My go-to example for this is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Season one is overall quite rough, however s01e19 “Duet” (second-to-last episode of the season) is IMO the first episode that shows true glimmers of promise. In season two the series starts to find its footing, by season three it’s proven itself to be Star Trek gold, and then the series manages to maintain its quality through to its seventh and final season.
It is rough compared to the later stuff but, man, it got off to a WAY better start than TNG did… I mean, Riker had to grow a beard for the show to get good!
IMO DS9’s s1 is way worse than TNG’s, but that might be because TNG has a nostalgia factor for me from watching random episodes as a kid, and so by the time I did a full start-to-finish watch-thru I already knew the characters well and understood that the series would get better, whereas I was an adult when I first watched DS9 and went into it completely blind (after watching the first two-parter episode I nearly cried, because I was on a mission to watch all of the 20th century Star Treks, and there were seven seasons of this to slog through!? And now it’s my favorite Star Trek series of all time.)
I think you mean episode 18, that one is the second-to-last of the season.
And that is exactly the episode I was thinking of, too. I didn’t know which episode number it was, I just remember when I was watching DS9, there was an episode with the filing clerk, and I thought, “Oh, this show is actually going to be great if it stays like this.” I just looked it up on IMDB, and it’s S1 E18.
Apparently it depends on whether you consider the series premiere as one episode or two; Wikipedia (which I used for reference) lists it as two separate episodes, providing a total s1 episode count of 20, vs imdb which lists it as one single episode, providing a total s1 episode count of 19. Memory Alpha lists the episode as s1e19, and I’m inclined to trust those nerds. At any rate I edited my comment to include the episode title for clarity.
Regardless, yeah, I think it’s probably a turning point episode for a lot of folks, and it’s the first of many war introspection episodes that help make the series timeless.
Oh, interesting. I’d go with Memory Alpha too, then. But yeah, definitely a pivot point in the series, and the first one that really took the post-war setting seriously.
My go-to example for this is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Season one is overall quite rough, however s01e19 “Duet” (second-to-last episode of the season) is IMO the first episode that shows true glimmers of promise. In season two the series starts to find its footing, by season three it’s proven itself to be Star Trek gold, and then the series manages to maintain its quality through to its seventh and final season.
Season 1 of DS9 was rough? Cries in TNG… 🤣
It is rough compared to the later stuff but, man, it got off to a WAY better start than TNG did… I mean, Riker had to grow a beard for the show to get good!
Sisko’s beard also improved DS9
He also had reverse Samson syndrome, had to lose his hair to gain power.
Very true!
IMO DS9’s s1 is way worse than TNG’s, but that might be because TNG has a nostalgia factor for me from watching random episodes as a kid, and so by the time I did a full start-to-finish watch-thru I already knew the characters well and understood that the series would get better, whereas I was an adult when I first watched DS9 and went into it completely blind (after watching the first two-parter episode I nearly cried, because I was on a mission to watch all of the 20th century Star Treks, and there were seven seasons of this to slog through!? And now it’s my favorite Star Trek series of all time.)
I think you mean episode 18, that one is the second-to-last of the season.
And that is exactly the episode I was thinking of, too. I didn’t know which episode number it was, I just remember when I was watching DS9, there was an episode with the filing clerk, and I thought, “Oh, this show is actually going to be great if it stays like this.” I just looked it up on IMDB, and it’s S1 E18.
Apparently it depends on whether you consider the series premiere as one episode or two; Wikipedia (which I used for reference) lists it as two separate episodes, providing a total s1 episode count of 20, vs imdb which lists it as one single episode, providing a total s1 episode count of 19. Memory Alpha lists the episode as s1e19, and I’m inclined to trust those nerds. At any rate I edited my comment to include the episode title for clarity.
Regardless, yeah, I think it’s probably a turning point episode for a lot of folks, and it’s the first of many war introspection episodes that help make the series timeless.
Oh, interesting. I’d go with Memory Alpha too, then. But yeah, definitely a pivot point in the series, and the first one that really took the post-war setting seriously.