Justin’s rating: Beam this up in your head

Justin’s review: When Deep Space Nine arrived in 1993, it was right at the height of my personal fandom for Star Trek. We knew that The Next Generation was winding down, and so there was intense curiosity to see how the franchise would pass the torch to a new installment — one which promised to go in a much different direction than Picard and Kirk. What we got was bold and creative, upending the status quo that Trek had been coasting on for many years. DS9 ended up being the cult hit of Star Trek, a series that took us through an entire war and outside of the pristine confines of the Federation’s starships.

As I’m going through the Star Trek series with my daughter, I knew it would be a while before we got to DS9, and so I felt like indulging in the 2019 documentary that looked back at this fascinating series. What We Left Behind is a celebration of a show where people sat on a space station, quibbled a lot more than ever before, and ended up changing an entire galaxy. It also became the first Trek series with far more serialization than had ever been seen before.

Showrunner Ira Steven Behr — he of the vividly blue goatee — leads the charge at exalting a show that was often seen as the “middle child” of the ’90s Star Trek series (between TNG and Voyager). Using interviews with the cast and crew, clips of the show, and a not inconsiderable amount of humor, the doc wears DS9’s oddness on its sleeve. But like all cult, those who got it really got it — and everyone else be damned.

Considering that this was crowdfunded by fans, it should tell you how beloved this show ended up becoming despite its rocky start. And What We Left Behind is kind of a triumph for them, representing a reunion of all of these familiar faces and giving us the closest we got to a DS9 movie (as this got a limited theatrical release). Fans also got to see many of their favorite moments rescanned and improved to be widescreen high definition.

The cast talks about how they got into their roles while the creators walked through the making of this combination of an “oil rig crossed with a shopping mall.” And sporadically, fans on the street were asked what they originally thought about DS9 and how it affected their lives.

What’s maybe the most interesting segment is when the old showrunners pitch a hypothetical Season 8 opening episode that takes place many years later — parts of which are then semi-animated. It’s certainly fascinating to see the team bouncing off of each other like that to groupthink an idea.

I can tell you right away that this is one excellently well-done documentary. I’ve seen some boring, safe docs, and I’ve seen really bad ones. What We Left Behind is a love letter that oozes respect and skill in every scene. There’s so much visual pizzazz despite being, essentially, a bunch of interviews. The two-hour runtime breezed right by. Not only is the full cast here but many of the smaller roles and a slew of various crew are given an opportunity to weigh in.

It’s also a surprisingly nuanced look at the show’s legacy, such as real-life vets drawing strength from the PTSD and war stories, Avery Brooks’ directoral and acting masterpiece as a science fiction writer in a bigoted era, and Terry Farrell’s pain at being railroaded off the show one season before it ended.

This  documentary is a no-brainer if you’re already a Trek or — more specifically — a “Niner.” But if you’re outside of the sphere of this fandom, I’m not sure if this is a good recommendation, even as a gateway to the show. There are too many spoilers and a whole lot of characters and references that mean nothing to the uninitiated. So, y’know, maybe watch the series first and leave this for dessert?