From: v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Preview Article
Date: 21 Nov 92 05:07:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


     This is part of an article on television science fiction I
     wrote for UB's "Generation" magazine.  I'd appreciate some
     feedback if anybody is inclined.

                         STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
                                [sidebar #1]

          No Captain Picard.  No Starship Enterprise.
          In fact, no captain AT ALL.  No Starship... AT ALL.
          Welcome to DEEP SPACE NINE, a decaying space station nestled
     at the center of a hotbed of interstellar volatility.  Welcome also
     to Paramount's new STAR TREK series, the third to bear that name,
     and potentially, the most interesting.
          Deep Space Nine orbits the planet Bajor, home of a race so 
     ancient it was building massive citis and making great scientific
     breakthroughs before mankind was standing erect; home also, for the
     past two centuries, to the occupying forces of the Cardassian Empire.
     Most Bajorans were scattered to refugee and concentration camps,
     making it easier for the invaders to strip-mine the planet.
          This is all familiar to NEXT GENERATION viewers, primarily
     through Bajoran Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes), who grew up in the
     refugee camps and joined TNG's cast last season.  And it is all
     about to change.
          In a two-part episode of TNG called "Chain of Command" and in
     the two-hour DEEP SPACE NINE pilot -- all four hours of which air 
     between Christmas and the first week in January -- the Cardassians
     complete their massive strip-mining operations, lost a strategic
     skirmish with Bajoran rebels and, finally aceding to Federation
     political pressure, end the occupation.
          Faced for the first time in 200 years with self-rule, the
     Bajorans do the only natural thing: they ask the Federation for help.
     Help comes as a team of Starfleet, civilian and Bajoran personnel,
     who set up shop on Deep Space Nine to keep the peace through transition
     and assist the new Bajoran government through the difficult task of
     applying for Federation membership.
          Commandere Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), who runs the show, lost
     his wife during the Borg Invasion three seasons ago and would rather
     be on the ground somewhere spending more time with his son, Jake
     (Cirroc Lofton).  His entirely untrustworthy first officer is a former
     Bajoran rebel, Major Kira (Nana Visitor, whose resemblance to Michelle
     Forbes is mere coincidence) who dislikes the Federation almost as much
     as she dislikes the Cardassians.  Science Officer Dax (Terry Farrell)
     looks like a Calvin Klein model but is really just the host for a
     tiny, 300-year old organism -- a Trill -- living inside her.  Siddig
     El Fadil is Doctor Bashir, a brash Arab just out of Starfleet Medical
     (top of the class); he thinks he's ready for anything.  He's not.
          Add a shapeshifter, Odo (Rene Auberjonois), as the security
     officer who doesn't know where he's from but is intent on keeping the
     peace at the station's wild Promenade (among other amenities, the
     Promenade features a brothel where the whores are holograms); and
     Armin Shimmerman as Quark, the Ferengi bartender who OWNS said
     brothel, and the mixture takes on a little spice.
          Rounding out the new ensemble are a couple of transfers from the
     Enterprise.  CPO Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) has manned the transporter
     on THE NEXT GENERATION almost since the series' inception, but sees
     this new assignment (and the promotion it comes with) as a major
     career opportunity.  His wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao) isn't so sure
     and worries about what effect the drastic change in environment will
     have on their daughter, Molly (as well as wondering what work there
     would be on DS9 for a laboratory botanist).
          "We Made the DEEP SPACE characters a little less squeaky clean,"
     says executive producer Rick Breman in a recent ENTERTAINMENT
     WEEKLY interview.  "Gene Roddenberry [STAR TREK's late creator] had
     a rule on NEXT GENERATION that there couldn't be conflict among the
     show's permanent characters.  He wanted a 24th century in which 
     everybody in the Federation got along.  But that made writing the 
     show extremely difficult.  So... we've given more of an edge to
     them.  And we've put them in a difficult environment -- in a
     place that doesn't look so much like a TWA waiting room."
          It's an environment that's about to become even more difficult.
     A stable wormhole, the first of its kind, is discovered on the 
     outskirts of the Bajoran system -- near the Cardassian line --
     at the installation of Federation sensor technology.  The wormhole
     provides instant passage to a distant, and unknown, quadrant on
     the other side of the galaxy and Deep Space Nine suddenly has under
     its juridstiction the most important sector in the Federation.
          And a new frontier to explore.


     [Entire article titled "The Final Frontier on The Small Screen.]

     Thanks for reading!            
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