DEEP SPACE NINE
Beginner’s Guide: The Top Five Episodes
War, Faith and Hard Choices
Deep Space Nine premiered in 1993 and ran seven seasons. Instead of a starship exploring the unknown, the setting is a space station near the planet Bajor, which has just emerged from a brutal occupation by the Cardassians, and beside the only stable wormhole in the galaxy. Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, is a widower and single father who becomes both the station's commander and a figure of religious importance to the Bajorans. The cast around him includes the Bajoran officer Kira Nerys, the shapeshifting security chief Odo, the Ferengi bartender Quark, the Trill scientist Jadzia Dax, Dr. Bashir, Chief O'Brien and, later, Worf.
It is the most serialized Star Trek, which means that stories build on one another, and it deals openly with war, faith, occupation and moral compromise. It is also the series many longtime fans consider the franchise's finest. The early seasons are slower, and the best episodes are richer if you know the characters. But every episode below can be enjoyed on its own, and each one will leave you wanting to meet the people involved.
Crew advisory: Quark's bar is the best bar in the sector. Command has not verified this claim, but the crew accepts it.
1. In the Pale Moonlight
The Federation is losing the Dominion War, and Sisko becomes convinced that the only way to survive is to bring the Romulans into the fight. To do it, he turns to the exiled Cardassian tailor Garak for help, and he goes along with a plan that he would once have called unthinkable. The entire story is told as a personal log, which makes the audience complicit in each step. It is the darkest, most morally complex hour in the franchise and a masterclass in how far Star Trek can go while staying true to its values. Come for the writing, stay for Andrew Robinson's Garak.
2. The Visitor
After a freak accident, Sisko disappears, and his teenage son Jake has to learn to live without him. Years later, an older Jake discovers that his father still reappears at times, and he spends his life trying to bring him back. Tony Todd plays the older Jake with enormous feeling. The episode has almost no science fiction in it, and it works because it is about the oldest question there is: what do we owe the people we love? It is regularly named among the best episodes of any Star Trek series.
3. Far Beyond the Stars
Sisko suddenly finds himself living a different life in 1950s New York, as a Black science fiction writer named Benny Russell who is fighting to get a story about a space station and its Black captain published. The cast of the show appears as his colleagues and neighbors. Avery Brooks directed the episode himself, and it is a powerful statement about the history of representation and the power of storytelling. It earns its place here because it explains, in one hour, why Star Trek has always mattered.
4. Duet
When a Cardassian arrives on the station suffering from an illness that can only be caught at a Bajoran labor camp, Major Kira insists that he must be a war criminal who took part in atrocities on Bajor. The episode becomes a two-person drama between Kira and the prisoner, played by Harris Yulin, and it ends with a twist that changes everything. It is the early episode that convinced skeptics Deep Space Nine could do serious drama, and it deepens Kira's relationship to her own people's past. Watch it to see why this series is different.
5. Trials and Tribble-ations
For Star Trek's 30th anniversary, the crew of Deep Space Nine is sent back in time into the events of the Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles." Through clever digital effects, they appear in the original footage next to Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. It is a loving, hilarious comedy full of jokes for longtime fans, including Worf's refusal to explain why the Klingons of that era looked so different. It makes the list because it is the best celebration of the franchise's history, and because it will make you want to go back and watch the episode it honors.
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More of the beginner’s guide: The Original Series • The Animated Series • The Next Generation • Voyager • Enterprise • Discovery • Picard • Lower Decks • Prodigy • Strange New Worlds • Short Treks • Starfleet Academy.
Not sure what order to watch in? Try our chronological watch order or the Star Trek timeline. Want people to talk Trek with? Enlist and join the crew at one of our Star Trek events around Atlanta.
