why do you think? were folks burnt out by STAR TREK during the mid 90's? was it just the TNG films that helped push their popularity? was ds9 too cerebral for audiences?
shareIt was different than anything Star Trek had attempted up to that point. Being set on a space station, it forced the characters to deal with consequences in a way they wouldn't necessarily have to on a starship. The show dealt with religion, politics, and war in ways TOS and TNG never really did. It focused on characters and character development more than its predecessors. It had a slightly more downbeat tone than people were used to from a Trek show. There was more conflict between the main characters. Some of these things made it feel very "un-Star Trek" to a lot of people. Some people thought it wasn't really Star Trek because it wasn't set on a starship. I always that was a stupid reason not to like the show.
To me, DS9 is a better show than TNG, but TNG is a better Star Trek show. TNG took Roddenberry's original ideas of what Star Trek was meant to be and fine-tuned and perfected them, with the benefits of better production values and no network interference. DS9 came along and challenged a lot of those ideas and that's one of the reasons why I love the show so much. I love TNG as well, for what it is. And to be fair, TNG laid a fantastic groundwork for DS9. Personally, I like that the two shows are different. I wouldn't have wanted another TNG-esque show at that point. That's one of the reasons I'm not really a Voyager guy. It started out promising, but ultimately it wound up doing what TNG did, just not as good.
You said a lot there, very informative. Thank you.
shareI totally agree
share"DS9 is a better show than TNG, but TNG is a better Star Trek show."
- I love this quote. I also think it helps answer the OP's question. It wasn't Star Trek enough for some Trekkies but that fact that it WAS Star Trek made people who didn't like Star Trek less interested in giving it a chance. I think this is the biggest reason actually.
But a few others.
-There was a lot more competition as was said above, but the big omission above in Babylon 5, which ran concurrent to DS9 and whose fans accused DS9 of ripping them off (BTW- Paramount probably did just that). So you have two shows set on space stations. Crowded market.
-1991 was the last TOS film. TOS has always been the most important series culturally, and the last film with that crew was a huge deal. It was also the year TNG probably did its best work. The two played off each other.
-Episodic TV did not rule the 1990's the way it does now. You didn't have HBO on demand, Netflix or the internet to catch up on missed shows. If you missed an episode you may not be seeing it until the summer. Even shows with meta plots like the X-Files were mostly weekly stand alone's.
-The first two seasons were BAD. I know the first two seasons of TNG were bad, but they were Star Trek bad. DS9 sucked very badly until the second half of season 3. I stopped watching during season 1 and didn't get in to it until it was almost over. I think a lot of people quit in that period.
You last point is so accurate. I thought DS9 sucked because I saw some of the first two season when it was live. I never watched it again until around 2008.
shareYeah, I know so many DS9 fans who didn't actually watch it in the 90's.
They got in to it in syndication in the early 2000s like me, or else got in to it through DVD released in the late 2000s. Now I meet people who discovered it on Netflix or through various internet sources and can't get enough of it.
I still think if you put them all together TNG would still be the bigger show, but it is because TNG was written for an early 90's Star Trek fanbase. Remember that TOS, certainly not written for a 60's audience, had brutal ratings and was cancelled, only to be brought back as society caught up to it. Not that I think there will be a DS9 The Motion Picture, but it will be, and already is, better regarded than it was when it aired.
I think the setting turned people off initially. People wanted Start Trek on a ship, not a station.
Secondly, the serial nature did the series made it harder to keep up with. Unlike today, where you have DVR, internet, and On Demand to catch up with a missed episode, back then it was VCR or reruns. That turned some people off because they couldn't just watch random space adventures from time to time. But UPN made sure that was the case on Voyager.
In retrospect, those things are what made DS9 a far superior show.
All glory to the Hypnotoad