I could make an extraordinarily long list of reasons why Jadzia is better than Ezri, but I will summarize!
Oh dear. Well, blow-by-blow time. Of course, a lot of this is subjective, but you're coming on pretty strong with the Ezri hate, so I feel compelled to defend her, opinion or no. Also, some of this is NOT subjective.
To be fair, I don't hate Ezri, she merely is nowhere near as good as Jadzia.. by several order of magnitudes.
In looks:
- Ezri's head is GIGANTIC compared to her tiny, undeveloped body.
Still don't get your fixation with this. Her head really isn't that big.
It's not just gigantic, it's perfectly spherical, like her skull is a basketball or something.
Once again, petite =/= "underdeveloped." Obviously she doesn't have a figure like Jadzia's, but this assertion of yours that she looks like a boy or a preteen girl is just wacky. This is NOT subjective. She is certainly small, and weather or not she is attractive is a matter of opinion, but the notion that any young boy or prepubescent girl actually, SERIOUSLY would have a body like hers is ludicrous. The only thing I can conclude is that you've never seen a young boy or prepubescent girl before.
Yep, it's a subjective thing.
Subjective, I'll admit, but jeez man, did her haircut HURT you or something?
Yes, it hurt my eyes! It burned itself into my brain and I can't un-see it! They could have at least given her a wig.
I would suggest the Ilia treatment, but with her spherical head its probably not a good idea.
And for my money, I thought it was just the opposite: one of the cutest hairstyles among Trek women. On DS9, the honor of worst female hairstyle has to go to Jadzia's short-lived (thank the Prophets) weird style from the season 3 opener, "The Search." As for Trek as a whole, nothing can top the abysmally ugly and ridiculous beehive hairdos that were so prominent on TOS.
Yeah, I was not big into beehives, or Uhura's afro in TMP. Still, both are better than Ezri's mop.
If you mean it never went COMPLETELY away: I don't see why you're so sure that completely coming to terms with having 8 lifetimes of experience thrust upon you after undertaking a commitment you never wanted would ABSOLUTELY take less than a year. Because that's all the time we got to spend with Ezri: less than a year. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that some uncertainty or internal conflict would linger longer than that.
Maybe you're right and I would have liked Ezri if she had the advantage of more character growth. I can overlook her pygmy size if she had some acting chops..
and to be honest, there wasn't enough of her to tell if she had decent acting chops.. not just from DS9 anyways.
If you mean it never went away a little bit, meaning that Ezri in "What you Leave Behind" was just as conflicted/unsure/indecisive as she was in "Shadows in Symbols"... then you need to watch season 7 again.
I wouldn't know, she didn't do anything in "What you leave Behind" except sleep with Julian... which actually works for me, since she really has no storyline to resolve anyway.
What? Resigning from what? Starfleet? She did that ONCE, dude. And if that's not what you mean, I have no clue what you're talking about here.
She did it at least twice. Anyways, its all part of her indecisiveness.
Episode quality is subjective, granted, but I've never heard anyone (EVER) put "Field of Fire" up for consideration as one of the worst DS9 eps. You seriously think that a psychological murder mystery that uses Joran in a much more creative way than had ever been done before that, and further explores the idea that Federation and Starfleet types aren't perfect and that sometimes in war things just SUCK and fall apart (two concepts that DS9 is famous for in relation to Trek as a whole) is worse than "The Storyteller" or "Let He Who is Without Sin" or "Profit and Lace?" Again, subjective... but I find your taste bizarre.
Field of Fire had serious problems, though I will admit that Ezri is not the main problem with this episode, Joran is. Joran sucks, he sucked even in the Jadzia storyline, and only doubly so with Ezri.
I don't know if Field of Fire is the worst DS9 episode, but it's better than "Move Along Home" and that's not a good thing.. though you're right, it might be a tie with "The Storyteller"
Oh yeah, totally useless. I mean, it's not like her training as a counselor helped her to provide a stabilizing presence when Sisko went nuts on Tyree.
That's the thing about writing. the DS9 crew gets along just fine without a counselor for 6 years. Then, Ezri shows up and Sisko goes nuts. They invented "counselor stuff" for Ezri to do because her position couldn't be worked into the show without it.
It's not like she was able to help Garak figure out the root of his claustrophobia, thus allowing him to continue his intelligence work for Starfleet.
If Jadzia were still around, Garak would have never had a "claustrophobic breakdown" that needed resolving by a counselor. Is there anyone who cared about Garak's claustrophobia except as a plot device for when he was imprisoned with Martok and Worf?
There are much better, much more creepy and sneaky things that Garak could be doing than being afraid of enclosed spaces after living aboard a space station for 6 years.
It's not like she was able to see what was going on with her brother when no one else could in "Prodigal Daughter."
If there were no Ezri, we wouldn't have wasted an episode learning about her throwaway family that nobody cared about.
It's not like she was able to use her knowledge of forensic psychology to find the killer - more or less on her own - in the aforementioned "Field of Fire."
What you call "forensic psychology" I call "bumbling into the answer with the help of a psycho"
It's not like she was able to help both Nog and Vic to better understand themselves and see what was really going on when Nog returned to the station after losing his leg.
Yeah, because she totally did that on purpose! haha
Oh, and speaking again of "Field of Fire"... you claim that Ezri was still the same insecure wreck throughout the whole season that she was in her first appearance. Explain her actions in this ep, if that's true (tracking a killer, utilizing Joran's memories like that, putting together clues to solve the case, even shooting him at the end). And that moment with her an Joran at the very end, where he mentions that after this, Ezri won't be able to ignore him like Curzon and Jadzia did... that's called "character development."
I'm not sure how you got something deep out of "omg I cant do this! I am unsure of myself! Should I shoot him or shouldn't I? What if I'm not right?" whine whine whine whine whine.
She didn't make a decision to shoot the guy. She sat there.. and sat there.. and sat there.. and then sat there some more, watching the guy put together the rifle (which he did slowly) and eventually aim at her, and THEN, when there is no choice at all, then she shoots.
Way to be decisive.
As for the Joran "creepy comment" that's not called character development. That's called empty foreshadowing. There's like 10 episodes left, like Joran was going to come back? What's he going to do, whisper evil words into her ear and make her even more insecure about herself?
Actually I interpreted Joran's comment more like "Since you are so indecisive and lame, I can burst forth from your psyche whenever I want to and annoy not only you, but the audience as well!"
That episode was just excruciatingly slow and boring. Every minute spent on Ezri is a waste of time. Is it Ezri's fault? Probably not, they should have killed Dax when Jadzia died.
Why would science officer Jadzia Dax take the conn?
Because she's a level 3 pilot?
Who was the 1st officer of the Defiant from seasons 4-7, Worf or Kira?
By the same token, you could ask who the Captain of the Defiant was for seasons 4-7, because Sisko didn't always command it.
Also, Worf had bridge experience, and Kira had command experience. Ezri has.. no experience. She didn't even have enough experience to be a full counselor. What's she going to do on the Defiant other than consume resources?
Oh, I guess she could pull an Uhura and warm up a chair.
Why did engineer Nog later sit at the conn (except when Kira sat at it... when she wasn't at tactical.
Why did Scotty command the Enterprise?
Don't get me wrong, DS9 is my favorite Trek series, but all Treks (like all TV shows, period) have their problems, and this was a strange one for DS9.
I agree, so if you're writing a show, and you can do anything you want with the next incarnation of Dax, then why on earth would you choose.. of all things.. counselor? I would have thought "Helmsman" would have been a better choice. Heck, she could have filled up Eddington's old role on the station.
Lord only knows what Eddington actually did, but at least he appeared to do something important.
The characters practical roles were never as well defined as they perhaps should have been. A partial explanation for this (not necessarily an excuse, mind you) is simply that whenever something needs to be done, they want to have a main character do it, since, well... they're the main characters.
I can make certain allowances for this, like Counselor Troi crashing the ship.. twice. I get it, it's an emergency, she's there, she has commander's training, she's not the normal helmsman. I'm cool with that.
Counselor Troi also had a role in advising Picard since she had her empathic advantage. She fulfilled a useful function on the bridge, but she wasn't really required to be there.
I fail to see how Ezri being on the Defiant is any different than the mish-mash of roles that went on (on both the Defiant bridge AND in Ops on the station) for seven years. Chief Medical Officer Bashir spent a great deal of time hanging around on the bridge, as well.
Bashir actually had a function. When he was on the bridge, there was simply nobody to treat at the moment, so why not be where the action is? Bashir is often seen taking some injured redshirt to sickbay, and then you don't see him.
What's Ezri going to do? Excuse herself from the bridge to start a counseling session? She has absolutely no purpose aboard the Defiant, and a questionable purpose on the station, which has a multitude of other conselors (some of whom have got to be more competant than Ezri)
Of course she didn't. That was a key component of Jadzia's character, not Ezri's.
At least Jadzia has an excuse to be on the bridge as the science officer. Her expertise might actually be required from time to time, whereas Ezri's experience will never be needed.
Despite them both being Dax, they are ALSO both their own people (both in universe and out). Ezri wasn't supposed to convey that same feeling... that was part of what made her different. Again, weather you think her character was good is subjective, but her not "pulling off" the old soul thing like Jadzia did is not valid criticism, because she wasn't TRYING to pull it off. She was never meant to.
I agree that she shouldn't have pulled it off like Jadzia did, but there has to be something better for Ezri than being an incompetant bumbling loser. You would think that at the very least, as a Starfleet Academy graduate, she would have some sort of discipline or confidence.
Nog is nearly as fresh as Ezri, but he's not wracked with self-doubt every episode, barely capable of doing the job he was trained to do.
Yeah, maybe if the series had more time she could have grown out of her lame stages, but they knew the series was going away when they introduced her.
I agree with what you say here for the most part. Except for Kira; I still thought she was a very good character, and one of Treks really excellent female characters.
I thought Kira was great too, but her particular method of.. (for lack of a better term) "Girl Power" was just to get angry and yell at people. It worked for Kira.
Compare this to Janeway whenever they would try to make her do the "anger thing" and you'd just laugh at her.
FUCK NO. Not even close. Seriously, man... comparing Ezri with Neelix is like comparing DS9 itself to watching paint dry while listening to a dying cat rake it's claws across a chalkboard.
I wasn't comparing Ezri to Neelix. I was comparing the void between the Excellence of Jadzia and the disaster of Ezri to the excellence of Spock and the idiocy of Neelix. There is a vast gulf between them.
Though I would say that Neelix is probably a more competant "security officer" than Ezri is a counselor.
Indeed. That was the point. Go to Memory Alpha sometime and read the comments from Behr and the other writers about what they were hoping to do with Ezri.
They did not achieve anything with Ezri except taking time away from the other characters who were all more interesting.
But as a counselor, she shouldn't have actually had a workstation in Ops.
WHICH WAS WHY SHE DIDN'T. She was always seen passing through Ops, or there for a reason. She was never just sitting there working, like O'Brien or Worf or Jadzia.
As a show writer, why would you introduce a character that you had to shoehorn into basic Star Trek situations like "walking into Ops"? They could have made Ezri anything, why not make her something useful?
It wouldn't really bother me so much if she were actually any good at doing the one thing she's supposed to be doing.. counseling.. but she can't even do that right.
Lwaxana Troi would have made a better Starfleet Officer.
Ok, now that's just idiotic. I'm not even going to dignify it with a counter argument.
You must have thought I was joking.
While Lwaxana Troi was incredibly annoying, and made you cringe whenever she showed up, at least she could make decisions without agonizing over then. She had some moral standards that she would stand up for.. and she was somewhat aggressive to boot. Give this personality some training and some discipline, and you get a character like Elizabeth Shelby.
) I'm a huge Ezri fan. I wish we could have seen more of her, and I really love what they're doing with her character in the relaunch novels.
I like her very much so far, and I like the way the actress plays her (except the scene where she cries...it seemed a little forced). She sounds exactly like Jadzia sometimes...she can speak with the same warmth and affection for her friends, it just lacks Jadzia's confidence. 
I still like Jadzia more, but I think Ezri is getting way too much flack in here. So stop picking on Ezri! ANYONE WHO MESSES WITH EZRI HAS TO GO THROUGH ME! 
