10 Reasons Deep Space Nine Is Secretly The Best Star Trek

4. The Best Captain

Star Trek Deep Space Nine
CBS

Benjamin Sisko is the best captain in all of the Star Trek shows, and no I will not be taking questions at this time.

Kirk was the original, but he was also a swaggering, arrogant, skirt chaser. Picard was highly intelligent and played by Sir Patrick Stewart (which gets you coolness points by default, it's the law) but he was also more than a little sanctimonious and needed Q to kick him in the behind way more times than he should've. And Janeway would shoot the Prime Directive out the airlock for a tuna sandwich.

Sisko is smart, cool as an iceberg under pressure, always strive to do the right thing, but is way more prone to anger than Kirk or Picard, which can make him a wild card in tense situations (or whenever Q shows up).

One other secret weapon Sisko has is Jake, his son. Making Sisko a father was a stroke of narrative genius, as it leads to far more moments of intimacy and vulnerability that you didn't get much of with Picard and got basically none with Kirk.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?