SciFi Diner Pilots 395 - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller. It originally aired from January 1993 to June 1999, in syndication, spanning 176 episodes over seven seasons. The fourth series in the Star Trek franchise, it served as the third sequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. Set in the 24th century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, it is based on the eponymous space station Deep Space Nine, located adjacent to a wormhole connecting Federation territory to the Gamma Quadrant on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy. Following the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount Pictures commissioned a new series set in the Star Trek fictional universe. In creating Deep Space Nine, Berman and Piller drew upon plot themes developed in The Next Generation, namely the conflict between two alien species, the Cardassians and the Bajorans. Deep Space Nine was the first Star Trek series to be created without the direct involvement of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry, the first set on a space station rather than a traveling starship and the first to have a person of color—Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks)—as its central character. Changes were made to the series over the course of its seven-year run. For the third season, the starship USS Defiant was introduced to enable more stories away from the space station, while the fourth saw the introduction of Worf (Michael Dorn), originally from The Next Generation, as a main character. The final three seasons dealt with a story arc, that of the war between the Federation and an invasive Gamma Quadrant power, the Dominion. Although not as popular as The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine was critically well received. Following the success of Deep Space Nine, Paramount commissioned Berman and Brannon Braga to produce Star Trek: Voyager, which began in 1995. During Deep Space Nine's run, various episode novelisations and tie-in video games were produced; after the show ended, various novels and comics continued the crew's adventures.