DS9 Documentary “What We Left Behind”

Since it’s first airing in 1993, Deep Space Nine has been considered to be the “Black Sheep” in the Star Trek family. Viewers didn’t really give the series the chance it deserved, but thankfully, enough of us had the foresight to see that this incarnation of Roddenberry’s vision had plenty of potential, that the studio were happy to let the show continue. In fact, with a new network in the pipeline, all efforts were focused on that, and the show that would kick start this new network; Star Trek: Voyager.

This left the show producers and writers to do pretty much as they pleased and they turned to darker themes, a more serialised mode of story telling, and, in many ways, put Trek back on course to explore the characters in much more depth than those of The Next Generation. To the point in fact, that we have much more well developed guest characters on DS9 than we do main characters in TNG and even TOS.

Writers like Ronald D. Moore and producer Ira Steven Behr had great foresight into what DS9 could be, and how each character could grow. What they possibly didn’t see was that maybe the audience wasn’t yet ready for such a show.

DS9 was way ahead of it’s time, in that a Star Trek show, could tell stories that would be much more far reaching for both the characters and the viewer. There was no “alien of the week” to deal with, where the crews actions, once we reach the end of the episode, had no consequences. What our heroes did on DS9 could have an effect on the next episode and the one after that, even re-visiting those consequences in another season – real moral dilemmas that took more than a wave of the “end of the episode everything is ok” magic wand.

The way in which people now watch television has had a massive impact in DS9’s renewed interest, where a series such as this is perfect for a binge watching generation glued to streaming networks such as Netflix. (Hence the new Star Trek: Discovery series will run on this very platform).

So to celebrate DS9’s new found fan base, and to give us loyal DS9-ers something new that we have craved since 1999, Ira Steven Behr is making a DS9 documentary that explores everything about the show, it’s characters, it’s stars and the fans and to write an imaginary first episode of season 8 that could shed some light on what happened to Captain Sisko.

Some interviews have already been filmed, but of course, these things need funding, so an Indiegogo campaign has been set up to raise money to get this documentary finished.

Most of DS9’s original cast is on board, and the campaign video itself features Nana Visitor, Terry Farrell, Max Grodenchik, Casey Biggs, Jeff Combs, Armin Shimmerman, Chase Masterson and Hana Hatae.

The director of the documentary will be none other that the late Leonard Nimoy’s son, Adam Nimoy.

If you need another fix of DS9 then please get behind this great project, and celebrate 25 years of not only the best show on Star Trek, but possibly the best show in all of sci-fi.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/what-we-left-behind-star-trek-deep-space-nine-doc#/