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phoenixfeathersinfall · 3 years

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The Dax Debacle: Re-Imagining S7 of “Star Trek Deep Space Nine”

*This post came about after a few discussions with Lee @creativilee on how the stories of Jadzia and Ezri could have been adapted to better serve both of those characters and respect the work of both actresses! Thanks to them for all their help, encouragement, and serving as a springboard! Anything in italics is theirs!

For all of us DS9 fans, the finale season can be rather fraught for several reasons, many of the biggest revolving around the transition from Jadzia Dax to Ezri Dax, henceforth called “The Dax Debacle.” Many folks seem to love one and hate the other, which is a huge shame because both characters brought amazing potential and storylines to the table, but the writers really fumbled in some key aspects. This sure-to-be-long-winded meta is an attempt between myself and Lee to fix some of those fumbles and give both characters the storylines they deserved. So, let’s get to it!

First, a little behind-the scenes context.

Why Two Dax-es?

To begin with, it’s important to acknowledge that the Dax Debacle was largely unplanned, and the writing often reflects the ways in which Nicole de Boer was shoehorned in as Terry Ferrell’s replacement, just as the character of Ezri was deliberately put forward as Jadzia’s replacement as the next host of Dax. What happened?

It is widely believed, based on various interviews Terry gave during the show’s run, that the set of DS9 was inhospitable to her, placing her in situations of harassment and abuse. By the time of S7, due to this as well as the sheer grueling schedule of the show, she wanted to be moved from a permanent member of the cast into a reoccurring role like that of Andrew Robinson. When it proved fruitless to negotiate this, Terry decided to leave the show, though she explicitly stated she had not wanted Jadzia’s character to be killed on her departure.

Though the writers went through with the decision to kill Jadzia, they still wanted the character of Dax to remain on the crew, and due to the way Trill physiology was designed, they decided to do this with another host, similar to how Jadzia was initially seen as the continuation of Sisko’s old friend Curzon.

Enter Nicole de Boer as Ezri Dax, a young unjoined Trill who had never intended to be a host at all, and the story of her adjustment to carrying on the Dax legacy.

The Story’s Seed

It’s definitely worth noting that the initial conception of Ezri’s story, the young suddenly-joined Trill joined under trying circumstances who has to re-discover herself has a lot of potential! It could have been extremely poignant and moving, in something of the same vein as Seven of Nine rediscovering herself on “Voyager.” Unfortunately, the choices made regarding how she became the next Dax make it hard to appreciate Ezri on her own merits. Both we as the audience and the other characters are constantly seeing Jadzia in her place. It stymied who she was able to be as a character and how the audience was able to receive her. The way she was written invites constant comparisons, often to Ezri’s detriment in her initial interactions with the crew.

Lee said some things extremely well here: “Ezri as a character was hindered a lot by being made ‘Jadzia's replacement’ instead of ‘the next Dax,’ a Dax in her own right. While Jadzia definitely had Curzon's legacy to live with, it was absolutely not all she was, and she interacted with it as such, but Ezri wasn’t written with the same care. She isn't ‘Ezri Dax’ she's ‘Ezri, the one who replaced Jadzia.’ She was entirely written as a replacement, and it shows.”

Fumbles, Fumbles, Fumbles

Let’s review some things that went sideways in Ezri’s arc, so we can see it for the purposes of our rewrite.

The “I'm the new host of your dead friends symbiont" aspect is very difficult to watch. It’s hard to say if the writers wanted to lean into this aspect deliberately, but even if they did, I don’t think they ended up hitting the emotional notes they wanted to.

Ezri doesn’t seem to get much training from what we can tell, and being joined is a huge change! We learned from Jadzia’s arc that initiates often train for years. It’s wartime, but she still really did get thrown into the deep end!

The audience can’t approach Ezri on her own merits, but quite often, the crew isn’t doing that, either. There’s the caveat that they’re grieving and it’s an odd situation to be in, but! Sisko initially tries to interact with her in the same way he would Jadzia (calling her old man, which upsets her a great deal,) Julian flirts with her with the same intensity he did Jadzia in early seasons, Worf seems to only be seeing his dead wife any time he looks at her.

Ezri is given a role as ship’s counselor when she is in no way emotionally able to handle the psychological difficulties of others when she’s going through so much herself.

Her return to Deep Space 9 (the station) seems to contradict what we know about Trill culture. Joining is meant to give the symbiont as many life experiences as possible, and re-association (to various degrees) is anything from strongly discouraged to forbidden. Ezri goes right back to living Jadzia’s life in some ways, in the same place with the same people. Jadzia wasn’t able to resume her relationship with Lenara Khan, but Ezri finds herself being intimate with Jadzia’s widower.

Our alternatives and fixes for the arcs of Jadzia and Ezri fall into three broad categories, which we’ll break down here:

1. Ezri Not-Dax? (Ezri is still joined unexpectedly, but rather than the Dax symbiont, she is host to another symbiont which needed her.)

2. Where in the World is Jadzia Dax? (If Ezri isn’t a Dax, we have to figure out what to do with the Dax we know!)

3. The Legacy Question (The age-old Trill questions of new hosts, old hosts, and interpersonal relationships.)

Ezri Who? Ezri Not-Dax!

The best solution Lee and I were able to find was the idea that Ezri was joined under similar circumstances to canon, but not to Dax itself.

This is still largely workable for the story we want to tell, because, as Lee explains: “The Dax symbiont isn't key to her character, except to affect her relationships with the crew. Her main personal conflicts are about being joined before she was ready, not about being joined to Dax. She still would have worked without the Dax symbiont.”

For the sake of convenience, let’s call this hypothetical new symbiont Nal. So, Ezri Tigan —> Ezri Nal.

Where in the World is Jadzia Dax?

Theres 3 different paths we could take with Jadzia!

If Terry was made a reoccurring member of the cast, the writers could easily have put Jadzia into the position of being given a transfer assignment. Though Jadzia might initially struggle to accept this because of her loyalty to her friends, “with things picking up in wartime, it's believable that Starfleet would want the people more familiar with what dangers are on the other side of the wormhole to be spread around and maximize the number of ships and stations that are prepared for it. Maybe Jadzia acts as a representative and goes around giving lectures/debriefings on that stuff. This situation puts us in a position to get frequent updates about Jadzia, even if we don't see her again!"

If Terry did not stay on at all, Jadzia as a character could still have died, but the Dax symbiont finds a new host back on Trill, away from the station. Maybe we get updates about this Dax because Ezri trained with them for a bit, or the new Dax reaches out to Sisko from time to time, since he was well-acquainted with two previous Dax-es.

The option I like best for purely self-indulgent reasons would be if Terry stayed on for one more season and was present on the station when Ezri arrived, serving as a mentor to her.

The Legacy Question

Since the “TNG” days, Star Trek likes to experiment with Trill, and what happens in relationships between joined Trill and non-Trill, particularly in the case of a symbiont with a new host. We might assume this was part of the writer’s intent with the Dax Debacle, but it went over much better in the move from Curzon to Jadzia then it did in the move from Jadzia to Ezri.

Other options for exploring “the legacy question:”

“If they wanted to explore the whole ‘new host when the previous host was close to you’ thing, they could have had an episode that went into detail about Sisko meeting Jadzia for the first time after the death of Curzon.” Or, just having Sisko reflect more on the changes and developments in their relationship as time passes. They did this quite well initially when Jadzia first came aboard, but dropped it soon after the first season for the most part and left it to our amazing fic writers to pick it back up.

The character of Curzon is often used as a vehicle for explaining Jadzia’s connection to Klingon culture, but he also gives us access to a wealth of relationships which could be used to explore the legacy question. “Curzon had so many friends, and we see a variety of reactions from them, particularly with his Klingon friends. Some of them immediately fall back into that friendship, some of them struggle to recognize that Jadzia may not be Curzon, but she is still Dax, and has a lot of Curzon in her.” Keeping that thread going would have been intriguing also.

The Life of Ezri Nal

Here’s how some elements of Ezri’s story might look with the “Nal” symbiont.

Ezri is joined rather unprepared when a medical emergency puts the life of a symbiont at risk and the host is unable to be saved. For convenience, let’s call this symbiont Nal.

Ezri was always interested in Starfleet Service, especially in working as a counselor (which she studied on her own rather than gaining the knowledge through the memories of past hosts.) She assigned to the station by the Trill Symbiosis Commission largely because there are people there who will know how to help a newly-joined Trill; namely Sisko, Julian, and Jadzia.

Jadzia+ Ezri

Being the only other Trill on the station that we know about, Jadzia puts herself in a mentor role to Ezri, helping her adjust to her new life and consciousness. Her personality and experiences make her perfect for the job!

As a bonus, we get to see how the mentor and mentee relarionships between joined Trill and initiates work.

We also set up some fun parallels! Take Jadzia, who had to try so hard to be joined, and it was a huge goal in her life (to the point where she applied again to the Symbiosis Comission after being rejected once, which is played as something that basically never happens,) versus Ezri who was perfectly happy to be just herself and ended up taking on this responsibility without being ready and without feeling like she had much choice because of how Trill culture regards symbionts.

From the little we know about Jadzia before she was joined, she was somewhat like Ezri-bookish, shy, anxious-and she initially struggled to adjust to the likes of Curzon. But now, she’s gown so confident in who she is, for the most part, and she’d be the perfect person to guide Ezri and help her find joy in her new life.

But, she also understands having difficulties with aspects of being joined, for example, her conflict in whether she should rejoin with Lenara Khan, or how she struggled in the aftermath of the discovery of the cover-up regarding Joran.

In short, Jadzia helps keep Ezri as mentally and emotionally healthy as she can be.

Julian+Ezri

Being CMO, Julian helps look after Ezri and ensure she’s physically well; after all, it’s what he does best! “Having Julian as the Chief Medical Officer on board would be a big draw for the Trill. He's even performed a symbiont joining and removal procedure. He had to be very familiar with Trill biology, meaning a newly joined host would be relatively safe and well-cared-for on board. And, I’m sure that there's a big chemical change in Trill when the get joined, and adjusting to that would be hard!”

Julian can also sympathize having something done you didn’t want or weren’t ready for, and can help her process those feelings. “ They both have complicated relationships with their parents regarding their parents’ expectations and their own desires and feelings, which would be interesting!”

In some ways, Julian can serve as another mentor to Ezri. It would be an interesting shift to watch Julian, who is often portrayed as the the youngest or most “green” be able to mentor and guide someone else. “This is also a good way to show Julian has grown and matured, without having to have other characters just say it.”

If we still followed their romance route, having Ezri as Ezri Nal rather than Dax could have make the relationship between her and Julian sit a lot better with audiences. With a rewrite, Julian is not chasing the “ghost” of Jadzia; rather he’s meeting Ezri for the person she is, on her own terms. This also prevents a regression of his character back to the way he chased Jadzia in the early seasons, and instead honors the relationship of treasured friendship that Julian and Jadzia built.

Sisko+Ezri

As he is with many of his younger crew, Sisko takes naturally to the role of a mentor and father figure with Ezri, again meeting her for the person she is, on her own terms. He serves as a valuable guide to ship life and helps her get acquainted with station staff and residents.

Like with Jake, Sisko encourages Ezri to find herself by being her own person.

Ezri tries to take up cooking as a hobby with Sisko, but the experiences of past hosts mean her skills vary wildly depending on what they are making.

Other Relationships

Garak helps Ezri figure out how she wants to dress, often integrating different styles from past hosts. (He rather jumps at the chance.) Ezri still has her difficulties helping him as a counselor, but her additional training and the lack of complications from the Dax symbiont make things easier. They also get to know each other through Julian.

In this Ideal Timeline, Ziyal survives and meets Ezri. They relate well to each other, both of them not really knowing where they fit and grappling with someone else’s legacy, but they have each other for support. Ziyal has given her portraits as gifts.

She has a similar dynamic with Jake, who is trying to figure out how to honor his parents while being his own man. Ezri starts writing memoirs of sorts about her past lives on his suggestion.

Surprisingly, she gets on with Nog, too. They’re both doing things unexpected and feeling like they’re going to be the first in something big.

She isn’t especially close to Worf, but he assures her that the sacrifices she made for Nal are ones to be honored, and becomes rather fond of Ezri due to Jadzia’s influence.

Thanks for reading this super-long meta! Please tell Lee and I your thoughts on this rewrite!

#meta #i should start a tag for my star trek thoughts #star trek #star trek deep space 9 #star trek ds9 #fan treks #star trek crit #star trek headcanons #favorite characters #jadzia dax #ezri dax #mine

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weerd1 · 5 years

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Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.24: Missions Reviewed, “Prodigal Daughter,” “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” and “Field of Fire.”

In “Prodigal Daughter,” Chief O’Brien has gone off to find the widow of the man Bilby he befriended in the Orion Syndicate the year before (I personally wonder if it is to return their cat) and gone missing. He happens to have disappeared on a world where Ezri’s family, the Tigans, own a mining business. Ezri has not been home in some time, but goes to see what she can do for Miles.

Getting there, she finds her younger brother emotionally troubled, her older brother trying to please mom running the business, and her mother fawning over and protecting the younger brother while sharply critical of the older. Through the uncomfortable family dynamics, Ezri’s mother does find O’Brien is in local custody, picked up having been in a fight with two Naausicans of the Orion Syndicate. He found Bilby’s wife, and she is dead.

She also worked for the Tigan family. Ezri and O’Brien start digging and find out her older brother made a deal with the syndicate when the mine his some hard times a while earlier. In exchange they wanted the company to “hire” Mrs. Bilby and pay her regardless of the work she did. Ezri confronts him on this, but it is her younger brother who comes forward to say that Bilby was going to extort them for more, so he handled it and killed her. After he’s arrested, Ezri’s mother ask Ezri to tell her that it’s not her fault. Ezri cannot and walks out.

Not that this is necessarily a bad episode, but the return to episodic tv is a little jarring with so many episodes in a row that tied to either the ongoing war story or story of the Bajoran Prophets and Pah-Wraiths. I need to remind myself that those contiguous arcs were NOT the norm then, and having them at all made DS9 ahead of its time. It was still an episodic landscape though, and each episode I watched last night being stand alone well, stands out. It also seems in a rewatch that the staff was trying very hard to get “caught up” on Ezri’s character development. They don’t pull a “Voyager” where every episode after Seven of Nine is introduced is about her, but all three tonight feature her prominently. Though, there are still ties here to earlier storylines, again engaging on O’Brien’s time undercover in the Orion Syndicate. Seems pretty coincidental though that in a big galaxy, Bilby’s widow happens to go to the family of the new counselor on DS9.

In “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” Quark continues to pursue Ezri when Rom tells him the Nagus is missing. They decide to look for him, when Ezri comes to Quark’s quarters but he realizes this isn’t “his” Ezri, but rather the one from the mirror universe. She has Zek, and will return him in exchange for a cloaking device since they don’t have them in the MU. Quark and Rom steal one, and Ezri takes them over where the Human Alliance lead by Smiley O’Brien immediately steals it (after killing Ezri’s co-conspirator a non-hologram Vic Fontaine).

Turns out Ezri is in league with The Intendant (Mirror Kira) who is trying to get the cloak for The Regent (Mirror Worf). Brunt appears and breaks Quark, Rom, and Ezri out of prison and they again steal the cloak and make a break for it. Getting to the Regent’s ship, they find that the Intendant never planned to trade Zek back. Ezri and Brunt help them all escape, though Brunt is killed in the process by the Intendant. When the Defiant under Smiley shows up, they help disable the Klingon flagship. The Terrans capture Worf and the cloaking device and send the Ferengi on their way.

I have long hated this episode, finding it pretty ridiculous. We saw the MU has cloaking tech already, but making it cloak allows for a gag scene of Quark and Rom walking around carrying an invisible box. Ezri being literally in bed with the Intendant feels very exploitative (the polar opposite of how well done the same-sex relationship was with Dax in “Rejoined). Reading up on this one though, it seems producer Ira Steven Behr wanted to point out the inherent ridiculous nature of a “mirror universe.” He does manage that well, particularly with Rom’s running commentary on how “alternate” this alternate universe is, making it something akin to Bizarro World in Superman comics. I will just say that I am glad “Discovery” doesn’t take this track when they get into the MU.

“Field of Fire” opens with the crew celebrating with the extremely talented new Defiant helmsman, whom Ezri walks back to his quarters after too much partying.

The next morning though, he is found dead, shot with a projectile weapon at close range, but no power burns, and no sign of anyone entering his quarters after Ezri left. At the scene she is struck by how happy he had been, even finding a picture of him smiling and laughing with fellow officers. Soon after, another crewmember is found killed the same way and O’Brien figures out the method of murder. A sniper rifle with a mini transporter and trans-dimensional scope that allows the person to stand anywhere on the station and fire a round into anyone without being in the same room. Ezri, seeing a happy wedding picture of the new victim decides to act. She calls forward the memories of her host Joran, the murderer, to solicit his advice on finding the killer. He seems pretty bent on driving her over the edge too, but his insight is helpful. A third victim appears and Ezri notices this one too has a smiling photograph. If the killer can see into anyone’s quarters, they must be triggered by the emotions in the pictures. She begins sorting through the records of Vulcans. Narrowing to 28 suspects, she is on her way to her quarters when a Vulcan gets on the turbolift, and the Joran echo is convinced it’s the killer. He has Ezri use their model of the rifle to spy on this Chu’lak in his quarters where he is looking at Ezri’s personnel file.

As she watches, he takes out a transporter sniper rifle and starts looking for her. Joran is telling her to shoot him, to kill him, and when Chu’lak sights in on her, she does fire, hitting him in the shoulder and causing him to miss her. She and “Joran” go to the Vulcan’s quarters where Joran urges her to use his rifle and finish the Vulcan off. Ezri does not, finding that the Vulcan just lost the crew of the ship he served on and has decided no one can ever be happy again. With Chu’lak stopped, she goes to reintegrate Joran, knowing that he will always be part of her, perhaps more so than Curzon and Jadzia; now he will not be buried.

Again, our third Ezri episode, but an effective locked door mystery. The method of murder is interesting, and Ezri dealing with Joran now calls to mind watching “Mindhunter” on Netflix. The idea they find the killer when he happens to get on the elevator with them seems like a bit of a shortcut in the story, and I think more investigation and less coincidence should have led to the end. Also, the motivation on the Vulcan seems a little suspect, but the writers wanted the surprise of it being a VULCAN SERIAL KILLER, which perhaps again ties to the deconstruction of the Vulcans so prevalent in “Enterprise” and first seen in “Take Me Out to the Holosuite.” Maybe I am comparing it too closely to “Mindhunter” which exists explicitly to explore murderer motivations, and here, it’s more of a character piece for Ezri. In the novels, Erzi will go on to become a starship captain in the fleet, more focused in sure of herself. I wonder if we can say that’s due to her “wolf” being more assertive, a callback to the original series “The Enemy Within” where Kirk without his predator instinct becomes an ineffective leader?

NEXT VOYAGE: Odo finds another one of the 100 Changelings sent out into the universe in “Chimera.”

#Star Trek #Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #DS9 Rewatch

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