Terry Farrell Wants To Return To Star Trek, Says Resurrecting Jadzia Is “No Big F-ing Deal”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star Terry Farrell is ready to come out of retirement and ready to bring back Jadzia Dax if the opportunity arises. The fact that the character was killed off doesn’t faze the actress, which delighted the crowd at the 56-Year Mission Star Trek convention in Las Vegas.

Bring Back Jadzia

During a Deep Space Nine panel, a fan asked Terry Farrell if she was interested in returning to Star Trek and what she thought of resurrecting Jadzia Dax. The actress made it clear she wants to do it and looks to precedent on how, telling the delighted crowd:

I was actually thinking about how Spock died. Didn’t he melt, basically? He saved everyone’s life. And then he just came back… and there he was. And Kirk kind of went, “Oh, there he is.”  And everyone nodded and said, “Yes, he’s back!” I want that moment for me… Exactly how you bring her back, it’s no big fucking deal.”

Later a fan mentioned that he always wanted to see Jadzia doing some real hand-to-hand fighting and “kicking butt,” noting he felt her death scene in the season six finale was a “sucker-punch kind of death.” Farrell quickly quipped back:

Another reason for me to reappear.

Farrell had retired from acting in 2002, to focus on her family. But earlier in the con, she revealed now that her son was off to college, she was ready to return to acting, saying:

I got to do my new eight-by-ten [actor headshot]. I’m very excited. Like, this my life now. I reconnected with my manager. And we’ll see what happens.

Terry Farrell at 56-Year Mission Star Trek convention (Photo: TrekMovie.com)

Star Trek is more than another job

But when it comes to Star Trek, Farrell explained it was much more than just another job for her. A fan asked if she would have believed how the early 21st century turned out back when she filmed the episode “Past Tense,” she said “Oh my god no,” adding that she has been “shocked” at the state of the world, feeling the country is “going backward,”, especially in how people treat each other. And here she pivoted to how she sees Star Trek as a force for good:

We all need so much love and kindness right now. And we can only start with taking care of ourselves and nurturing ourselves as much as possible, and giving and paying it forward as much as we can. And to me, that’s what so great about Deep Space Nine and Star Trek. I just feel so lucky we are part of a show that is never going to go away. All the other jobs I have ever done, nothing compares to the message our show has to give and it keeps doing that… I feel pretty good that we’re all together here and celebrating hope for our future.

Terry Farrell and Cirroc Lofton at 56-Year Mission Star Trek convention (Photo: TrekMovie.com)

How Avery Brooks helped her early struggles on DS9

During a panel discussion on life-changing moments during the production of Deep Space Nine, Farrell got emotional talking about her early days on the series and how she had difficulty with her lines, and it took series star Avery Brooks and director David Livingston to help her get through it:

At the beginning, even though it was very exciting to get the part, the dialogue was really difficult for me. And they hired me an acting coach when I really needed a dialect coach to work lines with me… There was one episode in particular, and David Livingston was directing and it was a scene with Avery [Brooks] [pauses with emotion] And I couldn’t get it and I was so embarrassed, and Avery was such a champion and he was so kind to me. And they took me to the trailer, the two of them, and he said, “It’s just film! we don’t care.” And I feel bad because Rene [Auberjonois] is not here to say his part of it, but he made me feel really bad about not getting my lines right. It was creating this vortex with me because I was freezing because I was so afraid that I wasn’t going to get it right. So it was just this catch-22 horrible thing. But really, David Livingston and Avery Brooks really helped me feel right again. “It’s okay, everybody goes through it.” They were just so loving and supportive about it, and that was life-changing for me.

Terry Farrell and Avery Brooks from the early DS9 episode “Dax” (Paramount)

Much from STLV

There is much more coming for our coverage of the 56-Year Mission Las Vegas (aka STLV). And check out the rest of our STLV coverage HERE.


Find more news about the Star Trek TV Universe here at TrekMovie.com

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This would be so much more of a priority for me than Yar/Crosby.

DO IT!

They can easily just have a new Dax show up on Discovery, and then have them do some crazy Trill ritual to talk to Jadzia.

This could work.

I honestly thought sometime in season 7 they would do an ep where Ezri would talk to her past lives and Jadzia would inhabit Worf.

Yeah I’m game! It’s Star Trek and Picard is now a walking Android, it’s not hard people. ;D

So is Gray.

Unnecessary out of the blue meanness towards a young actor, check. Stay classy, bro.

I just watched her die on DS9 at the hands of Dukat on H&I. Keep her dead.

Make alive.

I love Jadzia but yeah, I tend to agree although there are plenty of other ways to have her appear without resurrecting the character and I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

Even without directly resurrecting Jadzia, she could be from a universe where she decided not go in the Bajoran temple at the moment she did but there would have to be a good reason for her to be there..and not a lame situation like Mirror Bareil.

Maybe the unjoined Trill named Jadzia who joined with the Dax symbiont had a twin sister.

“Sister…you have a twin sister! Sisko was wise to hide her from me.”

Send in ..the clowns. Clones, I mean clones!!

It took an entire movie to resurrect Spock, so it’s not just “no big fucking deal”. And then Spock finally died on New Vulcan peacefully a dozen years or so before that resurrection.

With that said, it’s probably not hard to have Jadzia reappear in Lower Decks as a ghost of Ezri like Grey and Adira in Discovery, or even as a ghost of a future Dax in whatever show that comes after Picard. A Jadzia with a physical body though? Rather unlikely, but I guess they can try to make another Golem, although Jadzia is nowhere as important as Spock to warrant such story.

Janeway died countless times in Voyager from what I remember with barely any fuss. Same with Worf in TNG and Shaxs in LDS.

And Jadzia is just as important to Spock to some people. Myself included.

Janeway died twice from what I can remember. Year of hell, which was a story about alternate timelines so it was obviously reversed. And then in the series finale endgame where Admiral Janeway died killing the Borg Queen but Captain Janeway made it home. So neither of those counted as a real death the way Jadzia’s did.

I’m not sure that’s much of an impediment. Security redshirt Lieutenant Galloway was vaporized by phaser in “The Omega Glory” and resurrected as much as a year later by “Turnabout Intruder”, and (with apologies to David L. Ross) he’s a complete nobody next to Jadzia Dax. Lieutenant Shaxs is vastly more important than Galloway, but I think even ardent Lower Deckers like myself would agree he’s not more important than Jadzia Dax (even if Shaxs’ lover Dr. T’Ana doesn’t know who she is).

Given the remarkably extensive history of resurrections in this franchise (which includes Hugh Culber, Leonard McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Leslie, Pavel Chekov, Galoway, Spock, Jean-Luc Picard [on multiple occasions!], Neelix, Shaxs, Elnor, and probably others I’m forgetting or don’t know about), I propose Jadzia shouldn’t be out of the question.

There is one wrinkle with her, which could be a problem but is also interesting enough that it arguably justifies this by itself – the Dax symbiont is in Ezri now, and presumably if Jadzia came back she’d be just Jadzia, not Jadzia Dax. What would a post-joining, Daxless Jadzia be like? Might she retain any memories or impressions from Dax’s past hosts that she’d gotten from Dax prior to her death, or would it be like she’d suddenly lost multiple lifetimes of memories?

I understand the dynamics that drove Farrell out of DS9, but I liked Ezri, and I liked her even more as a Captain in the Relaunch Litverse. Best female captain written ever. (Sorry Janeway.)

So, I don’t like that Ezri and Nicole deBoer’s excellent performance often get ignored in these discussions.

Having 1990s misogynistic behaviour by senior EPs setting female actors in competition (same with Mulgrew and Taylor) and having it continue to distort the conversation, is totally not in line with the IDIC values of the franchise.

I mean, I did suggest elsewhere here being back both Jadzia and Ezri. Only one would be “from the dead”, but both would be “to the screen”, since neither’s been seen in any screenTrek in a long time. I think it’d actually be great to have both of them together, and the fact that the Dax symbiont is no longer in Jadzia but Jadzia’s still around. It could be deliciously awkward.

Or as long as Jadzia is coming back from the dead, how about adding another layer to it and, say, having the Dax symbiont duplicated in a transporter accident à la Riker and Boimler, so Jadzia can get it back while Ezri also keeps it? :p

To clarify, since I’m sure some people might read what I said and assume I’m joking, I actually would love for something like that to happen, absurdity be damned (or rather, embraced).

As long as we’re talking about transporter accidents, you can bring back Jadzia and duplicate Dax all in one fell swoop. Maybe a wormhole glitch would be more appropriate for DS9 setting.
Plus, since she’s been in the wormhole, she can tell us how The Sisko is doing.

Pretty sure Jim Kirk belongs on that list, as well.

The dead stay dead

People always comes back in Star Trek, especially if you’re bridge crew! 😂

Jadzia probably saw the Great Koala before journeyed through the Black Mountain fighting three aberrations of herself and other things Starfleet has classified but made it back.

That’s all canon bro!

Canon!

Do not.

I mean, except for Hugh Culber, Leonard McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Leslie, Pavel Chekov, Galloway, Spock, Jean-Luc Picard, Neelix, Shaxs, Elnor, etc., sure…

Sometimes, dead is better.

Your list is a little off. Picard never came back from the dead. He died and stayed that was. Just because there is now an android of him with his memories doesn’t mean Picard was resurrected. And he never technically died in Tapestry either that we conclusively know of.

The official stance of the narrative appears to be that the Picard the character we’re seeing in seasons 2 and 3 of Picard the show is indeed the same Picard the character we’ve been seeing since “Encounter at Farpoint” 35 years ago (ooof, do I feel old just typing that). That his entire body was replaced appears not to matter; I think the idea is that the continuity of consciousness is what’s important.

Granted, that raises issues about how we’re supposed to look at Roger Korby, say, but there it is. If we assume Picard is no longer truly Picard because he’s no longer in his original body, that similarly raises the whole philosophical specter of just what’s happening every time people use the transporter, which of course has massive disturbing implications for the entire franchise, so… there you go.

At any rate, as far as the official narrative is concerned, the Picard we have “now” (using the golem body created by the latest Soong, from the Soong-of-the-Month Club) is for all intents and purposes really Picard.

The other resurrection(s) I was thinking of is/are indeed in “Tapestry”. It’s possible he technically died twice in that episode – once in the previously-known incident in his youth when the Nausicaan stabbed him through the heart, necessitating its replacement with an artificial one, and once again years later in the “present” of the episode, when he and his away team are attacked by Lenarians and he dies as a result. It’s possible that neither of these really counts as a death, but it’s also possible both do, so I’m inclined to use the average of the total range of possibilities, and count the number of times he dies here as 1. :p Yes, granted, who can ever really be sure of anything where Q is involved, but it does appear to be the case that he really was dead and that Q received his consciousness and It’s a Wonderful Life-ed him, and then resurrected him.

At least that appears to be the stance and intent of the episode, and if I’m going to argue with canon I’ll save whatever power I have to do so for times when it’s really important, like the entire existence of the Kelvin timeline. “Tapestry” I’m only too happy to leave alone. ;)

I see your point. I can accept it is canon that the Golum Picard is actually Picard whether actual science would support that or not. But I guess what I am saying is that Picard was never truly resurrected. Whether he is Picard or not, he most def isn’t human the way Spock was still human/Vulcan. But I digress I suppose that is splitting hairs lol

No thanks. She was always the weakest actor and character on DS9. I’d rather see Ezri Dax return.

Are you mad! Jadzia was such a great character and it was a loss to the show when she left

For the life of me I don’t understand the popularity of the character or the obsession with the trill culture, my eyes always glazed over when it was a trill episode.

She is charming and sexy.

I’m not as in love with her as others were, but I did think Terry Farrell was poorly treated by Berman and deserved better. She had a very sloppy death – a contrived visit to the temple, cheesy death where she doesn’t get to even fire a phaser, and even Sisko’s scene over her coffin is mostly just for plot exposition not reminiscence.

Jadzia also stopped getting as much meaty material after season 4, she was always tied to Worf. That is not to say she didn’t get good development out of that, but it’s no small irony that Ezri got so much more to do and more solo episodes than Jadzia did in season 6 or (realistically) would have gottend even if Farrell had stayed on as a regular.

Honestly DS9 as a whole was poorly treated by Berman. He’s responsible for some of the best trek ever but he’s not exactly a ray of sunshine.

The thing is, I get the impression that if it weren’t for Ira Steven-Behr being so stubborn and Voyager taking so much of Berman’s attention, we’d have been left with a worse show if he’d paid DS9 more mind. Better to be left alone by a begrudging parent who tolerates you than to have them helicopter over you and make bad decisions.

I know UPN was not making things easy for him, but it’s not like Berman the writer was a revelation on Enterprise at all.

Yes I agree. We are better off that Berman was preoccupied with VOY. But the idea that Berman and Pillar would always say that DS9 wasn’t real Trek I imagine would have pissed off a whole lot of the cast and crew. And history has proven different as DS9 is one of the most beloved shows and has stood the test of time.

You stop that mean talk.

I thought Ezri — and the amount of s7 time utterly WASTED on her — was maybe the worst part of DS9.

Then again, I have managed to not even see some of the Jadzia Dax shows all the way through, because Trills are just not interesting to me (though for the first time in 30 years, I saw the TNG ep that intro’d them this week, and kinda liked that. Wanted to show my wife how they utterly failed to stick the landing before showing them ‘atone’ with the Melinda Culea androgynous ep the next season.)

I don’t always like the way Jadzia was written either … there were times when they chose to write her in a way that came off unlikeable, in spite of Farrell’s inherent charm/appeal, like the tag on the ‘catching Eddington’ show, which up till that point might have been my fave of the whole series, Between the ‘DEFIANT operating manually’ aspect and the potential growth for Sisko character and the fact that Eddington was probably my favorite character outside of Garak in the whole series — I really wish they hadn’t had the Dominion at all, and DS9 had revolved more around the Maquis and Sisko eventually taking their side. Then again, I’m also the guy who absolutely thinks the TOS movies should have been about the crew staying renegade after TSFS and cruising the universe getting into trouble in their BoP, sort of like FIREFLY a quarter century on. Dropping all the Fed/Starfleet baggage and being able to put the money into some strange new worlds instead would have let STAR TREK live up to its name, while also letting the whole cast get more of a chance to shine as an ensemble.

I appreciate your long response and I will say I agree that I wish DS9 was more about the Maquis and not the dominion war, which dragged and dragged. I never liked all the religious mumbo jumbo of that stortyline and, like you ,gravitated to the Eddington stuff. Don’t get me wrong I still love DS9 but some things rub me the wrong way.

Ezri put me to sleep,

… uhm … W H A T??

Yeah, here for it. Dax would be in the top three “well, that was pointless” Trek deaths I’d want a do-over for.

Tasha, Jadzia, … who’s the third?

Kirk in Generations?

Oh yeah, now that has to be the first on the list…

That’s got to be the first one in like all of Hollywood. It was so bad it even created the trope “ dropped a bridge on him”

Hugh/Third of Five. They actually did some interesting world-building with his reappearance in PIC S1, then just offed him for angst. And I was peeved, but kinda-sorta OK with it when I thought it was going to be part of a growing-up/passing the torch thing for Elnor (especially when it looked like Seven was gonna be his new mentor for a second there), but nope! Turns out the writers didn’t care about either of ’em. :P

TBH I think the fans have to take some responsibility for most of the pic cast not coming back. The producers have clearly seen most of the fans haven’t been thrilled with the show so far

I wasn’t referring to Elnor & co getting dropped out of S3, I was referring to the weird, lurching beast that was the last few eps of S1. As for the rest, nah. I like Trek, and even have things I like about PIC S1, but this franchise isn’t entitled to anyone’s time or loyalty – if the producers wanted a better response, maybe they should have made a show with better pacing, clearer themes, less redundancy in storytelling, and maybe, just maybe, they ought to have cared enough to figure how the whole story was going to go before they started filming. Instead, they made all the same mistakes again but worse in S2.

Nothing a good dose of technobabble can’t fix. Welcome back, manicured Worf awaits.

Please, no. One of the best things about DS9 is that it truly showed that actions — like a big interstellar war — have consequences.

You know, out of all the shows and movies, I think DS9 is the only show that didn’t bring a character back to life? C’mon, that can’t be right??? It’s Star Trek, somebody was at least dead for an hour before they showed up again??

Edit: And I was wrong lol. They brought O’Brien back when they killed off the original in Visionary. He was time traveling and his future/past self died but his older/newer version lived? I hate temporal mechanics! ;D

I can’t count the number of times O’Brien died lol

I don’t see how Jadzia can come back apart from a trill flashback, but of any characters I would like to see again, it would be Terry Farrell’s Jadzia (with Jolene Blalock’s T’Pol a close second)

Star Trek: Holodeck

Where everyone and anyone can come back

Really happy that Terry is getting back to acting. She’s always been one of my favourite Trek actors—so much charisma and warmth. I love her.

mrs nimoy!

Not Anymore!

They divorced??

This year actually

Are you sure? I can’t find anything on it.

It’s true, I just googled. Terry filed for divorce in 2020. That’s sad. I wish them both well.

Just do what was done with Tasha in Yesterday’s Enterprise.

Well, there are what seem like an awful lot of resurrections in Star Trek

I don’t want to heat, as I love Terry Farrell and Jadzia, but it looks like all the legacy actors smell a jar of Paramount gold ;). I don’t mind actually I wish they all get a nice payday!

This is Paramount we’re talking about. More like a jar of silver.

It’s more likely due to fans and entertainment journalists who keep asking actors these goofy questions. Hey, remember back in your prime when you had a steady gig, good money, and some modicum of fame on television? Would you like some of that again?

What do you think they’re going to say?

I’d rather see Ezri return.

I mean, we could have both

Yes!

Yes

Quote: We all need so much love and kindness right now. And we can only start with taking care of ourselves and nurturing ourselves as much as possible, and giving and paying it forward as much as we can. And to me, that’s what so great about Deep Space Nine and Star Trek. I just feel so lucky we are part of a show that is never going to go away. All the other jobs I have ever done, nothing compares to the message our show has to give and it keeps doing that… I feel pretty good that we’re all together here and celebrating hope for our future.

Really needed to see this. Thank You Terry Farrell!

And Thank You Trekmovie.com and Anthony Pascale for sharing.

Jadzia Dax had some of the most challenging lines in the show, technobabble-wise, yet she came off as very credible in that regard. She has nothing to feel embarrassed about. I’m very surprised at Auberjonois’ attitude, making her feel bad. That’s a jerky move. This and the way she was treated by Berman if very unfortunate.

This being said, she wasn’t my favorite character. I liked her smart-classy side, but everything about her arc with Worf was tedious and boring as hell. I also didn’t like Jadzia’s flirty side, she unfortunately came off as a little trampy, though this is the writer’s fault…

trampy???
she was a fool for love, willing to give up her starfleet career to follow people she fell in love with, like in ‘rejoined’

I smell a cross over here…. Fear the Walking Trek!
Spell my name right on my Emmy award, okay?

Hey, I would love that! But it also seems very unlikely unless we miraculously get a DS9 series. It is a shame that the character of Gray on Discovery wasn’t a Dax, that would have made for a much more interesting character and given us this opportunity.

Jadzia-Dax is the best character so far in the StarTrek franchise, period! Bring her back!

Kirk and Spock may disagree on that point….

After years of improving skills at refining facial features in the Great Link, perhaps really nailing what a Trill looks like, maybe Terry Farrell could come back playing Odo.

I would love, absolutely love, to see Jadzia return. Perhaps as a hologram or in another Dax’s zhian’tara. However, MS Farrell made her choice and we all need to live with it. Any return would probably be very contrived.

Jadzia Dax is one of mt favorite Star Trek characters of all time. I would absolutely love it if she was brought back, even in animation form. Please make this happen!

I would rather Dax be in Prodigy, but I am cool with Lower Decks.

Kids, this is a perfect example of why you don’t burn bridges as you leave…… she had ONE more season left but felt she had to bolt….. Sorry we have Ezri now….

I love Terry Farrel. But TBH this is totally off. And I know she is his daughter in law too. Spock didn’t just come back to life. His body was regenerated along with the terraformation of a new world. It doesn’t get more complicated than that. To say nothing of the fact that the Enterprise herself and Kirks own son were lost in the process.

im not saying don’t bring her back. But it certainly is a big deal and the story has to work. I don’t know if anyone has noticed or not but Trek fans are kind of sticklers when it comes to canon.

Is it me, or is news of last weeks convention in Vegas been on the light side?

The answer is quite simple. Vegas is now an unofficial convention, therefore Paramount/CBS is not participating and thus not announcing anything there.

Why is it considered unofficial?

Creation no longer has an official license from CBS. Hence why the convention has not been called “Star Trek Las Vegas” the last two years, instead using a generic “55-Year” or “56-Year Mission” which only implies the Trek connection.
The official conventions for the USA are now run by ReedPop, which is why there was an official “Star Trek: Mission Chicago” earlier this year, and “Star Trek: Mission Seattle” is 2023’s official convention.

You can read more about it in these interviews/articles:
https://trekmovie.com/2022/08/17/interview-gary-berman-previews-the-56-year-mission-las-vegas-star-trek-convention/
https://trekmovie.com/2021/04/05/new-official-star-trek-convention-announced-for-april-2022-in-chicago/
https://trekmovie.com/2020/10/13/breaking-star-trek-las-vegas-cancelled-creation-announces-55-year-mission-convention-for-2021/

Terry is so funny, I love her – but I worry that her personality would have too much influence on her character if she was brought back now. In the same way that I feel like Wil Wheaton coming back as Wesley just felt like Wil Wheaton, and how the writers bent over backwards to accommodate Patrick Stewart’s wishes for Picard, I don’t think Terry would take the gig unless she felt like she could have fun with it and put her stamp on the character – which, like, that’s the writers’ job, not the actor’s.

I like her a lot, but the only way I’d like to see her again would be a alternate timeline like yesterday’s enterprise or a mirrorverse story.
Terry left the series and has to deal with it. Don’t ruin the story for fan service.

You don’t need to resurrect Jadzia. Terry can play another role, another character in Star Trek. She has a different look now. How many times did Jeffrey Combs played a different character ?