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.