Best TV Dads · Episode 3
Benjamin Sisko
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–99). A widowed Starfleet commander raising his son on a space station: cooking, baseball, a son who wants to be a writer, and The Visitor.
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Shannon A space station, far out on the frontier of space. Wars, aliens, mysteries from a wormhole. And in a set of quarters on the station, the man in charge is in the kitchen, cooking dinner for his son.
Gordon Fresh vegetables, real spices, the way his own father taught him. No replicator food in this house.
Shannon That's Benjamin Sisko. A Starfleet commander, and a single dad.
Gordon I always thought Star Trek was all spaceships and phasers. I did not expect to tear up over a father and his son.
Shannon Welcome to Best TV Dads. Each episode, we sit down with one of television's great fathers. This time, we're heading into space, to a station called Deep Space Nine.
Gordon Episode three. Benjamin Sisko.
Gordon So, set the scene for us.
Shannon Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started in 1993, and ran for seven seasons. And it was different from the Star Trek shows before it. Instead of a starship that flies off to a new planet every week, it's set on a space station that stays put.
Gordon So the characters can't just leave their problems behind.
Shannon Exactly. They have to live with each other, and with the consequences. And that left room for something Star Trek had never really done before. A commanding officer raising a child on his own.
Gordon So, who is he?
Shannon Benjamin Sisko is a Starfleet officer, and when we first meet him, he's grieving. His wife, Jennifer, was killed in a terrible battle. And he's been left to raise their son, Jake, on his own.
Gordon That's how the show starts?
Shannon It is. The very first episode opens with that loss. And then Sisko is sent to take command of a run-down space station, and he brings his boy with him.
Gordon Not exactly where you'd choose to raise a kid.
Shannon Not at all. But that's what makes it so moving. In the middle of all the alien politics and danger, he's still a dad, trying to give his son a normal life.
Gordon And he was played by Avery Brooks.
Shannon He was. Avery Brooks is an actor, a singer, and a teacher. He was a professor of theater at Rutgers University. And before Deep Space Nine, a lot of people knew him as Hawk, on the detective show Spenser: For Hire.
Gordon And he cared a lot about this part.
Shannon He did. Avery Brooks has said how much it meant to him to play a Black father who was there for his son. Present, loving, and taking him seriously. He knew how rarely television showed that, and he wanted to get it right.
Gordon And you can feel it.
Shannon Absolutely. The scenes between Sisko and Jake are some of the warmest in all of Star Trek.
Gordon So tell us about Jake.
Shannon Jake Sisko, played by Cirroc Lofton. He's a teenager when the show starts. And here's the thing. Jake doesn't want to join Starfleet.
Gordon That must have been hard for his father.
Shannon You'd think so. But Sisko doesn't push him. Jake wants to be a writer, and his father supports him all the way. He reads his stories, he's proud of him, and he lets him find his own path.
Gordon That's a good dad.
Shannon It's a great dad. And it goes both ways. Jake looks out for his father too. When Sisko is working too hard, or hurting, Jake is the one who notices.
Gordon And the cooking. Where does that come from?
Shannon From his own father. Joseph Sisko runs a Creole restaurant in New Orleans. He's played by Brock Peters, the actor from To Kill a Mockingbird. And he taught Benjamin to cook properly, with real ingredients.
Gordon Three generations of Sisko men.
Shannon That's right. And the show makes a point of it. Grandfather, father, son. Each one passing something on to the next.
Gordon And baseball.
Shannon Oh, yes. Sisko loves baseball, even though, by his time, nobody plays it anymore. He keeps a baseball on his desk. And he and Jake spend time together in the holosuite, playing ball.
Gordon Now, when I said I was watching this, everyone told me I had to see one episode in particular.
Shannon The Visitor. From the fourth season. And if you only ever watch one episode of Deep Space Nine, make it this one.
Gordon What happens?
Shannon There's an accident on the ship, and Sisko is lost, pulled out of time. Jake thinks his father is dead. But every so often, sometimes years apart, his father appears to him, just for a moment, and then he's gone again.
Gordon Oh, no.
Shannon And Jake spends his whole life trying to bring him back. He gives up his writing, his marriage, everything, to find a way to save his dad. The story is told by Jake as an old man.
Gordon Does he save him?
Shannon He does. And I won't spoil how. But it's about a son's love for his father, and a father's love for his son, and what each would give up for the other. It's one of the most moving hours of television ever made.
Gordon So, what's your pick?
Shannon It has to be The Visitor. Have the tissues ready.
Gordon And mine is Explorers, from the third season. Sisko builds an old-fashioned spaceship with sails, the kind people used long ago, and he takes Jake along on the trip. It's just a father and son on an adventure together. It's lovely.
Shannon And our rating, out of five neckties.
Gordon Five neckties. Starfleet issue.
Shannon Five from me too. A father who cooked dinner, played ball, and believed in his son, way out on the frontier.
Gordon That's Benjamin Sisko. A commander, a cook, a baseball fan, and a father who let his son follow his own dream.
Shannon We'll be back soon, with another one of the best dads on television.
Gordon That's next time, on Best TV Dads.