek mirror universe thing, responsible for the “evil twins from evil universes have evil goatees” thing?
So, Kira herself has a doppelganger, The Intendant, also portrayed as a badass, but sort of a conflictedly evil badass. Her partner in the universe is the doppelganger of the science officer on board the station.
The Intendant is played as a sort of omnisexual dominatrix type. The id of the real Kira. She’s supposed to be evil, you know? But in this version she’s still just ultimately working to provide the best for her people. There’s kind of a danger here in making her into the Evil Bisexual trope, as a friend so rightfully pointed out. If we take the mirror universe as more embodying id than evil, this is somewhat avoided, as The Intendant is more an adaptation to their environment.
Anyway, visuals! Id science officer and id Kira Nerys. All the YouTube fan vids were dreadfully heteronormative, so I guess here’s just a GIF, making me feel weird about GIFs of women kissing on the Internet:
That science officer is Dax. Err, Ezri Dax. Ok, there’s no way to avoid this part. We’ve got to get down to the really geeky parts here. Ezri Dax is a Trill, and Trills are these sort of two-in-one aliens. They’ve got the bio body you see, and then there’s a worm-like symbiont inside. The worms live a while, the human looking bodies don’t. So the worms get new bodies. This is just like, their culture, not some parasitic thing to get worried about. Every Trill does it!
So anyway, Ezri Dax was the new body for Jadzia Dax (THE MOST PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THERE IS – Ed.), because the actress who played her wanted to leave the show. But of course, she’s not the first Dax! There have been a bunch of them, including one named Kurzon, whose bio-body was male. Jadzia gets called “old man” by the captain a bunch because he knew her when she was Kurzon. But every subsequent Trill host body has the memory of the previous host bodies through the worm symbiont. So you know, you can just be whatever: male, female, it doesn’t matter. You’ll probably be either at some point. Maybe your body will be bio male but you’ll more strongly identify with a different gender. That’s the beauty of being Trill. IT DOESN’T MATTER. The unbeauty is when a former host was a serial killer. Which is brought up in the show. That’s beside the point.
So when an old Kurzon lover shows up who’s female bio bodied, what does Jadzia do? Well, rekindle the flame. It’s the person inside after all, not whatever they do or don’t have dangling.
This was actually the first on-screen romantic same gender kiss in Star Trek. But there were others in the show, some unfortunately played for comedic effect. We’ll get to that in a bit.
First, let’s talk about the Changelings, though! See, there’s this dude Odo, he runs security on the station, and he’s not sure what he is. He’s a shapeshifter who’s never met a shapeshifter of his same species, until he does. When that happens, things get exciting.
See, there are individuals within the Changelings, but they’re all just sort of facets of this great lake of shapeshifting goop, the Great Link. It’s all the Changelings together in a sort of hive mind. Really, unless one of the goops get separated, there aren’t really Changelings, plural, so much as the Great Link, singular, with multiple individual parts.
They, by the way, run the Dominion. They really hate the solids. The reason, in fact, they call themselves Changeling is to reappropriate the word “the solids” gave them (social justice!). Their intense territoriality may come out of their need to combat perceived persecution from the solids.
Here’s the thing about shapeshifters: if you’re a gelatinous ball of goop that can transform into anything…why not transform into anything? Odo himself was raised by humans, and took a human male shape. But this makes the idea of Changeling gender suspect. Like, really, the gender is just a matter of what shape you want to take and what identity you want to take on when you’re not part of a lake of a bunch of others of your kind. Really, it’s the ultimate in identity as a political act: gender presentation is up to you, the individual ball of goop.
Next up, the Ferengis, in summary: lots of occasionally-cross-dressing snappy aliens with huge ears who love money and business and aren’t weird creepy Space Jew stereotypes AT ALL. (Yes they are, but whatever.) Their society is intensely patriarchal. Women aren’t allowed clothes much less participation in business.
Of course, there are crude feminist allegory plotlines about the Ferengi women who want to be businesspeople. But Ferengi culture will never accept it! So one of them, the bartender’s mom, just says “forget that” and does it anyway. But another lady decides that the best thing to do is take on an identity of a man to play the business game. Later on the bartender himself goes into drag in an attempt to undermine and change these rules. There’s a man-on-man comedic smooch. It’s best not to get too deep into it here. The allegories are, again, a bit crude.
The only character I really CAN’T think of having some sexual or gender blur at some point is the captain, who’s still an upstanding civil rights dude at heart. No really! At one point he travels back in time and leads a socialist revolution on earth. Upstanding! And just for fun, here he is from the episode where his life intertwines with a black sci-fi writer from the 1950s who first envisions an interracial space ship in a post-scarcity future:
So anyway, there are lots of other points to make, but DS9 is the runaway winner for the gay Trek, because the other series may experiment at times, dipping their toes into rad-queer politic waters, but man, only DS9 takes the reins and drives it in. So watch it. Even if you don’t like the whole Trek thing. And I know I said I’d keep it short. I lied.
Tags: deep space nine, if they made a new movie cobie smulders needs to play jadzia dax, john wenz, lgbt, nicole pretends to be jadzia dax at the gym sometimes, star trek, television, yes
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Deep Space 9 forever and ever! That show had such a profound impact on adolescent me. I’ve thought about its progressiveness in terms of race and gender before – Sisko is amaazing, and Kira Nerys is, as far as I’m concerned, the first truly feminist main cast character that the franchise had. Never stopped to consider its LGBTQ bona fides before, though, so this is very interesting.
Also, Garak’s ambiguous sexuality is actually semi-canon and was intentional by the actor? Man, it’s cool to see that actually confirmed. Garak was the best. Wait, no, Julian Bashir in a tux was the best. But Garak is the other best.
Garak is my favorite Trek character. Genre fiction is full of charming, ruthless, morally gray rogues, but they’re usually neutered after a while and end up wearing their hearts of gold on their sleeves. But Robinson played Garak so well that he never lost that hint of danger and mystery. One of my favorite episodes is when Garak tells Bashir various, contradictory stories about how he ended up in exile and in the end Bashir discovers… they’re all lies.
DAMN IT. I have to go back and watch the entire series on Netflix again. Oh well!
The best is O’Brien and Bashir wandering around Quark’s in their LARP gear singing old Irish folksongs, TYVM.
DS9 4EVA! My wife and I have been rewatching it recently. It’s great, but it saddens me that were it to air today, 20 years later, it’d *still* be considered trail blazing for having a black captain/commander and a combative woman lead like Kira.
“Gay” is obviously a loaded term, but Deep Space Nine is really into queer politicking.
…is a great sentence and I’m glad it got a paragraph all to itself.
So basically, DS9 takes place in a future where gender as performance is widely understood as an unspoken norm. I am glad that drag is still a part of that future, even if only among misogynist semitic stereotypes who like having their ears stroked.
I have such a hard time deciding which character is my favorite on this show (the correct answer is: all of them) but Jadzia Dax has a special place in my heart, and yes, I totally pretend I’m her at the gym too.
Editing to add: I also love how Jadzia makes references throughout the series to her past experiences as both a man and a woman. The Dax character is great for thinking about interesting new possibilities of gender, and I wish there was more sci-fi pushing the envelope on gender. ( Left Hand of Darkness is great–any other book/TV show suggestions?)
Does anyone else remember the episode of TNG where Beverly Crusher falls for a Trill and then the host guy dies, and the new host is a woman and the woman is all, “I am still the same [name which I have forgotten] and I still feel as strongly for you?”
I was SO disappointed that Beverly couldn’t take that ball and run with it.
*EDIT* Yeaaaaah, I didn’t read the whole thing before I posted this (I was midway to posting a line I loved before finishing reading) so clearly EVERYONE remembers this moment because it was just mentioned and I’ll go away now.
Check out anything that’s been shortlisted for/won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. What comes to mind immediately for me is James Alan Gardner’s Commitment Hour, in which (spoiler, but only for the first chapter) all the characters live in a society where every year of their childhood they switch genders; I’ve also heard that Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice does a lot with exploring gender identity through a race of agender people who are forced to interact with (and try to parse) a race of gendered people. But seriously, anything that’s been mentioned in the same breath as the Tiptree Award is worth a look.
What about a fantasy trilogy? Lynn Flewelling’s Tamir Triad has a baby girl magically turned into a boy right after birth to save her life, and over the books she struggles with “being a guy” until she realizes she never was a guy. It’s an interesting trilogy!
I’m currently reading Ancillary Justice (also mentioned by PhoenixFalls). It’s written from the perspective of someone from the aforementioned agender society and everyone is referred to with she/her/hers pronouns and described as a girl/daughter/etc., although some of them are viewed as male by people from other societies. It’s one part of an interesting culture the author builds up and I like seeing how this affects my mental image of the characters.
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand also does some interesting stuff with pronouns (and gender/sexuality).
Goddamn, but Ancillary Justice is SO GOOD.
Hmm. Not sure how much this is in line with what you’re looking for, but Diane Duane’s Tale of the Five series features same-sex relationships, poly relationships, bisexuality, one character who’s genderfluid because it’s a total shapeshifter (fire elemental in fact!), and the way sex gets intertwined with religion I read as very queer in that it’s totally out of line with heteronormativity, even though it’s not necessarily built around non-hetero experiences? They were written in the 80s (I think? Maybe even earlier) and I haven’t reread for a while, so I’m not sure if the language and stuff around all of it is as great as I’d like it to be, but I remember really loving that aspect of the world she built. (There’s also a character arc that’s about recovering from having survived sexual abuse. The abuse isn’t part of the narrative, only some later healing from the emotional wounds; her memories aren’t particularly graphic, IIRC, and it’s from the survivor’s point of view and I think ultimately really affirming, but I thought I should warn just in case. It’s definitely rough going at certain points.)
The editor’s comment is perfect and in every way correct re: Jadzia Dax.
DS9 is THE BEST TREK. Gay subtext! Badass captain! Fleshing out 1-dimensional alien races! A variety of well-developed female characters, who wear appropriate uniforms for their jobs, and not random skintight catsuits! Garak. GARRRRAAAAKKKK.
Postcolonialism! Protagonist characters proudly calling themselves terrorists! Somewhat thoughtful explorations of the pitfalls of paternalistic nation-building! Worf! THE JEM GODDAMN HADAR!
*SPOILERS* Kira and Odo hooked up towards the end of the series, but if you want to forget about it, I can totally get behind that, it was awful and really played more like Kira humoring her depressed friend’s crush.
*NO MORE SPOILERS*
I never watched Star Trek growing up, so my introduction to it was when my now-husband got me into DS9 with a lot of pleading and humoring (I got him to watch Mad Men and The Wire in trade). I was going to write off the entire series as being awful and camp and casting terrible actresses just for their faces (Jadzia is beautiful, but her actress could not act her way out of a paper bag, nor could the actress playing Sisko’s wife), but then I saw Kira, and all of a sudden DS9 was worth it, with the end result that a three-inch tall figurine of Kira Nerys was on our wedding cake, along with a TARDIS.
Also, I started picking up on Bashir/O’Brien around season 2 or so, and my husband just kept rejecting it, having imprinted on DS9 and TNG in his childhood. Then we got to the scenes that John so helpfully pointed out here, and he finally admitted I was right. 😀 😀 😀
Okay, I started watching DS9 on Netflix a couple years ago and then it sort of got pushed to one side by my schedule and then I forgot about it, but now I HAVE to actually watch it, y’all have convinced me.
Yes, watch it, watch it noowwww.
I would just like to take a moment to say: Sisko punched Q in his smarmy-weasel mouth and Q NEVER CAME BACK TO THE STATION.
Not to mention that one of the show’s first scenes is Sisko being a total dick to Picard. Probably one of the few franchise shows that opens with the main character telling the beloved head of another part of the franchise to piss off.
And Picard is SO BEFUDDLED. Because that never happens.
That is one of my favorite TV scenes of all time.
Garak+Bashir>O’Brien+Bashir, by far. They should have gotten their own spin-off, and I would have watched it until the end of time. Garak and Bashir lunching throughout the galaxy.
I would subscribe to this web series.
Also, please more Star Trek content on The Toast.
Running down here to post this pearl of a fragment because I love it:
basically imperialist space iguanas
*Scurries back up to read the rest*
I really wish we’d get past the point where men having intimate, loving friendships with other men is labelled “gay”.
But much, much more importantly, if any species on DS9 is space iguanas, it’s the Jem’Hadar. Just look at ’em.
And where women being badass is labelled gay – although I guess they actually weren’t as bad as I expected them to be with that.
Haven’t even read this yet — just scrolled down to say YAY deep space nine, YAY the toast YAY! This is making my Friday.
Love this article
However, my initial reaction the the line “two things that, at times, have limited circles: Star Trek and LGBT things.” — which was “since when?” made me question just how much I’ve carefully constructed my community as an adult.
” I really wish we’d get past the point where men having intimate, loving friendships with other men is labelled “gay”. ”
YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES.
You can lie to me about keeping awesome Star Trek discussions short any time.
But the actor who played Garak admitted that he was playing him as non-straight (or pansexual, whatever), so it’s not just that close friendship=gay. Also, many many have remarked on how stilted/lacking the O’Brien marriage appeared; the Miles character seemed far more alive talking to Julian than to his wife (not that it was her fault). It could have been down to bad writing, but perhaps also a subtext that was actually there.
(I loved DS9 from the beginning; I think it was tailor-made for fans who actually wanted to live in the Star Trek world, instead of just run around fighting aliens and being space cowboys).
There’s a really great Toast article to be written about the portrayal of Keiko O’Brien, and her relationship with Miles, through the runs of THE NEXT GENERATION and DEEP SPACE 9.
Thanks for this! Love the clips. Someone might have already mentioned it but DS9 also had “Rejoined”, where Dax braves Trill taboo to get together with a woman whose symbiont used to be in a relationship with her symbiont.
Although the main plot-line kind of tiptoes around saying this is a same-sex issue and ultimately the other woman chickens out, there is a great quote from Kira: “I don’t understand how two people who’ve fallen in love, and made a life together, can be forced to just walk away from each other because of a taboo. There must be some Trill who have reassociated with people from their past lives.”
There definitely could’ve been more LGBT characters on DS9 and the other series, and I think trying to make Garak seem straight by pairing him with Ziyal was a mistake, but there were also definitely moments and characters to celebrate.
Whoops – missed you mentioning “Rejoined” on Page 2. The only issue I’d raise in response to page 2 is I don’t think “Profit and Lace” challenges gender identity – I think if anything it reinforces a gender binary by making Quark change so dramatically to become emotional, hysterical, irrational and even bad at math as soon as he starts taking female hormones. There’s also making fun of Rom’s ability to emulate a female walk. As I said in my review of the episode (http://trekkiefeminist.tumblr.com/post/57157375770/ds9-6-23-profit-and-lace) I think it’s homophobic, transphobic and sexist.
But overall, I really enjoyed this article. Thanks again.
I love Deep Space 9 as a whole, but “Profit and Lace” is one of the worst episodes of anything I’ve ever watched.
JADZIA. My roommate watches DS9 and we JUST got to the Jadzia and Lenara episode this week. Since I pretty much only watch DS9 to stare wistfully at Jadzia on account of her being perfect and beautiful, this was very exciting. Of course, also sad because this is Star Trek and emotions only exist to serve the allegory at hand and of course it can’t end well, poor Dax. 🙁
Ooh! Don’t forget that one time (“Rules of Acquistion”, 2×07) that Quark falls in love with a visiting female Ferengi who’s pretending to be a male so she can get out of the traditionally subservient role that female Ferengis play in society! It was really sweet and tragic. Not homosexual (no same-sex relationship), but definitely queer (gender role reversal and romance).
Also, not every Trill is allowed to have a symbiont (in “Equilibrium” — 3×04 — we see that the folks in power say that even fewer people are viable candidates than is actually the case), which would suggest that the Trill embrace and value pansexuality and fluid gender identities.
Actually it’s the opposite. There are more potential joiners than the PTB on trill are willing to admit. Almost any trill can be joined with a symbiont. It’s just there aren’t enough symbionts to go around so they created a selection process.
(apologies if this is posted twice)
Ooh! Don’t forget that one time (“Rules of Acquistion”, 2×07) that Quark falls in love with a visiting female Ferengi who’s pretending to be a male so she can get out of the traditionally subservient role that female Ferengis play in society! It was really sweet and tragic. Not homosexual (no same-sex relationship), but definitely queer (gender role reversal and romance).
Also, not every Trill get to have a symbiont (“Equilibrium”, 3×04 showed it being restricted even more than was necessary), which suggests pansexuality and fluid gender identity are embraced and valued by the Trill.
DEEP SPACE NINE ON THE TOAST MY TIME TO SHINE IS FINALLY HERE
No but really, Garak is the best and if you love him like I love him, go read Andrew Robinson’s Garak novel, which is called A Stitch in Time. It’s super, and I am not a Star Trek novel reading kind of person, generally.
Also, here is another interview where he talks some more about his decision to consciously play Garak as gay at first, and also about some other good DS9 stuff: http://www.trekzone.de/content/cc/darsteller/ds9/…
I grew up watching TNG and then DS9 as they aired, and DS9 is really “my” series, the one I was watching when I was 11-16ish, and which had a big impact on me and is still really important to me. I think that DS9 generally did okay. Some of the writers were really pushing back against certain cultural norms at the time, but it was 20 years ago, and as Jarrah mentions above me, there is also a lot that the writers got wrong.
PS, My dog’s name is Kira, okay back to work.
Okay, I love Garak, who is probably my favorite Star Trek character across all series/movies, and now I want to read Andrew Robinson’s Garak novel. Would I have to have read other Star Trek expanded universe novels to understand anything, or is it an isolated island of Garak bliss?
It is a beautiful isolated island, lush with vegetation and flowers and obviously fruit.
Thank you. Now to track down a copy.
Oh yeah, that may be the hard part. Apparently it’s become somewhat hard to come by. I do remember buying my copy used on Amazon, but that was years ago now. Check your local library!
It sells for $30-60 on ebay & I’ve never seen it in a library or used bookstore (I’ve looked, lots), but It’s available for nook & Kindle.
I find DS9 much more enjoyable if you assume that Captain Sisko is an insane serial killer. I like to add “or I will eat your face” to the end of most of his lines. It explains some of Avery Brooks’s… odder acting choices.
Despite being a huge nerd, I never watched much Star Trek. I’ve seen a handful of TNG episodes out of order, and until about two years ago, that was it.
My partner and I decided to watch DS9 after hearing several recommendations for it and I was blown away by how great it was. Yes, there are some not-so-great episodes (or ones like Profit and Lace which we should all just pretend don’t exist) but overall it is SO great. Just fantastic. Far Beyond the Stars is one of the greatest television episodes I’ve ever seen.
Because everyone here seems to love Garak, as is correct, I figured y’all might appreciate these gifs I ran across recently: http://lemonsweetie.tumblr.com/post/67214072548
ALSO! If any of y’all are Wiscon-attending types, a friend of mine submitted a panel on alien genitals tentatively called “Elim Garak’s weird penis” and I applied to be on the panel, so assuming it gets added to the programming, please show up!
Well, I guess I have to finally watch DS9 now.
Yeah, me too. I was a big TNG fan as a kid and somehow never attached myself onto DS9, even though it was running at a time when I should have. (I stuck with Voyager for a couple seasons, even.) I should try and get into it again, but I always seem to founder on the first couple episodes. Maybe I should start later?
The first few episodes are pretty foundational to the rest of the series, though. I’d just try to get through them, as the show does get much much better as it progresses. At the least, you could read some plot synposes and then jump in at a point when you think it’ll catch your attention?
Yes–it is rough at the beginning. Power through if you can, but if you can’t I think you can pick most of the stuff up from a quick wikipedia-ing.
um excuse me but sisko and garak CLEARLY got it on after 4:37 in this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPocxGUWMxM
Toast, are you in my head? I’ve been watching all of DS9 for the first time these past few weeks; when I was a kid it seemed kind of boring to me compared to TNG but now I realize that Kira is the best character ever and I was stupid when I was a teen. Also, Bashir/Garak 5eva.
I have been a DS9 fan from the beginning and DS9 concentrated on relationships instead of space exploration. There were no perfect characters and permanent allies. They had wars where battles were won and lost. Jadzia Dax was the most complex characters on DS9. She was the Tomboy, because her symbiont has experienced the life of both sexes. Sisko was the only completely human Star Trek captain, because he was married and had a family. Not to get moral, it was a nice change not to have a starship sex fiend, because there is some type of interstellar clap out there. Riker was lucky.
I felt that DS9 was ahead of its time such that it represented an occupation before the 2nd Iraq War.
The kiss between Jadzia and Lenara was such an ‘Aha moment’. I think my exact thoughts were “oh my god…I like girls”.
oh lord, i had the exact same moment. i used to tell people that star trek made me gay. (which gets more complicated now since i’m a transguy and have transitioned since then. lulz)
Ya know I’ve always held TOS to be the gayest Star Trek for three reasons:
1. In the official novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (authored by Gene Roddenberry himself) there is an official non-denial denial that Kirk and Spock are a couple. Kirk is quoted as being like ‘well you think I’d be dumb enough to choose a partner who only wants to have sex every seven years?’ Open space relationships, hummm.
2. This picture: http://i.imgur.com/uXTGVjz.jpg
3. George Takei
I have to concede the author makes an excellent case though.
FYI: Nilani Kahn was not a former lover of Kurzon’s; she was married to Torias Dax. Have to maintain the geek level!
“The only character I really CAN’T think of having some sexual or gender blur at some point is the captain, who’s still an upstanding civil rights dude at heart.”
Disagree. There’s a whole lot to read into his interactions with Dax.
I started watching DS9 a few months ago and by the end of the second episode I was wondering if Dax and Sisko had a thing, but back when Dax was still a man.
I have to say, Riker isn't my favorite character, but my absolute favorite thing about him is that he just sort of throws himself into every experience with joyful abandon, the more unfamiliar the better. You want me to eat these worms, Klingons? With gusto! Tasha Yar is making faces at aliens who get naked at the drop of a hat ("any hat")? Are you kidding, this is Riker's new favorite planet. He will wear lame shirts cut down to his waist. He will let an alien symbiote borrow his body for a few days.
So what I'm saying is that I always read him as a hairy '80s pansexual, too. I have a hard time imagining him having any real sorts of hang-ups about his sexuality.
(Um, obviously I mean "lamé", not "lame", but am unable to properly type accents.)
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Nice article. LOVE DS9. But, you are incorrect – not all Trills are joined (have the worm symbiont) – in their culture, being joined in immense privileg. You go through years of training and approvals before you are allowed to be joined. (Ezri Dax was an exception.)
I only just started watching DS9 about a month ago, and I only just realized that Garak and Bashir are two different characters, and not one married couple. Because I saw it written all the time on The Internet as Garak/Bashir, and it just… merged in my mind.