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Jadzia

Excellent analysis, CorporalClegg!

I agree with most everyone's comments about Jadzia. To me, it seemed like the writers tried way too hard to make her interesting, and it just came off as forced. She was a genius with eight lifetimes' worth of knowledge, Sisko's oldest friend, a Klingon warrior, and nearly every male character was in love with her, but somehow she just didn't live up to all the hype. I never disliked her, but she was always my least favorite of the main cast. And I always gave an inward sigh whenever she was the main focus of an episode.

I agree. I only like Jadzia cause Worf is my favorite ST character and he liked her :lol: She was too "everything" on a show where people were made more interesting by their "faults" so to speak. The fact that he had no faults became her biggest failing. Things that are perfect are not interesting. Not to mention her stale acting skills.

I guess in a big ensemble cast, someone's got to be the Geordi LaForge/Harry Kim of the group. Jadzia Dax was it.

Oh now...Geordi came a long ways. I'd say TNGs Kim-Dax was Beverly before I'd say it was Geordi.

and re: the ep where they sent Worf and Dax together and Worf abandoned the mission for her...WERE THEY NUTS??! (the ones responsible for sending a husband-wife team.)
 
Well...

I'm not a hater of Jadzia--I could easily see her as a "gal you could have a beer with", discuss sports, etc. You know, "one of the guys".

Still...I do find her constant "irreverence" quite off-putting. She constantly goes out of her way to make jokes at the expense of everyone and everything she can--and when someone dares to bust her chops, she acts all offended!

There's also the running gag that whenever a secret a regular wants to be kept--and it gets spread around the station...the explanation almost invariably is that "so-and-so told Dax"--"Oh, well, yeah--that explains it."

And then, there's the constant mind game she seemed to enjoy playing at Bashir's expense--spinning him around her finger, and snickering all the way. *sigh*

In short, she has respect for precious little--while she seems incapable of laughing at herself. In both elements, Ezri is far superior.
 
And then, there's the constant mind game she seemed to enjoy playing at Bashir's expense--spinning him around her finger, and snickering all the way. *sigh*

You raise a good point. The more I think about it, Jadzia was pretty danged manipulative when it came to Bashir... and Quark, for that matter. She knew they both had feelings for her, and she loved using it against them. If there's anything I can't stand, it's somebody who toys with others' emotions. It shows a lack of class. Someone who has lived eight lifetimes should be above that sort of thing, shouldn't they?
 
I was utterly meh about Jadzia (though her death upset me) for the first two DS9 watches. Suddenly in rewatch 3 I appreciated the character and I guess I pretty much glossed over any mehness by seeing her as someone whose had a lot of lifetimes so at times appears not overly invested in the current one. This worked for me.

That said I adore Ezri.
 
And then, there's the constant mind game she seemed to enjoy playing at Bashir's expense--spinning him around her finger, and snickering all the way. *sigh*

You raise a good point. The more I think about it, Jadzia was pretty danged manipulative when it came to Bashir... and Quark, for that matter. She knew they both had feelings for her, and she loved using it against them. If there's anything I can't stand, it's somebody who toys with others' emotions. It shows a lack of class. Someone who has lived eight lifetimes should be above that sort of thing, shouldn't they?

Above or thinking it's a joke?

I think what we see with beings who live a very long time is they get less tolerant and sympathetic towards normal emotions rather than more. She goes into a snickering Q mode at times because she just can't take this stuff seriously.
 
Someone who has lived eight lifetimes should be above that sort of thing, shouldn't they?

I think taking this attitude about Dax (Jadzia Dax espically) is what made her so "Mary Sue" in the begining especially. Because she has had so many lifetimes she "should" be abover everything, right? Well, that would mean she has no flaws or conflict which means she's a know-it-all snoozefest.

If they had done a better job of showing that her emotional carelessness and inability to take things seriously was really not a good thing, it would have gone over better. I think they tried to do that through her relationship with Worf, especially in "Let He Who is Without Sin" but it just didn't hit the mark. Instead of showing that she needs to be more considerate of others it just made him look like a big uptight douche.

I think what we see with beings who live a very long time is they get less tolerant and sympathetic towards normal emotions rather than more. She goes into a snickering Q mode at times because she just can't take this stuff seriously.

I agree. Having seen so much over so many years would make a person more detached, less emotionally invested and therefore less serious. After 350+ years, you kind of take on a "No big deal, I've seen this all before" attitude. I think a good character angle for her would have been to better highlight that having that attitude (which she did more and more as the seasons went on) makes it hard to form meaningful relationships with people who haven't seen it all. Admitedly, she and Sisko touched on this in their scene together in the wedding episode.
 
You're right, this could have been built upon and made her a much more interesting character. What we ended up with was her being a bitch at times and everyone seemingly oblivious to this but the viewer.
 
You all are forgetting that she's a symbiont. She's part 300 year old slug AND 25 year old science officer.

What Teacake is saying is right though...what's the point of even making her Sisko's old buddy if that's only relevent in a handful of eps.

The problem is, it's cool and all that she still is an honorary Klingon and gets involved with Kor and Kang and Koloth...but Jadzia is so NOT a badass, that it just doesn't work.

But like I said at the beginning, she's a neutral for me.
 
I always thought Farrel did a good job with her performance. Sure there are individual episodes she's off, but that's just human characteristic.

What irked me about the character was how varied she was. One episode she's the quiet scientist type, the next she's getting drunk and gambling with Quark and the next she's off killing people with Worf and their Klingon buddies.


yes, this is what irritated me about the Jadzia character, not Terry Farrel's acting.

She was the "cerebral" Spock character in the early going, who then became the happy-go-lucky party girl to contrast her with Worf, and the rest of the crew doesn't seem to notice that her personality had changed.
 
You... hoped her costars would be unprofessional? :wtf:

Where did you read that? What i meant by "Creating problems behind the scenes", i really meant just generally the producers/creators/directors etc finding that she wasn't performing to expectations and was having a negative impact on the scenes she was in and on the overall quality of the show.

In other words i was hoping she'd get axed from the show.. Whether it be because she was unpopular with fans or the producers didn't think Farrell was working out, either would've worked for me.

I would be surprised if there weren't some behind the scenes discussions regarding Farrells lack lustre acting skills.
 
who then became the happy-go-lucky party girl

A scene that is very high up in my 'most hated jadzia moments'.. the one at her hens night or whatever when she's being a real 'fun sexy flirt' with the Polynesian Starfleet officer. Put her arm around him, told him to stick around so she could look at him all night and then said she'd "let him know" if any extra services would be required later on. You're getting married in a few days.. You..Complete..Whore.
 
And then, there's the constant mind game she seemed to enjoy playing at Bashir's expense--spinning him around her finger, and snickering all the way. *sigh*

You raise a good point. The more I think about it, Jadzia was pretty danged manipulative when it came to Bashir... and Quark, for that matter. She knew they both had feelings for her, and she loved using it against them. If there's anything I can't stand, it's somebody who toys with others' emotions. It shows a lack of class. Someone who has lived eight lifetimes should be above that sort of thing, shouldn't they?

I would say that rather than having "feelings" for her, what Bashir and Quark had for her was the hots. Not a lot of feeling there (at least not in the heart or mind ;)) is what I'm saying. If they did have feelings for her that were more substantive than lust, they didn't let these "deep" feelings get in way of making plays for plenty of other women, that's for sure.

And maybe this is because I am a female too, but I say any guy who goes around making passes at a woman who has made it very clear she isn't interested in him deserves to find out over and over again that - guess what - she is not interested in him. Actually, any female who does this (e.g. Chapel and Spock) deserves the same treatment as well.

Put me in the "meh" camp re. Jadzia, by the way. I thought Ferrell mostly did OK - not great but OK - but I do agree with those who have pointed out that it would have been nice if the writers had figured out what sort of person Jadzia was supposed to be instead of modifying her whenever it seemed to suit the plot.
 
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who then became the happy-go-lucky party girl

A scene that is very high up in my 'most hated jadzia moments'.. the one at her hens night or whatever when she's being a real 'fun sexy flirt' with the Polynesian Starfleet officer. Put her arm around him, told him to stick around so she could look at him all night and then said she'd "let him know" if any extra services would be required later on. You're getting married in a few days.. You..Complete..Whore.

Right. No way she could have just been flirting teasingly.
 
. . .she was unpopular with fans. . .

I don't know about that. The last convention I went to was in '95, and I wanted one of those cardboard stand-ups of her but they were out of them.

Instead, I got the Kira one, which worked really well when I hid her in a closet to scare visitors.
 
who then became the happy-go-lucky party girl

A scene that is very high up in my 'most hated jadzia moments'.. the one at her hens night or whatever when she's being a real 'fun sexy flirt' with the Polynesian Starfleet officer. Put her arm around him, told him to stick around so she could look at him all night and then said she'd "let him know" if any extra services would be required later on. You're getting married in a few days.. You..Complete..Whore.

Right. No way she could have just been flirting teasingly.


er, that would still be wildly inappropriate if she were days away from marriage.
 
er, that would still be wildly inappropriate if she were days away from marriage.

Why? Maybe we need to define flirting. It doesn't mean "I want to have sex with you," you realize. All it means is "You're attractive." You can still find other people attractive even if you're about to get married.

I found many of Jadzia's "flirty" moments heavy-handed - not sure if that was Ferrell's fault, the writers' or both. But it is silly to equate flirting with whoredom.
 
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