This episode is overshadowed by the controversy surrounding it: Deep Space Nine became among the first prime time US TV shows to show a same-sex kiss, in this case between two women. In 1995, this was a big deal - in 2017, we see this sort of stuff in daytime TV adverts and in the episode it becomes nothing more than a beautiful moment between two people. I'm so glad that times have changed in that respect, but I'm also somewhat proud that my favourite television show had the guts to do this back then.
What makes it work even more is the message that is sent, and it highlights how ridiculous it is that anybody could take offence. The fact that this relationship is happening between two women is not addressed at any point in the episode - the scandal is just the fact that they were married in their previous lives. It effectively put things in perspective and, like Trek has done so often before, has something very important to say.
Once we step away from all of that business, the episode itself is nice but not amazing. There's some great chemistry between Terry Farrell and the guest actress and they both give it their all, but the script is very melodramatic. It also felt to me like Dax was acting very out of character - maybe this could be explained away by her remembering what she was like when she was younger, but it's jarring. There's also the obvious fact that this relationship isn't going to go anywhere, because Lenara Khan is not going to join the main cast of characters.
There's a lot of technobabble, too, which further detracted from my enjoyment. But there's some great moments of levity as we see people confusing Quark with magic tricks and especially with Worf having fun by telling people that Klingon dreams are too dark for humans to take (with a twinkle in his eye).
The whole Trill taboo thing does raise the question of how Dax is allowed to interact with Sisko on a daily basis, since they are friends from a past life of hers.
I've a love/hate relationship with this episode, and it always reduces me to a snotty, tear stained, mess. See, I'm a queer artist/film graduate, so this hits a little close for comfort but also, it's just such brilliant, ground breaking filmmaking.
"Rejoined" is really well put together, everything is in cohesion - the story is beautiful and heart breaking, the acting is top tier, the cinematography is smooth and sensitive... steady camera shots, important background work to add depth, lots of close-ups because the episode is all about emotion and the easily missed, subtle body language is key... just some great stuff... that wrecks you(me) and makes you(me) contemplate life choices.
Like, ok, yes, there are consequences all around, which ones can you live with... what would you do for the "greater good"?
...aaand now I'm sad again. I keep saying that cognitive dissonance is literal pain.
The cast were never as much a joy to watch as in this episode.
Top tier chemistry between Terry Farrell and Susanna Thompson. And that kisss! I'm also surprised at how the directing was able to stand out in a good way in this episode. Perhaps Avery Brooks missed his calling.
The cast and characters on DS9 are always great, but I don't usually feel myself heavily empathizing on a personal, emotional level with a television character, but I could feel Jadzia's desire and pain in this one and actually teared up a few times in this episode. The way her eyes trailed over the other woman's neck, sheepishly, and how you could just feel the attraction drawing them inevitably toward each other. It may have been melodrama, but, for me, it was the rare melodrama that actually engaged with me. There's also a bit of humor and character moments with Quark and the bridge team that add the perfect punctuation of levity at the right times.
I fall mildly into the "likes Jadzia" camp, but if there were more episodes as realistically and humanistically written for her character, I'd gladly watch the "Jadzia Show", like so many of the best episodes of Voyager were essentially the "Seven of Nine Show".
[8.0/10] The Trill, and Star Trek, have come a long way since they were introduced in “The Host” from The Next Generation. The look, culture, and history of the symbionts and their hosts has been massively more developed with Dax and Deep Space Nine. But at the same time, “Rejoined” represents a quantum leap forward for representation.
TNG gestured toward discomfort when the man Dr. Crusher fell in love with effectively becomes a woman, with only a chaste kiss on the hand to close out their romance. “Rejoined”, by contrast, features Jadzia falling in love with a female Trill named Lenara Kahn, whose former host was married to one of Dax’s former hosts in a past life. Not only does no one so much as blink at the idea of these two women having a romantic attraction to one another, but the episode features Star Trek’s first same sex kiss.
That's a big deal for a franchise that sidled up to LGBT issues in episodes like “The Outcast” and “The Offspring” from TNG, but never had the courage to depict a full-blown same sex romance until now. And what I appreciate about it is that the sci-fi premise of the Trill allows DS9 to have the best of both worlds when it comes to representing a lesbian romance on television.
On the one hand, the pull between Jadzia and Lenara is depicted as normal and natural. Terry Farrell and guest star Susanna Thompson have outstanding chemistry together. There’s a combination of playfulness, easy rapport, and also wounded history between the characters that emerges organically from the performances. Compare that to Dax’s unavailing, quickfire romance in “Meridian” from last season, and the difference is night and day. It’s easy to root for the two of them, because they have instant sparks, and the show depicts that without sensationalizing it, treating it like any other romance in the series.
And yet, at the same time, the Trill taboo against “reassociations” (i.e. hosts reconnecting with people from their symbont’s past lives) allows “Rejoined” to explore the stigma against LGBT relationships at the time through metaphor. The budding attraction between the Lenara and Jadzia comes with consequences so severe that even the appearance of rekindling something comes with suspicion and fear. The way Dax must enlist Dr. Bashir as a “chaperone” to give them cover, or how they have to hide their affections from others despite the naturalness of their feelings for one another, represents the perils gay people had to avoid to simply live their lives. The canny choice allows “Rejoined” to have its cake and eat it to: depict a same sex romance as normal while using Trill culture to examine the injustice of the prejudice same sex couples faced.
Apart from the metaphor though, I like Dax’s dilemma as an in-universe expansion of the Trill mythos. We already know from season 1’s “Dax” and season 2’s “Blood Oath” that the Trill are squeamish and doctrinaire about maintaining separation between the life of a symbiont’s current host and those of its prior ones. Heightening that into an outright taboo on forging bonds with old loved ones, with the idea that the goal of a symbiont is to have a varied and diverse life experience, makes the prohibition more regimented and motivated.
It also raises the stakes in-universe beyond the LGBT metaphor. If Jadzia and Lenara pursue their relationship, it wouldn’t just result in exile, something that seems tough but palatable for the well-traveled and adventurous Dax. It would mean their symbionts will never be joined to another host again, ending the line of which they are each just one link in the chain. This detail skews the metaphor a bit, but it’s worth it to add an extra dimension upon which Jadzia and Lenara have to weigh their decision, and how much rekindling their love is worth given the price they would pay.
At the same time, writers and longtime Star Trek vets Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria do a stellar job of threading the needle between servicing the relationship between Dax and Kahn on the one hand, and Jadzia and Lenara on the other. There is grave power in Dax apologizing for ignoring Kahn’s concerns before the accident that left her prior host dead, and equal weight to Kahn saying she knew the risks of marrying a pilot while still clearly being wounded at accusation of over-worrying. Part of the momentum behind the two symbionts coming together again is the fact that their coupling in another life ended in tragedy. It feels like redoubling that tragedy not to give them a second chance.
And yet, this doesn’t feel like two people chasing ghosts. As Jadzia herself points out, she and Lenara have more in common than their symbionts’ past hosts ever did. You get the sense of something unique between them, aligned and in harmony, that's informed by their intertwined pasts, but in no way dictated by it. The fact that they seem to be attracted to one another on their own terms makes the prohibition on reassociation that much more unjust.
Still, I’d be lying if I said the “forbidden love” angle to this one didn’t add something. In many ways, “Rejoined” feels like a Regency novel, with two people who feel deeply for one another, but are unable to express their feelings due to distinctions of station and societal mores that could render true confession disastrous. In moments where Lenara and Jadzia are first spending time together, but can't quite go all the way with what they’re plainly experiencing, it plays like something out of Jane Austen’s Persuasion or George Eliot’s Middlemarch. The passion bubbling under the surface, not permitted to emerge by custom and consequence, adds to the charge of their interactions.
So does Avery Brooks’ direction. Sisko has a minor yet memorable role in this one, but for the most part, Brooks’ talents off the screen predominate here. He shoots the episode in a way that feels almost lyrical, with swooping shots and gentle but bold framings that help convey that barely-quelled passion in the visual grammar of film. So when the moment arrives, and Jadzia and Lenara move closer and closer before finally giving into a kiss, there is great relief and catharsis to see all that tension released.
Of course, it’s not to be. One of those inevitable (but cool) almost-breaches of the warp core results in Dax risking her life to save Lenara aboard the Defiant. But a superior’s suspicions, the counsel of a loving but worried brother, and the inertia of the status quo on television mean that, despite all of their fondness for one another, Lenara chooses to leave the station, with every expectation that she’ll never return.
It’s my only major knock on the episode. Moore and Echevarria do well to justify, suggesting that the Kahn symbiont was always a little more cautious and rule-bound than the Dax symbiont was. But in a different world, one where budgets and contracts didn’t make new cast members dicey, it would be nice to see the two remain a couple and brave the admonitions of their people (ironically, like Worf did on TNG). I guess I should just be glad Deep Space Nine didn’t kill Lenara off, making the consequences they would face due to a prejudiced society the real villain here, and the end of their relationship a product of someone who feels compelled to deny what they want in their very soul rather than risk facing the harms of that bigotry.
It tells a moving, melancholy story. Two people love one another. That should be enough. And because of narrow minds and cultural taboos, it isn’t, and good people suffer. That is a tale as old as time, even for Star Trek. For once, though, it’s nice to see the franchise be so bold, and unvarnished, in telling it.
Star Trek was always about mating between people that didn't met the expectation of others. Most extreme cases involve sex with aliens, with robots or depictions of polyamory. Kirk kissing a black woman was also at the forefront of liberal progressiveness back then. That was always a metaphor about today's society. It was never about the moral of future humans or aliens. But it was always extremely implicit as well. Most of the time relationships were as traditional as on other shows in 90s TV. DS9 was bolder. Keiko and Miles had marriage problems, the Captain was dating.on a regular basis, Julian fell in love with a girl in a wheelchair, Dax occasionally talked about how she feels about switching gender when switching hosts. And then there's Garak. Obviously he's gay or bi-sexual but not even DS9 dared to explore this in detail. A missed opportunity. Instead, this episode explores something which could be perhaps described as a lesbian love story (in the entertainment industry, womanly love is still much more accepted, so you shouldn't wonder why this story is told while Garak's story will never be told). Not even sure if "lesbian" is the right word given how "gender fluid" Dax is. I don't want to pretend to like this episode more than I do just because it tackles taboos, but kudos to the writers for risking to tell this story. Not sure how that was perceived back then on syndicated TV. It's also great that this isn't episode that wants to be preachy. This taboo isn't about gender. Nobody of the Trills seems to care that both are women. It's about loving a lover from your past. That's clever. It makes you think what other people and other societies consider to be an inappropriate relationship and why.
However, my problem with this episode is, that Jadzia is only used for two kinds of story and this episode is a bit of both:: Either she's used to portray her race and the concept of host changes w/o caring about Jadzia as a persona too much (here that's Torias who seems to control Dax's current host). Or - at least until this point - she's featured in such ephemeral love stories for the only reason that she's hot. They could have told a similar story with another character, but of course they chose Jadzia because everybody loved watching her making out with Lanara. It doesn't do her really justice. It's not a bad episode and it's quite a decent romantic story with a lot of drama, but I can't overlook this recurring pattern.
PS: remember this episode when Worf meets Ezri in season 7.
Damn Curzon and his impulsive "rule-breaking" behaviour.
Shout by Username57BlockedParent2019-04-09T04:10:19Z
This episode created gay rights in 1995! We'll stan forever!