Star Trek’s Most Ambitious Show Is a Sleeper Hit on PVOD 1 Day Before Successor Series Debuts

Star Trek's most ambitious television show has returned to the PVOD charts. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is back on the Apple TV Store chart according to data from FlixPatrol, ranking at number 15 on the list of top TV shows in the United States today, one day ahead of the debut of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the fourth Star Trek television series (third in live-action) and debuted in 1993. Despite spinning directly out of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine immediately broke from the established formula, making its setting a space station instead of starship.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is also the first Star Trek series to feature a non-white lead character, with Avery Brooks playing Benjamin Sisko, first introduced as a Starfleet commander before being promoted to captain midway through the series. That Deep Space Nine's main cast included several characters who were not part of Starfleet at all — Bajoran freedom fighter Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), shapeshifting security officer Odo (René Auberjonois), Sisko's son Jake (Cirroc Lofton), and Ferengi bar owner and entrepeneur Quark (Armin Shimerman) -- was another break from Star Trek's norms.

Of course, there were still plenty of Starfleet personnel staffing Deep Space 9, including Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) as the Chief Medical Officer, Science Officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), and Chief of Operations Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney, reprising his role from Star Trek: The Next Generation). However, their experiences and development were different from those of past Starfleet characters due to the nature of storytelling on a largely stationary space station, where characters must deal with the consequences of their actions for much longer than on a starship that warps off to a new adventure on a new planet every week, as in past Star Trek shows.

Because of this, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was able to break new ground for the franchise, becoming one of television's earliest examples of serialized storytelling. Yes, there were still episodes with beginnings, middles, and ends each week, but there were also larger stories that character over from week to week, especially in the latter seasons that dealt with the ongoing story of the Dominion War.

Which is another way that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine proved ambitious. The series dealt with often much darker themes than the Star Trek shows before it, or at least ruminated on them longer and with more nuance. Sure, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" is a masterpiece about war and its effects on the peoples involved in them, but it can't achieve in its 48 minutes the same depth and detail that Deep Space Nine is able to with multiple episodes about how open war with the Dominion changes the Federation, forcing Starfleet away from its optimistic mission of exploration and onto a wartime footing.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Is Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Successor Series

Star Trek: Deep Space NIne returns to the PVOD charts just ahead of the debut of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. In a way, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy can be seen as Deep Space Nine's successor. Like Deep Space Nine, Starfleet Academy is spinning directly out of major events that occurred in a previous Star Trek series (Star Trek: Discovery).

Starfleet Academy is also named for and centered around the stationary location in its title (though the cadets of Starfleet Academy also learn a board the USS Athena, but Deep Space Nine eventually got its own ship in the USS Defiant). Perhaps more importantly, it shares Deep Space Nine's ambitions for telling new types of stories in Star Trek's universe, this time focusing on a group of young cadets who are still coming of age.

The people making the show are well aware of the legacy they're inheriting. The show is packed with Easter eggs, with one entire episode described as a love letter to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the villain drawing comparisons to Deep Space Nine's memorable antagonist Gul Dukat. And, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will shed new light on important parts of canon involving Star Trek's most iconic aliens, the Klingons.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available to purchase via the Apple TV Store. It is also available to stream on Paramount+. a love letter to Star Trek: Deep Space NineStar Trek: Starfleet Academy debuts on Paramount+ on Jan. 15.