Star Trek’s Best Show Succeeded By Distancing Itself From Captain Picard

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 10 seconds ago

Back in the ‘90s, Deep Space Nine seemed like an insane idea for a spinoff of The Next Generation. Like, there’s a space station instead of a ship? And it just sits there instead of boldly going anywhere? Plus, some of our most important characters include a spy, a terrorist, and a Space Jesus? On paper, all of this sounded like it would be a disaster. But DS9 ultimately became something far better than a TNG spinoff. It became, in fact, the best Star Trek show ever made. That didn’t happen right away, though, as it took the show some time to find its voice.

Fittingly enough, the biggest early challenge was differentiating DS9 from what came before. The commanding officer of these shows is always the de facto main character, so it was important to make sure Sisko was very distinct from Picard. Season 1 made a token effort to do this; we see how much Sisko actively dislikes the Enterprise captain in “Emissary” and that he has a much more direct way of dealing with Q in “Q-Less.” However, it wasn’t until the Season 2 episode “Second Sight” that the writers established that Picard was “the explorer” and Sisko was “the builder,” which helped them transform DS9 into Trek’s best show.

Humanizing Star Trek’s Most Complicated Character

The plot of “Second Sight” is that Commander Sisko meets and falls in love with a mysterious woman. He can’t find much information about her, and he is suitably shocked to meet another woman who looks exactly like his new gal but who has no memory of ever meeting him. With the help of Dax, Sisko learns that the woman he fell in love with is actually a telepathic projection from this other woman; she is unhappy with her marriage to an egotistical terraformer, but her people mate for life, so she feels stuck. The psychic projection is killing her, and her husband ultimately sacrifices himself so she can be happy.

One of the most interesting things about “Second Sight” is that it was (according to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) originally written to be a Bashir story, with the horndog doctor being the one who falls in love with a mysterious woman. It was then-showrunner Michael Piller’s idea to make this a Sisko episode instead. His primary concern was that Deep Space Nine had made the commander a very aloof figure, and he wanted to humanize his character. Along the way, he hoped to more fully define Sisko in a way the show never had before.

Sisko The Builder

Piller’s partner in crime was Deep Space Nine writer and future showrunner Ira Steven Behr. He and Piller “had conversations about making Sisko the builder, on establishing the difference between him and Picard, the explorer. Sisko is a builder, he stays with a project until the finish.” This had a transformative effect on the writing staff and helped them craft better stories for the commanding officer. “That helped us to see Sisko in a whole lot of different ways. He’s a guy who’s solid and real and human,” Behr said.

Honestly, this insight is quite brilliant. What they said about Picard was perfectly in line with the captain we saw in The Next Generation. Why didn’t Picard stay to work on the family vineyard with his brother? Later, why didn’t he take the underwater research facility gig after recovering from assimilation? Because, like Kirk before him, Picard’s first, best destiny is exploring the final frontier. By contrast, Sisko is a family man. He was hesitant to take the Deep Space Nine assignment, but once he was there, he could never leave because he wanted to build a better world for his son, his crew, and the people of Bajor.

What The Worlds Need Now, Is Love, Sweet Love

So, where does “Second Sight” come into these revelations about who Sisko is as a character? Simple: giving Sisko a new romance develops his character, showing how he’s attempting to move on from the tragic death of his wife. Additionally, this plot helps viewers identify with the character. We may not know what it’s like to be a Starfleet officer or a Space Jesus, but everyone watching at home knows what it’s like to fall in love. After this, Sisko progressively became the emotional center of Deep Space Nine, anchoring killer stories like “Far Beyond the Stars” with the sheer weight of his relatable humanity.

None of that would have happened, though, if the show’s best writers hadn’t gone out of their way to make Sisko as different from Picard as they possibly could!