star trek: deep space nine

‘Star Trek’ has seen several incarnations of the franchise as TV shows with widely varying themes and focuses, but no series seems to prove more divisive to fans, in terms of what was presented on-screen and how it was received by viewers, than ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.’  (You come close, ‘Enterprise,’ and ‘Discovery’ seems like its going to do its best to contend for the title.)

To coincide with the 25th anniversary of the premiere of ‘Deep Space Nine,’ several of the show’s creative team are reuniting for a new documentary, entitled ‘What We Left Behind’ (a take on the title of the final episode of the series, ‘What You Leave Behind’).  At the Star Trek Las Vegas convention, documentary director Adam Nimoy spoke about how the work on the project is progressing:

“We have a theme and we have a point of view, and we have a lot of discussion with [DS9 Executive Producer] Ira [Steven Behr] to try to distill what we want to say.”

Behr himself also spoke at the convention about his part in the documentary-making process, including the experience of getting the writers back in the same room to discuss at length a “hypothetical” new episode for the show, that would have followed the series finale of the seventh season:

“It was an unbelievable 6-7 hours being together, it was like the years just melted away… You’re going to see the pure first thought, best thought, you’re going to see people arguing.”

Behr also took some time to thank the “powers that be” that the internet as we know it to day didn’t exist in DS9’s prime:

“Thank God there was no [modern] Internet when we were doing ‘Deep Space Nine’ because the negativity would have been so overwhelming. [DS9 was] a show that lived its whole life not only in the semi-darkness of the franchise, but also being told constantly that it was a dark show with dark themes, but it’s really a show about love and family.”

There is no official release date for the documentary as of yet, but Nimoy and crew hope to have it finished and ready for release sometime in 2018.