Season 7 :(

[JirinPanthosa]

If the writers couldn't write anything interesting for a character because he didn't have a clear gimmick, they're just bad writers.

They had so many directions to go. The easy one, have some weird thing happen to give him a gimmick, if they weren't up for the task of writing without gimmicks.

But also, they defined Kim as the Costello to Paris's Abbott, the people pleasure who wants to keep his dead down and do his task. Trouble with that is, Tuvok and Doc were better straight men. So actually develop him. Have him start rebelling a bit, discovering an identity for himself outside of the expectations of authority. Thinking maybe Starfleet isn't for him but the reality of the situation is he's stuck with it for 70 years.

Have him start acting like a young Paris, and Paris sees himself in Kim and wants to warn him away from the same mistakes. And have whole arcs of finding a new identity for himself which is compatible with his role on Voyager.

They could have done any number of things like that. Instead, oh, not a crazy alien, Borg or hologram? No ideas.

 

[Swedish Borg]

If the writers couldn't write anything interesting for a character because he didn't have a clear gimmick, they're just bad writers.

They had so many directions to go. The easy one, have some weird thing happen to give him a gimmick, if they weren't up for the task of writing without gimmicks.

But also, they defined Kim as the Costello to Paris's Abbott, the people pleasure who wants to keep his dead down and do his task. Trouble with that is, Tuvok and Doc were better straight men. So actually develop him. Have him start rebelling a bit, discovering an identity for himself outside of the expectations of authority. Thinking maybe Starfleet isn't for him but the reality of the situation is he's stuck with it for 70 years.

Have him start acting like a young Paris, and Paris sees himself in Kim and wants to warn him away from the same mistakes. And have whole arcs of finding a new identity for himself which is compatible with his role on Voyager.

They could have done any number of things like that. Instead, oh, not a crazy alien, Borg or hologram? No ideas.

The problem is his acting. It wasn't very good. The best thing would have been to get rid of him in Scorpion as they intended to initially.

 

[Oddish]

The problem is his acting. It wasn't very good. The best thing would have been to get rid of him in Scorpion as they intended to initially.

And I would have been fine with that. In one of my long term fanfiction projects, I killed a character I liked for a similar reason: he was an unwelcome third in a love triangle. I had no positive way to resolve it, no character to pair him with and turn the triangle into two happy couples. He was, quite simply, of more value to the story dead than alive. And I have the feeling that if Harry's end had been properly handled, it could have been a great point of character growth for several others: Paris and Janeway most notably.

Of course, in the hands of writers who lacked the gray matter to realize that an ensign is supposed to make lieutenant, it would probably have been something appalling. So maybe we're lucky it didn't happen

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The problem is his acting. It wasn't very good. The best thing would have been to get rid of him in Scorpion as they intended to initially.

It's both. Voyager writers just have no idea how to write for people without something crazy about them. If O'Brien was on Voyager, he would have been better acted, but written just as badly.

 

[Oddish]

It's both. Voyager writers just have no idea how to write for people without something crazy about them. If O'Brien was on Voyager, he would have been better acted, but written just as badly.

The consensus I've seen is that Garrett Wang's competent enough as an actor; he was just never consistently given the sort of scripts needed to make his character interesting.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Terry Farrell was a weak actres, especially when compared with the rest of the cast. The writers didn't give up on her, redefining the character but still providing her challenges. And Farrell did not give up. Her acting in the last two seasons was stellar. Comparing Farrell to Wang, Dax to Kim says a lot about the priorities of the writers.

 

[Oddish]

I think that the writers of DS9 changed the nature of the Trill-symbiont relationship at some point during DS9's run... originally, the dominant personality was the symbiont; later on, it became the host. That might have been so that Terry could play a character closer to her own personality. It's easier to play a character who is more like you, I expect.

 

[Orphalesion]

The consensus I've seen is that Garrett Wang's competent enough as an actor; he was just never consistently given the sort of scripts needed to make his character interesting.

Even in scripts where they gave him stuff to do he wasn't stellar. And I haven't seen him in anything else to tell whether he's all that good with better material.

 

[Swedish Borg]

I think that the writers of DS9 changed the nature of the Trill-symbiont relationship at some point during DS9's run... originally, the dominant personality was the symbiont; later on, it became the host. That might have been so that Terry could play a character closer to her own personality. It's easier to play a character who is more like you, I expect.

Well, they're a little unclear about the whole as they pretty much always are about everything. For instance, the memory, if Jadzia Dax has really all the memory then interacting with the previous host is pointless. It makes even less sense for Ezri to "revive" her previous host to get his assistance in solving a murder. But you have to ignore it otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy these episodes.

 

[Oddish]

My take is that each of these ceremonies brings the personality of the host to the forefront, which streamlines the process of interacting with them.

 

[Swedish Borg]

My take is that each of these ceremonies brings the personality of the host to the forefront, which streamlines the process of interacting with them.

But if you have all the memories of someone you should also have their skills as a skill is nothing but something repeated again and again until you get it right. Like if you have all the memories of someone driving a car you should be able to drive a car as well as they do/did.

If you have for example all the memories of a doctor you should be able to be as good a doctor as he/she was.

 

[JesterFace]

About season 7 and aforementioned Terry Farrell. There was a message about her not being that good of an actor. Is that the common view on her? I think she was just fine.

To this day do we know why exactly she left after season 6? If it's common knowledge I have missed that information completely. Originally she had a 6 year contract and then....?

Was replacing her completely necessary with another character? With the war and many other things going on introducing a new character and writing introduction episodes for her feels unnecessary.

I think it would've been better to have Jadzia all the way through 7 seasons.

 

[Orphalesion]

About season 7 and aforementioned Terry Farrell. There was a message about her not being that good of an actor. Is that the common view on her? I think she was just fine.

I honestly think she wasn't very good as Jadzia, but whether that was the character or her I don't know. I particularly found her pretty bad in the episode "Dax" where she basically sat around looking nauseated all episode.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

About season 7 and aforementioned Terry Farrell. There was a message about her not being that good of an actor. Is that the common view on her? I think she was just fine.

In the documentary, Rene Auberjonois describes Farrell as being young and inexperienced who grew into a strong actor over the course of the series. Conversely, Farrell admitted, in an interview from last year, that Auberjonois would often be impatient with her when she could not nail down scenes. At the very least, there was a perception among some in the cast that she was limited in her abilities at first.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

"Neurons that fire together wire together." What happens when half of the nervous system goes missing? What happens when the part of the nervous system that is responsible for moving the body goes missing or is replaced by something else? I could see how there might be a superconscious process on the part of the symbiot that is necessary for encouraging the host to develop the skills natively in its own brain in order to create automaticity. It would explain why Ezri was not the batleth enthusiast that Jadzia was.

 

[JesterFace]

In the documentary, Rene Auberjonois describes Farrell as being young and inexperienced who grew into a strong actor over the course of the series. Conversely, Farrell admitted, in an interview from last year, that Auberjonois would often be impatient with her when she could not nail down scenes. At the very least, there was a perception among some in the cast that she was limited in her abilities at first.

For me it's still unclear if she left or was fired. And then there's the original 6 year contract thing, did she want to continue?

 

[Swedish Borg]

About season 7 and aforementioned Terry Farrell. There was a message about her not being that good of an actor. Is that the common view on her? I think she was just fine.

To this day do we know why exactly she left after season 6? If it's common knowledge I have missed that information completely. Originally she had a 6 year contract and then....?

Was replacing her completely necessary with another character? With the war and many other things going on introducing a new character and writing introduction episodes for her feels unnecessary.

I think it would've been better to have Jadzia all the way through 7 seasons.

What's strange is that they erased her completely (unlike Tasha or Kes for example), we never even see her in flashbacks... Not even in the final episode when they go through the memories of some of the main characters like Worf for example. It's a bit shocking that Worf wouldn't have a thought for his wife, don't you think?

 

[JesterFace]

What's strange is that they erased her completely (unlike Tasha or Kes for example), we never even see her in flashbacks... Not even in the final episode when they go through the memories of some of the main characters like Worf for example. It's a bit shocking that Worf wouldn't have a thought for his wife, don't you think?

Because Jadzia wasn't in the final clips someone might get the impression her departure from the series wasn't very amicable.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Because Jadzia wasn't in the final clips someone might get the impression her departure from the series wasn't very amicable.

That's the impression I got at any rate.

 

[Oddish]

Given that the host has the dominant personality, though, while they retain their memories and presumably most of their previous abilities, it's all mixed in with the symbiont's personality and that of the previous hosts. When Jadzia wanted to meet Tobin, or Ezri needed to consult Joran, a special ritual was required.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Given that the host has the dominant personality, though, while they retain their memories and presumably most of their previous abilities, it's all mixed in with the symbiont's personality and that of the previous hosts. When Jadzia wanted to meet Tobin, or Ezri needed to consult Joran, a special ritual was required.

Yes, I know and funnily Joran was able to look at people she wasn't looking at as if she had eyes behind her head for the duration of the "separation". Or knew that a rifle wasn't loaded even of she didn't know it. It's rather confusing given that all that is happening in her head. It's a kind of schizophrenia...