Star Trek 30th Anniversary: Did Voyager Or DS9 Do A Better TOS Tribute?

Star Trek‘s 30th anniversary prompted Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager to create tributes to Star Trek: The Original Series, but one episode accomplished more than the other. As sister shows running concurrently with each other for several seasons, Voyager and DS9 both expanded Star Trek in new directions. DS9 was the first franchise show set on a space station and explored more serialized and often darker storytelling. At the same time, Voyager brought the universe to an entirely new region of space by being set in the Delta Quadrant.

However, both shows came together to pay tribute to Star Trek: TOS during the franchise’s 30th anniversary in 1996. DS9 and Voyager employed some similar methods in their episodes, both incorporating a form of time travel to take their main characters back to the TOS time period and/or the Star Trek movies focused on its cast. However, the shows’ two methods of time travel, the characters each episode encountered, and the overall effectiveness of the tribute ended up being very different from each other.

Star Trek: DS9’s “Trials And Tribble-ations” TOS Tributes Explained

The DS9 crew traveled back in time to the TOS era

DS9‘s season 5, episode 6, “Trials and Tribble-ations” reimagined one of TOS‘s most famous episodes. The episode saw the DS9 crew travel back in time thanks to one of the Bajoran Orbs to participate in the events of “The Trouble with Tribbles.” Adapting such a popular episode could have proved repetitive, but watching DS9‘s cast of characters interact with the TOS cast gave the episode a great twist. Additionally, the storyline proved to still be engaging even with the familiar villain Arne Darvin (Charlie Brill)

What made “Trials and Tribble-ations” particularly interesting, however, was the method DS9 used to place the character in TOS‘s time period. Instead of recasting the TOS characters or worse not showing them at all, DS9 expertly edited archival footage to insert Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his crew into important scenes. This meant that the DS9 cast could interact with characters like Captain Kirk (Willaim Shatner) or Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and participate in famous scenes in the episode like the Klingon bar fight.

Reediting the archival footage did come with downsides, like making the two casts’ interactions somewhat limited in scope. There was only so much existing dialogue and footage that DS9 could reuse, so it wasn’t possible to make everything feel completely natural. However, being able to have moments like Sisko telling Kirk it was an honor to serve with him made the slightly stilted nature of some of the edited conversations worth it.

Star Trek: Voyager’s “Flashback” TOS Tributes Explained

Janeway met Captain Sulu in Tuvok’s memories

In contrast to DS9‘s broad scope, Star Trek: Voyager decided to focus on a few key characters from the show meeting another few key characters from TOS. Voyager season 3, episode 2, “Flashback” brought Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Tuvok (Tim Russ) together with Captain Sulu (George Takei) on the USS Excelsior during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Instead of traditional time travel, “Flashback” saw Janeway and Tuvok experiencing Tuvok’s memories of serving onboard the Excelsior and his interactions with Captain Sulu and Commander Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) through the use of a mind meld.

The scaled-down nature of “Flashback’s” narrative and the fact that Voyager was able to get Takei and Whitney to guest star allowed for some truly wonderful moments that weren’t possible in DS9‘s TOS tribute. Getting to see more of Captain Sulu and Commander Rand in their roles on the Excelsior added a new dimension, especially to Sulu’s Star Trek history, and having Takei and Whitney reprise their roles meant that Voyager didn’t have DS9‘s same slightly stilted dialogue. Additionally, “Flashback” ended up being a lovely exploration of Tuvok’s backstory and Janeway and Tuvok’s friendship as well as a fitting tribute.

DS9 Did A Better Star Trek: TOS Tribute Episode Than Voyager

DS9’s tribble episode is better than Voyager’s “Flashback”

Ultimately, however, “Trials and Tribble-ations” far exceeded “Flashback” in quality and execution. What “Flashback” gave in good character interaction, it also lacked in the cohesiveness of its storyline. The premise of Tuvok needing to mind meld with Janeway in an attempt to heal a supposedly repressed memory was a bit convoluted, and the fact that Janeway was largely an observer rather than a participant in events left the whole episode with a lessened sense of urgency than traditional time travel might have.

In contrast, “Trials and Tribble-ations” was a well-executed storyline from start to finish, and allowed the entire DS9 cast time to shine during its plot. The stakes remained high throughout, and the thrill of seeing how seamlessly new and old footage was edited together never got old. The editing of “Trials and Tribble-ations” by itself is something to be commended and allowed for some incredibly iconic moments like Sisko and Kirk’s meeting or Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) commenting on how attractive Spock was to Sisko.

Of course, both episodes accomplished something by not having to recast TOS‘s characters in order to tell their stories. Although the Star Trek franchise has gone on to recast the TOS lineup multiple times to great success, being able to see the original characters played by their original actors on both Deep Space Nine and Voyager gave the two series a wonderful sense of connection to the franchise’s origins. DS9 undoubtedly created a better tribute than Voyager, but both should be commended for their efforts.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: The Original Series are all available to stream on Paramount+.