What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Directed by David Zappone and Ira Steven Behr8.2100%89%
The writers and cast of Deep Space 9 meet and discuss a hypothetical new DS9 episode set with the now older characters, while the cast reminisces about their roles. We learn why people joined the show, why they left, what they regret not seeing and how long they had to spend in the makeup chair.
Cast of What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Ratings & Reviews
- Jon VitasApril 14, 2025First of all, Rom (Max Grodenchik) actually has a very good voice, almost as good as Vic (James Darren)! Of course in real life Max looks a lot like ROM, but that never bothered me. The first time I ever saw this gifted actor was in the next generation episode "captains holiday" where he plays "Solvek", a different Ferengi, which Picard punches in the nose. In fact he has played many Ferengi that didn't look like ROM, and I didn't realize was him. This ingenious documentary is also a bully-pit session for a season eight that never happened- and I gotta tell ya, it would have been great! What do you mean would have been, was, is. In fact they should consider doing it, most of the DS nine crew are still with us, save for Nog and Odo. Which really makes me sad, they were still with us when this was made. But it could be done, 26 episodes could be done right now, today. we just have to convince the people that could also release deep space nine in high definition, another thing which never was done which was also sad because the level of special effects in deep space nine was several notches higher than next generation, and we really need to see it in at least 1080p, and the best that we have these days is DVD resolution. In fact this documentary begins, before Andy Robinson stops them, with a full HD re-creation of that space battle in the series finale where the defiant flies around in a circle and we see a couple of galaxy class ships floating underneath, belly up. The perfect rendition of what a three dimensional space battle would look like. Then Andy Robinson stops us right in the middle, and we had to see that later. Deep space nine was never afforded the place it deserved, the way next generation was. there should have been deep space nine movies after the seventh season. In fact, this documentary starts with various cast members reading letters, hatemail, written to Paramount at the time deep space nine was in production. And I have to admit I wrote one of those letters to Majel Barret Roddenberry. Her response was? "I'm sorry, I have nothing to do with that, I can't do anything about it". At the time I was upset about the whole dominion war thing... but it only took less than a year for me to start looking underneath the World War II aspects, yes deep space nine had become a war movie, but some of the best war movies have great messages of hope for the future. Eventually I wrote her another email where I apologized for my earlier tack, and she was happy that I had done that. Yes, I was one of those people who wrote one of those horrible letters. What a mistake that was. But despite that, I watched every episode as it was broadcast, er, I mean SYNDICATED. This documentary reveals a lot of things that actually never had been talked about, including why Terry Farrell actually quit the show, but even in this documentary they don't go into it with a lot of detail, as it appears to have been a private gripe. But the centerpiece of this whole thing is the bully pit that they re-created with all of the important writers for the show, and in less than one day, they provided not just the outline for the first episode of an eighth season, but an entire outline for 26 episodes of such a season. This has been my complaint about the modern Star Trek shows, Discovery started out with possibly 16 episodes, now it's down to about 12 episodes per season. Picard got 10 episodes. Lower Dacks got 10 episodes. I think the thing that really makes me sad is that deep space nine was the final Star Trek show to be syndicated, which gave them the ability to do practically whatever they wanted to without network interference, the same network interference which was visible in Voyager even though they were given seven whole seasons. Enterprise? They were canceled after four seasons, which basically was the entire UPN catalog and UPN fell apart after that, this gave CBS the ability to purchase the franchise. I will always watch any Star Trek show that is on television regardless of what network it is on. And I have loved every single Star Trek show including Discovery, Picard and lower decks. But deep space nine has been the Star Trek show to end all other Star Trek shows. And I am glad that the producers of this documentary were able to take those pieces of hate mail and turn them into a discussion, it turns out that I am not the only one who has sent hate mail and then I changed my mind shortly after. Because the concept of episodic television was not a thing back when deep space nine was on air, they were the first to do it. And at first they did not do it a lot, they just had many episodes that strung together like in the second season they strung together three episodes about "the circle". And then they added the Maquis, and then the Jem Hadar, The Vorta, and then the founders. Until in season seven we had about 10 episodes strung together in one long story. Paramount was furious but the producers of deep space nine did it anyway, and it was not a mistake. But as much as I love episodic shows, I do like some standalone episodes that tell a story all in themselves without being attached to the larger story being told. There has to be room for both, but neither should be neglected in favor of the other style of storytelling. We should have both "monster of the week" as well as "mythos" Episodes, and this was some thing that The X-Files brought into the mix. But the thing that is not largely spoken of here is that when The X-Files moves production to Los Angeles, there was a strong X-Files/Star Trek connection, many of the people who worked on Star Trek worked on several seasons of the X-Files- and so we started seeing characters named after these people, one of them being Marvin V Rush, One of the original DOP's of DS9. And then Star Trek writers wrote X-Files episodes. It is as if there was some camaraderie there. But it all started within deep space nine.
- geordihrFebruary 4, 2025Nice plan.good story. Too bad they never did it
