What was Deep Space Nine competing with?

The one thing Deep Space Nine was competing with, to a degree, was Next Generation. Paramount deliberately overlapped the two series, setting up Deep Space Nine as the successor to the Next Generation. They wanted to use the Next Generation as a launching pad to promote Deep Space Nine.

So Deep Space Nine premiered about a year or two before Next Generation went off the air. At the same time, the sci-fi film market was saturated with movies like the Terminator franchise � very big budget adventures. With Deep Space Nine they tried to ratchett it up just a little bit in the special effects.

I think each of the Star Trek series has raised the bar in terms of special effects and what was logistically feasible for television. As technology evolved the Star Trek franchise has evolved with it.

So early on in Deep Space Nine's run, it was opposite the Next Generation or actually aired in conjunction with the Next Generation. And while that was good for a marketing point of view, to some degree it hurt because Deep Space Nine wasn't fully able to come into its own.

Fans almost universally felt that Next Generation, was far superior to Deep Space Nine. There were lots of comparisons. In 1994, Deep Space Nine became the sole heir to the Star Trek throne and over time Deep Space Nine developed its own loyal audience. It was also distributed in syndication like Next Generation and while it was never quite as popular as the Next Generation it did fairly well. It was a bona fide hit. And the stations that aired it were not unhappy.