Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season Six

Like the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, the end is in site for the recent deluge of DS9 box-sets, which is a good and a bad thing, as fans who've given up intimate physical contact for collecting will finally have a complete set, but there'll will be a hole in the Trek collecting universe, until the end of Feb that is, when the Voyager onslaught begins. Season Six of DS9 features some of the series' best work, it also flips the script a bit, having the Federation on the apparently losing side of their war with the Dominion, having abandoned DS9 and slowly losing a war of attrition. At this point in the series, all the characters have long since been established and all the actors let fly from time to time (especially Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko, who sometimes comes dangerously close to chewing not just the scenery, but the other actors around him). But as engaging as the Trek wars are, Trek at its best addresses social issues, as well as goofy one-off episodes, and "Far Beyond The Stars," where a '50s sci-fi writer played by Brooks envisions DS9 and must deal with the racism inherent to the time, is one of Trek's best social commentaries. Of course the war is still cool (and concludes in Season Seven) and the death of a main character at this season's end is still a shock. Also as established as the characters is the amount of extras inherent to the DS9 box-sets. Sure there's some cool featurettes on the show's highlighted episodes, some interesting "hidden files" with the cast, a profile on Doctor Bashir and more, but the long-standing gripe that the series could use commentaries by its passionate writers/producers/crew is still a major unaddressed issue. Plus sketchbook, photo gallery, more: (Paramount)