Okay. I've heard a lot about the idea that 1) Ezri seemed a bit over-used in Season Seven, because 2) it was the final season, a bit too late to introduce a new character, and 3) because of so much Ezri material, many an opportunity was missed to wite eps for characters such as O'Brien, Jake, etc. Now...I am become more and more convinced...that an eight season was more than warranted. Frankly, IMANSHO, it would solve the vast majority of those complaints. Here's my idea of what the ideal Seasons 7 and 8 would therefore have looked like: The first half of Season 7 stayes roughly as it is--but, rather than all of The Final Chapter, exactly six more "stand-alones" before "Penumbra"--perhaps some Jake stories, some O'Brien stories, some Sisko stories, and maybe a Worf story. The season would end with "Penumbra", "Till Death...", "Strange Bedfellows", and "Changing Face...", just as they are, with no changes except for some revisions for the Winn-Dukat storyline, so it can go on longer. Perhaps tweak their sublot in "Changing Face..." so that the monk doesn't have to find out so soon. At any rate, Defiant's destroyed, the Dominion may have regained its military punch with the Breen, Winn and Dukat are up to no good--and the direction for the last season is established with Damar's rebellion. (It actually makes more sense to have an interim after Damar announcing his rebellion. Give the Allies a few months to hatch up a plan....) Pick up Season Eight, with an expanded storyline of Kira, Garak and Odo with the Cardassian resistance. We don't find out until mid-season that Odo has the virus. The new Defiant is received early on. The situation with Gowron is expanded and fleshed out, so it doesn't all happen so fast. In the meantime, TPTB have more time to tie up loose ends, such as Damar's killing of Ziyal. Perhaps bring back Laas, to tie up the loose end of whether he has the virus. But at any rate, we have a LOT more time to develop Ezri, and her growing feelings for Julian, and vice versa. This way, 1) the naysayers would be more likely to accept the relationship, and 2) the other naysayers would accept Ezri herself. Expand "Extreme Measures" into two parts, to make the final confrontation with Sloan more believable, and less rushed. Keep "The Dogs of War" as it is, but have a few episodes between it and "What You Leave Behind". More storyline with Kira, Garak, Damar, and the re-born resistance--and a few episodes with Ezri and Julian together at last. (Perhaps an ep focusing on Rom as Nagus....) Thoughts?
I didn't think Ezri was over-used, but I did think she was over-dressed. But yeah, I would have loved an 8th season. Your ideas seem fine to me. I wouldn't have minded a 9th and 10th seasons as well.
good point man. i wouldn't have minded a few more seasons either but safe to say every finale has holes. i don't think there's a show that had a finale everyone was satisfied with.
Noted. But to be honest, this idea struck me because of all the cries of "Ezri was overused, the series was ending, it was too late to introduce a new regular", etc.
Oh sure, no question about it. Ezri was indeed rushed in, and adding a new main character in the last season was questionable at best. She was understandably awkward at first, but I thought she settled in quite nicely fairly quickly. I can understand why many have complaints. I'm just not one of them. Not to mention that she was just so damned cute! I could have definitely used more of her as you suggest.
they should have either made one season more or killed jadzia one season before. it made things worse to rush a character into the series so late. and making her "feel at home" with the viewers so late seemed almost desperate. not that i'm complaining but as you pointed out the cuteness made up for a lot of things besides i've always been a sucker for blue eyed brunettes.
I don't subscribe to the "it was too late to introduce a new regular" idea, though I would agree with the "Ezri was overused" part of it, at least to a degree. Two episodes for Ezri was more than enough. Shaking up the show's status quo in the last season is actually a good thing imo, and one of things that keeps DS9 from stagnating and becoming predictable, which it nevers does. Three Ezri-centric episodes is just a case of over-indulgence on the writers' part. I also don't think it was really necessary to cave into the soap opera temptation where Ezri and Bashir were concerned. It feels forced and even a tad fraudulent in the sense that it seems to be more about Jadzia than Ezri. Not a big deal, but this part of the story felt like the writers were simply saying to themselves, "We'll throw these characters together because the show's about to end, and we won't need to deal with the consequences, so what the hell." And to a degree, I guess that's the in-universe explanation as well: there's big war going on, so why not? Not very inspired, but no big problem either. Some of your ideas are interesting, but I don't think there's enough there for a whole extra season. Personally I would have liked to have seen about three episodes of fluff cut out of the early part of season 7 (say, Prodigal Daughter, Badda-Bing and The Emporer's New Cloak), which would then have allowed the Dominion War to be wrapped up with about three or four episodes left before the finale. That would have allowed for an episode to deal with the war's aftermath on Cardassia, and two or three episodes to bring Bajor into the Federation and close out the Emissary/Dukat/Winn storyline in style. However, given the desire to have a highly-rated movie-length finale, ending the Dominion War earlier in the season would have been unrealistic, I'm sure. Almost as unrealistic as an eighth season. Apparently the studio didn't even want the show to conclude with a long story arc (LoL?!?!), so I guess we should count our blessings. And now, to respond to the real heart and soul of this thread: yes, she is adorable
Ezri was way over used in season seven they were trying to cram a character into one season .Where's Jadzia/Terry had 6 years to develop hers . Oh and what they did to Dukhat brought the bar down lower .
The solution to wasting screen-time on useless Ezri episodes is not to add Season 8, but rather it is to simply never cast Ezri at all. Ezri was an inherently useless character with no relevance whatsoever to the plot of the show (as was Jadzia). Having her in Season 8 would just have added to the amount of screen-time she wasted. No good could have come from that. Expanding the Dominion War into Season 8 and tying up all the lose ends, combined with not ever creating a character named Ezri, would indeed have been great. Yup, and despite having 6 years, the Jadzia/Terry character went nowhere. Looking at the Jadzia character is a great way to see that giving Ezri more screen-time would have made things worse in the same manner as it did with Jadzia. This naysayer would only accept Ezri, or any character for that matter, if she or he had a useful reason for being on the show. To do that with Ezri would require a total re-design of her character to the point where she would bear no resemblance to the Ezri as they actually made her.
Ezri was really added because the writers wanted another female lead in the show. I liked her once she was established, but it was kind of a rocky road getting there. Her character became more watchable towards the end, after they wrapped up the Ezri/Worf storyline and had them be friends (around that episode where Worf kills one of the Weyouns and Damar laughs at it, great moment btw). 'Tacking Against the Wind' was probably the best use of her character the whole season because her words had the weight of Kurzon and Jadzia behind it but with a new POV, which is basically what a Trill should be.
Season Eight you say? Read the Relaunch! Though if we're redesigning things - and I know we've said this before - I'd romantically link Ezri with Jake; gives the poor guy something to do and creates a nice storyline for Sisko. Otherwise, I like what you posted, Rush.
Its a well thought out post and I would go along with most if not all of what you said. However, you could have just said DS9 needed a season 8 and elaborated no further and i'd still be just as convinced!
...How do you define "useful to the plot?" It's a show, not a movie--full of "stand alones" which have no bearing on the "arcs" of the show whatsoever. What do you mean by its "plot"? Now...as for Dukat's awesomeness being toned down...well, I'd think with more eps for him and Winn, we could have seen that as an opportunity. Perhaps have them both sneak into the archives (they not send the monk, because they know he'd get suspicious...), have Dukat kill off some of the guards, and lecture a disghusted Winn about the need to sacrifice a few to achieve a "greater goal"...leading up to the monk discovering that it was Winn who stole the Khost Amojan, and dying by her hand--only now there's more development in this case....
How I define useful to the plot: the character performs a function that warrants her presence being included within the story world of the show. ...which of course, is something that Ezri doesn't do. I mean, it has something to do with the mandate of the show's premise. I.e. protecting Bajor, guarding the wormhole, fighting the Dominion, etc.
You know, it's funny...in Sigils and Unions I've actually been writing under the assumption that in-universe things actually did not happen as fast as what we saw onscreen. I actually use a timeline where the events from the Septimus Massacre to the end of the war run about 4 months.
How exactly was Quark "useful to the plot" or had something to do with "the plot?" Or O'Brien, or Bashir, or Nog? Characters are critical, it's not about the plots all the time. How was fighting the Dominion part of the show's premise? Wait, what's that... it evolved? And changed?
Well--I've never gotten the idea that Jadzia had anything to do with it. Remember, "Till Death..." estabished that Ezri had a powerful subconcious romantic feeling for Julian. And Julian's lines in "Strange Bedfellows" strongly imply that his feelings for Ezri are very different than what he'd felt towards Jadzia. (He mumbles, "Funny--I was just starting to..." and explains to O'Brien that Ezri "was this old soul...and yet so young at heart...."--something that fits Ezri a heck of a lot more than Jadzia.) Well...that's kinda why I proposed more stand-alones. Also, surely I'm not the only one who thinks the plots of some of the Final Chapter episodes are a bit rushed.... (Worf deciding to kill off Gowron, and Gowron's jealousy leading to corruption on his part--seems kinda left-field to me. Also, Bashir's final enounter with Sloan was a MAJOR disappointment. There was a lot of emphasis in the earlier Sloasn eps about how powerful and intelligent Section 31 is--and yet Sloan gets captured so easily and so quickly....) Yes.
Fair enough. I don't see it as big issue at any rate. Not every relationship needs to be the result of a long, sometimes painful past history like Kira/Odo. Sometimes people just get together, and that's fine. I don't see that there's anything here that runs any deeper than basic soap opera material, but again, I like that DS9 just went ahead and got some of these characters romantically involved, since obviously that is the natural course of events. Gowron's jealousy being a bit sudden strikes me as more of a nitpick than anything, given that it is perfectly in character for him, and given the fantastic results of this storyline in Tacking into the Wind. Extreme Measures, on the other hand, is the big disappointment of the final arc in my eyes. There was so much potential here for a a great episode and follow-up to the classic Inter Arma, it's a crying shame that the opportunity was wasted. Beyond that, I think the basic issue here is that the Dominion war didn't need to be extended for another season: the final arc has its flaws of course, some of them glaring, but I don't think it's an issue of not having enough time to finish this story arc, but more an issue of the time not being spent as wisely as it might have been, especially early and mid-season. To take the example of Extreme Measures, I don't think we needed more episodes, just a different episode, one that dealt with an idea-driven confrontation between Bashir/O'Brien/Sisko and Sloan/Section 31, with the involvement of maybe Admiral Ross as well. The basic idea of luring Sloan to the station is not a bad one, and I think this show could have remained a "bottle show" on DS9 without resorting to the "inside Sloan's mind" cliché/gimmick. Not that I would have been opposed to a season 8 (far from it!), but I think it would have been necessary to rebound with a new storyline: the Dominion war ends at the end of season 7, while season 8 deals with the aftermath of the war, the close of the Emissary storyline, and Bajor joining the Federation in the finale. This is more of a fan-fantasy than anything else, obviously, since there was never going to be a season 8, but I certainly agree that, in theory, there would be plenty of material. You would need to add a new threat of some kind as the main obstacle to Bajor joining the Federation, in addition to the Dukat-led Pagh Wraith cult, which might perhaps have been developed in a more satisfying manner had the writers had the time to do so (though, as long as we are speculating about fan-fantasy 8th seasons, we might as well rework the Dukat/Pagh Wraith side of things entirely). Spoiler: DS9 relaunch novels An example of a "new threat" is the parasite infiltration that is used for this purpose leading up to Bajor joining the Federation in the DS9 relaunch novels, which I think works reasonably well, though one could I'm sure come up with other options. But anyway, something new to drive season 8 storylines. Indeed
I don't think the war needed to be extended either. What we got was great, but it was enough. I think the Final Chapter was long enough, it just had some pacing problems - a bit too slow at the beginning and a bit too fast at the end along with a few elements like the love triangle that could maybe have been cut out. An eighth season could have been interesting, though. Maybe it could have been a chance to revisit some people and ideas from the earlier seasons, focus a bit more on Bajor and kind of bring the show full circle.