Terry Farrell left Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after six seasons. The actress now says she doesn’t regret leaving, but wished she could have returned for the seventh season.
Terry Farrell wanted a recurring role for the final season of DS9
After playing Jadzia Dax for six seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, actress Terry Farrell decided not to renew her contract to return for the seventh and final season. This lead to her character being killed, although the Dax symbiont lived on in Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer) for the final season. In a new interview with the official Star Trek site, Farrell reveals that she would have stayed for the last season if they just didn’t make her a regular:
You left DS9 after season six, before the end of the run. You went straight on to Becker, which you did for several years. Do you ever regret the decision to leave DS9? Was it the right choice for you, then and now?
Farrell: My contract had ended, so I didn’t feel like I left the show. I felt like my contract had ended and there wasn’t a negotiation (for another year). So I didn’t feel like there was anything for me to do, if there was nothing for us to talk about, other than let my contract expire. Yes, I thought it was the right thing to do. It was ironic that Becker let me go, but I think, as a person, I was really fortunate to have the experience of working on a half-hour show as well. That also took me a few years to get in the trenches and really wrap my brain around where I was at. The first year was terribly difficult because I was so used to being a hero. It’s very hard, then, to go be on a sitcom where your character is so neurotic and can’t get anything right. And I had no break in between. I died one day (on DS9) and the very next day I tested (for Becker) for the same executives at Paramount. So it was a lot. But it’s ironic that just when I felt like I was really hitting my stride with Becker, they let me go. I was like, “Ugggghhhh!” I thought that (next) season was going to be golden. Unfortunately, that hand didn’t play itself out the rest of the way.
A lot of fans were surprised that you didn’t return as Dax in some way, shape or form in the final season of DS9. How about you?
Farrell: Yes. Yes. I did not want to die. I would have been so happy if they just would have let me be a recurring (character) the final season, so I didn’t have to be in every episode. I was just really tired. I was tired of waking up at four in the morning. I was tired of all the minutiae. I’m sure a lot of the other actors feel this way, too. When you’re number five (on the call sheet), you’re waiting for that schedule to arrive and it becomes frustrating. You want to feel like you have your life again, and I’d definitely put my life on hold because I didn’t know how to balance a schedule constantly changing all the time. It was really hard for me.
Dax gets zapped in DS9’s season six finale
More from Terry at StarTrek.com.
Yeah, I wish she had come back. Always preferred Jadzia to Ezri.
Well, if you have a Trill on a show, part of using that character to it’s full potential is killing it and transferring the symbiont to a new body. That’s just GOT to happen, or the character will never have been right. I thought they could have finally gotten a science officer in as the replacement though, instead of a counsellor. That was something they dropped the ball on. The replacement was off. But absolutely, 100%, killing Jadzia was a MUST-DO in my eyes.
3 – No offense, Ms. Farrell, but leaving the series to do the horrible “Becker” series was not the wisest career move, IMHO.
I did think that her death in the season 6 finale worked. It showed how dangerous Gul Dukat had become, and for the first time, Captain Sisko suddenly had doubts about himself as the Emissary of Bajor as well as a Starfleet captain.
So I have to disagree with Terry Farrell on that one, though featuring her return as flashbacks or as part of Worf’s dreams of vengeance against Dukat would have been nice.
The writers were put in an awkward position. If they had kept Jadzia Dax as a recurring character, it would have been too conspicuous as everybody would be wondering where Dax is during parts of the Dominion War. Like if she was there for “The Dogs Of War”, and somewhere else during “The Seige Of AR-558” or “What You Leave Behind”.
I also wonder how she expected to be a regular on “Becker” while doing a recurring role on “Deep Space Nine”? She kind of put the writers in a bind.
I loved Jadzia and i think killing her was a big mistake. Just re assigned her some place else and let her come back for the finale. Loved her chemistry with Worf and I wanted them to have their baby!
They should never killed her, she was one of the best female characters of star trek.
Jadzia was a trully charismatic character. Worf and Dax were fantastic together. I wish she’d never died on the show but at least with the infinity number of universes in star trek there are still billion alternative universes where she’s still alive!
I kept expecting her to show up in that episode where Ezri was seeing previous Dax hosts, or in the Mirror Universe, but alas, there was no Jadzia to be found.
I loved Jadzia, one of the coolest characters on ds9
5 That didnt stop Armin Shimmerman from being a recurring character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer( for 3 seasons) while being a regular on Deep Space Nine.
And she didnt test for Becker till the day AFTER she filmed her final episode on DS9(IE the creative team has allready known for atleast a while they were going to be bringing her back, so Becker would have no bearing on their decision to have killed her off) if they had kept her on as a recurring character in all likelyhood she would have not gone for Becker
. As she was primarily just wanting a break from the long hours of makeup and shooting a hourly scifi show.
Her taking on the part in Becker after her commitment to Star Trek was up , wasnt a bad idea on her part. The hours required for shooting a 30 min sitcom are no where near as demanding.
they shoot over 1 or 2 days tops and usually not till 6 or 7pm at night and are usually wrapped by 10pm at latest, along with one day of rehearsals and read throughs.
I remember the news at the time was that she wanted to only be recurring and that Berman and co got angry at that and killed her off on purpose to spite her.
if that was embellished at the time who knows but that was the story going around the convention floors
She was my favorite on DS9, there was no need to kill her character off, there were so many other choices, she could be injured and travel to Trill to recover, re-assigned on another position (working on a cover mission for instance, after all there was a war), being missing in action and worf find her in the last episodes etc. All that would be much much better and more interesting that what happened on the show
So what happened with the flashback scenes in DS9 “What You Leave Behind”
rumor was that Terry would not allow her “image” to be allowed.
I wish she was still alive, She was a brilliant character
They should have killed her earlier! I like Ezri much more than Jadzia. Jadzia was a quite boring character.
#12 I love the idea of her working on a secret mission during the last season or missing and Worf finding her. That would work so much better on the series. Her replacement was boring and I could not care less about her
She was the best! I loved her sense of humor and her positive atttude about life!
11 – “Her taking on the part in Becker after her commitment to Star Trek was up , wasnt a bad idea on her part.”
It was if she actually read the scripts before she took the part. TERRIBLE how. Just God-awful.
She’s my favorite from ST:DS9. Her relationship with Worf was one of my favorite pairs on star trek as well
Leaving to do Becker kinda did make sense, career-wise, since it was already assumed season seven would be it, so she could either do one more season or move on and potentially do many seasons of a new show. Not that I thought Becker was so great. The way they wrote her off of Becker was much clumsier than the way DS9 handled Jadzia’s departure. I wasn’t happy to see Jadzia die, but I agreed with the decision from a storytelling standpoint. For one thing, it adds more realism, showing it’s not always just the anonymous redshirt who bites the dust. Not only that, but when you’ve got a character whose memories and experiences can be passed on to a new person, to not exploit that idea would feel like a bit of a waste.
Jadzia=hotness! My favorite star trek girl
I still can’t forgive the writers for killing her off. The show wasn’t the same without her
I really wish she hadn’t die. It broke Worf’s heart and mine
#3,
Who Knows what would have happened to Terry Farrell’s career after DS9 had she decided to stay on for the final season. However going from DS9 to a CBS tv comedy show like Becker was probably a tremendous boost in her career as she avoided for a brief period of time being typecast.
Jadzia was amazing, Worf and Jadzia were one of the best trek couples. They should have lived happily ever after with a dozen of babies with ridges and spots.
I would have loved to see Ferrell continue in the show. She was a wonderful, strong feminine presence in the show and a very good actress. But seeing a Trill do what they’re made for was very interesting. De Boer took some getting used to, for us and for the DS9 crew. It made for some interesting stories, though I felt Ezri never got her footing. The character didn’t have enough time to really develop. But she sure was awfully cute.
Jadzia is a beautiful character inside and out, she had a warmth and a sense of humor the show needed.
I loved her on the show, she and worf were my favorites.
I used to have a crush on her when I was in high school and she’s still a very beautiful woman. It was a sad day when she died, I lost my interest on the series after she left
I always thought she should have come back in another “trill letting previous hosts temporarily take over other people’s bodies” episode, but just for Jadzia. Jadzia could take over Odo’s body and “transform” completely into Jadzia w/o needing any changeling makeup. (I don’t care how you explain Odo’s sudden ability to shapeshift perfectly) Then Jadzia could have had a proper chance to say goodbye to everyone.
I would have loved it if Jadzia hadn’t die. She was a great character, she’s still the old man for me.
Wow I thought that was all planned.
So the one character that was immortal in some way did not want to return.
Dax was an easy one to replace because of the Dax sim.
That said I liked both dax characters.
They both worked so well I thought it was planned.
She’s my favorite. I loved her relationship with Sisko, Kira and of course Worf.
I cried when she died, the episode where she marries Worf is my favorite episode of the series. I need to do some re-runs
#25
That would have been my perfect ending! I’m a huge shipper
I don’t have any problems with her character dying at all. In fact I wish Star Trek was more daring and killed more characters off. It would have been more interesting watching 7 years of voyager or ds9 and wondering “are the main characters safe?” ala Lost or Battlestar Galactica.
Did Terry even suggest to Berman that she was interested in a recurring role?
First of all, is this only coming out now? It’s kinda been a while…
They could VERY EASILY had written that she was INJURED when Gul Dukat attacked her. They didn’t have to write that the attack killed her. It could have really messed up the symbiont which required that she go back to Trill and then have sub-space conversations like when Neelix stayed in touch with Voyager after he left. They could have had eps where Worf visited her but I guess if the war was on it would have been dangerous for anyone to travel…
It WAS interesting seeing Worf react to Ezri but I missed Jadzia terribly. Loved her sarcasm and love of life. There are SO MANY THINGS they could have done. So pissed that they killed her. It was probably for the drama/angst factor that the writers went that way. Unless they were mad at Terry. We really don’t know what went on even though it was said that it happened that way. Completely disappointed me. She was one of my favourites. Find it hard to believe that she had the power to prevent her image being shown as flashbacks in the series’ finale. I thought it was the PTB saying, “so you wanted to leave the show? Fine. You’re outta here, baby” and refusing to acknowledge that she had been there. IT WAS VERY STRANGE to see no memories of her because she was such a HUGE presence in the show.
And I hated that Odo left Nerys. All they had to do there was have him say that he was just going back to heal his people and stay for a while to get to know them, then return to her. It would have been sad enough because she’d miss him but at least he would have returned.
Also… killing off Sisko? Hated it.
Jadzia, dead. Odo, gone. O’Brien leaving with the family to return to earth for a position in Starfleet Academy . Wasn’t that enough drama? I hate it when writers play with the series like that. Oh well. Guess if I had the gift of creative writing I’d be in Hollywood now, rich. It’s easy to complain from where we sit. Guess I’ll just console myself with the earlier episodes.
ktg
Wishing for nothing but the best for Ms. Farrell. I can sympathize with those kinds of hours being troublesome.
38 sisko wasn’t killed off.
Season 7 was awful because Jadzia wasn’t in it. The idea of replacing her was a bad one and seemed terribly contrived.
I really wish she’d had a recurring role as Ezri’s plaything. Or vice versa.
Becker went downhill went Terry Farrell left. Jorge Garcia by the way, was introduced as a new character to replace Bob the Super, whose departure was never mentioned. I never watched Lost because I hated Garcia on Becker!
I thought Nicole de Boer did a pretty good job establishing Ezri as a worthy successor to Jadzia in Sesaon 7. While it was sad to have a main character die, what Star Trek show hasn’t have that happen. TNG Tasha, DSN Jadzia, VOY Kes (kinda), ENT Tripp, all died during the shows. People died in the movies too like Spock, Kirk, and Data. At least something of the character survived in Ezri Dax and her journey in the DSN Relaunch books to commanding the Aventine have been a remarkable journey for the character. Personally, I like that Ezri isn’t tied down by Worf as Jadzia would have been if her character had lived since that frees him up to rejoin the Enterprise and leads Ezri to the Aventine.
I don’t recall seeing any episodes of Becker without Terry in them. My Mom liked to watch that show (on what was I think on Paramount Comedy Channel here). So I’d be in room for that and Frasier. I think the subsequent year without her wasn’t even shown.
Maybe Terry will pop up on Hot in Cleveland. I can always dream…
I loved Jadzia, i actually have her action figure on my shelves, so beautiful and dignified.
I would have liked that situation for Jadzia much more. I’d hate to say it, but I kind of wish that Ezri Dax never existed, they should have just reassigned Jadzia to some ship or starbase and left it at that, if they wanted to fill a hole in the cast then they should have just added someone else. An untested, naive, younh councillor struggling to deal with being thrust into hosting a symbiot after not even training at the high point of a war in that region was probably the worst idea they could of come up with even if it did have 9 lifetimes of experience using the Dax symbiot.
#45 – Nancy Travis, who worked with “Becker” star Ted Danson in the two “Three Men and…” movies, took over as the diner owner when Terry Farrell left.
When Terry Farrell did “Trials and Tribbleations” in the TOS uniform, no “Trek” lady ever looked better. (My apologies to Nichelle Nichols for that one.)
Given that she was a Trill, and that the actress made the decision not to renew her contract, killing the character was the most interesting and dramatic choice to make. Now…whether Ezri was as successful a character as Jadzia is a matter of opinion…but sending Jadzia off to another post or having her recooperate on Trill just to have the option to bring the actress back would have done nothing to strengthen the character. Making the symbiont adjust to a new host amidst all the other established characters was the best choice given Farrell’s decision to leave.
Three opportunities to bring back Jadzia within the episodes they ended up with: a) Farewell hologram (a la Tasha Yar) that Worf would have hemmed and hawed about watching…eventually coaxed into watching by/with Ezri. b) A Jadzia prophet in one or several of Sisko’s visions (a la Kai Opaka), c) Mirror Universe episode…she didn’t have to be dead in that universe. If she had been the one to go after Quark instead of Ezri, that could have been interesting.
Slightly off-topic Dax sidebar…anyone interested in seeing a previous Dax host make a cameo in the new universe?