A Conversation with Ira Steven Behr About the Legacy, Meaning and Politics of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the New Documentary What We Left Behind

There are two guests on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Ira Steven Behr was the showrunner and executive producer of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is also the co-director and executive producer of the new documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Behr has also been a writer and executive producer on the HBO series Outlander.

He reflects on the origins of Deep Space Nine, what he learned from the new documentary What We Left Behind, the challenges and triumphs of creating what would be such a highly influential non-episodic TV series, escaping the shadow of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the choices that were made regarding Avery Brooks’ character Captain Benjamin Sisko (the first black starring character in Star Trek history), how the show dealt with topical issues such as religion, ethnic conflict, poverty, sexism, as well as gay and lesbian relationships.

Behr also shares the storyline of what a hypothetical eighth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would have looked like.

Hugo-award nominated podcaster and writer Alasdair Stuart is the second guest on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

He shares his thoughts on the new movie Avengers: Endgame and its problematic treatment of female characters such as Nebula and Black Widow, how the film is a well-deserved love letter to Robert Downey Jr.’s depiction of Iron Man, and where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes with and after the new Spiderman movie.

Chauncey and Alasdair also share some hopes and worries about J.J. Abrams and his new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and ponder why this generation of fans seem so invested in how much money a movie makes as some type of (sad and pathetic) validation of their own self-esteem and identity.

On this week’s show, Chauncey DeVega laughs at those members of the so-called “Resistance” who think that this newest “revelation” about Donald Trump losing a billion dollars and likely committing tax fraud will actually hurt his popularity among the Trump CHUD cultists and Republicans as a whole. Why won’t this newest “scandal” matter? This is all explained by the sunk cost fallacy and the classic social psychology research study When Prophecy Fails.

Chauncey also reflects on Gene Roddenberry’s hopeful vision of the future as seen in Star Trek and how far American and humankind have to go to achieve such a goal.