On June 3, 1969, I watched "Turnabout Intruder", the final episode of Star Trek the original series. Although I loved the episode it was not really a strong episode to be run as a series finale. But back in 1969 the concept of the grand series finale wasn't really being used that much. I can't think of very many shows that had a relevant series finale in those years.
On May 23, 1994 I watched "All Good Things", the final next generation episode. Although I liked it as well I felt it wasn't really the best story to end the show with, although it was a unique story. At the time I thought the entire time travel/time shifting gag had been used a little bit too much, even though it was used differently in that episode.
But On June 2, 1999 I watched "what you leave behind" on my old 32" RCA CRT TV in my back room.
And I found that to be a totally unique experience in itself, I had been following deep space nine from the start and I only missed about two episodes in the entire run. On one hand, this episode puts a solid lid on the entire show. But on the other hand, it is way too short.
Later when I watched interviews with some of the producers, I believe it was Rick Berman who said "if we had five more episodes we certainly could have used them" - and I have always agreed with this.
Although in ST: TNG we did have some episodes that told a continuing story, it wasn't until season two of deep space nine when they started introducing little hints of something called "the dominion" and we started having a show that gradually told its tale through five more seasons, and it wasn't until season seven when we saw an arc consisting of about 10 individual episodes which told this final story.
It is interesting when we get to the end of stories, how time gets compressed. The beginning of lord of the rings is longer than the ending, and in the same way the ending of deep space nine is compressed into one season and 11 episodes in particular, while the final entry crams in as much as possible into a one hour 32 minute series finale.
When I was watching this for the first time, I was asking myself when is this episode going to end? Because stuff just kept happening, climax after climax. Until we get a huge revelation at the very end as to why the Prophets have been so interested in Benjamin "The Sisko" for what it turns out to be, his entire life. Which, of course, is "Not Linear".
But the question of how successful a series finale has been is always how well it stands up to subsequent viewings. And this episode passes that test, again and again and again.
We have to remember that digital special effects were very primitive at the time this was made, especially for a Television budget... and a lot of the practical shots of ships exploding and hulls being vaporized and saucer sections being "waporized" had been used in "the way of the warrior" and other previous episodes. I have to give credit to the compositors who put together the final battle scenes, and even though they did use some new footage, they just kind of stuck standard ship explosion clips into the scenes. I recognized one of the scenes of a Klingon bridge blowing up and sucking one of the Klingon warriors out into space as being first seen in Star Trek VI, The undiscovered country and later used in "Star Trek generations". Just like the explosion of Praxis in ST VI was also used as the explosion of the pyramid ship in Stargate (the movie). And if you look close, you will see a couple of explosions that occurred on Cardassia after Garak planted a Bomb in the two episodes previous to this.
It's just that everybody who worked on the show from the directors down to the lowliest crew, used every trick in their very substantial book to bring this story to life and to end it in the most spectacular way possible.
And what disappoints me to this very day is that CBS spent millions converting Star Trek the next generation into HD, while they did nothing for this show or for voyager. Both of these shows deserve the high definition treatment, and I am positive that the people who worked on the shows that are still around, if asked, would happily convert the shows to high definition as a labor of love, rather than a money making gimmick for CBS. Ironically, Star Trek has always been one of the first shows to ever be released on new technologies, and the last release was the DVD release in the early 2000s. That DVD set included extras for every season, which are always fascinating to watch. After that, they released TNG in HD and make a huge Hoopla out of it.
Now as much as I loved the finales of both next generation and voyager, they were both very limited in scope, compared to this finale. There is so much more going on here, on the station, in orbit around Cardassia, on Cardassia, on Bajor, in the fire caves, and finally in the celestial temple.
And we also get to see the final fates of two of the main characters. Which would have been something to build a deep space nine movie out of, but when they were making next generation movies, nobody even considered that maybe we would want a deep space nine movie? Why was that?
And I find this show superior to next generation in many ways, although I like them equally. But the state of the art of special effects had gotten better in deep space nine, and it gave us an opportunity to look at the cultures of other alien species rather than just the standard Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans. And it would always be a kick to see other races walking about the promenade, especially Pakleds. There were always a lot of Pakleds watching around the promenade. And all kinds of other interesting aliens.
On May 23, 1994 I watched "All Good Things", the final next generation episode. Although I liked it as well I felt it wasn't really the best story to end the show with, although it was a unique story. At the time I thought the entire time travel/time shifting gag had been used a little bit too much, even though it was used differently in that episode.
But On June 2, 1999 I watched "what you leave behind" on my old 32" RCA CRT TV in my back room.
And I found that to be a totally unique experience in itself, I had been following deep space nine from the start and I only missed about two episodes in the entire run. On one hand, this episode puts a solid lid on the entire show. But on the other hand, it is way too short.
Later when I watched interviews with some of the producers, I believe it was Rick Berman who said "if we had five more episodes we certainly could have used them" - and I have always agreed with this.
Although in ST: TNG we did have some episodes that told a continuing story, it wasn't until season two of deep space nine when they started introducing little hints of something called "the dominion" and we started having a show that gradually told its tale through five more seasons, and it wasn't until season seven when we saw an arc consisting of about 10 individual episodes which told this final story.
It is interesting when we get to the end of stories, how time gets compressed. The beginning of lord of the rings is longer than the ending, and in the same way the ending of deep space nine is compressed into one season and 11 episodes in particular, while the final entry crams in as much as possible into a one hour 32 minute series finale.
When I was watching this for the first time, I was asking myself when is this episode going to end? Because stuff just kept happening, climax after climax. Until we get a huge revelation at the very end as to why the Prophets have been so interested in Benjamin "The Sisko" for what it turns out to be, his entire life. Which, of course, is "Not Linear".
But the question of how successful a series finale has been is always how well it stands up to subsequent viewings. And this episode passes that test, again and again and again.
We have to remember that digital special effects were very primitive at the time this was made, especially for a Television budget... and a lot of the practical shots of ships exploding and hulls being vaporized and saucer sections being "waporized" had been used in "the way of the warrior" and other previous episodes. I have to give credit to the compositors who put together the final battle scenes, and even though they did use some new footage, they just kind of stuck standard ship explosion clips into the scenes. I recognized one of the scenes of a Klingon bridge blowing up and sucking one of the Klingon warriors out into space as being first seen in Star Trek VI, The undiscovered country and later used in "Star Trek generations". Just like the explosion of Praxis in ST VI was also used as the explosion of the pyramid ship in Stargate (the movie). And if you look close, you will see a couple of explosions that occurred on Cardassia after Garak planted a Bomb in the two episodes previous to this.
It's just that everybody who worked on the show from the directors down to the lowliest crew, used every trick in their very substantial book to bring this story to life and to end it in the most spectacular way possible.
And what disappoints me to this very day is that CBS spent millions converting Star Trek the next generation into HD, while they did nothing for this show or for voyager. Both of these shows deserve the high definition treatment, and I am positive that the people who worked on the shows that are still around, if asked, would happily convert the shows to high definition as a labor of love, rather than a money making gimmick for CBS. Ironically, Star Trek has always been one of the first shows to ever be released on new technologies, and the last release was the DVD release in the early 2000s. That DVD set included extras for every season, which are always fascinating to watch. After that, they released TNG in HD and make a huge Hoopla out of it.
Now as much as I loved the finales of both next generation and voyager, they were both very limited in scope, compared to this finale. There is so much more going on here, on the station, in orbit around Cardassia, on Cardassia, on Bajor, in the fire caves, and finally in the celestial temple.
And we also get to see the final fates of two of the main characters. Which would have been something to build a deep space nine movie out of, but when they were making next generation movies, nobody even considered that maybe we would want a deep space nine movie? Why was that?
And I find this show superior to next generation in many ways, although I like them equally. But the state of the art of special effects had gotten better in deep space nine, and it gave us an opportunity to look at the cultures of other alien species rather than just the standard Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans. And it would always be a kick to see other races walking about the promenade, especially Pakleds. There were always a lot of Pakleds watching around the promenade. And all kinds of other interesting aliens.