I found DS9 a lot like B5 in that respect: cringe inducing first season that gets a whole let better once you see the whole thing through. They recently re-aired the whole series over here from beginning to end, and I was floored to discovered that the entire arc of the series was set up right in the pilot episode.

The set-up for the Dominion also started somewhere in S1, too, which also surprised the heck out of me.

Then again, the DS9 writers decided that their competition wasn't the other Star Treks, but Babylon 5, so it's not really surprising in a way. I think Ron Moore transfered over from Next Gen to DS9 in S3, so he's pretty much the reason why Worf ended up on DS9 and why the Klingons had such a huge role in the series in later years. He was a total Klingon fanboy (a think a lot of the new stuff we learned about Klingons in TNG and DS9 were due to him — like their system of government, mating rituals, and religion) and somehow ended up being the in-house "Klingon expert" for Star Trek until he was fired from Voyager.

What's funny is that a lot of the stuff you see on BSG is the same stuff he wanted to do on Voyager. It's the reason why he was fired. Heh.