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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine DVD Details Announced

l0key432 writes "The first season of Deep Space Nine will be released on DVD in late-February next year in the form of a six-disc box set, Paramount Home Entertainment officially announced on StarTrek.com. The DVDs will contain, of course, all of the season one episodes, newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and many extras. The following six seasons will be released one or two months apart from each other, as the Next Generation box sets were. Good to see this show finally coming out on DVD and getting some of the recognition it truly deserves."

28 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Recognition? by someguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not so sure how releasing something on DVD is providing recognition it deserves. I could understand saying that if Paramount went all out trying to promote it I could call it recognition. But if, not keep in mind how much low quality stuff gets put out that is "gaining recognition".

    --
    A planet where apes evolved from men? Long live the apes.
    1. Re:Recognition? by mceister · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Paramount has always treated DS9 as the family dog of the Trek shows. Best example is the commercial for four commanders during the early years of Voyager. Kirk, Piccard, Janeway and... Warf? That was a Paramount produced commercial and a slap in the face to Sisko and DS9. I'm afraid I would be insulted by however Paramount would try to market this release so it might be best they don't.

      The fact DS9 is being released on DVD before they pump out that 'Mister Roger's Neighborhood' derivative of a show called 'Voyager' is all the recognition I need from them. Thank you Paramount for this small favor to the best Trek ever - DS9. (IMHO)

    2. Re:Recognition? by entrylevel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I totally agree. I've been searching desperately for reruns of DS9 ever since it went off the air, and just haven't been able to find them (on television). Most people claim that DS9 was a bad ripoff of B5, and I tend to agree, except for the "bad" part. I thought it was well written, fairly well acted ripoff, with much better special effects. I do wish there were equivalent cast members for Leeta and Talya [sic?] on DS9 though.

      I loved TNG as a kid, but now I watch it and wonder what I was thinking. People in tights standing in a room talking about "issues" while the camera gets shaken every now and then. Nowadays I just feel bad for Patrick Stewart for having to put up with the whole concept (having experienced several of his performances off-broadway).

      I always thought Voyager was a joke. How couldn't it be? First ever (televised, on a Trek) female starship captain. Pilot episode: she gets her crew hopelessly lost and spends the rest of the series trying to find her way back. To add insult to injury, how many times was the Enterprise and its experienced, battle-hardened crew completely destroyed by a broken, underpowered, 20-year old stolen Klingon ship, or a subspace anomaly? Yet Voyager (and its ragtag, fresh-from-the-womb crew) were indestructible, even to the Borg and Species 8579 (or whatever)! Too bad there was never a punchline.

      Of course I like TOS, but after you've seen every episode 700 times, it gets hard to watch. Although I still try to watch it now and then just to support "space-oriented" shows on the SciFi channel.

      Enterprise? Uhm. Right. WTF? Does _anyone_ enjoy that PC drivel?

      As for DS9, does anyone remember the grand finale? I would pay full DVD price just for that. The space battle at the end was absolutely the best I've seen on a TV show to date.

      I personally can't wait. I rarely buy DVDs, but DS9 and B5 are "must haves" in my book.

      --
      Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
    3. Re:Recognition? by Ponty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Re: Janeway & crew. That's what always got me about Voyager. They had an opportunity to do something really interesting in that show. TNG was all about the biggest, bestest ship in the fleet. DS9 was all about crazy folks dealing with other crazy folks. TOS was all about cowboys in space. They had their niches and they worked. The Voyager crew was a bunch of losers stuck on a lowly science ship. On top of that, they had the nutso Maquis stuck on board with them. They were pretty much average, run-of-the-mill Starfleet officers on a so-so ship with an average captain. They never once had to confront their mediocrity. That's what would have been interesting. If they hadn't come up with a dozen scientific breakthroughs a season or figured out how to singlehandedly hand the Borg's ass to them every time they met. I would have loved to watch a show about average folks in the middle of a really crappy situation having to overcome their own inadequacies before they could even think about dealing with the rest of the universe. Big missed opportunity.

      It's not that different from what's currently happening with Enterprise. They have another one of the most exciting opportunities at hand: It's before the Federation, it's mysterious and dangerous. They're totally unprepared and out of their element. Let's go explore! Who the hell cares about some contrived "temporal cold war" plot. Let's set the stage for what comes next, not for something that was just made up. Don't take every chance to moralize and celebrate humanness, let's get our asses kicked and lose once in a while.

  2. Pricing? by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are we going to be victimized on the price of this series just like when STNG came out on DVD?

    --
    ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
    1. Re:Pricing? by Slashdotess · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Victimized? $100 is pretty expensive, but when you think about it, you're getting about 26 40 minute episodes (of the best series ever -- refering to TNG) I'd say the price is resonable.

  3. Yay! by acehole · · Score: 5, Funny

    We can see wayun(?) die all over again.

    Who needs kenny when you've got him.

    --
    Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
  4. Recognition? by carb · · Score: 3, Informative
    Is this so much about recognition as it is about money? Too many people have this perception that when releasing old stuff on DVD, the producers deserve some credit - like they're doing us a favour. Trust me, I'm sure Paramount would love to snag a few million more to add to their pocketbooks.

    Don't get me wrong, I love DS9 though.

  5. If only DS9 writers continued to be work on Trek by loggia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's too bad the many talented folks on DS9 were let go to work on so many great other shows after the show ended.

    Of course, the rich tapestry that was DS9 probably threatened Brannon and Rick and thus we ended up with Voyager and Enterprise.

  6. Re:Hell's Yeah!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yea but B5 is better than any or all of them....

    I agree. However, the first three seasons of SCOOBY DOO has more intelligence and better plotting than all of B5 COMBINED.
  7. Here is the info from the star trek website: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Star Trek fans wondering what to do with life once all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD have been released come December can take heart: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD is following right behind.

    Season 1 of DS9 on DVD Paramount Home Entertainment has announced that the entire series of DS9, plus a Gamma Quadrant's worth of special extras, will be issued on DVD in 2003 with Season One due on February 25th.

    Season One of DS9 on DVD will come in a six-disc collector's box set containing, naturally, all of the Season One episodes, along with new, never before seen featurettes. New seasons of DS9 will be available every other month.

    The DS9 DVD's feature newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and exclusive retrospective featurettes. Fans who pick up the TNG Seasons Six and Seven will be able to get a peek at the upcoming DS9 DVD's, as special trailers have been added to the TNG sets.

    Season 1 of DS9 on DVDThe DS9 DVD Contents are as follows:

    Disc 1: "Emissary," "Past Prologue," "A Man Alone"

    Disc 2: "Babel," "Captive Pursuit," "Q-Less," "Dax"

    Disc 3: "The Passenger," "Move Along Home," "The Nagus," "Vortex"

    Disc 4: "Battle Lines," "The Storyteller," "Progress," "If Wishes Were Horses"

    Disc 5: "The Forsaken," "Dramatis Personae," "Duet," "In the Hands of the Prophets"

    Disc 6: Special Features, including the feature Deep Space Nine: A Bold Beginning, Crew Dossier: Kira Nerys, Michael Westmore's Aliens: Season One, Secrets of Quark's Bar, Alien Artifacts: Season One, Deep Space Nine Sketchbook, Deep Space Nine Chronicles, Section 31 Hidden Files and a Photo Gallery.

    So DS9 fans should take January to clear off more shelf space, because on February 25, the wormhole opens.

  8. Re:Hell's Yeah!!! by dhsmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to agree with this. Though The Original Series should be due a little more credit, maybe 3rd place on the list. The Original Series not only kicked off the whole Star Trek phenomenon, but also spawned 6 movies. 3 of which are some of the best Star Trek to ever be released. Also, Voyager was certainly not as strong as any of the other series but it did have it's good points. Good space battles every now and then, and sometimes even a good plot. As I have a Klingon symbol tattooed on my right arm, you may take the above comments as somewhat biased...

  9. Re:If only DS9 writers continued to be work on Tre by jpt.d · · Score: 3, Funny

    Rich Tapestry? Did I miss that one in some episode?

    The last series that I ever saw that had that would be Babylon 5. Jeremiah seems to be turning out to be that too.

    --
    What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
  10. Aged for goodness by solendril · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny that you mention it... I've been tuning in recently to TNN's TNG broadcasts, and remembering how good, and how BAD Trek can be. Some episodes are funny, spooky, interesting or downright cool, but seeing it now as an adult, its not nearly as cool as I remember it being when I was a kid.

    The Best of Both Worlds may have been better than most of the movies, but half the time the script didn't live up. The chemistry of TNG had that special something that later series tried to capture with little success, but it DIDN'T have the awesome writing of later series.

    Late-season voayger had some fantastic writers at the helm, and as for DS9, a decade after TNG, I'll say that it's severly underrated. Never had Trek ventured so much into politics and religion, never had individuals had so powerful motivations and messages. DS9 had better characters and a deeper milieu than TNG. But because there was no space opera, no flying around and blasting aliens, it wasn't as successful.

    Nevermind, I guess I'll buy the DVDS. But that's just my 2 cents.

  11. Have you never seen DS9? by Morgahastu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Deepsace nine had the most intense battle scenes ever in any tv show. Those big war scenes with those crazy camera angles was awesome!

    One thing that I loved was when they simulated a camera being attached to the hull of the defiant. That looked really awesome when they were flying in circles and shooting people.

    You are right that the first few seasons were like a soap opera but every few episodes it got to be more then that. I suggest you watch the last 3 seasons of DS9, you'll realize its one of the best sci-fi shows ever.

  12. Despite the fact.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..that it had no coherent plot arc that spanned more than four episodes in a row (O'Brien is suicidal one episode, his normal self the next!), and the fact that it became a rip off of Babylon 5 ("They're having a war. We need one! Sheridan's going beyond the rim? Let's send Sisko to the Prophets!")..

    I *liked* DS9. I'd actually say I liked it more than Next Gen. It certainly kicks the crap out of Voyager and Enterprise.

    Why? One word. Klingons. They are, without a doubt, the coolest part of the entire Trek franchise. They aren't based off of screwed up yet glaringly obvious mythology, like Vulcans and Romulans. They're not just another alien species with bumps on their nose, like the Bajorans and fifty other races. They.. Well, okay, two reasons - Cardassians were pretty damned cool - Garrick, at least.

    I wish my tailor went out and killed people.

    Despite my bitching about DS9's plot arc, or lack thereof, I'll give them credit - they started forging one in the last seasons. So far, it's the only Trek series to have done that.

    Since I have a slight hangover, I'll cheer loudly, and leave you with this quote:

    "Comment?! Klingon programmers do not comment!"

    1. Re:Despite the fact.. by abhinavnath · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know, I was thinking about this earlier... I think it would be cool to have a spin-off about a *Klingon* ship on it's adventures through space. The characters would not be as one-dimensional as, say, Voyager, and they could do some interesting things with Klingon history, ethics etc. Also, a whole lot more fighting and no stupid Prime Directive ;)

      --
      My other sig is also a .Porsche
    2. Re:Despite the fact.. by Aexia · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be fair, much of the lack of longer plot arcs was Paramount's meddling. The best and prime example being the start of the 5th(?) season with the war with the Klingons. What was supposed to be a 10 episode long arc got crushed to a single episode thanks to the suits at Paramount.

  13. DS9's Slogan ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "To boldy stay where no man has stayed before."

  14. Why eat tofu when you can have beef? by bourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The first season of Babylon 5 is available NOW on DVD.

    For those who aren't aware, or haven't seen, Babylon 5 has a far more interesting and COHESIVE story than DS9 - and DS9 was the closest approximation ST ever had to a cohesive storyline.

    What do I mean by cohesive? Simply this: there's no reset button. Everything isn't solved at the end of the episode, all mutations un-mutated, all weird twists un-twisted. There are episodes in Season 5 which are tied closely to what happened in episodes from the other four seasons.

    There's a real story - beginning, middle, and end. It spreads over the full 5 seasons. And, if my opinion isn't already clear - that's huge. It's a good story, and worth exercising your attention span for.

    Sure, their special effects budget wasn't as rich as $T. Some threads get mangled because an actor wasn't available two seasons after the seeds were planted. When you consider the difficulty of producing a cohesive epic 5-season TV show, though, B5 did pretty good.

  15. Re:Season 1 of DS9... by Zorikin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > I did manage to watch the entire run of Babylon 5

    Funny you should mention that.

    Continuity was always a strong part of B5, and never a feature of Trek. The former was basically Straczynski's vision, whereas the latter has always had mostly-unrelated scripts by a diverse crew of writers.

    Trying to watch B5 when it was first on the air was always frustrating because I could never sit down for it the same time every week, and there would be so many things going on that I didn't understand because I'd missed a couple of episodes. I've caught virtually all of DS9 in reruns, but there's no way I could bring myself to watch Babylon 5 again unless I had the whole series in some sort of box next to me.

  16. Re:Wrong. by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They also beat the last battle of Return of the Jedi, claiming for a short while, 'most ships on screen in a battle'.

    Idiot. The noteworthy fact about ROTJ is that one shot included more motion-controlled model shots optically composited together than ever before. As far as I know, that record still stands.

    "Most ships on the screen" doesn't mean a damn thing. But the challenge of optically compositing umpty-bump layers together without having the result look like one big blur is... well, it's more well than you can imagine.

    --

    I write in my journal
  17. Best moment on DS9 by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I loved this scene:

    Quark: "I want you to try something for me. Take a sip of this."
    Garak: "What is it?"
    Quark: "A Human drink, it's called Root Beer."
    Garak: "Ahh, I don't know....."
    Quark: "Come on....Aren't you in the least bit curious?"
    Quark: "..........What d'you think?"
    Garak: "It's vile!"
    Quark: "I know. It's so bubbly and cloy, and happy."
    Garak: "Just like the Federation....."
    Quark: "But do you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it you begin to like it...."
    Garak: "....It's insidious...."
    Quark: "....Just like the Federation."

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    1. Re:Best moment on DS9 by barc0001 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I really liked almost any scene with Garak. My favorite was from this episode.

      After Sisko had bribed Quark to drop the charges against Tolar:

      Sisko: "Who's watching Tolar?"
      Garak: "I've locked him in his quarters. I've also left him with the distinct impression that if he attempts to force the door open, it may explode."
      Sisko: "I hope that's just an impression?!"
      Garak: "...It's best not to dwell on such minutiae."

  18. Whatever... by 2Bits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought /.ers don't hate MPAA/RIAA so much, right? But then, every week, we see this "Oooh, shiny DVD/CD" on some shit repackaged over and over, over (ok, I don't know if this one is repackaged or not, as I don't watch TV for the last five years now). And then every new or repackaged DVD/CD is a must-have.

    No wonder we get all these stupid DMCA, permanent mickey mouse copyright extension, regional DVD encoding, "copy protection scheme" CD, etc. People would scream "bloody hell" one minute and rush to spend money on whatever MPAA/RIAA care to put on the market the next minute after. If I were an executive of an MPAA/RIAA-member corporation, I would have done exactly the same thing to milk you people, because that's too easy.

    Sometimes, you can feel so lonely trying to make people understand MPAA/RIAA are bad, and there are many ways you can change things, and one of these is to vote with your money. Am I the only person here who don't own DVD player, don't have cable TV and don't watch TV, don't buy CD, don't go to cinema?

    (I do go to live concerts tho).

    Whatever, you can mod me down into oblivion for venting here, but I'm going to look at /. prefereneces if I can filter out all these movie/tv/CD/DVD-related junks.

  19. AC, You've never seen DS9 before have you? by saskboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You've never seen DS9, have you AC?
    I was initially pissed off at my TV station that promised Trekkers that they would bring the new Star Trek series to our screens, and when they fell through, I transferred that anger to DS9 itself. I was saying, "Well how good could a show where they don't go anywhere be?" It was sour grapes, until I say my first show in Winnipeg on a 4 inch black and white screen, and I loved it. I was in Trek withdrawl, and DS9 was my new fix.
    Years later, I started to tape the show at my Grandparents house, and when the tape was full, I'd bring it home and watch it. I got to see Voyager this way too. I started watching just when both series started to get really good. I watched the last 3 seasons of DS9 with a 3 week tape delay. Anyone who has seen more than a few shows, knows that they leave the station frequently, and even when they don't, interesting aliens visit the station anyway. And there is always Quark's bar and holosuites ;-)
    TNG doesn't go flying around in every show, and not everyone centers on their voyage, anyway. To keep costs down, both TOS and TNG shot entire shows in closed sets with the meager benefit of stock ship warping shots. I can think of dozens of DS9 episodes where the station is not the scene of the action. And around season 3, Worf and the Defiant show up too :-)
    So don't be like me, and bash DS9 before seeing it. Like any Trek series, if you watch it, you'll like it. And if you don't, you aren't using your imagination very well.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
  20. Amen! by ink · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I am thrilled to see DS9 coming out on DVD. I am truly surprised that it's coming out before the silly Voyager series as well. Of all the Trek franchises, DS9 has the most detailed thematic and character development. With TOS and Voyager you can basically sit down to any episode and watch it without any context needed. TNG is the same, but to a lesser extent (they actually changed the status quo from time to time, imagine that!). DS9, OTOH, can have you completely lost if you missed a few episodes since the last time you saw it.

    It will be a GREAT set to own, and I can't wait!

    --
    The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
  21. It's called life ... by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I would have loved to watch a show about average folks in the middle of a really crappy situation having to overcome their own inadequacies before they could even think about dealing with the rest of the universe.
    It's called life. Go outside and live a little.

    And for once, do as I say and not as I do!
    --
    We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.