



“ Although, it’s true, I was never
Attention’s sweet center, I still remember that girl… ”-She Used to be Mine, from Waitress the musical;
music & lyrics by Sara Bareilles. // ( Star Trek Playlist )

[I’m incredibly sad that Jadzia died, but I can’t bring myself to wish it hadn’t happened. Ezri was one of my favorite parts of season 7, and if Jadzia hadn’t died we never would have met her. That being said Terry Farrell really got cheated out of a great role. And I will never forgive the producers for not including her in the ending montage.]Except that they could have just done this same quirky, unconfident, off balance character without it having to be Dax.
Promote Jadzia to captain, realistic due to the war and their losses. She’s part of the 9th fleet which is home based at DS9, but she’s gone for a few episodes at a time.
Meanwhile a quirky new character named Ezri, a new counselor, is brought in also due to the war. Maybe she’s Trill, maybe Bajoran but Starfleet (which I’d do because only having one Bajoran on the show was a mistake.) She has all the same stories, minus awkward Worf and best friend Ben. But in their place she’s a friend for Jake or something, giving him more screen time.
You’d have to adjust “Field of Fire” to remove the Joran stuff, but you could replace it with her consulting with maybe a relative, her father? Who was a killer, but by virtue of killing Cardassians during the occupation, he got away with it until he couldn’t control himself after the withdrawal.
“Prodigal Daughter” could be virtually unchanged. The final chapter rescue of Worf plot would be a hiccup, but otherwise you’d have nothing significant to delete from the character by making get a Bajoran Starfleet Counselor rather than new Dax.
And you’d have Jadzia popping in. She’d show up in fleet battles. Her and worf might have relationship issues with her promotion, not resentment but strain of distance. Of knowing the dangerous classified missions she’s on by his post but not being able to do anything. You’d have the dynamic change of her being equal to Sisko and the evolution of the relationship. You’d have Bashir deal with his feelings and maybe he moves on to Ezri without it being creepy!
In the end Jadzia didn’t need to die and Ezri didn’t need to be Dax to have her be the same character. That’s the shame.

[That line in Afterimage where Ezri tells Julian that if Worf hadn’t come along “it would have been him” annoys me to no end. Jadzia never struck me as having anything other than platonic/friendly feelings towards him, even if she did enjoy being flirted with sometimes. Was Ezri just confused and having trouble remembering how Jadzia felt? And the whole plot of Julian and Quark being unhappy with being “friendzoned” in general just bothered the hell out of me. ]