5 best (and 5 worst) dads from sci-fi and fantasy

Best Dad: Benjamin Sisko, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

From Captain Kirk’s barely mentioned connection with his estranged son David to Spock and his father Sarek, Star Trek is filled with stories of both good and bad fathers. However, no dad in the final frontier stands taller than Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko.

Played by Avery Brooks — who just so happened to be the first black lead in the Star Trek franchise — Benjamin Sisko was the commander of Federation space station Deep Space Nine. Benjamin was born in New Orleans and raised by his father Joseph, with whom he enjoyed a close and nurturing relationship.

Benjamin had a son with his wife Jennifer: Jake (Cirroc Lofton), and for 12 years the Siskos were a happy family. But that would soon change, as Jennifer was killed when the USS Saratoga was destroyed by the Borg in the Battle of Wolf 359.

Later, when Benjamin is promoted to captain and assigned to Deep Space Nine, Jake goes with him. At first, Ben struggles to find a way to connect with Jake, who is grieving the loss of his mother. He doesn’t approve of Jake’s friend — a Ferengi named Nog — and isn’t happy when the two spend their time loitering on DS9’s Promenade.

Despite his frustrations, Benjamin consistently makes the effort to be there for his son, and because of his emotional availability, Jake eventually comes around and the two begin to lean on each other for strength, and even grieve for Jennifer together.

For three seasons, their father-son relationship strengthened. The season 4 episode “The Visitor” put them in the spotlight and won the show a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. In “The Visitor,” an elderly Jake Sisko tells the story of how he spent his life trying to rescue Benjamin from a temporal anomaly created by a wormhole that caused him to vanish into subspace. Months after the incident, Jake sees his father for a brief moment, and a year later sees him again, but the crew of DS9 is unable to rescue him.

For years after the accident, Jake continues to try to find a way to rescue Ben, but he is unsuccessful. In one touching moment when Benjamin appears again, Jake introduces his dad to his wife, as well as shows him the books he’s published. Jake apologizes to Ben for moving on with his life instead of returning to Deep Space Nine and attempting to save him whenever he appeared. But Benjamin tells Jake how incredibly proud he is of him, and not to worry about trying to rescue him.

Finally, the elderly Jake, who knows his father is about to appear again, injects himself with a lethal dose of poison. He believes that the act of dying when his father is present will allow the two to return to a time from before the wormhole incident. When Jake dies in his father’s arms, Benjamin finds himself back aboard the ship he and Jake were using to investigate the wormhole and he avoids the anomaly that displaced him out of time. Relieved, Benjamin confronts Jake, who is confused about what happened. And in a tear-jerking moment, Ben tells his son, “I guess we got lucky this time.”

That moment made me, as an adult, drive home and hug my dad. Benjamin Sisko is perhaps the best example in all of Star Trek of what a father should be.

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