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Star Trek: The Next Generation had successfully returned

the franchise to television,
and flourished.

How true.

The syndicated model
had worked so well for Next Generation.

Even on the business side
of things.

Next Generation was
this amazing paradigm shift.

Paramount knew that they had
a cash cow in Star Trek,

So Paramount did
what any studio does with its prized cow.

Indubitably.

Milk it
for all its worth.

We were a few seasons
into Next Generation when they said,

"Let's get another show."

This is the story of
how Deep Space Nine

attempted to take Star Trek
somewhere it had never been.

A space station.

- In other words...
- It's not a starship boldly going.

- So even though...
- Some things are still the same.

...most things
were very different.

So beam aboard,
and hold on tight

as we boldly go
into the depths of Star Trek.

And you can see it all
from here. in The Center Seat.

With the death
of Gene Roddenberry in 1991,

the next chapter
of the Star Trek saga on TV

would be untouched
by its creator.

But Star Trek was now
in the hands of Rick Berman,

someone Gene trusted
more than anyone.

I felt it was my responsibility
to keep Gene's optimism alive.

Which,
as the new series approached, was easier said than done.

One of the biggest bugaboos driving writers crazy

was the idea of Gene's
"Perfect humans."

How do you have conflict
among characters

and have it be Star Trek
and its perfect humans

In the advanced
24th century world?

There was
another problem, too.

We can't have two
Star Trek ships out at the same time.

Do you want to "confuse
the audience?"

With another ship show?

With The Next Generation still on the air,

the network was looking
for something different.

They've got
the well-oiled machine up and running,

Their problem was
how to distinguish it,

to go where you hadn't
gone before.

-Meaning...
-It can't be

just about going
from planet to planet and solving problems,

you know,
with aliens in space.

So Rick Berman and showrunner Michael Piller,

came up with
something exactly opposite.

Let's do it on a space station.

Let's not be locked
onto an Enterprise.

The premise,
as Michael Piller used to explain it was

"The action is gonna
come to us."

It's like Dodge City,
you know, in Gunsmoke.

And immediately now,
you're telling a story

that is different
to what has gone before.

Well, different.

That's what the network wanted.

This is where
the adventurer is.

No sooner
had the adventure begun

than the worries set in.

Every new challenge
to come up with an original Star Trek

is fraught with worry.

Are we making it too different?

You know, it was
a little bit risky.

And some of it
is just gonna be...

We're gonna have
a certain aspect of the audience

that's just gonna be so,
you know, bullheaded,

that they won't come
and accept something new.

Although risky, the writers were more than ready

to explore
this new style of Star Trek.

Let's push the boundaries
and see what are the edges.

What are the limitations
of what Star Trek can be?

Someone
who was very interested in pushing the edges

with both his writing
and his beard color,

was Next Generation writer
Ira Behr.

Man, he was just into it.

I don't know how else to say it.

And coming over
to Deep Space Nine,

Ira brought some bold ideas.

Ira got very involved
in wanting to do

long strings
of continuing episodes.

Which is now
bingeworthy TV.

But since the original series,
Star Trek had made its name

as an episodic epic.

That follows a definite pattern.

The minute
you have serialization, you have lots of arcs going.

You can't miss those things.

At this point in television,
you know, almost everything was episodic.

Yeah. When will we learn?

There were very few
serialized shows.

Dallas was a serialized show.
Dynasties, a serialized show.

Primetime soap operas.

The studio wanted
a fresh approach, but not that fresh.

The studio said no.

Paramount feared
viewers would be adrift in this new Star Trek universe.

These shows were
going to be syndicated.

They were not necessarily
going to be syndicated in order.

The independent stations,
they don't want to have to be

locked into doing these
in the order that we give it to them.

They want to be able
to show them

in whatever order they want
that suits their market,

because this is important
for their ratings

and they just want
to mix them up.

And they wanted
standalone episodes.

And even though...

Ira was very good at
talking me into doing what he wanted to do,

...he wasn't that good.

The studio absolutely said no.

Okay, well, that's the last we'll hear of that.

Most likely.

It may not have been ready
for serialized plotlines,

but Star Trek was ready
for something else far more groundbreaking.

Your hero's a Negro captain.

Avery being the first
African-American captain, of a Star Trek series like this,

in that day and age,
was a big deal.

People won't accept it.
It's not believable.

It just didn't happen.

It was exciting to know
that we were gonna change history, really, with that.

This was before
there was a black president.

So this was this was really
groundbreaking at the time.

Not only did Starfleet have its first commander of color,

but unlike the captains
before him, Benjamin Sisko

was carrying a lot of baggage.

He was coming aboard
with a very specific, complicated backstory.

And so we start
with a captain losing his wife...

Damn it! We just
can't leave her here!

...being left with his son...

I was just thinking
how much you look like your mom.

Not only would
Sisko be unlike any captain before him.

He believes Captain Picard
is personally responsible

for the death of his wife.

And he now has
to come to terms with all that.

Otherwise, he has
no future at all.

But he does not wish
to be among us.

In that sense, he's very much
like Captain Pike, in The Cage.

I'm tired of being responsible
for 203 lives.

By choosing all these elements.

Michael Piller set up
the incredible possibilities for this character,

But creating
a complex, conflicted captain.

would prove to be
a double-edged sword.

That was a difficult fit
for Star Trek.

Like that's not
how a Starfleet captain should be.

Avery Brooks audition,

though he didn't know it
at the time,

turned out to be
a previous production

that showcased
his emotional range.

I had done a movie
of the week for show time.

There was a version
of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Nobody can buy my soul.

Avery came off
as an incredibly powerful man

with hurt, with damage,
which works perfectly for Sisko.

But Paramount was
on a different page.

The studio wanted Sisko
to be somebody else.

They didn't think Avery
was charismatic enough.

They wanted Kirk
and they wanted Picard.

And I think they didn't realize

that no one was
writing Kirk or Picard, they were writing Sisko.

This was going to
require an intervention.

So I went to Junie Lowry,
the casting director,

and I said, "Avery Brooks."

And she said, "Yeah,
we talked about Avery Brooks.

"He's down in the Caribbean.
He's on a vacation."

I said, "So what?"

"Send him the script.

"We're talking about a man
who could have a job for seven years."

"You don't think
he'd want to read this script on vacation?"

She says, "Okay,
I'll send him the script."

And in the end...

I was ready to die with her.

...Avery's talent
could not be ignored.

We settled on Avery Brooks
because he was the best.

He was the best captain.

And this captain's leadership
would be tested as much off the bridge as on it.

by a 15-year old.

I was instructed to
not be like Will Wheaton and Wesley Crusher.

He was too much of
a problem solver/know-it-all.

and they wanted my character

to be more human and fallible,
just like a regular kid.

And Cirroc
did have one advantage.

I think I avoided
the trap of being another Wesley Crusher

by not knowing
about Wesley Crusher.

So you can't imitate something
that you have no idea of.

Want to go for a swim?

Like
The Next Generation before it,

Deep Space Nine imagined
real life family struggles in the 24th century.

This the food replicator.

And this dose
of 20th century reality

was more alien
to American television than even the weirdest aliens.

How often did you see
a single father

raising a child in those days
of television? Not very often.

So Paramount
would be getting just what they wanted.

A very different Star Trek,
with a very different captain,

Captaining
a very different starship.

It's not a starship.

It's a station.

Space station?

Indeed, the days
of the Enterprise were over,

and Captain Sisko would need
a station to captain.

It's very difficult to come
by that station's design.

There was a huge
evolution to it all.

And it's a whole different approach.

We were going about
the station as being a kind of Tower of Babel place

that was built over
a long period of time by several cultures.

So we started doing
sketching of things

that looked like
an alien platform with different levels

and different hardware
hanging off and places for ships to dock.

So we had these crazy designs.

In the end,
producers decided the solution to this space station dilemma

was a simple matter of
Keeping up with the Cardassians.

I'm allowed to do
whatever I want.

No, no, no.
The Cardassians.

You can understand
that we are... skeptical.

When it was
finally decided it would be a Cardassian station,

that was still a blank slate.
What did that look like?

You have to
start thinking like Cardassian.

Who knows
how Cardassians think?

But Rick Berman knew one thing
about Cardassian architecture.

Rick Berman rightly said
"You know, this should be

"a shape that any kid
watching the show could draw in a few strokes.

All right, I haven't got
a title for this one yet. Anybody got any ideas?

And eventually
came around to

"Maybe the station could be
kind of a wheel."

The circular station
with a hub, you know, with a core,

made a lot of sense.

At the end of the process,
the station looked very alien.

The model for Deep Space Nine
was six feet around

and it was the most
beautiful model.

The designers had
reinvented the wheel for space.

There were like
cogs in the wheel.

They actually had cogs,
and rolled in the cogged floor.

Herman built,
up until that point,

the largest
standing interior set ever made for Star Trek

That's the Promenade.

You walked on,
and you were enveloped.

You came on the set,
and it was hard not to think

that you were on
the space station.

And that everything was
fully functional.

It was beautiful,

Beautiful, unusual.

It was like nothing Star Trek
had seen before.

Unfortunately...

Deep Space Nine
and Babylon Five,

they came about
right about the same time.

Babylon Five, like Star Trek,
was set on a space station.

Excuse me, but I'm
in the middle of 15 things, all of them annoying.

I think that there were
a lot of people who thought

that one stole from
the other and that Star Trek was ripping off Babylon Five.

And it certainly
didn't help that Babylon Five

had already been pitched
to Paramount.

J. Michael Straczynski'd
come in,

pitched what we all now know
is Babylon five.

Not every dream
I've had lately ends well for you.

Paramount turned it down.

Straczynski,
I believe he thought that Star Trek was ripping him off.

Deeps Space Nine
ripping off Babylon Five.

I sincerely doubt it.
I really do.

The idea of a space station
is not an original idea.

It's an obvious thing to do.

I just think that those
are ironic similarities.

Similarities
that ended there.

Because Deep Space Nine
was forging ahead, boldly going into the future.

With a big cast, big set and big expectations,

shooting on the pilot began
in August of 1992,

with The Next Generation
alumnus David Carson, in the director's chair.

It wasn't the first pilot
that I had done, but it was certainly the biggest.

Also big with the stakes.

I had this meeting
with production people at Paramount,

who said to me,
"This is the first time

"we're doing a Star Trek series
without Gene Roddenberry."

Paramount feared
that if Deep Space Nine ventured too far

from Star Trek's traditions,
the fans might desert them.

There is that risk.

So,
the studio instructions were crystal clear.

"This pilot,
and this series is very important to Paramount.

"So we want you to know
that it's very important that we get it right."

And, of course,
a director on a pilot isn't just coming in for the week.

Getting an episode together
and helping--

A director in a pilot
really sets the tone. - Cut!

David had
his work cut out for him.

with a complicated pilot script
called Emissary.

The Emissary was
such a difficult story to tell.

And David
needed to get it right from the very first frame.

The first has scene
that I shot of Deep Space Nine

was the scene on the bridge.

And there was a lot of movement
in the scene.

So I thought, "this is
a great way for us all to get to know this bridge."

So I followed them around
on a crane.

It was problematic.

And it caused Livingston
to come and tell me

"What am I doing?
You're still doing this shot at lunchtime."

Because I had to represent
the production end, and I had to come at him

and tell him, "David,
you've got to move on."

He didn't want to,
and a lot of times he didn't.

Damn it, what's the problem?

That problem
was to do with some awkward introductions.

He had a lot of characters
to introduce.

Who the hell are you?

And they were all not
cookie cutter type of people.

There were all kinds of people
that we had really never seen before.

Some weren't
really people at all.

The Trill is implanted,
it's ancient.

You've got trying
to figure out that relationship.

A symbiotic
relationship between

basically an ancient
asexual slug

and an alien race
called the Trill played by Terry Farrell.

Deep Space Nine
was not just about man.

It was about a whole bunch
of different races and species.

And for
the actors who played these races and species,

well, even some of them
were a little lost.

I think,
"There's been a mistake. This is a man's role.

"It's not written
for a woman."

And that was my conditioning.

Nana Visitor
was invited to read

for the character of
a Bajoran revolutionary.

She found the way
it was written revolutionary.

Science fiction needs more strong women characters.

I'm always saying that,
aren't I, Jules?

She wasn't
smoothed out.

She wasn't reasonable
all the time.

She wasn't controllable.

She didn't care about
how she was perceived.

She cared about
how she lived her life more and what goals she had

and how she met those.

And too bad
if people didn't like her.

Nana took
that exact attitude into her audition as Kira.

There was a long table
with Rick Berman and me

and two other people
sitting around behind it,

and she stormed into the room,
really, and started reading.

I think it was the first scene
with Commander Sisko.

I don't believe the Federation
has any business being here.

I was pretty pissed off
in that scene.

When she got hold
of these chairs

and started to throw them
around the room.

And it was extraordinary.
And we sat there going,

"Wow, this is really
is a revolutionary who wants to be doing stuff."

I remember terrifying
someone in the room.

And then she did her last line,

banged her hands
on the table top

and glared at us
as if to challenge, say, "Okay, I got it, right?"

And turned and walked
out of the room.

And she was right. She got it.
That was it.

Despite
a spirited audition, Nana was conflicted.

I was
so excited to get it. I wanted to do it, so badly,

and my manager said,
"It's science fiction.

"Don't take this one.
It's going to ruin your career."

I thought long
and hard about it, and I refused the job.

At first, I got a call
from one of the producers,

and he talked about the level

and who else was cast,
and that did it for me.

I'll find a way
to make it happen.

The aggressive
audition technique

that had worked for Nana
was all the rage...

Rene Auberjonois
came in, stalked into the room,

shut the door firmly behind him.

...with some cast members
virtually demanding their roles.

He didn't say hello to anybody.
Just, when he'd finished,

he finished his last line,
turned his back,

walked through the door,
and slammed it behind him.

He came in with
the body posture and the attitude

and everything that was Odo.
It was wild.

He was as rude
as he could possibly be to all of us.

And that, that was Odo.

You're going to
get sloppy without me to keep an eye on you.

I don't think so.

Armin Shimerman
reprised his Ferengi act from The Next Generation,

but this time as Quark,

and was now an occasionally
affable bartender.

I would like to discuss
arranging the line of credit.

The Cardassians had come over from the Next Generation too.

But the inscrutable Garak,
played by Andrew Robinson,

was derived in part
from an unlikely inspiration.

I played Liberace once
on a TV movie.

I've a wonderful time.

There was
something about Garak

that always was reminding me,

he was, he became
kind of Liberace's cousin.

I do appreciate
making new friends whenever I can.

But the main
influence for Garak, a Cardassian spy,

drew on contemporary literature.

Conceptually,
Garak was a character out of a Le Carre novel.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
was a common reference point

in the writer's room.
Garak was created with that in mind.

If you can't beat it,
spy on it.

Which may explain
Garrett's other peculiarities.

I have a clothing shop nearby.

For Garak to end up
on Deep Space Nine, and as a tailor,

it's one of the most bizarre
dramatic situations.

Dr. Bashir, isn't it?

Alexander Siddig
provided Star Trek with...

Hmm, arguably its first
truly dashing doctor

as its Chief Medical Officer,
Julian Bashir.

Dr. Bashir is
this wide eyed, idealistic Starfleet officer.

This is where
the adventurer is.

Siddig, he was just terrific.

I think we all agreed on him
as soon as he arrived.

Along with
Irish actor Colm Meaney...

Another new train of disruption.

...who played Chief Engineer
Miles O'Brien.

He represented
every man, you know, the working guy,

the guy
who got his hands dirty.

Even though it was all this
computerized stuff.

You knew that he'd look good
with a wrench in his hand.

That was a lot of characters
in the first episode,

something that posed
quite a challenge for the director.

What the hell is
happening out there?

Very often,
directors on television are trying to come in on budget.

They've got a lot of pressure.

And they are going to
try to move you through as fast as possible.

That's good enough.

Well, they didn't
come in on budget nor on schedule.

Don't ask my opinion
next time.

So much so,
David fell behind

with the feature length
special-effects-laden premier.

Emissary
went over budget.

We went over schedule.

This is outrageous.

Paramount was soon breathing down the young director's neck.

He did get a lot of crap
from the studio

about falling behind schedule
and about going over budget.

But in
David's defense...

It's the hardest pilot
I've ever done.

And unfortunately, the director
has to take the wrath.

It's show business.

Exactly. So what
would the audience think?

You will disarm your weapons.

The pilot for Deep Space Nine premiered on January 3rd, 1993.

And the music comes on.

It started very strongly.

And all I could think of was,
"That's what we made?"

And I was impressed.
I was like, "Wow."

I found it beautiful.
I found it powerful.

Critics
lauded its ambition.

And I think when we made it,
it was the most expensive pilot on record, a lot of money.

12 million dollars
to be precise.

They spent so much money
on the pilot that they didn't have a lot of money after that.

So they did a bunch
of bottle shows on the space station.

Bottle shows
are shot primarily

in one location to save money.

And it fed into this mythology

that this was a show
that boldly goes nowhere.

While shooting
in one location reduced costs,

the makeup budget was going
in the opposite direction.

Oh. Oh.

Even by
Star Trek standards,

there were more
alien races than you could shake a phaser at.

Klingons and Cardassians and Romulans,

much less the Ferengi,

much less the Aliens
of the Week.

We grew, in the writer's room,

to really love
the world building of those cultures.

Every episode gave you
another opportunity

to discover something new,
to serve something richer.

So we really got in
and built their worlds out

in much bigger ways
than Next Gen or the original series.

But the more alien stories the writers dreamed up,

the more makeup,
which was becoming...

In a way, off the wall
and kind of whacky,

and it had
so many challenges that were so great.

And so expensive.

Keeping up with the Cardassians
was proving costly.

The Cardassians
were part of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It was improved upon greatly.

Improved upon by
master makeup magician Michael Westmore,

who now had his hands very full

as head of makeup
for The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

We had a thing called
the Westmore Alien.

Westmore Alien was
boxes of noses

and heads and ears
from previous aliens.

And that is good enough for me.

But for
the non-randomly put together aliens...

The Jem'Hadar had are often
one step ahead of the Vorta.

I always had something
in Earth

that the people
could associate with, but they didn't know.

It's like the Jem'Hadar was
a little bit of dinosaur and rhinoceros.

And you can see it's like,
"Where do you put the horn?"

The horn was their hair
in the back of their head.

For Michael,
Deep Space Nine's aliens were his canvas.

Did you tell him about
that slug inside of you?

Yes, Benjamin.
He knows I'm a Trill.

With Terry Farrell.
I spotted them, by hand.

It'd take me 20 minutes.

But most
procedures took quite a bit longer than that.

That mother outfit.

My makeup took
over four hours.

It was like being entombed.

"Get me out of here."

For some,
the rigorous makeup routine

was just a way
to get into character.

They'd have us
come in early, get our makeup on

and wait for our scenes.

So I would walk
around Paramount.

And it was one of the best ways
to prepare for being a Bajoran

who's looked at with prejudice.

Because no one was
really aware there was a new Star Trek filming

and I'd get double takes,
and I get people looking at my nose.

And after a while,
it would piss me off, would be like, "What?"

And that attitude,
I definitely brought to Kira.

Commander, let's
not be confused here.

My loyalties are to Bajor.

Well, no one
would question that.

But when it came
to what Nana was wearing,

well, that was a little
on the nose.

Bob Blackman gave it
such a look and such a texture to the whole show.

Nana,

she needed to appeal to
the 18-43 year old group more.

And so we need to put her
into spandex-like fabric

that was form fitting,
and she had a great figure.

It's not necessarily comfortable.

I didn't love being
in orange latex.

Oh, I love a woman in uniform.

But it wasn't
just Nana's uniform that was stretched thin.

As Season One
turned into Season Two,

the writers were feeling
stretched as well.

We're still trying to repair
all the damage your forces did before they left

Because the station
didn't go anywhere,

stories that you did last week
were still kind of with you this week

because those people
were still here.

And despite
the clear instructions from the studio

regarding
serialized plotlines...

The studio absolutely said no.

...there was really
no way to avoid it.

As a result, you had
ongoing relationships and ongoing stories

that you had to
pay attention to.

And despite Ira clearly starting to get his way,

the audience wasn't so sure.

There were a lot of people
who didn't like the way it was going.

The fact that it was serialized.

A defiant
slap in the face to the studio,

which promptly slapped
the show right back.

because,
as they initially said...

These shows were not necessarily
gonna be syndicated in order.

And they wanted
standalone episodes.

Which meant
for viewers...

Who knows when you're gonna
be able to see it, much less when you can record it.

A lot of the audience gave up.

Poor ratings confirmed Paramount's worst fears.

The studio
was concerned about the ratings.

They wanted something
that was equaling,

and then, ideally,
surpassing Next Generation.

Well, as it happens,

The Next Generation
was ending its seven year run,

leaving Deep Space Nine adrift
and all by its lonesome.

Now I know we're doomed.

For all the fans at the time,
who loved to say,

"Oh, yeah, DS9.
It's the show that doesn't go anywhere.

Because there wasn't
a starship,

it had a little trouble
finding its place as a Star Trek show.

Paramount
wanted more from its most valuable property.

They want some change.
They want to see a spike in the ratings.

They want to see bigger
popularity for the series.

They wanted
to match the success of Next Generation.

And short of importing
key personnel over from The Next Generation,

Deep Space Nine...

Actually, maybe they should
bring some people over from The Next Generation.

Like senior writer Ron Moore.

When I came on
in the third season,

I was really
a little burned out at TNG, by the time the show ended,

and I was I was happy
and grateful

to start doing something new,

and it was a very
different challenge, you know,

and I was,
I was really energized by it.

Perhaps even
a little "defiant,"

an issue that Rick Berman,

the keeper of Gene's vision,
was more than aware of.

You know, he knew we'd been
straining at the at the leash for quite a while.

And now Gene's gone,
and I think he just sensed

that, "Okay, these guys
are wild people.

"They'll just, like,
destroy this thing"

if he didn't hold
the reins really tight.

And in Ron Moore's
first defiant act...

They created the Defiant
so that they could go away from the station.

Release docking clamps,
aft thrusters at one quarter,

port and starboard
at station keeping.

So, Star Trek
pimped its own ride

with a brand new battleship
and a revised mission.

Let's give Sisko a ship.
Let's see him getting out there.

The Defiant was a prototype,
the first ship in what would've been

a new Federation battle fleet.

The ship was new,

but in launching it,
Star Trek was actually returning to its roots.

Stand by, weapons and shields.

Oh, look, it's
the Star Trek crew

getting off on a ship
and doing stuff.

Well, that's the DNA
of Star Trek all along.

Thank you for finally
figuring that out.

And just to make sure
no one missed that Star Trek was back on track,

producers threw in
a little shock and awe.

Fire!

It's got Gatling gun phasers.
Oh, my God.

They may have
gained some Gatling guns,

but in Season Three,

the Big Gun, Michael Piller,
the showrunner, would depart,

leaving Deep Space Nine's
future uncertain.

With the new
injection of talent

from the wildly popular
Star Trek: The Next Generation...

Wild.

Helping me go crazy.

...showrunner
Michael Piller had left to work

on other upcoming
Star Trek projects.

That was good news
for Ira Behr,

who would finally
have his chance to take the reins as showrunner.

We gave more and more input
to Ira Behr,

who was one of our top writers.

So that took
a lot of the load off of us.

Ira, 'the-bluebeard-genius'
Behr.

He is phenomenal.

You never know what color
his beard is going to be from day to day.

He was beyond energized.
He was just on fire.

And despite
his bright beard...

As the series went on,
they certainly went to darker places.

They had a lot more
shades of grey.

Not everything was
black and white on our show.

Not everything is
black and white in life.

And I found it very true.

But Ira was shooting
for more than truth.

Ira wanted more warfare,
more violence.

My feeling was
it strayed a little bit far from Gene's ideals

and his hopes of what
the future was going to be.

And as a result, Ira and I
had a number of disagreements.

But the darker hues
of the rejuvenated Deep Space Nine

seemed to leave its audience
in a dark place, too.

We've added the Defiant and that makes, ooh, action,

and yet the viewer numbers,
the ratings, aren't going up.

And so,
for Season Four,

they just brought in
more people from The Next Generation.

Michael Dorn was brought over
to try and bring over some of that flavor.

Must be an exciting prospect.

They wanted to
juice the show in some capacity.

So, you know, bring over
a TNG character.

Look who's here.

Unfortunately,
Klingons are not known

for blending easily
into their environments.

It took a little while
for him to warm up to us, you know,

because he was almost
like his character.

Like, "I will not talk to you
unless it's necessary."

What more is there to say?

My only fear was that
they were going to replace me with Michael Dorn.

I really, really
worried about that.

And that did not happen.

For the writers, Worf
was just as unwelcome.

I do apologize again
for the inconvenience.

I felt the hand of the studio,
forcing us to do something

that wasn't organic to the show.

But if they feel this strongly,
let's try to make them happy

so that we could do the things
we really want to do.

Okay, let's find
something interesting

and new to do with Worf
that we haven't done until now.

It will be a glorious adventure.

When Worf failed to bring

The Next Generation level
ratings to Deep Space Nine...

It continues to struggle
in the ratings.

Not even
Captain Sisko's Season Four makeover

could bring in the viewers.

Avery was trying to
find the character at the same time,

and part of it was his look.

I couldn't agree more.

But the studio
couldn't agree at all.

You know, Avery
wanted to shave his head and have the goatee.

The studio, they
didn't want to do that.

Rick didn't want
to do that, either.

But it's Starfleet now on DS9.

And he's got to have
the clean cut Starfleet look

and have the, you know,
the pointed sideburns and the whole thing.

It's like, "Come on.
Come on!"

Ira fought really hard

to let him shave his head
and let him have the goatee

because Ira felt it makes
Avery comfortable in his skin.

After all,
the more heroic the lead,

the greater the chance
of hero-worthy ratings.

Avery Brooks's
biggest claim to fame before DS9

was playing Hawk
on Spenser: For Hire.

The name is Hawk.

He was a hero in my community.

Yeah.

I prefer the bald Avery Brooks

because there's power
in that baldness.

And it gave him authority.

There's no question,
bald with the goatee is the best Sisko.

Well,
he would say that.

There's no guarantee of that!

Deep Space Nine
had weathered four years of disappointment.

And neither Worf's
whimsical ways, Captain Sisko's shiny head,

nor Ira's blue beard
were enough

to stop Star Trek trying
one last thing.

Unfortunately, it had nothing
to do with Deep Space Nine.

They got busy
with the next show.

Paramount had already begun
developing Star Trek: Voyager,

putting DS9
further in the shade.

Well, we were never
the shiny new thing.

So the idea of
Voyager coming along was like,

"Yeah, they're gonna
try again because they didn't get it with us."

And because
they were network, they got more money,

bigger budget, better trailers.

The whole gambit.

Their craft service
was amazing, hair--

I mean, everything
that could be better was better for Voyager.

We were sitting there
like "Wait, wait a minute.

"We've been here for,
you know, all this time.

"How come we didn't get
the brand new trailers?"

Not everything
was better,

but let's not
get ahead of ourselves.

Producer Ira Behr felt his show
had been abandoned by Paramount brass,

and left to fend for itself
in the war of ratings.

He just felt like Voyager
was getting all the attention for being a "network show"

and no one, he felt like
no one was paying attention to little DS9.

Oh. No one is
paying attention, you say?

With Paramount no longer
breathing down its neck,

DS9 had a unique opportunity
to spread its wings.

At some point, Paramount
just threw up their hands.

Paramount left us alone.

"The show is still dark.
The ratings are okay.

"They're never gonna
pick up the ratings."

"Ah, whatever, let them
do whatever they want."

And they just started
leaving us alone.

DS9 got to do pretty much
what it wanted to do.

With
a free hand creatively, DS9 was able to ask

questions of itself,
of Star Trek, and ultimately, of its audience.

For example, in the episode
Far Beyond the Stars,

they asked a lot of questions.

That was one of the most
special episodes.

Take a look at these readings.

Are you gonna
buy that or not?

It was a period piece.

We're talking about
police brutality.

Stop it! Stop it!

This was
a special subject matter

that you wanted to make sure
you were getting right.

I am a human being, dammit.

In case you haven't been
paying attention to the headlines,

but it hasn't gone away.

Star Trek is the future.

And that means
that these people were writing these,

they are hopeful in heart
that the future,

people will eventually
see the world the way the world truly is.

Things are going to change.
They have to.

This was
the original Star Trek ethos

of infinite diversity,
warts and all.

The world full of people who have red skin,

brown skin, black skin
and white skin,

and if any skin I left out,
that's in that too.

But don't worry,
Ira, Ron, and the writers were not done yet.

Let's push further
than anyone thinks we can.

Let's challenge
what Star Trek is.

How good is the Federation?

Don't they have
their own problems?

What happens when they face
this kind of prices? What about this?

Well,
Ron was about to get the chance to find out.

With Ira Behr
in the driver's seat...

That's when we really
started to feel like we were a sailing ship

and Ira was at the wheel.

A wheel that Ira
had been spinning in the background

for quite a while.

Because if you remember...

Ira got very involved

in wanting to do long strings
of continuing episodes.

The studio absolutely said no.

But with the studio's
attention elsewhere,

Ira really only had
Rick to convince.

That wouldn't be
too much of a problem.

Ira was really good at pulling
the wool over your eyes.

He would say,
"We're not going to have

"a continual
long series of episodes that aren't standalone."

And all of a sudden,
they would occur.

Ira had planted
the seed of one such arc

way back in Season Two
right here.

Let's just say if you want
to do business in the Gamma Quadrant,

you have to do business
with the Dominion.

The Dominion? What's that?

With this tiny
mention of "The Dominion,"

Ira would spawn one of
Deep Space Nine's biggest arching plot lines.

You belong to the Dominion,
don't you?

Which would
not only fly in the face of the network's wishes...

It will keep you strong,

...but possibly
Gene Roddenberry's as well.

The Dominion.
Rick said so at the time,

he said, "Gene would
absolutely have killed the story."

But we were able to get it done,
and we did talk him into it.

And so, you know,
even though he would draw these lines,

he was willing to kind of
move the lines

and move the goalposts with us
every once in a while

to kind of, 'cause
he could recognize that this was a really good story.

Ron Moore
and Ira Behr were waging a war on Star Trek tradition.

They would push
the series' boundaries into new territory

with a Season Six
'Dominion War' episode

that was unlike anything
Star Trek had done before.

I can see
where it all went wrong.

In the Pale Moonlight.
It's a controversial episode.

Michael Taylor wrote
the first draft.

That's freelance writer Michael Taylor,

who would later
join the writing staff.

We were having trouble
making it work.

And it got handed to me
and I came up with

the wraparound structure
and Sisko talking to the camera.

Captain's Personal Log.

Recording a captain's log,

and that that was
gonna be the frame.

Maybe if I just laid it
all out in my log,

it'll finally makes sense.

Ron Moore thought
the title of the episode made sense too.

Because everybody knows
about the pale moonlight. Right?

When I wrote that title,

I was under the impression
that that was just a saying.

You ever dance with the devil
in the pale moonlight?

And everybody kept
coming up to me and saying,

"Oh, so it's
a Batman reference?"

And I said, "No."
I mean, "No, it's not.

"It's not about Batman.
It's just about the phrase,

"about the saying,
'Dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.'"

And then later
came to find that, well, it's not really a phrase.

It's really just something
that was said in Batman.

I just like the sound of it.

Whatever
Ron thought it meant,

the episode was
a radical departure,

with Star Trek's heroes
taking a devilish turn.

I was going to bring
the Romulans into the war.

The Dominion War.

With the Federation losing,

Captain Sisko
conspires with Garak in a dance of disinformation.

It was willing
to push characters

into darker,
more ambiguous territory than the other Star Treks did.

You have Sisko and Garak

both engaged in this really
untoward tale of darkness.

And it may be

a very messy,
very bloody business.

When Sisko asks him for help,

he has a pretty good idea

of the lengths to which
Garak is going to go.

Sometimes fairness
doesn't win the day.

And there are dirty tricks
that have to be used.

You knew I could do
those things that you weren't capable of doing.

So,
perhaps for the first time in Star Trek's history,

the dirty tricks weren't being
played by the villains,

and the consequences
were deadly.

In the Pale Moonlight
was a Star Trek episode unlike any other.

And it is about
a disinformation campaign.

It's about fake news
that the good guys use in order to start a war.

You know, or a different part
of the war, with the Romulans.

Five years before
the second war in Iraq,

Star Trek actually
foreshadowed the rise of manufactured truths.

It's a fake!

- It's a fake!
- It's a fake!

It's a fake!

We're dealing with fake news.

And the use of fake news.

How, you know,
news and information

could be used by governments

and people in power
to get what they wanted.

And you don't usually
see the good guys do that on television.

And if I had to do it
all over again...

I would.

Freed from
the traditional scruples,

In the Pale Moonlight took fans

into the darkest territory
of them all.

Garak kills the forger.
I mean, he murders him.

And I deliberately
played it off camera

because the episode as a whole
is already pretty dark.

I'll be along shortly
to say hello.

And I just sort of had
an intuitive sense,

that if I have one of
our semi-regulars, who we love,

in cold blood, murder
another character on camera,

it was going to be
a whole thing.

So I just
buried it in the story and it happens off camera

and I just knew that
that would make it easier to slip by.

The joy of playing Garak

was derived
so much from his lack of

what we think as
being moral or ethical.

Well, I suppose that depends
on how you look at it.

And the captain, too,
was suddenly Machiavellian,

light years from
Star Trek's original hero.

Sisko does things
in that show

that you can't imagine
Kirk doing

or any of the other
starship captains.

We took that character
pretty far

and engaged in
deception and murder

and, you know, criminality
and all kinds of things,

in service of a higher goal.

And I think that's
an interesting place to take a character.

And when Sisko's dance with the Devil

spins out of control...

You killed him!

...he faces a reckoning.

Sisko might have
even expected it to have been a worse price,

like Sisko might have had
a deeper, darker fear in the back of his head.

and once I go to Garak,
who knows what the price is going to be.

You may have just saved
the entire Alpha Quadrant.

And all it cost...

was the life of
one Romulan senator,

one criminal,

and the self-respect
of one Starfleet officer.

And so we see
a Starfleet captain

forced to make
peace with himself before his enemies.

So I will learn...

to live with it.

At the end, when he says,
"and I can live with it,"

he can live with the fact
that he made those choices.

That's the moral of the story.
And he embraces it,

and he hates himself for it
at the same time.

I can live with it.

Someone
breaks the fourth wall

and speaks directly
into the camera,

that's as deep as you can go.

What makes Sisko
such a great leader is that he deliberates

and he tries to do
the right thing,

even when it means
that he has to do the wrong thing.

It's a great morality tale
of how far is too far.

I think you go with them
on the ride.

You feel the pressure.
You understand the stakes

of this galactic war
that's happening.

Step by step, you understand

why they keep doing
what they're doing,

even as part of you
is repelled by it.

The truth is,
you can live with it, too.

And that says something
about you,

and that says--
and that's a fantastic

interesting interaction
between show and audience.

When it deals with
complex issues, and dives into things that are meaningful?

That's when Star Trek
really works.

Only Deep Space Nine
could do that

and I think it is
one of the very best Deep Space Nine episodes.

I'm very proud of that.

But no matter
how proud or how good,

ratings remained uneven,

as one of Star Trek's
most creatively ambitious chapters

neared its end.

We sort of knew that probably
only gonna go one more year.

TNG got seven years.

It stood to reason
that we probably weren't gonna get

more than seven years,
because we weren't, ratings-wise,

as successful as they were.

With the end
in sight, they began tying up all the loose ends.

You're trying to give these
actors a satisfying end.

It was a melancholy
sadness to it.

Next year is your senior year,
and that's going to be it.

All the pieces were in place

for Deep Space Nine's
seventh and last season to go out with a bang.

Unfortunately, before
they could even start,

there was a bombshell.

Heading into its final season,
Deep Space Nine was dealing

with the loss
of a key cast member.

Dax would not see
a seventh season.

You're going to a seventh
season, you know it's gonna be your last season.

So the network isn't gonna
start throwing more money at you because this is it.

So she got squeezed.

Unimpressed
with her offer,

actress Terry Farrell
checked out.

DS9's writers had a problem
they never saw coming.

We made no accommodation
for what it would mean

to pull Dax as a character
completely out of the structure of the show,

and I don't think any of us
were really ready to do that.

Terry Farrell
walked out.

But if you can't change
the character,

you can always change
the actress.

And Nicole de Boer wormed
her way in, so to speak.

As the same character,
but of course, in a different body.

There was something
of a scramble, and it became

"Oh, my God.
Okay, wait a minute. How does this work?

How are we gonna go about this?"

And there was a certain,
like, "Oh, my God."

Basically
an alien slug named Dax

found a new alien host,
and Nicole was that host.

It's me.

Dax.

But she had
some questions.

What kind of alien is it?

Because I had done some
work before

on an episode of Outer Limits.

Which had proved
to be at the outer limits of Nicole's tolerance for makeup.

I would not probably be able
to do that on a daily basis.

So he said, "Don't worry,
it's very minimal makeup."

And I said, "Okay.
I love that."

It's
a relatively complicated, symbiotic relationship.

I was told to look at it
as a new character,

although I would have
the memories of Jadzia

as well as all these
other people before, with the symbiont.

So Nicole had
a lot on her mind.

And the whole thing is that
she wasn't trained to be joined,

so that is going to be
complicated for her.

People need time
to get over losing Jadzia.

But
an even more complicated relationship for Worf.

Now, of course, Worf wasn't
too excited about me.

I was your wife.

You're not Jadzia.

A fact that allowed the writers to explore new territory.

Well, there's an opportunity
to do different Dax stories, change relationships.

Now she has a different host.

We just kind of embraced it
as an opportunity to expand instead of contract.

Now in its final season, the production raced

to complete its 26 episodes.

And they're getting
kind of tired.

It's like the seventh season
and the hours were grueling.

For at least 16 hours a day,
and longer.

It was insane.

There were people there
that didn't see their children grow up.

And it all came together for the very last episode.

You always said
I looked good in a tuxedo.

They just went where they felt
the story took them

and then finally landed
this sucker at the end with an amazing finale.

Inarguably the biggest story arc of them all,

teased from
the very first episode,

Captain Sisko finally
takes his place among the Bajoran Prophets.

Your Time of Trial has ended.

The Dominion War
comes to an end,

and the crew live it up
for one last night.

To the best crew
any captain ever had.

People like myself.
other members of the support staff

got to be in the episode.

So all of us were the extras
for those scenes,

and I replanned it perfectly
to be shot the very last day of shooting.

It was just an amazing day.

This one's from the heart.

-The final episode
-Deep Space Nine

went out on June 2nd, 1999,

leaving the audience
wanting more.

Which now, thanks to streaming,
they can have.

DS9 has definitely
stood up over time, more so than the other shows.

Which is ironic,
because, at the time,

it was thought of
as the lesser show.

And as it happens,
that controversial serialized format

turned out to be
ahead of its time.

And the vast story arc
gave the show a long life.

Today, the definition
of the word 'streaming'

shows that people
watch these shows because

they are continuing arcs,
continuing story lines.

I think the fact that the way
people view shows

is different.

And binge-watching a show
is the way DS9 needed to be seen.

And Deep Space Nine
is bigger than ever now.

It's found
a whole new following.

Routinely landing
at the top of the 'Best Star Trek Series' lists,

thanks largely to
its wide-ranging and eclectic storylines.

And now, I get a lot
of transgender people coming up to me saying,

you know, "Do you know
how important this character has been for me?

"It was someone
I could turn to that was like me."

Out of the entire franchise,
I think Deep Space Nine was the best

because it dealt with issues
that a whole bunch of people were facing,

especially people of color.

With
Captain Benjamin Sisko,

Avery Brooks had made
Star Trek history.

Avery, he just put
his heart and soul into it.

It was really stunning to watch.

He taught me a lot.

The advice that he gave me
along the way

were life lessons that just
make you a better man.

He, by example, lead
in so many ways

that I believe, without it,

I would have been
on a different path.

As Deep Space Nine
completed its mission,

a new Star Trek show
was already on air,

with its own first
to boast off.

I was the first female captain.
It was an established fact.

- You're serious.
- Very.

But like all firsts,
this one wouldn't come easy.

This was an unprecedented moment
in the history of television.