🖖🏾 Keiko put up with a lot, and sacrificed a lot. If she wants to move to Earth, then the O'Briens should move to Earth. As much as I hate to see the Bashir and Chief O'Brien bromance become long distance, I'm not mad about it.
🖖🏾 Nerys and Odo had amazing platonic friend energy that developed over time. No romantic chemistry between the two came through for me, though.
🖖🏾 Worf and Ezri had a little romantic chemistry.
🖖🏾 Bashir and Ezri had very little romantic chemistry. Their relationship seemed forced.
🖖🏾 Bashir and Garak had a lot of romantic chemistry.
🖖🏾 As much as I loved Worf in TNG, I side-eyed his joining DS9. But, I was wrong. He was a good fit, and brought a lot of wonderful to the series. As the character, and with the subsequent Klingon connections.
🖖🏾 Nog had the best character arc of the series.
🖖🏾 Sisko had the second best character arc of the series. From father, grieving widower, and Starfleet officer who was more patronizing than anything about the Bajoran religion, to becoming the Emissary in all ways. While running the space station, raising his "I don't want to join Starfleet" son (who turned out to be a good man), dealing with his "I didn't want you to join Starfleet" wonderful father, and all the conflicts Sisko dealt with, large and small. Sisko is an icon.
🖖🏾 Quark gave Ferengi depth and interest. After their introduction in TNG, Ferengi were never going to be seen as Klingon or Romulan level threats. But, Quark moved them out of the slapstick comedy only box. Rom gave Ferengi heart and soul, once the writing stop treating him as a walking, talking joke.
🖖🏾 Kira Nerys is just all kinds of awesome. Perfection.
🖖🏾 Ditto for Garak. No notes.
🖖🏾 Dukat was a delightful, love to hate, antagonist. Mark Alaimo's acting, and the writers, kept Dukat from being a one dimensional, moustache twirling, cliche.
🖖🏾 Louise Fletcher gave a master class in acting with Winn Adami. She took viewers on a roller coaster ride. Distrusting an outsider being declared the Emissary. All kinds of manipulative, with a side of being murder-y. Contrite (for Winn) once Sisko is undeniably proven to be the Emissary. Resentful of both the Emissary -- Winn is Bajoran and thinks she is pious, so wonders why the Prophets never speak to her, and the Bajoran rebels tended to dismiss Winn's efforts during the Cardassian occupation. Winn has a redemption of sorts at the end, but she was a terrible person, and a fascinating character.
🖖🏾 Damar had a redemption, of sorts. For the longest, Damar was just a sneering Cardassian, angry about not being able to continue subjugating Bajorans. He did take a stand against the Dominion for the sake of Cardassians, and will likely be remembered by Cardassians as a hero, but for non-Cardassians he was an awful person who did terrible things.
🖖🏾 Martok is a wonderful character, with a hell of an arc. I enjoyed every moment that Martok was onscreen.
🖖🏾 Gowron is another wonderful character, but I'm not loving how his arc ended. He usually demonstrated a thoughtfulness for the outcome of his actions. Not as noble as Martok, but not as shady as the Duras sisters. Yet, in his final appearance, he's willing to allow the severe weakening of the Klingon empire, and the possibility of the Dominion controlling the Alpha quadrant, because Gowron feels threatened by Martok's combat successes. That didn't ring true. I like Gowron. I didn't like his ending.
🖖🏾 Penny Johnson Jerald as Kasidy Yates was totally believable as someone who Sisko could share his life with. And, Ms. Jerald matched and melded with Avery Brooks' powerful acting.
🖖🏾 During DS9's first run, I did not like Ezri. The character, not the actor. 28 years after first being introduced to the character, I decided to give Ezri another try. Without the influence of Jadzia's demise being a recent event and sore spot, I still do not like Ezri. I think the writers tried too hard to differentiate Ezri from Jadzia, when Ezri's start as a host was enough. A young Trill, with zero training to be a host, suddenly becomes the host of Dax the symbiote. That's a treasure trove of story possibilities. Searching out Sisko made sense to me. Sisko was close to two of the Dax hosts. But, the overt attempts to show Ezri was not Jadzia v2.0 were tedious and off-putting.
🖖🏾 Honorable mention: Broca. Broca was a Cardassian, a puppet put into place by the Dominion after Damar rebelled. Broca was so far out of his depth. He knew he was a token Cardassian the Dominion used to try and keep the populace in line. Despite his obsequious actions and words, Broca quickly learned that tokens get spent. Mel Johnson Jr.'s portrayal of Broca made an only around for a hot minute character memorable.
🖖🏾 The Weyouns. Jeffrey Combs made me love them.
🖖🏾 Brock Peters as Joseph Sisko, and Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko. I love these characters. While Joseph, Benjamin, and Jake Sisko are three distinct individuals, there's a thread of familial love, caring, respect, and at times, disagreement, that rang true throughout the series. They were family in the best sense. I am disappointed that there was not a scene with Joseph Sisko in the final episode. I'm sure he had thoughts about his son being with the Prophets, his new daughter-in-law, and the prospect of another grandchild.
This isn't an exhaustive list. There are other characters I love -- like Ishka, and interesting characters -- like Tain.
I'm mostly satisfied with the DS9 series finale. Many of the characters going their separate ways at that point made sense. The Dominion war was over. The Klingons were friends with the Federation, again. The Romulans were sort of friends with the Federation. It was a good time for some characters to pursue new opportunities.
Bajor hadn't yet joined the Federation by the end of DS9, but that made sense. Bajor was still re-building from the Cardassian occupation. The Cardassians had just become less of a threat due to that society's near annihilation. Bajor running to sign up with the Federation as soon as the Dominion war ended wouldn't have rang true to me. Not the least of reasons being Bajor making it through that war by not joining the Federation. I can see that giving the Bajorans pause.
Odo's fate is iffy for me. I get that Odo would want to save his people. The Changelings were alien enough that I could buy them giving up on trying to dominate, well, everything and everyone. But, the idea that the Federation, especially Starfleet, would allow Odo to cure his people rang false to me. The Federation could be hella shady, from TOS onward. Case in point, they tried genocide as a way to stop the Dominion. Even though healing Odo's people was likely part of the treaty, I still don't fully buy the Federation going along with it.
My least favorite part of the finale was Benjamin Sisko's fate. Okay, the Emissary won the day for the Prophets. Bye-bye Pah-wraiths, forever (supposedly). The Prophets snatched Sisko from the jaws of death. So that he could ... I don't know what. Was his ending up in the realm of the Prophets a better conclusion than the Prophets putting him back with Kasidy and Jake? For me, no. The Prophets are very powerful. There seemed to be little, if anything, they couldn't do. Sure, there's lots they aren't willing to do, but that's not the same as being incapable. Sisko told Kasidy something along the lines of he could return in a year, or yesterday. Okay. So, why didn't the "we don't live by linear time" Prophets return Sisko to that moment with Kasidy, with Sisko changed by whatever the heck the Prophets had him doing. Eh. It's just an unsatisfying part of the finale for me.
All in all, I think Star Trek: Deep Space 9 is an outstanding series, with an amazing cast and creative team work. I enjoy it! Thank you for taking time to read my thoughts. 🖖🏾
CC: @Still_Nimmy
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