Personally, I don't think it did. Too many people are saying that DS9 was in its peak during the 5th season. I totally disagree. I feel that those people were too wrapped up in its amazing finale, "Call To Arms". That was tied with "Best of Both Worlds" as best season finale. This showed that for once in 'Trek the magic reset button couldn't just come along in the next episode and everything will be okay. But after "tears of the Prophets" did live up to the great edge of your seat drama that was bursting out of "CTA" people thought to themselves, "Season 5 was much better". I think that DS9 stayed the same. It had the same quality of shows with incredible zcharacter development and that flow carried onto season 7 and The Final Chapter. By the time that "The Changing face of Evil" aired people were just craving more DS9. Look at Star Trek. It got extremly better in its 4th season (never mind the addition of 7 of 9) because it got much better stories and many more SFX. "Scorpion" was Voyager's best finale to date. Even after good episodes like "Hope and Fear" and "Equinox" that reall wasn't good finale material, people still consider Voyager's fifth season to be its best. Voyager improves every because it strives to make a small, complaining audience with very big mouths to feel more comfortalbe with the show. However, the DS9 audience felt comfortable with the show by season 4 and the writers used the same methods.

I don't think it did.

No way did it ••••.I think DS9 has gotten consistently better over the years.

I cannot believe it censored "s u c k".

I too believe that DS9 only got better and better. On NO other Trek series did they have such consistant quality of writing and character development. Yes, TNG did have MANY fine moments, but the characters didn't go anywhere new after the 4th season or so.

I agree with Kail on DS9 getting better and better every year in terms of quality. The only problem with the sixth season was that for a while the writers weren't sure if there'd be a seventh season or not so they weren't quite sure what to do (that really showed in the second half of the season). As for the seventh season, I think there should have been an eighth. That way the seventh season wouldn't have to have crammed everything together (and not have room to fit everything in).

Absolutely not! But that is a qualified no -- I have to admit that the seventh season, while not actively horrible most of the time, was rather disappointing. I think the problem is that DS9's writers are really good at setup, but have problems giving us adequate payoff, and that really showed in the finale arc. (As a side note, the occupation arc in season six had this problem as well, but it wasn't as pronounced, and the episodes were vastly more interesting on a character level, so they hold up to repeat viewings better.) I also agree with Roland's point that the writers did get stuck with a couple of situations beyond their control -- being renewed for seven seasons, for example, and then having to introduce Ezri (though they really did drop the ball on that, by making her primarily a love interest). Still, season seven spent entirely too much time spinning wheels.

The sixth season, OTOH, has been unfairly maligned because of the way it ended. We did get some wonderful episodes that year -- the occupation arc (save "Sons and Daughters," which was only mediocre), which on balance, was probably the best single stretch of DS9 in the show's history; "Statistical Probabilities," "Inquisition," and of course the magnificent "In the Pale Moonlight." (Side note: I'd consider "Waltz" a great episode as well, but given the later development of Dukat, and the fact that Sisko's final statement on him was apparently meant to be taken as the final word, it does suffer a bit. In itself, though, it really is a strong show.)

So what was the point of this ranting? Oh yes. DS9 may not have been perfect over its last two years, but it certainly didn't ••••. Actually, I think it really only suffers in comparison with itself.

BTW, if I had to pick a favorite season, I'd cheat and say 5.5 through 6.5... :-)

I think the series is the best of all Trek. Allowing it to be serialized made it even better, because I could not wait to see what would happen on the next episode. It was also good to see how the crew agonized over decisions made earlier in the series instead of the "by the next ep everything was ok" syndrome that TOS and TNG suffered from (in defense of TNG, Picard had the Locutus incident thrown in his face several times in episodes like "homecoming", "The Drumhead", "I Borg", ect). But The Dominion war story was a great thing. It took Star Trek to a whole new level!

DS9 was a great series with a great cast.
It seems to me that the first Trek series had 'self-contained' adventures. DS9 had a continuing story arc. TNG had many 'self-contained' stories(especially in its early seasons) but it also had many references to past TV episodes.
One could say that TNG was truly "The Best of Both Worlds" in this respect.
Which is more than can be said for Voyager, the worst of the Trek shows.

DS9 s*ck after season 5?

Is that because Robert Hewitt Wolfe left the series?