To be strictly fair, my exposure to Quantum Leap was a bit scattered, for the first few seasons. For a while, even while it was still in new episodes, it aired at both noon and midnight on USA. This included my senior year, when I technically had four classes but didn’t really have to show up for one of them and could, in theory, get home—even on the bus—by noon. Still, it’s kind of unlikely that I saw 1992’s “A Leap For Lisa” before I saw, in its original airing, the Deep Space Nine pilot. On the other hand, I definitely have seen it more recently, having watched all of Quantum Leap through well after the last time I watched any Deep Space Nine.

Originally, she was a model. That’ll happen, when you’re six feet tall and conventionally attractive. In fact, in first role, she played a model, on the short-lived series Paper Dolls. From there, she settled into—as we’ve seen with her assorted DS9 costars—the Standard ‘80s TV Career. She did an episode of Spencer, which is not Spencer For Hire, Family Ties, and The Cosby Show. She was then cast as Cat for the second attempt at a pilot for an American version of Red Dwarf and is, along with Jane Reeves, one of two actresses fortunate that it didn’t go anywhere.

Jadiza Dax is a fun character. She’s bright and cheerful and fierce. I’m not sure I think she’s particularly well matched with Worf, but I do like their interactions nonetheless. She’s not at all inclined toward taking herself too seriously; I would imagine it would be difficult to if you’ve led the life she has—both Jadzia’s and that of the Dax symbiont. I’m given to understand the application of those spots got tedious really quickly, but there it is. It was also enormous fun seeing her act the old mentor to an actor fifteen years her senior.

She seems to have left the show to have played Ted Danson’s love interest on Becker, which is a surprising choice. Oh, I’m sure she knew that the con circuit awaited, if she needed it after, but I’m not sure if anyone else has ever left a Trek property for the purpose of appearing on another show. Possibly she just liked having to spend less time in a makeup chair. Possibly she wanted to explore comedy. Either way, she was it seems fully blindsided when her character was written off the show after four years; she says she was given no notice.

Honestly, it makes sense that she would eventually quit acting to spend more time with her family. Sure, her career had to be more successful of her family’s, as her now-ex-husband is best known as “a guy who was in some Sprint commercials a couple of decades ago.” On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine being well-off enough to not worry about that and frustrated enough to walk away regardless. Her child is grown now, and she’s divorced and remarried (to Leonard Nimoy’s son!) and divorced again, and she’s apparently starting to act a bit again. And more power to her.

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