ew series have the self-confidence, let alone the depth, to start out their sophomore year with a three-part arc. Yet Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did just that—a maneuver that underscores why DS9 quickly earned its reputation for emphasizing intricate stories and vibrant characters.
The risky gambit of the opening trilogy—"The Siege," "The Circle," "The Homecoming"—seems even more so considering that the saga is centered around political strife and the rise of the religious right on Bajor. Neither subject is, in and of itself, a casual matter; when put together as they are here, they can be explosive—literally. Nonetheless, the writers use this trilogy to establish the show's understated yet tight storytelling style; and that style sets the pace for a packed season in which events are carefully interwoven and characters are fleshed out in subtle ways. And by the end of this season, the series had found both its voice and its mission, even if viewers hadn't fully appreciated the vision that writer/producers Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr had conceived of so early in the game.
Most of the core ensemble gets at least one moment to take center stage. Episode highlights from season two include the humorous "Rules of Acquisition," a Quark-centric piece which features the return of the Grand Negus, and a female Ferengi masquerading in a traditionally male domain; "Whispers," a conspiracy story with a twist; "Shadowplay," which explores a holographic society, years before hologram rights come into play on Star Trek: Voyager; "The Collaborator," which pits Vedek Bareil against Vedek Winn in battle for the honor of being Kai; the Avery Brooks-directed "Tribunal," in which O'Brien is on trial by the Cardassians; and "The Jem'Hadar," a tale that raises the stakes in the Gamma Quadrant and introduces The Dominion. Less gripping—although that was the intent—was the two-part arc "The Maquis," a sequence that provides the backstory for the future series Star Trek: Voyager.
As compared with the season one set, season two features a better mix of supplemental content. There are two screenfuls of extra features, including five featurettes and 10 Section 31 "easter eggs" found scattershot across the screen's image of the space station on screen (move the cursor about the screen and different parts of the station will illuminate, revealing hidden two- to five-minute snippets of interviews with cast and crew).
Meaty extras, but not enough of them
The packaging of Deep Space Nine remains slick and clean: Housed in a flip-book style case made of plastic, the seven-disc set is easy to browse through and store.
Although there's still no audio commentary to accompany significant episodes, there's plenty of engaging content. However, as with the season-one set, there's still an issue involving the supplemental content that's been selected for inclusion: It follows that a season-two set should have content that's closely tied to the season, but that's not always the case. There are plenty of cases where the featurettes are all over the map, discussing episodes from the past or future. Only "Michael Westmore's Aliens," a routine 12-minute piece featuring contemporary reflections by Westmore on the aliens in season two, and the 11-minute long "Deep Space Nine Sketchbook," which, contrary to expectations, features both sketches and final film images of designs and concepts, as explained by illustrators Rick Sternbach and Jim Martin, seem to focus on the season at hand. A second, short art department segment, dubbed "New Station, New Ships," homes in on the design of the spacecraft featured prominently in season two.
The two meatiest featurettes are the 15-minute "New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine," and the 17-minute "Crew Dossier: Jadzia Dax." The former would have been better suited to the first-season DVD set, given its discussion of the series' genesis and evolution as a whole. This piece is generally well produced, and mixes contemporary interviews with Michael Piller and Robert Hewitt Wolfe with older insights from Ira Steven Behr; the one caveat is how the DS9 theme music blares melodramatically in the background and feels out of place in a documentary-style featurette such as this.
The longest featurette boasts one of the more interesting perspectives on the disc: a recent video interview with Terry Farrell, the actress who gave life to the station's resident Trill science officer, Jadzia Dax. Farrell's reflections make for entertaining listening, but they do span the course of the series—which may be distracting to viewers, considering they're only up to season two on this particular DVD.
