Mission Log: The Admiral

Our Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Project

What Is This About?

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a FAN. Seriously, I’m a pretty intense, somewhat obsessive, fan of many things. I love stories, characters, and fictional universes. My life has largely been based around these ideas. My hobbies all come down to experiencing stories, characters and fictional universes in a variety of ways. My career as an English teacher? That mostly happened because I wanted people to read meaningful stories and learn from them. I can earn a living making the world a more enlightened place through books and stories? Sign me up!

As a fan, I love a lot of things. I don’t know if I can truly ever pick one single favorite fandom. They are all important to me and they have all added to my life immeasurably. I love Doctor Who, Marvel Comics, Godzilla movies, Judge Dredd, horror movies, Conan the Barbarian, Lupin the 3rd, Red Sonja, Bill & Ted, The Goon, and…well, a lot of other stuff. However, the very first fandom, my very first taste of intense, overwhelming, fan devotion was Star Trek. If not for Star Trek, the others may never have followed. It is not at all a stretch to say that this show made me the person I am today. (For better or worse!)

If you remember the 1970s, you know TV was really different then. There were only three channels. You could only see something when it aired and then it vanished, possibly forever. There was no home video, no streaming, no On Demand, no internet. Just three channels and the TV Guide. I don’t honestly remember when I first stumbled across Star Trek. I must have been about five years old. The show was on heavy rotation in syndication back then, which means at some point I caught a rerun that made me sit up and take notice. I don’t even know which episode it was, but I was hooked and clearly never turned back. I remember poring over those TV Guides looking for episodes airing at all kinds of crazy and unpredictable times. I remember making up charts and schedules so I knew when to catch an episode on TV. I didn’t know how many episodes there were. I didn’t even know the show had actually been cancelled before I was born. All I knew for sure was that the epic adventures of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and the Enterprise were the best experiences of my young life and I needed more! I became a Star Trek fan for life.

I have seen every minute of every Star Trek adventure ever made. Every TV episode, every movie, even the amazingly goofy 1970s animated series. I’ve also read a whole bunch of books, magazines, and comics that add to the great flow of this fictional universe. As with everything, some stories, characters, or shows are better than others, but it’s all good. I love the new 21st century iterations of Trek. I love Lower Decks. I even love the JJ Abrams Kelvin-Verse movies. It’s all a part of the adventure, filled with excitement, optimism, diversity, acceptance, and hope. The original series started it all. The Next Generation opened up a whole new canvas, proving that Star Trek stories didn’t have to rely on Kirk and company. However…Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will always be my absolute favorite piece of the Star Trek universe.

Why Deep Space Nine? It’s not any one thing that makes this show stand above the rest, but it’s the way that everything comes together perfectly that makes it special. The cast is fantastic and they are given amazing, complex, real characters to play. When it was created, the show was kind of an overlooked middle child, which meant the writers and producers were allowed unprecedented freedom to try new things and take storytelling risks. After the first season or so, it became the first Trek show that was allowed to have serialized stories, letting the writers build on everything that happened and giving each new episode more dramatic weight and depth. Because the crew lives on a space station that stays put, rather than boldly going to strange new worlds, everyone they meet matters, not just for one episode, but as a part of a huge ongoing group that has to learn to live together. DS9 embraces the hope, diversity, and optimism of Starfleet and the Federation, but it also looks at some of the frayed edges and darker corners of that universe. It isn’t always easy for them to maintain the ideals and directives that they seek to live by. This show isn’t afraid to approach big ideas like prejudice, religion, and war, and it always treats these subjects with intelligence, thoughtfulness, empathy, and meaningful reflection.

That all sounds very “worthy,” but DS9 does all this while also just being a whole lot of fun. There are epic adventures, hilarious Ferengi antics with Quark and company, fun times on the Holodeck with Bashir and O’Brien, villains you will love to hate (Gul Dukat, I’m looking at you!), awesome spaceship battles with the Defiant, Mirror Universe hijinks, the best father/son relationship in Star Trek history, youthful shenanigans with Jake and Nog, Odo’s scornful snorts of derision, romance in many forms, Tribbles, time travel, self-sealing stem bolts, Jeffrey Combs, the epic leadership of Ben Sisko, a little baseball, everything you could ever need to know about Klingon honor and, possibly most importantly, MORN!  

So, we’re gonna watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

How This Is Going To Work

I thought it would be a lot more fun to go on this journey with a carefully selected crew of fellow travellers. Some have never seen this show before, others have seen it all, but it’s been awhile. Admittedly, I’m most excited to share it with the people who will see it all with new eyes, for the very first time, but I think it will be more interesting for everyone if we’re doing it together. 

Because Rhonda and I like to express our ideas through writing, we decided that we would write about our ongoing reactions to each episode as we watch it. Everyone who is involved is welcome to write down some notes, make comments, draw cartoons, or respond to the episode in any way that they choose to. They may wish to react to something we’ve written, or they may want to just watch the show and enjoy that without having any homework to do. 

We’re going to set up a blog to post our ongoing witterings. Maybe some people would like to read them. Maybe no one will care but us. Maybe we’ll be able to collect a bunch of things we write and make a really nerdy book someday! If nothing else, we’ll amuse ourselves and enjoy a great show.

The Plan

To keep participation at a realistic level for everyone, while hopefully not taking the rest of our lives to finish, the plan is to watch two episodes per week, whenever and however you can make this a part of your schedule. We’ll share our notes and reactions each week and see if anyone else wants to add anything. That’s it! 

Who Is Onboard

Jim Lancaster: If you’ve read all of this nonsense, you know who I am and you’re amazingly patient and tolerant of my self-indulgent rambling. Thanks!

Rhonda Lancaster: Wonderful wife, great writer, dreams of teaching a DS9 college course some day. She has ambition!

Waylon “Lonnie” Walls: Longtime best bud from way back in the day, with a solid, but casual, fan knowledge of Trek. Engineer and tinker. Probably Chief O’Brien’s soul mate. He has never seen DS9!

Matt Cirilli: Friend, convention buddy, and also a lifelong Star Trek fan. He’s seen it all, but maybe he hasn’t seen everything! 

Becca Heisner: The other next generation! Former student, adopted family member, lawyer, actor, activist, Renaissance woman. Also, a new fan in the making, for sure! Never seen DS9.

Adam Felty: A true believer! Former student, adopted family member, huge Star Trek fan. He’s seen it, he loves it, and he’s going to do it all again. His presence always betokens merriment!

Ray Lemansky: Longtime friend and occasional co-conspirator. Master of the Mystic Arts. Purveyor of arcane knowledge. Guy who has seen things. Familiar with DS9, but maybe not all in order?

Keith Blonairz: Adventurer, outdoorsman, philosopher. It may be hard to get him to sit still long enough to watch anything TV, but he’s game to try!

Toni Allen: Sister-in-law, science fiction fan (We’ll forgive her for loving Battlestar Galactica), and Rhonda’s foothold into The Next Generation as teenagers.

Truen Allen: Nephew & our youngest recruit. Can’t wait to see what he thinks!

The First Mission

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1

Episode 1-Emissary (Part One)

Episode 2-Emissary (Part Two)

May appear edited together as one movie-length episode (1 hour, 30 minutes).

Watch them, write something if you want to, or don’t if you don’t want to. Enjoy!

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Go to Captain’s Log or Lieutenant Ray’s or Lieutenant Matt’s Personal Logs