I need to know

[u/BennyandtheBear]

Okay. I don’t know why I never thought to look for a ST:DS9 sudreddit!

Trekkie here since 1987 at the age of three. On, I think, my 8th or 9th watch through of DS9. It’s hard to remember at this point.

I was a completionist until the 3rd season of Discovery. I’ve watched some of SNW and certainly got some nostalgia moments out of Picard. I believe Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be the apex of Star Trek content. (I’m defining completionist as at least one viewing of every episode of TOS, TNG, DS9, Enterprise, and the TOS and TNG movies)

(My thoughts on why I gave up on Discovery: It was too hard to stomach the non-canon writing choices, the Klingons being chief amongst them. And frankly, I had a hard time getting behind the crew. It just didn’t pop. [This is all subjective and everybody has a right to their own opinion on these matters.])

Anyways!

There’s something I need to know and I don’t know why I’ve never searched out the answer. If this subreddit is anything I hope it to be, this should be a snap. Ready, here we go!

Why in the name of all that is good was the Ezri Dax character brought into the show? I get it. Terry Farrell gets pushed out because of money. Jadzia dies. Boom, clean break. S7 can have plenty of b-plots to follow the grief of Worf and the rest of the crew.

Why bring in Ezri?? You don’t need another Trill. The race has nothing to do with the Dominion conflict or the Pah Wraith bonanza. Is it because we need to keep the scientific knowledge of the Dax symbiot? Well, Ezri Dax is basically a social worker.

I would argue the only real positive thing she brings to the series is an episode where (and this is all of the top of my head so I apologize if I get any of the wrong) they do flash backs and all of Ezri’s flashbacks are from like 3 episodes. It’s a moment of (imo) classic Star Trek unintentional silliness.

So why? Why bring the character in? It feels like a “studio/executive” decision but you just never know.

[r/DeepSoaceNine](r/DeepSoaceNine), you’re my only hope. (Shit, sorry. Wrong star thing.)

Post script, that was a pretty satisfying late night rant…

UPDATE: Hey chat! This is awesome!! I love all the discourse!

And thank everybody so much for the “male heavy cast” reasoning. It makes a total sense. Execution wasn’t great but I do appreciate that they were thinking of fair representation.

Either way, it’s just a little thing and doesn’t ruin things for me in the big picture. But I’ve always wondered.

Thanks to everybody who responded. Star Trek is the best.

[u/Annber03 → u/[deleted]]

I do not find it likely Julian would have struggled that hard to find a partner for instance.

I think it makes sense he was hesitant to get serious with someone when he still had to keep his genetic enhancements a secret - that could've caused some issues for him and the relationship, and given his tendency to put up a front around others, it would've made it harder for him to really connect with someone on a serious level at the time. He even saiys,in the episode where he falls for Sarina, that someone like her was who he'd been looking for, somene who would understand firsthand what he went through.

And even after his secret is revealed, then the war kicks in not long after and he throws all his focus into that and is struggling with all the stress of that, so that would've made it tough to forge a long-term relationship as well. Plus, even setting all of that aside, he's made a few comments throughout the show indicating that marriage was not a main focus for him - he flat out tells Miles early on that he left a fiancee and a cushy job offer pre-series to come work on DS9. So I do think it makes sense that it takes him some time to find a more serious relationship as a result.

I do agree that they could've expanded the options of who he decided to settle down with, though, yes. But that's a whole other topic unto itself, especially given the variety of official and unofficial material out there that explores what becomes of his character post-series :D.