Bearing in mind that Terry Farrell decided to abandon DS9 right at the end of the second-to-last series and they had to find a replacement at the last minute, I don’t think they made that bad a choice.
I think they made a bad choice. Even if Nicole de Boer was the greatest lady thespian to ever grace a Star Trek series (that honor goes to Nana Tucker/Visitor's performance of Kira), it was a mistake to replace Jadzia at all.
By season 7 the cast includes Sisko, Bashir, O'Brien, Kira, Odo, Kassidy, Jake, Nog, Rom, Vic Fontain, Leeta, Quark, Zek, Martok, Worf, Damar, Winn, Weyoun, Dukat, the female shapeshifter among others.
But Prophets forbid we have one season without a Dax in it! There is no rule that says you have to add a new character whenever you remove one.
Every episode centered on Ezri took screen time away from one of the more interesting characters listed above.
Every subplot with Ezri (love triangles, family issues, confusion integrating her hosts, coping with the fact that she has an evil Dax personality, how will I live up to my glorious predecessor, should I break Trill taboos by resuming a relationship from earlier in my life) was a rehash of an earlier episode with the same plot.
Season 7 tried to ramp up the stakes compared to the previous seasons. If Jadzia was not replaced that would have made Gul Dukat a stronger threat. By giving a member of the cast a "Get out of death free" card it made viewers less worried about the rest of the cast.
I like how they portrayed her as the ‘accidental host’ rather than a ‘destined host’, veering away from the prodigy image to make a character the audience can more easily connect with.
That
was a good idea. It is not a good enough idea to make up for all the other stuff.
Ezri is certainly better than Wesley
"Better than Wesley"
is like saying "prettier than a cockroach" or "taller than a grasshopper." Wesley was such a bad character it goes without saying. I guess I didn't like TNG as much as DS9 so I don't care as much. Also Wil Wheaton is hilarious deprecating his own character.
The thing is, Boba Fett was never a badass in the first place - he does virtually nothing apart from tracking Han Solo and co to Bespin, and even then he needs Vader and his expendable Stormtroopers to actually capture them.
The reason Boba Fett became badass in the minds of many fans is subtle. When Vader was briefing the Bounty Hunters Vader gently scolded Boba Fett about needing the prisoners alive strongly implying that Boba Fett killed a prisoner Vader wanted alive before BUT Boba Fett was so useful in general that Darth Vader was willing to overlook this mistake and then call him back for help again.
That's unprecedented
! Darth Vader has murdered tons of minions for making smaller mistakes than that! Darth Vader is the biggest badass in Star Wars. The most badass thing Boba Fett has done was earn Vader's respect.
Besides, Jedi aren’t supposed to feel violent emotions like anger or love according to the Code, and if they weren’t so cool-headed and disciplined yet emotionless, they wouldn’t be the best Jedi Masters ever like they are portrayed to be, they would instead end up like Anakin and Kylo Ren - corrupted by the Dark Side clouding their judgement.
Yoda, Obi Wan, and Luke were not especially emotionally effusive, but they were not deadpan either. The prequel trilogy added the robot Jedi aspect to the canon later.
I am not 100% sure that is a good idea. In the background fluff, it makes sense but as a movie goer, I like to see actors on screen emote. It makes more compelling cinema in most cases.
I thought Dexter was pretty good - a new and original alien character who’s ‘travelled around the galaxy and seen some pretty strange stuff’, but has now retired and has decided to open up a restaurant. A bit like Quark really, except with more guts and less greed.
Well, yeah he is the best character of the prequels, no one denies that.
Discovery sucks. I watched the first season... never again.
It certainly looks bad to me as a fan of all the other series,
In order to watch Discovery I would have to pay money to subscribe to CBS Access. I am mildly interested in watching Colbert, but that's a lot of money to subscribe to a station with barely anything I'm interested in. So I checked the reviews of STD. They are terrible.
One of my least favourite characters DS9 was Kira; she really bugged me.
Something else we agree on - Kira deserved to be slapped/punched many times in my view. In fact I myself never really cared for any of the Bajorans except Bareil (the only Bajoran who actually showed any sort of forward-thinking) and possibly Kai Opaka.
Kira was one of my very favorite characters.
My very favorite character is Gul Dukat. Second place is a three-way tie between Garok, Sisko, and Kira. One unique thing about Star Trek is that it has something for everyone. I guess in all fairness, I like Sisko more than Garok and Kira. In every iteration of Star Trek except for
Discovery, the captain is the foundation of the series. Ben Sisko is the p
erfect man after all.
I dislike episodes centered around Q. I dislike episodes centered around a malfunctioning Holodeck. To other Star Trek fans, these two episodes are the BEST episodes. I like the political plots, other people are bored by political plots. Neither group is wrong. We just have different preferences.
I enjoyed the Bajoran politics centered episodes. Of all the aliens in Star Trek, I think the Bajorans are the most relateable to me, they even seem more human to me than the 24th century humans.
Vulcans and logic. Ferengi and greed, Klingons and machismo. Cardassians and blind patriotism. Romulans and treachery. These groups seem so one-dimension I cannot imagine they would be major powers.
Vulcans wouldn't have enough babies and they would take enough risks or create any real innovation
The Frengi, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingon society would eat themselves as everyone is out to stab everyone in the back (or in the case of Klingons, stab them in the front).
I like that Bajor has rebel freedom fighters that have to reluctantly adapt to becoming "the Man." I like that there are conflicts between secular and religious authorities. I like that there are holdouts that don't know how to not be at war. I like that they are the only Star Trek race with a nuanced religious system.
My favorite part about Kira's character is her long character arc. At start she was a former terrorist who relished killing Cardassians and Cardassian collaborators. The last episode she had many deep friendships with individual Cardassians and was proudly risking her lives to save Cardassia and it didn't feel first. She changed her opinion without learning that her arch enemy also had a mother named "MAARTHAA!!!"
I also like Kira's ongoing rivalry with Kai Winn which in a lot of ways paralleled the rivalry between Sisko and Dukat. Kira and Winn very good dramatic foils for each other. Both were patriotic, passionate, and brave but Kira was honest and humble and Winn was prideful and ambitious.
I believe the actress who played Kira had good nuance and range in her abilities though I will admit her on screen romantic chemistry is lousy but that seems like a weakness in all Star Trek iterations. Voyager did a reasonable job with romantic subplots, but the original series, TNG, and DS9 had pretty subpar onscreen chemistry in my humble opinion.
And the Clone Wars has Ahsoka, who essentially the same personality [as Wesley] just female and Togruta rather than male and human.
Fortunately, after nearly breaking the franchise with a SJW approved girl power Mary Sue character, the handlers from Star Wars learned from their mistakes and never made that mistake again.
As for Ezri Dax: I actually liked her, she was less... arrogant than Jadzia. I don't know why I had that impression of her (haven't watched DS9 in many years) but that's what I didn't like.
Jadzia was my least favorite character before Ezri joined the cast. Not that I
disliked Jadzia, I just liked her less than the rest of the cast. Her arrogance was kind of grating, but she did have a small character arc of learning humility throughout the series.
I did find her constant one-liner's annoying. One of my favorite Sisko lines was "In case you haven't realized Dax, no one is laughing."
Nicole de Boer isn't exactly the most skilled actress, yeah. But she was cute and new, I really can't say a lot of bad things about her.
I'm sure she was the greatest actress in the high school drama troupe that the director recruited her from...
She is cute. She is really cute. The problem is that season 7 is based on harsh choices and a horrific war. Ezri looks ridicuolous whenever the writers try to make her look a badass fighter.
To me the most annoying character in DS9 is Jake, and then Nog (before he becomes a Star Fleet member and war hero. I liked the late Nog, PTSD and everything).
One of the reasons I liked late series Nog was because of how different he was from early series Nog. Nog had a long character arc, but he wasn't alone. Gradual but massive character transformations was a hallmark of the series. Dax, Bashir, Worf, Quark, Odo, Damar, Kira, Sisko, and Dukat all ended the series a substantially changed character from what they began as.
I have not seen every episode of
Voyager, but I have seen a majority of them. They also had compelling character arcs. I cannot say TNG or the Original series had good character arcs. They had good
characters but very limited
arcs.
Jake was not a very interesting character, but he wasn't supposed to be. He was basically there to establish that Sisko was a good father. That was his only role on the show. Jake was brave and smart and all but he was still a youth. He acted liked you would expect a teenager to act. He didn't outperform the best and brightest of Starfleet on a regular basis like Wesley.
This is how you should have child and adolescent characters in a series, as
supporting characters not demigods, unless you are talking about the
Percy Jackson series in which case the teenagers are literally demigods.
Unfortunately it doesn't appear that it will let me correct it.
