A Brief Guide to Star Trek

approach
Deep Space Nine
would itself come to embrace in later seasons.
    The new show would have the most ongoing storylines of all
Star Trek
series, with character conflict at its core. Not only did it trash ‘Roddenberry’s box’ of narrative restrictions, it made a positive virtue of ignoring them. ‘To a lot of people [
Deep Space Nine
] is not what
Star Trek
is’, admitted producer Rick Berman. ‘These two shows [
Deep Space Nine
and
The Next Generation
] were to run concurrently, so there was no question we needed to come up with something different, a little darker and with a lot more conflict.’
    From first considering a second spin-off in 1991, Paramount executives knew the new show had to be distinctive, yet somehow still
Star Trek
. Thoughts turned to a series set within the Klingon Empire, explored in episodes of
The Next Generation
, but the fear of exorbitant make-up costs quickly put paid to that notion. George Takei had long been lobbying for a show of his own, featuring Sulu as the captain of his own starship. Takei had a strong fan following, but Paramount had already decided the new show would be set in the same time period as
The Next Generation
. Other ideas explored briefly included Harve Bennett’s old concept of Starfleet Academy, an option bolstered by
The Next Generation
episode ‘The First Duty’, featuring Wesley Crusher at the Academy, and Bennett’s lobbying for the concept to form the basis of
Star Trek VI
. Another notion was for a series set on a Federation Starbase or a colony planet. Starbases had cropped up in
Star Trek
since
The Original Series
(notably in the episode ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’). They were re-supply and maintenance bases, like motorway service stations or trading posts in the US old West. An entire series set among the crew and visitors to a Federation Starbase mighthave strong dramatic potential, as it would be a destination or way-station for many non-Starfleet characters, thus allowing the writers to introduce a higher degree of conflict than might be allowed (or expected) from among a ‘perfect’ crew on yet another starship. The colony planet idea was discarded due to the amount of location-based filming that would have been required, and the space station concept was developed.
    Setting the series on a space station rather than a starship had many implications for the drama. The location implied a degree of commitment to dealing with consequences perhaps missing from the starship shows: the people on
Deep Space Nine
could not simply fly away from their problems. Additionally, characters would get married or enjoy lengthy relationships, an additional level of commitment and source of character drama. The fact that non-Starfleet characters would feature heavily gave
Deep Space Nine
a different feeling, too, with alternative viewpoints being explored and having an impact on the show’s regular characters. As people lived their lives, their fixed location and wider relationships would inform their decision-making, with galaxy-wide consequences.
    With the death of Gene Roddenberry in 1991, and his lessening involvement in
The Next Generation
before that, Rick Berman was freer than ever before to do something different with
Star Trek
without the Great Bird of the Galaxy hovering over his shoulder – although Roddenberry had been involved in some of the earliest discussions of what would become
Deep Space Nine
. As far as Roddenberry had been concerned, he was the only person who could create and cast a
Star Trek
TV series or movie – an argument he’d used to prevent Harve Bennett’s Starfleet Academy proposal from proceeding. Berman took a different view of things: ‘Before he died I worked closely with Gene for five years. I learned his language and his religion and his outlook. I have been obsessively true to it. Gene’s involvement in
The Next Generation
had been minimal since the first year of the show. [
Deep Space Nine
] will be absolutely true to that vision, it’s a show that rests on Gene’s idea of the future.’Despite his assertion, the storytellers working under Berman would deliberately undermine his stated adherence to Rodden-berry’s strictures, setting out to create in
Deep Space Nine
the anti-
Star Trek
they believed modern television audiences required.
    Various titles were developed for the new show, including the rather bland
Starbase 362
(most Starbases featured in various episodes of the two preceding
Star