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| Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Episodes 1 & 2: The Emissary (Pilot) | 
 enlarge | Directors: Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, Alexander Siddig, Corey Allen, Reza Badiyi
Actors: Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, Alexander Siddig
Studio: Paramount
Category: Video
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $0.50
You Save: $19.45 (97%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (11 reviews)
Sales Rank: 26179
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Hifi Sound, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Running Time: 92 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 630413231X
UPC: 097360040135
EAN: 9786304132319
ASIN: 630413231X
Release Date: September 3, 1996
Theatrical Release Date: January 4, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
[4.5] Great introduction to arguably the best Star Trek series ever December 20, 2007
Gone are the good old days of TOS and TNG, where exploration was at the heart of everyone's mind in a somewhat lighthearted felt adventure. Thus begins Deep Space Nine, an almost controversial series among fans, where the story is taken seriously and politcal events become more important than exploration, set in a remote and dark station. Despite it all, Deep Space Nine was a huge success and well known as "The greatest undsicovered series on television". Emissary is where it all begins, a wonderful pilot episode that digs a little deeper than any other Star Trek series pilot.
If you can handle the struggling acting (and its not that uncomon for the first season of a new television series), Emissary is just all around wonderful. The very beginning is gripping, pitting Commander Benjamin Sisko in the middle of Wolf 359 - the horiffic event where Captain Picard was briefly the leader of the Borg cube that destroyed every starship in battle. Although Sisko and his son escape, Sisko's wife Jennifer was not so lucky. Three years later, the Commander is ordered to take command of a Caradassian station orbiting Bajor, and finds himself again in the presence of Picard. The memories haunt Sisko, as does his new role as commander of the station, and soon to be Emissary of the Bajoran prophets.
With the exceptions of the beginning and end, this is not an action packed episode, but has a very important story that sets a strong tone for what is yet to come in the series. We get to meet all the main charcaters as well as their differences, and those differences that will not make it the easiest task of working together. The Cardassians and Bajorans are both given significant roles, which finally gives Trekkies a chance to learn more about other races than the Klingons and Romulans. But perhaps the biggest change of all is the absence of a starship in a Trek series, and replaced with a bulky station. A sad truth at first, but very fitting for the events and story surrounding it.
On a depeer note, I really enjoyed where the story went with Sisko becoming the Emissary. The story dives into the spirituality of the Bajoran race, and Sisko's explanation to the prophets on what it means to be human and to live in linear time gave me personal insight on the same manner. It was a nice reminder of who we are and what we live for.
Emissary is a wonderful pilot, unfortunately, to a rather weak season. Easily the least exciting season of DS9, it will eventually translate into a lot of excitement. But for now, Emissary is a great opener for what is to come.
Acting - 3
Action - 4
Characters - 4
Story - 5
Overall - 4.5
 If at first you don't succeed, kick the console July 27, 2003
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
EMISSARY suffers from a lot of the flaws that have plagued Star Trek spin-off pilots, although I think it has so far been the most successful. This, however, isn't saying much; I've found most of those pilots to be dull, boring, and/or incoherent. The Deep Space Nine pilot wasn't as bad as all that, though I hated it when I watched the initial airing. Re-watching it again recently with the benefit of hindsight, I found I appreciated it much more. It's still not exactly terrific, but it does do everything that one expects from a first episode while still managing to tell a story.The problems that face Star Trek pilots are usually the same ones that crop up every five years or so (whenever Paramount decides to launch another moneymaker). "We need to introduce the characters," I imagine the suits saying, "We need to introduce the setting; we need to introduce the political undertones; we'd like to give the major characters a backstory; we'd like to drop some hints about storylines that we'll be following up on in the future; we'll need to populate the immediate area with some convincing bad guys; we'll want to explore the religious aspects of the indigenous people; we'll want to introduce some amazingly advanced alien creatures that humans are encountering for the first time; and we'll want an extended cameo from a star of the previous series. Oh, and yeah, we'll want some kind of a story in there too, okay?" For everything that it's trying to do, I think EMISSARY mostly succeeds. The story itself is relatively simple, and revolves around introducing Ben Sisko (and the audience) to his new setting, his new command, and the various plot strands that will be cropping up in the future. The introduction of the characters is mostly handled well, although there are a few clumsy moments, and a lot of the people and their makeup don't appear to be quite in their regular form yet. I like the fact that the episode neatly subverts itself. The set up begins with this station being the backwater of the universe (influencing the decisions of more than one character), but by the end this has been completely reversed. The pilot also contains a few examples of the sort of thing that I really dislike about Star Trek Series That Do Not Star William Shatner. I am talking about, of course, the reliance on technobabble and the ability of the crew to come up with miraculous solutions to problems in no time at all. Fortunately, there aren't too many examples of this on display here. Unfortunately, the two that spring to mind are particularly poor. The first is that Dax is able to totally redesign the way the laws of physics work, and throws out this observation as if she's giving advice about which wine goes with a particular kind of fish. In order to make the station's thrusters move the ship faster, she figures a way of lowering the mass of the object, therefore requiring less energy to push it. The question that immediately comes to mind is: if lowering the mass of something is so easy, why on Earth isn't this standard operating procedure for all forms of transportation? Do Starfleet care as little for fuel efficiency standards as the U.S. government does? The other piece of "instant brilliance" is the fact that O'Brien manages to boost the power of the station's phasers with almost no effort on his part at all. Truly amazing. I can just imagine thousands of Federation scientists working around the clock, trying to think of a way to increase the efficiency of their government's phasers, only to be beaten to the punch by Miles O'Brien after two whole seconds of thought. There are some nice touches that rescue this episode from being a plodding introduction that one must get through in order to understand the series. Sisko's discussion and explanations concerning "linear time" are quite interesting, although the first time I saw this, I thought that the story violated its own internal logic, and nothing that I saw on my second viewing convinced me that I was wrong (how could he teach the concept of linear time to beings that exist outside of it, when surely they would be stateless creatures and could only either already know of linear time, or could never know of linear time?). I liked the aliens living in the wormhole, even if they fall prey to many Star Trek stereotypes (alien beings that are so highly advanced that they act and talk like complete idiots). The characters only have one episode to establish themselves, but in that time I already find them much more interesting than the entirety of the Next Generation crew. The setting is again more intriguing than that of the previous series, and really makes the show feel that there is a lot of potential for conflict here. A rough start, but not a bad one.
The best pilot episode of all the Trek series February 2, 2003
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The powers that be pulled out all the stops for this excellent and very good-looking first show of the Deep Space Nine series. The infamous and often referred to battle at Wolf 359 is finally seen to some extended length in the beginning of 'Emissary'; the rundown space station is a well-conceived set design; the matte painting of the Bajoran temple on the planet surface is mesmerizing albeit too briefly seen; and all those aliens! The production design put forth here was the most superior effort by the creative staff in any Trek program to date - heck some of the movies don't look this great!Also the story is a terrific, hard edged and dyed-in-the-wool science fiction tale that is handled well. The revelation of the existence of the wormhole; the incorporeal wormhole beings using a variety of people from Sisko's memories to interact with him; the explanation of the mysterious Orbs and their purpose; Sisko using the game of baseball to demonstrate the concept of linear time; his rush of emotions over his admittance of his inability to 'exist beyond the moment his wife died' and that he has been living in non-linear time; many more brilliant touches are present within this well-structured script. The characters are surprisingly well defined for a first episode. Normally the main characters undergo a severe change in the shows immediately following; an actor will begin to add their personality to the composite of the person they are playing and these differences are usually noticeable. That doesn't happen on ST: DS9 though, the character flow from pilot to series inception is practically seamless. The best character interchange we get to see in 'Emissary' is the scene in Sisko's new office where he has called together Odo and Quark for a meeting. The tension between Odo and Quark comes into play right away; Quark breaks out in uproarious laughter at Sisko's request for him to remain at DS9 and become a community leader; Odo sarcastically makes the observation that Quark has all the natural qualities of a politician. The addition of the character of Dax allows the show to continue the familiar Trek theme of the differences between our Earth-centric view of everything in terms of humanity and the point of view from an outsider that adds interesting and conflicting complexities. Being over three hundred years old and having existed as a variety of alien beings added a great and very unique dimension to this Trek series. As far as the actors go for this particular show an honorable mention should be made for the young Cirroc Lofton; he stood in for the wormhole aliens in a variety of sequences and did an admirable job. Also his scenes with Avery Brooks as father and son are believable and convincing. Best line: Sisko and Gul Dukat's first meeting is quite memorable. When Gul Dukat makes a point of how uncomfortably close the Federation members are to the formidable Cardassians Sisko remarks sarcastically "We'll be sure and keep the dog off the lawn."
The best Trek yet! October 9, 2000
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
People will debate this for years to come, but in my opinion, the best Star Trek series ever started here... Deep Space Nine.Benjamin Sisqo (Avery Brooks) plays the head of a Starfleet delegation sent to bridge relations with the Bajorians. Bajor has been under the enforced rule of the Cardassians for the past 50 years, and after winning their freedom, reluctantly accept the help of the Federation in rebuilding their society. However, the discovery of a wormhole to another sector of the galaxy changes everything. Over the course of seven seasons, DS9 went from being the afterthought of the Star Trek universe to being the standard bearer. Well thought plotlines, and stories that had consequences made this worth the visit every week. There are weak episodes, and there are great episodes. Make sure you don't miss any.
Where it all began... August 20, 2000
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
The first episode(s) of Deep Space Nine provided us all with an insight into a new, darker, more violent Star Trek, Deep Space Nine. The characters are all fully fleshed out by the end of this brilliant episode which concentrates on the newly acquired freedom the Bajoran's now enjoy, the Enterprise is in orbit of Bajor and protecting the planet, but when Picard and crew are called away on an urgent mission it is left to a skeleton crew headed by Commander Benjamin Sisko who must defend the former-Cardassian space station, Terok Nor, from the old landloards who are on their way back to retake what they believe to be there's... Sisko discovers a wormhole and the strange beings that live in it, with his untested crew on DS9 they are the only ones who can stop the Cardassian invasion ship! Explosive!
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