Terry Farrell and DS9 Season 7

[Orphalesion]

she [...] was smokin hot.

Which, personally I believe was the only reason she was hired and one of the big reasons she gets defended, along with the concept of her character being very interesting. She was eye-candy, just like Troi.
Of course it is not just the fault of Farrel or Sirtis, both a "joined personality" and a telepath would be hard to portray believable and the way their characters were written did probably not help them much. The writers of DS9 have admitted themselves that they created Jadzia and then had no idea on how to write her or what kind of character she should be and that inconsistency shows.
Seven was, imho, about the only time when eye-candy met "competent actress" AND "consistently written character"

As I said before Farrel convinced me as the femme fatale in the Mirror Universe, so she was perhaps not a bad actress, just the wrong actress for the role?

As for worse actors, try geordi, wesley, neelix, ok their characters were awful, but the actors were seemingly awful as well.

To me Geordie was more forgettable than cringe-worthy like Jadzia, I never flinched when I heard Geordie's voiceover at the beginning of an episode, or groaned because I was afraid that the episode would feature him.

I actually like Neelix in some ways, he frequently is annoying, but sometimes he;s just this Space Mr. Rogers. The biggest beef I have with him is 1) That the space rogue described in the series' bible sounds 10 times more interesting 2) That he stayed when Kes left.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Which, personally I believe was the only reason she was hired and one of the big reasons she gets defended, along with the concept of her character being very interesting. She was eye-candy, just like Troi.
Of course it is not just the fault of Farrel or Sirtis, both a "joined personality" and a telepath would be hard to portray believable and the way their characters were written did probably not help them much. The writers of DS9 have admitted themselves that they created Jadzia and then had no idea on how to write her or what kind of character she should be and that inconsistency shows.

This is why I am a strong critic of Farrell, even while I recognize she eventually contributed to the show in major ways. On The Orb podcast, Larry Nemecek said that Farrell was the last person cast: it proved to be too difficult to find the right actress to fill the part. They wanted a real beauty to fill the new Spcok/Date-like role, but found that most beautiful, talented actresses were approaching movie quality, putting them beyond their means. Berman was very pleased with Farrell's last minute, believing that she had both talent and looks. I think that while this was true, Berman et al didn't account for Farrell's range and whether or not those acting strengths were appropriate for the part.

The thing about the confusion over the part is not something that comes from the writers or producers, but from Farrell herself. She says that she was told to be "the old man," "Yoda," "Grace Kelly," "the warrior." It's a smokescreen. She makes it seem that she was bombarded with conflicting cues. The truth is that each one came several months apart (I believe it is here where she describes being called up to the office at different times to be given each new cue. You can find the warrior stuff from ISB from the Season 4 DVD extras). She wasn't really given directions that made no sense: at different times they felt they had to reconceptualize a role that Farrell could play.

ETA: I think the producers were looking to put a woman in the "Spock" role, and Dax is arguably similar to Kes and T'Pol. I suspect they would have been happy with Jolene Blalock in the role of Dax if she played it the same way as T'Pol in Season 4 of Enterprise.

 

[TPT]

Here is an interview article of Farrell at the recent Toronto ComiCon.

http://www.popmythology.com/terry-farrell-interview/

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Best/saddest part of the article:

“Well, I always figured they could have cloned me!” She quipped. “And besides, Spock came back! But Rick Berman always said that he would never do a movie of Deep Space Nine. so… and they’ve already started a new franchise of the original series.”
I couldn’t help but notice what I thought was some wistfulness in that last statement. I felt it too. It was an acknowledgement that Jadzia’s time had passed.

 

[Dobian]

I disagree with the writer that the show went downhill after Jadzia left. It didn't miss a beat. Sometimes we just get attached to characters and their absence affects our enjoyment of the show, even if the show is as good as ever. I understand her not wanting the character to die, even in retrospect. She wanted Jadzia to have a happy ending and have a family with Worf and all that. Jadzia's death made a lot of sense though, exactly because she was joined to a symbiont. It was important to show the cycle of life for a symbiont, continuing on to a new host with Jadzia's memories intact. Just talking about her past lives doesn't have the same impact as actually seeing the character die and witnessing her life being carried forward to Ezri.

 

[marlboro]

Considering how attractive she is, if the shows producers intended her to be eye candy, they really dropped the ball. No cleavage or skin tight cat suits for her. It seems that they went out of their way to make her a bit plain. Well, not really plain, but certainly not as sexy as she is normally.


Edited to add: I do think the show "missed a beat." Mainly because they shoehorned Ezri into the series just as the Dominion war was reaching a climax. It seemed like a lot of time was spent fleshing out a new character in a hurry. It was really odd to me considering it was the final season; you would think they would have just moved on withthe regular cast and the huge supporting cast.

 

[Dobian]

Well there were two Ezri episodes at the beginning of the season, episode 2 where she was formally introduced, and episode 3 which was the Ezri adapts to the station episode. After that, the way I look at it is that any Ezri episodes were just episodes that would have been Jadzia episodes.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Considering how attractive she is, if the shows producers intended her to be eye candy, they really dropped the ball. No cleavage or skin tight cat suits for her. It seems that they went out of their way to make her a bit plain. Well, not really plain, but certainly not as sexy as she is normally.

The FC uniforms were VERY tight. It's just that the field of black from the shoulders down, meant to help out the *ahem* older men tended to obscure the figure.

On the other hand, we did get a a lot of eye candy from Visitor (she was in her 40s?) and Masterson.

 

[Iamnotspock]

On the other hand, we did get a a lot of eye candy from Visitor (she was in her 40s?)

35-42.

 

[Orphalesion]

The thing about the confusion over the part is not something that comes from the writers or producers, but from Farrell herself. She says that she was told to be "the old man," "Yoda," "Grace Kelly," "the warrior." It's a smokescreen. She makes it seem that she was bombarded with conflicting cues. The truth is that each one came several months apart (I believe it is here where she describes being called up to the office at different times to be given each new cue. You can find the warrior stuff from ISB from the Season 4 DVD extras). She wasn't really given directions that made no sense: at different times they felt they had to reconceptualize a role that Farrell could play.

ETA: I think the producers were looking to put a woman in the "Spock" role, and Dax is arguably similar to Kes and T'Pol. I suspect they would have been happy with Jolene Blalock in the role of Dax if she played it the same way as T'Pol in Season 4 of Enterprise.

Ah I see, yes Farrel always made it sound like she got all of those cues at the same time.
However this inconsistency was till what I hated most about the character, one scene she was a granny who ate tasteless food because it helped with indigestion, one scene she minced about it a revealing cocktail dress, one scene she went on foot with Klingon warriors, one scene she shrieks about a mouse...
A character can be layered and complex, but with Jadzia it seemed just inconsistent to me.

And yes, Jolene Blalock would have been a kick-ass Jadzia!

On a side note: I actually find Nana Visitor more attractive than Farrel.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

However this inconsistency was till what I hated most about the character ...

And presumably you think that rests with TPTB? Fair enough. Personally, I am happy that they (Farrell and TPTB) continued to work on the role. Dax wasn't forgotten (like Hoshi or Kim) or static (like Torres or Crusher). Moreover, I'm glad Farrell never became resigned, like Beltran, and just started phoning it in.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Can the Farrell haters stop repeating the same assessment in every section?

Where is the moderator?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Can the Farrell haters stop repeating the same assessment in every section?

Where is the moderator?

The little triangular symbol on the bottom left side of every post allows you to alert a moderator.

I doubt you are referring to me? In my last two posts contain information and opinions I had not previously submitted, namely references to plays in which Farrell,herself, reveals when different events happened and my opinions that neither she nor her character were sidelined by the producers like specific other characters.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Let me add a little more "hate." Terry Farrell had a great appearance at the Toronto Comicon, which has been put up here. The best part is when she talks about organizing the convention event in which she, Westmore, and Blackman recreated Dax's wedding look, which appears half way through the video clip. What's relevant to this discussion, though, is what she says about how she left the show. From previous things Farrell has said, I speculated that Berman, not Behr and the other producers more directly involved in the story, was committed to break Farrell, and that Behr, feeling Farrell was leaving, used the opportunity to write in a main character death.

What Farrell said at the convention is that her negotiations were entirely with Berman. He gave her an ultimatum: either stayed on cast or left the series entirely entirely. Farrell also says that Berman kept Behr in the dark about the state of the negotiations, placating Behr, telling him that Farrell was committed to returning. Only very late did Behr learn that Farrell would not come back in any form that he rushed to produce a story that made sense of Dax's disappearance at the end of the season. Although I didn't get everything right, I think that I was correct in saying that Farrell's relationship with the more creative side of the show--those involved in plotting stories, etc.--was different from the side that made the financial decisions--essentially, Rick Berman. I think it becomes hard to say that the writers and Behr were trying to exact vengeance upon Farrell by writing the memory of Jadzia Dax out of Season 7.

 

[Dobian]

I don't see how the "memory of Jadzia" was written out of season seven. Jadzia is quite specifically referenced and addressed on several occasions, both via Ezri and elsewhere. Worf and Martok even undertook that suicide mission so she could get into Stovokor. I don't know how much more you need to say that season seven didn't forget Jadzia.

Anyway, it's been what, seventeen years since she left the show? Who cares anymore? She left, she seems happy, she still does Star Trek conventions. Jadzia lives on in Netflix. It's all good.

 

[donners22]

Interesting new spin on it in The Fifty-Year Mission, vol 2.

She describes Berman as 'misogynistic' and says he would make inappropriate comments about her breast size.

Her version of her departure is:

Basically he [Berman] was trying to bully me into saying yes. He was convinced that my cards were going to fold and I was going to sign up. He had [another] producer come up to me and say, “If you weren’t here, you know you’d be working at Kmart.” I was, like, “What the hell are you talking about? I had a career before this. Why the hell would I be working at Kmart? Who are you?” Just to be jerky, he’d call me in my trailer: “Have you been thinking about it yet? Are you going to sign?” Like, right before I had a scene. It was that kind of thing. Rick Berman said I was hardballing him, and I was, like, “I’m not. I just want to have a conversation. You’re giving me a take-it-or-leave-it offer and I’m not okay with that.” So I finally did have a conversation with him and asked to cut down my number of episodes or just let me out.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

He had [another] producer come up to me and say, “If you weren’t here, you know you’d be working at Kmart.”

Braga?

 

[timtonruben359]

I saw Ira Behr about two years ago at a convention and he basically stated that Terry Farrell's departure from the show appears to have come down to two things: episode commitment and money. Farrell wanted to appear in fewer episodes in order to do other projects but basically wanted to same amount of money as if she has signed on for all 26 episodes. Berman and Paramount appeared to take the stance that either she sign on to all 26 episodes or she would have to leave. After that Berman refused to talk to Farrell's people to try and negotiate a settlement and just allowed her contract to expire which would force her off the show.

Behr says he was left in the dark by Berman and never really knew Terry's side of the story until years after the show had ended. He said Berman painted it to him that Farrell was being overly demanding and wanted to make more money than almost every other cast member. Behr said had he know Farrell wanted a similar arrangement to what Colm Meany had gotten throughout most of the show's run (getting an episode or two off a season to work on other projects) he would have agreed to it since it was the last season after all.

 

[RandyS]

Braga?

Couldn't be. Braga had nothing whatsoever to do with DS9.

 

[locutus101]

I am not really sorry that they let her go.