A bit of fannish chatter in between breastfeeding.

[ladydrace]

Well, daddy and Green Pea are out cold, so it's time for mommy to take a little private time for fannish endeavours.

Since coming home from the hospital, we've been watching season 7 of DS9. It's been a wonderful time just breastfeeding and watching trek. Never too early to introduce Green Pea to the good stuff either. :oP

But with the coming of season 7, there is also Ezri. And I promised myself (and a few people on my flist) that I would keep an open mind about her. I have... and... well...

7 episodes in and I have formed my first impression of her. And I have to say... Ezri Dax... me no likey. But funny enough, I think I would like Ezri Tigan quite well! She's sweet and caring and surely not as confused as the mess she becomes after joining. Ezri Dax is an annoying chatterbox with little common sense left in her over-crowded cranium and for some odd reason there is WAY too much focus on her space sickness.

And I cannot even begin to say how unhappy I was with the Afterimage episode. That was just bad on SO SO SO many levels. And a Garak episode no less! In my view, the writers screwed Garak's character over completely in favour of Ezri's development. GAH!

As for the Ezri/Julian romance coming, I think the writers did that on a whim. There seemed to be absolutely NO hints of it in the early Ezri episodes. Even though Julian is supposed to be going gooey over everything with boobs, he can't even see Ezri that way and calls Quark crazy for suggesting it. Actually, I find it OOC for Julian. And what about the Sarina thing? One episode he's saying how he's found his perfect match and how he loves her and so on and so on... and only months later, suddenly, he's all over the woman he couldn't even imagine himself going for earlier? Confused...

Maybe Ezri is his rebound? Makes sense... War often makes people do strange things.

Comments

[thelibraniniquity]

I think one of the worst things that happened with Ezri is that the producers cast someone who was basically a more petite version of Terry Farrell. A small part of me thinks that even with the writing staying the same, the character could have worked much better if the new host had been a completely different physical type to Jadzia. Appearance aside... I never bought the character's qualifications to become a full counselor. Regardless of Dax' experiences as a 300+ year old symbiote, Ezri was a trainee psychiatrist with no formal training; even to me that felt painfully obvious throughout Afterimage (for which I have several missing scenes involving Julian's intervention in Garak's treatment and subsequent rebuilding of a strained friendship between the two) and in various episodes after that. It could have worked had Julian taken Sisko's recommendation for Ezri's training to be waived and her installation as a counselor on the station, and then sat down with her and explained that it would be better for Dax the symbiote, Ezri the host, and everyone on Deep Space Nine (including the still-grieving Worf) if she was assigned elsewhere for the remainder of her training, with the option at the end of that to apply for a position on DS9 in her own right if she so chose. It would have been a good send off for the character of Dax, and would then have allowed for a new science officer to be introduced... who Julian could then fall head over heels for if he so chose ;)

Ahaha. I'm sorry for going on like that; Ezri's a bit of a touchy subject with me. I'm like you, I think, in that I went into season 7 with an open mind and wanting to like the new character, but she just fell too flat for me.

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

OMG feel free to go on! I really want to babble about this, but my hubby can't keep up with my chatter on this!

Agreed on the "out of the blue promotion". I mean, come on, she says it herself SO many times! That she's only a trainee! And given her major confusion of joining, I really call it bad judgement to give her a position of so much responsibility so soon!

And another thing about Afterimage... anyone who has ever suffered from any kind of anxiety will tell you... IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT!!

[thelibraniniquity]

I think I'd have to watch Afterimage again to be more certain of the facts (it's been maybe a year since I watched DS9 properly), but I still can't buy Garak's seemingly abrupt recovery without including one or even both of the following:
-Julian intervening in the airlock, apologising for and explaining his judgement in allowing someone else to treat him, then taking over that treatment himself
-Garak deciding of his own accord that Ensign Dax is not equipped to treat him, and quickly rebuilds his mental defences (perhaps too well? there could be a bunny in this, lol), forcing an intervention from elsewhere Julian
Either way, that treatment has to be an ongoing process, surely? It would have been a great way to include Garak in a few extra episodes here and there, slowly coming to terms with the fact that more people than just his dear doctor know about his foils and weaknesses, yet still trying to do the job he told Sisko he would do when he pled asylum on the Defiant at the end of season 5.

As for the promotion... I get the need on the part of the producers to at least keep the spirit of Dax for the final season, if not the actress playing the role, but they just did not go about it the right way. They just passed the buck onto Sisko, who was apparently far too bent on keeping his 'Old Man' on the station to see sense about what was best for anybody else.

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

What bothers me most about Afterimage is how excruciatingly OOC Garak is all of a sudden. I can imagine he might tell Julian (In very strict confidence!) a little more about his fears, but talking so openly about it to Sisko, Odo and this completely unknown little motor-mouth is just completely beyond me!!

I can understand why Julian would see the need to keep his distance in Garak's treatment. Being a friend can easily be as much a hindrance as a help for healing. But he really should have been involved as a friend at least! *Shakes fist yet again at producers for screwing over Garak for O'Brien*

Old Man indeed... and I STILL don't understand why nobody on Trill even raises an eyebrow at how close Dax stays with past friends! Working side by side with Worf should really be enough of a reason for caution. Especially since she has had NO training to be joined. But noooo...

[thelibraniniquity]

The OOC thing could all be a contrivance on Garak's part. He realises he's struggling to function on the station, but when he goes to speak to Julian, he's either too busy working or playing with Miles. Therefore, rather than pulling him away from important things (ie, important work for Starfleet, and a human friend), Garak creates this somewhat flaky persona with which he presses this new, young psychiatric officer-in-training for a diagnosis. Naturally it doesn't go down well. It's quite a stretch, but it could help explain at least Garak's behaviour during the episode. Unless of course it's less about pragmatism, and more about distantly manipulating Julian into spending more time with him rather than that pesky engineer, even if his symptoms become more than an external projection of a largely internal issue and, y'know, start really hindering his performance. He has always seemed the very model of a method actor, and I don't think I'd put that past him. As to whether the plan actually works or not... well ;D

Going back to Dax, I don't think Jadzia's continuing friendship with Sisko would have caused too many problems for the Symbiosis Commission. Curzon and Sisko's friendship was born of an entirely different set of circumstances, and as Jazdia, Dax never sought to progress that relationship past that of them being friends. I always got the impression that romantic reattachments were the real issue, which if nothing else should have been The Clue to all and sundry that Ezri could not have stayed on DS9 without experiencing any more emotional turmoil than she was already going through. No training to be joined does not a cutesy characterisation make - it just provides excellent grounds for the new host's quick and distant reassignment while reorientation takes place - for as long as necessary.

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

I would love to believe that all of Garak's behaviour in this episode could be conceived as a ruse to make Ezri completely bonkers and get Bashir to notice him again. But there is not even the slightest hint of any such plot written into the lines or anything. And Garak seems to like the lies the best when people are aware that he is actually lying. GAH! THE OOC-ness!!!

Good point about the romantic attachments. But that just gives another good reason why she really shouldn't have stayed on DS9. Worf does what Jadzia told him was her custom and keeps his distance (I don't think it's all grief), but Ezri is just SO determined to "talk things through". I don't mind shrinks, but she really is annoying about it.

[prelocandkanar.livejournal.com]

Tli:

I'd love to read some of your missing scenes or other fics that look at these issues....

[thelibraniniquity]

Oh, you know what? I'd absolutely love to have a go at writing that, but with my track record it's just never going to happen, unfortunately :(

[prelocandkanar.livejournal.com]

Yes, this ep really bothered me, too, as did Ezri's character. To start with, Garak:

Yes, he's terribly OOC here. Sure, he has claustrophobia, sure, it's getting worse, but I just can't see him pounding on airlocks. I see him self-medicating, on Kanar or 24th century drugs or technologies -- look at his history with the wire.

And I definitely see him bearing it silently or withdrawing, not chatting about it. In my fic, "Shadow," I deal with this a little. I proposed that he made up the "daddy locked me in a closet" story just because it would be like steak to a dog for Ezri, but that his claustrophia came about from something "work-related." There was a fic I read once that had him trapped under a collapsed building while on Obsidian Order business, and that had been the start of his claustrophia. Good fic, BTW. Can't remember the name, though.

But, Garak acting the way he does here is just --- ARRGGH!

Ezri is definitely annoying. "Ezri and Julian" is annoying, especially how they draw it out, and how, between her and Miles, there's absolutely no Garak and Bashir scenes anymore. Not only that, but there are fewer Garak episodes, period, until the very end.

Grrrr.

[lady-drace.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the self-medicating. Garak is a survivor and a private man who absolutely refuses to go to the infirmary unless he really has to. Passing out in his shop, sure, I can believe that. But I have a very hard time believing he wouldn't be gone the second he woke up in the infirmary. (Again, The Wire...)

I also think he would think very little of the human/starfleet idea of psychotherapy. Frankly I'm sure he would find the whole concept ridiculous.

I don't believe the "locked in a closet" story for a second either. I have a much easier time believing it comes from his time at Tzenketh, like he hints at in the crawlspace. (Must read your fic Shadow again...)

Ezri/Julian... ok, so I'm not the only one who thinks that the idea of getting those 2 together came like something out of a hat from the writers?

[lonespark.livejournal.com]

Yes to all you are saying. Season 7 has some good stuff, but it is mostly a pain in my brain, and Ezri is a major reason.

[mrs-picard.livejournal.com]

Bashir/Ezri is the equivalent to Worf/Troi and Chakotay/Seven. The writers ALWAYS fuck up in the final seasons with relationships that make no sense.