How would you fix either Dax?

[Yukaphile]

Jadzia was strong. She could fight off Klingons with a bat'leth. And Kira could fight them off too. I love DS9's ladies.

[clearspira]

I think I have already mentioned this on the forum before but its worth repeating: Ezri suffered massively from being introduced in the final season. What I would have done is introduced her in season 6 as the station's counselor (after all, an outpost at war has far more need for one than the Enterprise D ever did). No need to give her a title role, an intermittent showing similar to Vic would have done. Now when Dukat kills Jadzia we already know who Ezri is and hopefully we already like her. Introduce a plot point that the Dax symbiote was injured during the attack and boom, the pieces are in place. Maybe even already set up a romance with her and Dr Bashir as to me the relationship seemed like it came out of left field.

[clearspira]

I'm not sure either character was really broken. Certainly not at the same level that Neelix is.

Jadzia the character was fine. To the extent that there's an issue, it's probably with Terry Farrell, who...well, she's not bad, but Deep Space Nine actually had quite a fine cast, and she struggles in comparison. Jadzia is supposed to be an ancient soul in a young, beautiful body. Terry has beautiful down, and can handle the lighter stuff just fine, but I don't think she usually pulls off the 'old soul' bit. That requires a certain gravitas that she can't usually manage.

Miss Doctor Who also struggles with that. Say what you like about Tennant, but that man could put on a thousand yard stare to end all thousand yard stares. I can believe that Ten is an ancient soul in a young body, but Jadzia and Thirteen? Meh...

[Actarus]

To fix something you need to see what was broken first. Neelix was well defined in what was wrong. Chuck's assessment of how Janeway was written incorrectly has been tossed out by me in a few places and so far everyone nods and says they can see that. So first what is wrong with Dax?

Dax = Ancient intelligence that can live multiple lifetimes gathering knowledge and experience. Any time this symbiote is placed into a proper host the host gains all of it acting far older and wiser.
Symbiote recently put into new specially trained host that is a minor Starfleet officer. . despite just having been an ambassador. And being put as an underling to a former student.
Jadzia despite her 'brilliance' and symbiote misses science problems often. She is a security hole needing to be plugged. (Dax knows too much to be wasted as she is.) And is often written as young woman more than ancient elder.

So let's follow the pattern set by Chuck and redefine her character. Do not write science officer or young woman. Write old man ambassador and instructor. A skirt chaser to the end and now in a new body. Jadzia was studying in Starfleet when she was implanted. Her commission was suspended since the new combined person is neither the young lieutenant nor the old ambassador. She is passing through DS9 as she finds her place. Her old student Ben has gotten command and could use a hand. So he/she sticks around to help out. She is an advisor on the level of Guinan for similar reasons. Dax has been a man so long he forgets gender sometimes in his old skirt chasing. Now Sisko calling her 'Old man' has a more nuanced form and takes longer to get old. Steal the symbiote and you see the young officer out of her depth working to overcome the problems tossed on her. And maybe showing she is more than just the symbiote before getting it back. Since this role is written as Elder mentor and not old man in young woman's body. You have less ambiguity and she can come off as less an ass like repeatedly pranking Odo just to get a rise out of him.
Rom should have been doing that. Prior to getting accepted to the academy that is.

I know this thread is getting old, but anyhow...

The problem is that although Dax is a three-hundred years old symbiont, Jadzia is a young woman. The joining won't change the host's personality (much). Each of Dax's hosts had very different personalities: Lela was a leader, Tobin was an awkward introvert, Torias a thrill-seaker, Curzon a womanizer, etc. She does have the previous hosts memories, but she is still Jadzia and has her own experiences to live for the benefit of the symbiont Dax. That's pretty much the nature of their relationship: Jadzia gives new experiences to live to Dax, and Dax, in return, gives Jadzia access to all its previous lives. Your idea would be interesting, but for another character.

And besides, I liked her jokes and her "trollish" behaviour...

No, if there is fixing to do, it would be on Ezri. And it is perfectly understandable, since we only had one season to get to know her. I believe Nicole de Boer did a fine job with what she had. I agree with others that they could have featured Ezri Tigan sooner to prepare us for Ezri Dax. However, the writers couldn't have planned that Terry Farrell would jump off the train right before the terminus... What is strange is that we probably know more about Ezri's background than Jadzia because of that episode where we meet her family.

[bronnt]

Jadzia was fine, she just had some annoying character moments where they couldn't quite nail the tone for her. This would be like asking, "How do you fix Data?" when he's a completely fine character who was also written with a weird tone at times.

Ezri has a few problems.

1) They had to establish that she's not Jadzia. They got a good bit of this out of the way, but in some instances, they took the contrast too far when she really needs to feel like a more familiar character.

2) Limited types of stories. They had Ezri and Worf hash out their relationship issues early in the season. At the end of the season, they recovered this same ground with her that made it boring.

3) The insane need to pair up everyone with a love interest as the show wraps up. This really doesn't do Trek any favors by failing to provide an attractive woman who doesn't get scooped up by a main cast member by the end of the show. And the fact that they do this by telling us Jadzia had a secret attraction to Bashir that she never acted on, but now Ezri can act on, that's actually a bit squicky in my book. I honestly have no interest at all in the Ezri/Bashir relationship and watching it play out was a waste of time.

4) The writers gave her an occupation that they know almost nothing about. I cringe anytime she starts acting like a counselor and tries to deliver some "pop psychology" bullshit when people are dealing with serious issues. Even Troi's counseling was often better written.

[Nessus]

I'm largely okay with Jadzia in the sense that I don't see her as internally inconsistent. The actual problem with her IMO was that other characters rarely called her out when she was being inappropriate or hypocritical or overreaching. She often kinda feels like the writers were trying to write a Mary Sue, and only accidentally "failed" into a believably intelligent-but-narcissistic character.

Ezri, as others have stated, is basically like first season Bashir, and just needed more time and development. I think Bronnt's complaints above are correct, but again: first season Bashir.

[bronnt]

Making Ezri a counselor was a poor choice. Watching someone's meetings with their therapist is never going to be very interesting. Troi's usefulness on the show was never with psychotherapy, it was her ability to sense emotions. The need to make therapy show something useful happen in a 46-minute episode means resorting to tripe, like the episode where Ezri counseled Garak about his claustrophobia.

It also doesn't jive even closely with her personality. She's a jittery mess, often confused about herself, she often loses track of what she's even saying, and she possesses absolutely no sense of self confidence. This is not what I want to see in a counselor and it was demonstrated any time they tried to give her headshrink-type stuff to do.

The main reason Ezri should have been on the show is because of the Dax symbiote's history with the Klingons. The Klingons still had a continued respect for Curzon who was present at the Khitomer Conference, so keeping Dax near the frontlines during the strong allied push of the war is a decent idea. Sure, they had Worf, but having someone with the history of an actual diplomat who crossed the lines between Klingons and the Federation is useful.

The casting of Nicole de Boer didn't really help with this though. Sure, Terry Farrel was slender, but she had enough physical presence and grace that she didn't look ridiculous holding a bat'leth. There was some plausible sense that she could hold her own. Then she's replaced by a woman who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet. There's no way to put Ezri next to a Klingon warrior with a bladed weapon that doesn't make her look pathetic.

[Yukaphile]

I think, perhaps, you could have made Ezri something different. Like perhaps an astrologist. Something we'd only seen a handful of times within the franchise. Because there was mention of a counselor once in DS9, in "Hard Time," so it's not like they didn't have them. Or she could have been in some kind of other scientific field. Keiko was a botanist. Perhaps make Ezri an oceanologist. Or a geologist. Or something. But with only one season left to go and the fact they didn't intend for her to develop ala Bashir, who was meant to come in green as hell and turn into a rather good character who had grown, well, and that Jadzia was never meant to leave the series, I don't think they had an arc with her in mind.

To fix Jadzia, all you gotta do is remove a bit of her annoying tendencies. Like how she'd sometimes break into Odo's quarters and move his stuff the tiniest little bit. That's not being playful, that's being a dick. Other than that, she works fine. Maybe emphasize the "wise and older mentor" figure we see a few times. Those were good, and I wish we'd had more.

[Madner Kami]

perhaps, you could have made Ezri [...] an astrologist.

Really?

[Yukaphile]

My point was to have her be something we hadn't seen before or had gotten little screentime. My mind went to what that one guy was from "Good Shepherd."