DS9 pulled off a political space drama that could rival Dallas or MASH and they got 7 seasons. I'm rewatching it again and I still can't believe that prime time viewers would sit through these episodes that are just 2 people arguing the nuances of humanity for 45 minutes. It's nothing like TV is today.
As far as a movie, I think the TNG movies weren't that Trek. They often took the characters in strange directions, favored more digestible plotlines, and wrote dialogue that you'd expect from AI. I value the television wellspring of Trek in the 90s/early 2000s. It is so cool, and that era is still bearing fruit today.
I would like to see more of the DS9 characters, and like to see what a movie budget would do, but I don't trust that a DS9 movie would've been given the reverence needed to make it right. It has been great to see Picard and the ST world in the later years, but I don't know if it makes the lore any better. I'm not sure that we are any closer to another golden decade of ST.
Thanks for posting this and helping me get some of my thoughts on DS9 coalesced. Do you have a DS9 movie plot you think would've worked? Those 'golden years' of Trek were also open to the most fan input, with concepts and entire scripts being submitted. If we had 26 episode seasons to play with, maybe they'd take our call.
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