Jake Sisko - Completely Unlikeable

I like Jake!

 

Nowhere was this apparent than in the offscreen relationship Cirroc had with Avery, which was like a kind of mentorship if I remember what I'd read about it someplace.

Maybe the writers felt that Jake would be out of place in that episode.

 

I don't hate Jake, he had his place in the series.
But sometimes I do find him a bit dull.

 

The character was fine. Less annoying than Wesley.

I saw him at a convention, he was incredibly dull.

 

How dull? Was he bored, unenthusiastic, or what?

 

Totally agree. The whole investigative reporter angle was just forced to give the character something to do.

 

Maybe it would have worked better if they had already set up seasons earlier that he was interested in writing.

 

Why? A child does not always know what they want to do until later, and Jake was like that.

 

I was being sarcastic. They did set him up as interested in writing seasons earlier. (I believe it goes back all the way to season 2.)

 

He wasn't really engaging with the audence, gave fairly short quiet answers to questions and was incredibly mellow. I don't know if that is always how he is or if he just had an off day.

 

Hell, I got my college degree in Chemistry. If I'd known I was going to end up writing for a living, I would taken a lot more English classes . . .

 

I got a degree in English Writing and I work at a bank doing mostly spreadsheet and computer application work all day (I'm a Business Analyst). I suppose I get to use my English skills when composing sensitive emails...

 

An episode idea originating as a Jake story and ending up without him even in it seems to have happened a lot. The "Honor Among Thieves" Memory Alpha entry describes the same thing.

That's clearly where "The Muse" went wrong. They just didn't reach the realization that they needed to turn that alien brain vampire deal into a female buddy adventure for Jadzia or whatever.

Ha! As much as I wondered "if the writers have lost interest in Jake this completely, why is he still here?", I always thought his continuing presence on the station was so well-justified from a story standpoint. The reporter thing was inspired.

 

Isn't it an unwritten rule that the more sophisticated a story becomes or the more expectations placed on it, the more producers will look to more senior and popular episodes to carry it?

 

I never found Jake unlikable. In some cases I found him a little bit of a narrative third wheel. They made a good character decision giving him no interest in Starfleet, but in the same move, that made it difficult for him to really be part of most of the episodes without being a tagalong. Also unlike Quark, due to his personality he couldn't really be a narrative agent as a tagalong either. He doesn't cause things to happen, things happen to him and he reflects.

The writers occasionally made it work like with Nor The Battle To The Strong, but you can't have Jake tag along and reflect on stuff that happens too often without wearing out its welcome.

 

I think that was one of the reasons in the early seasons he worked as a engineer. They wanted him to have a job and function but I think they gave him that job before they established his interest as a writer. Maybe they should have allowed to stay in that job while also trying to learn about writing. Better yet why allow him to work at Quarks like he even suggested once. Instead of a bunch of no name extras as bartenders you could always have around when characters are at the bar. PLus it would be a fun twist to have the human working for Quark and the Ferengi Rom working with Starfleet.

Jason

 

How dare you speak about Broik in that fashion!

 

I think it was late season 3 (explorers) that he started having the interest in writing.

 

My bad, you're right. Season 3. Although he was already writing poetry in early season 3 (The Abandoned). Even though that may have been only to impress Mardah it still counts.