So after that last post, I started thinking about DS9. I never watched it very consistently. Because of its story-arc nature I often found it difficult to follow, especially the episodes that explored/focused on Bajor's political/religious issues, which seemed to be the ones I caught when I did watch it. Hence I found the show boring, slow-paced, and hard to follow. I recall thinking that if I wanted some
good sci-fi rooted in politics and religion, I could always re-read
Dune. I probably stopped watching DS9 sometime during Season 2 to focus more on riding my motorcycle at the time.
A few years later (during what was probably Season 6) a good friend mentioned that DS9 had gotten a lot better, and the focus had changed to a massive war between the Federation and the Gamma Quadrant. Based on his enthusiasm I tried to get back into it, but by then my TV watching habits had deteriorated to the point where I could never remember when
Deep Space Nine was on (or much of anything else program-wise save
Babylon 5 and
Beavis and Butthead) -- so I usually missed it. When I did catch it, I had the same problem as before. I had missed so much of the story-arc that I was often confused as to what was going on. When the series ended, I really wasn't watching it at all.
Enter Amazon Prime, late 2016, when I decided after laughing heartily at "
It's A Wonderful Deep Space Nine," that maybe I should give the show another shot. Since I never really watched it faithfully before, it would be like watching a brand-new series. I figured out when the Dominion War story-arc began heating up (end of Season 4 circa "
Broken Link") and started binge-watching DS9 on Amazon Prime from there through the end of the series. Though there were a few slow episodes and even a couple bad ones here and there, overall I was thoroughly entertained.
Then after a short break (I have also been re-watching InuYasha on the weekends when I have my kid -- we're on episode 179 out of 193, not counting of course the 4 movies after InuYasha & company defeat Naraku) -- I started watching DS9 from S1E01.
I have to admit, I had really sold
Deep Space Nine short before. My current critique, based on actual sustained viewing of much of the series:
1) DS9 did a much better job with character development right out of the gate than all the other Star Trek series -- even, dare I say, TOS. And where it took TNG until Season 3 before the characters and the stories finally began to hit their stride, DS9 felt like a well-inhabited universe long before the end of Season 1.
2) The writing across the series was also a lot better:
a) DS9 was way more original than TNG in its first couple of seasons. I didn't feel like I seen any of these stories before on either TOS or TNG.
b) There was less reliance on technology as deus ex machina. Even though there was still a lot of techno-babble integral to DS9 dialogue, story resolutions were rarely techno-babble dependent, as too many TNG stories often were, on the "yet-another-unknown-energy-that-is-destroying-the-Enterprise/the-planet-of-the-week/the-Universe-but-Geordie's-techno-babble-solution-saves-the-day-in-the-last-two-minutes--again." 
3) Ethics are more a lot more gray-shaded throughout the series. All the main characters become downright Machiavellian at times. And Gul Ducat has no parallel in any other Star Trek franchise as a recurring character driven by pure self-serving megalomania, duplicity and evil.
Nor does the story-telling descend into preachy morality plays, at least not to the degree that many TOS or TNG episodes do.
4) All of the ensemble had a chance to shine as individuals on a fairly regular basis on DS9, as opposed to the TOS model, of having the requisite Scotty Episode and McCoy Episode once a season, with nary a real Uhura Episode or Sulu Episode ever. TNG was a little better in this regard, but none of the female cast ever had the extended screen time and multiple opportunities to demonstrate actual leadership and character evolution the way Kira, Dax, and Kai Winn got to on DS9.
5. The weakest episodes imho? The regular appearance of the Grand Nagus and the politics & culture of the Ferengi. I was often tempted to skip over them as annoying filler, but then inevitably got drawn into the stories once I started watching. But even when the show did use TNG/TOS levels of "must-hit-audience-in-the-head-with-the-injustice" (in this case the extreme sexism against Ferengi women and the attempts to crush their nascent feminism), the fact it wasn't just a single "Look at the injustice! like RL injustice today!" episode, forgotten about and ignored by the series afterward like it never happened, but that DS9 explored of the treatment of Ferengi women in a story arc that, over the course of the series, showed actual progress on the part of the Ferengi culture and individual growth in the characterization of of Quark, the Grand Nagus, Rom and Moogie, was a vast improvement over Star Trek's usual social commentary. It salvaged what had been a set of silly comedic throw-away characters and rather ennobled them.
Like Dax, I have an actual appreciation for the Ferengi now. 
I also found the Klingon-centric episodes growing tedious, but then the series got all meta about the cognitive dissonance of a space-faring, science-based society that still practiced promotion via assassination, whose culture was based entirely on pre-modern notions of honor -- that was p. cool. 
I am currently in the middle of Season 2, and I will probably continue watching straight though to the end again. In a lot ways, I am beginning to appreciate DS9 as possibly the best written
Star Trek series of the bunch.
Just how awesome do YOU think DS9 is? Discuss.
Or fight me, Mr. Pea!