No matter how much my fellow nerdy brethren tried to push the Next Generation era of Star Trek on me in high school, I resisted their attempts. I grew up with the 60s version of Star Trek. In my mind, having another crew helm the Enterprise was an outlandish proposition. I'm not sure why I was so stubborn, but I definitely regret it now. During the pandemic, I decided to venture into the 24th century and became smitten with Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Given the lesson I learned in the preceding paragraph, you'd probably think I was immediately receptive to TNG's spin-off series Deep Space Nine, but you'd be wrong. I thought there was no way Star Trek could catch lightning in a bottle three times. However, I swiftly bottled my aversion once I discovered that Avery Brooks was the lead in Deep Space Nine. Brooks' performance in American History X is one of my favorites ever, and the prospect of watching him as starship captain was too tantalizing for me to ignore.
Brooks discusses his time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the video above.
