The DS9 actress you forgot played Jerry's girlfriend on Seinfeld

The fictional Jerry Seinfeld (played by his namesake, the real Jerry Seinfeld) has never been very lucky in love. Sure, he dated a lot of women over the course of the show's nine seasons, but he didn't have a lasting, meaningful relationship with any of them. His closest female relationship is with her ex-girlfriend and ever-present Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), which is kind of refreshingly open-minded for a guy like Jerry, but it also means that “Seinfeld” didn't have very many long-term girlfriend guest roles. In fact, Seinfeld's longest on-screen romance lasted just four episodes and was with Rachel (Melanie Smith), who befriended him during a screening of Schindler's List and was absolutely horrified. Seinfeld's nemesis Newman (Wayne Knight). While she's not the most memorable of Seinfeld's girlfriends, since she's at least somewhat normal, Smith gives a good performance and manages to hold her own with some of the funniest comedians on TV from the 90s.

Maybe it was her time playing a character dealing with the insane narcissism of the “Seinfeld” gang that helped her land her next big role, as she was set to play the daughter of a megalomaniacal dictator from the depths of space. Just three years after Rachel said goodbye to Jerry on “Seinfeld,” Smith returned to our screens in a completely different role: the half-major daughter of Cardassian warlord Gul Dukat (Mark Alaimo) Thor Ziyal in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” was a slightly more willing to engage in complexmorally sticky themes than its franchise brethren, and Ziyal was a prime example of a challenging character whose existence offered no easy answers. Ziyal was half Cardassian and half Bajoran, the result of an affair between the married Cardassian Gul Dukat and a Bajoran woman who somehow fell in love with her colonizer Thor Naprem. Dukat sent them to live away from the Cardassians or the Bajorans, unable to kill them, but knowing that they were about it is responsible. Father and daughter are eventually reunited, and Ziyal becomes close friends with Bajoran freedom fighter Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), though the relationship was not easy for anyone involved. Ziyal also befriended Cardassian tailor/spy Garak, played by Andrew Robinson, the only Cardassian regular on Deep Space Nine.

The Cardassian occupation of Bajor has many real-world consequences and serves as the backdrop for some of the series' darkest episodes, including which was inspired by Agatha Christie's novel which explores the moral decline that may be required to survive a war that pits Kira against a Cardassian assassin. Ziyal is one of the only positives to come out of the occupation, but she is unfortunately killed while helping her friends escape when Kardas takes over the space station, causing her father to have a complete mental breakdown. She's a truly tragic figure in every way, but thankfully Smith injects a lot of humanity into the half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran character with a heart of gold. (Later versions of Ziyala were played by Cya Batten and Tracy Midendorf.)

Rachel Smith's claim to fame came when she infamously caught George in the scene that introduced many of us to the word “shrinkage,” a far cry from Ziyal's role as the catalyst for her father eventually starting a doomsday cult, but she's not the only “Seinfeld” guest star with a spot on “Deep Space Nine.” Phil Morris, who played Jerry's neighbor Kramer's (Michael Richardson) lawyer Jackie Cheel, had several roles on Deep Space Nine, including a Klingon and a Jemahadar, which is stinking fun. Brian George, who played coffee shop owner Baba Bhatt on Seinfeld, also played the father of Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) on ​​Deep Space Nine. In fact, there are dozens of crossovers, which is surprising considering the fact that one of Deep Space Nine's most important cast members absolutely hated his time on the comedy show about nothing.

in Florida SuperCon in 2017Shimerman was asked about his time as Kramer's caddie on a Season 7 episode of “Seinfeld,” to which he said he “hated them” because “they weren't communicative, they were ugly, they weren't responsive. name? It's not hard to imagine some of the cast becoming a little more like their self-centered characters and becoming a little isolated after seven seasons together, but it's still jarring to hear that Shimmerman has had such a hard time. Fortunately, he had a much better time on Deep Space Nine because Quark is one of the best characters in the entire “Star Trek” franchise. No Tarkalean tea for you!