What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Deep Space Nine (2018)

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   Siskoid

   If you're a fan of Deep Space Nine, What We Left Behind is the big reunion tour and you will weep. If you're a Trekkie who at least watched it, but it didn't necessarily turn your crank, the documentary will at least tell you why you should give it another chance. If you've never watched DS9, it's gonna be a massive spoiler and you probably won't get it. I am in that first category, and whatever weaknesses the doc has - producer Steven Ira Behr as host/interviewer can be awkward, it can be uneven, etc. - I easily dismiss because there's so much there that's of value. After all, if you're me and you've seen the show several times, read the companion books, and watched all the DVD extras, you gotta put in extra effort to tell me something I don't know. What We Left Behind isn't content with talking heads (though of course, there are those) and goes for humor (the songs, the end credits stuff) and what I would call "stunts", in particular getting the writers room together again to imagine the first episode of a Season 8 that could be made today. There's a self-pitying tone early on which rang false to me because I was in at least three households that bleedin' LOVED Deep Space Nine, so it never seemed to be the unloved "middle child" of Star Trek to me. But I guess it was never embraced by the public in the same way as TNG, and the doc tries to set the record straight about the show's impact, while also looking in the mirror at its shortcomings. Unlike a DVD extra put out by Paramount, it's allowed to question studio decisions, mention disagreements on set, and read angry fanboy letters of the day. Behr is passionate about his old show, by turns bitter and bemused about its reception, but also quite honest about the experience. Watching it at this point was all the more emotional given the recent losses of Aron Eisenberg and René Auberjonois, who seem to go out of their way to say something tragically prescient, arrgh! The DVD includes lots of bits taken out of the film, several are pretty fun, but I don't think we miss them. There's also a discussion on how difficult making 20 minutes of DS9 clips HD was (but they indeed do look great, I'm gonna sob when I watch the show in SD again), a photoshoot put to music, and an intro from Ira. 4 years 4 months ago

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