I’m well overdue to add to my Star Trek rankings even though there’s no end in sight for new series and new seasons coming out of the franchise making updated rankings something of a Sisyphean task.
Not only that, I fully plan to continue adding “viewing guides” like I did for Enterprise, for people who want to boldly explore a Star Trek series or introduce someone to it: all without being bogged down in a Briar Patch of less-than-stellar episodes.
In fact, Deep Space Nine may be the next viewing guide, as it remains my favorite Star Trek series, and more people ought to be introduced to it. Here’s a fun video list of some of the reasons why.
Now, having mentioned my love for the series, I don’t think it’s necessarily the first Star Trek to introduce to people. That’s because I find some of best parts of DS9 are where it comments –often in subtle fashion– on Star Trek’s enduring hopeful themes as well as the shades of grey necessary to uphold Federation ideals. One of the best examples of this came in the season 4 opener where they got to have a scene which had great character interplay, was very pertinent to the plot of the episode, but also gave us this: