UNCUT - Rejoined (DS9 S4E6) | Star Trek Journey 382

Is it just me, or is Josh's caricature voice basically LA Beast's voice? 😅

I widowed you/ I married a pilot, I knew what I was getting into. no. This is why you are supposed to be careful of contact. Dax you are Jadzia Dax. You did not widow her. Part of you was there, but you were not there. Sometimes the Trill try to have it both ways . . . which is why it is difficult. And I like that it is difficult. Dax feels like they were once married. They weren't married. They are not the people that were once married. A part of those people are in there and the memories are there, but they are both far different.

The real world reason Jadzia got a promotion is they didn't want her character to be overshadowed by Worf coming on and his having a higher rank. I did like Worf in the captain's chair though, showing some career growth here. I love that we have Siddig being able to show more personality for Bashir.

LOL I love your intense dislike of Eddington, it's so entertaining! But I always liked him. He's just a by-the-books guy trying to do his best! Dax told him to wait before venting, and he said he'd wait as long as possible, but eventually he had to vent the deck to save the whole ship! Is there truly no room in your hearts for poor little Eddington?

One thing that struck me in this episode was that last conversation between Jadzia and Lenara, specifically "If you feel about me the way I feel about you, you won't go on that transport tomorrow. And if you do leave, I think we both know you're never coming back again". The reason it stood out to me is because it's probably very much the same conversation Nilani and Torias had before his fatal shuttle flight, but from the other side. She knew the shuttle wasn't ready, and Torias dismissed her concerns, and they never saw each other again(in that life anyway). Both this and Lessons are great, but I think Lessons might rank a little higher for me, if only because the reason Picard and Nella couldn't stay together felt a bit less contrived, and because Patrick Stewart did such a great job at showing how Picard shut down when he thought she was dead. As others have said, I do somewhat understand why a rule against resuming old relationships would exist. Beyond the symbiote absorbing a wealth of different experiences from varied lives, I don't think they want the hosts to end up being subsumed by the symbiote. If there's a bunch of different lives to draw from the memories of, the new host can benefit from all those experiences without being overwhelmed. If the symbiote is just living the same life in different hosts, each new host just becomes a vehicle for the symbiote and never lives their own life. Still as others have said, there are undoubtedly people like Verad out there who would take an exiled symbiote, but anyone who did would be unable to return to Trill. Finally I gotta say, while I get to a degree the Eddington hate is just a trope on the channel at this point, what exactly was the guy supposed to do here? He didn't shut down the forcefield, it failed because of the thousands of degrees hot plasma fire. He said he'd keep it stable as long as he could, and he did. The emitters burned out. There's nothing more he could do to help by standing there. He knew Dax could get Lenara to the jefferies tube and seal them in, and they could vent engineering to stop the plasma fire. That close to the warp core, it would eventually cause a core breach, in which case Dax and Lenara and everyone else would die. Sisko or Bashir or O'Brien would have done the exact same thing. Anyway, good episode. A tier

I think they really missed an opportunity. As Dr. Kahn gets on the ship at the end, Jadzia should have yelled "KAAAAAAAAHN!!!"

Alex, you've never been in this EXACT scenario before? Who hasnt had to deal with a cultural taboo where we choose between the life of the alien giving us lifetimes of memories or rekindling a past love from a former incarnation?

The magic trick played in thematically in the sense it rerminds you that Jadzia is not just jadzia but has skills and aspects of her previous hosts- setting that up for this story, especially for those who are casual watchers to remind viewers of the trill lore and that Jadzia is not "just" Jadzia

ok, so O'Brien is an enlisted man. That means he didnt do the four years of Starfleet Academy plus a first year assignment. He went to a two year school and enlisted. Enlisted ranks are more complicated then officer ranks, but the highest ranking officer outranks an enlisted man. During his career however, he got to the rnak of Chief, which is the highest of the enlisted ranks. He was a transporter expert and was assigned to the enterprise, where he was eventually made the head of Transporters. He was then given a rank of acting Lieutenant per this assignment since as the transporter chief he would have to give orders to others working the transporter and it would be awkward and inefficent for people working under him to out rank them. We saw that commmissions of "acting officer rank" can be given as Wesley Crusher was made an acting ensign despite never having attended starfleet academy. Functionally, if the Captain leaves the ship for some time, the person in command is temporarirly the acting captain and give a temporary field commission to someone they designate as first officer. I belive we saw this with Riker in BOTB and with Daa and Worf in Gambit. So O'Brtien's acting Lieutenant rank was only in place for the duration of his role as Enterprise Transporter Chief. On DS9, he is the head of engineering, and is commanding a mostly Bajoran crew. So his temporary acting lieutenant commission was not active on DS9. Since the original role of Starfleet was to help the Bajorans run the station, there was a minimal contingent of starfleet personnel assigned. Hence Commander Sisko was the CO, the doctor was a LT junior grade, the science officer and second in starfleet command (after Major Kira who is a Bajoran officer) was a Lieutenant. After the discovery of the wormhole the station became a higher priority assignment, and after the discovery of the Dominion threat, a MUCH higher priority assignment, including LT commander Eddngton as cheif of security in starfleet matters. Chief O'brien was assigned to the role due to his expereince in the Cardassian war and familiarity with cardassian tech. Forget if this was in the show or a secondary source, but in the decisve batttle where starfleet occupied a cardassian planet which lead to the cease fire, O'brien hijacked the cardassian planetary transporters to transport starfleet troops in and cardassian troops away, and that bit of ingeunity is what earned him this role. Now, when I look at this stuff, I like to imagine it as a real universe, so "retcons" don't bother me. But from a "real world" perspective you are right, this wasnt an oriignally intended thing and they wanted to be able to keep calling O'brien "Chief: even though he wasn't the transporter chief anymore and him being a non-com who worked his way up was part of the development of his character as the "working class" guy in ds9 who didnt do the whole 4-5 years at the acaemy. Technically he is outranked by any officer but in practice he is the head of all things engineering.

i'm guessing lessons hit you more becuse it was picard and it was late in the show so you knew what a big deal it was for picard to open up for somebody and as good as Farell was in this the understatd performance of Stewart made it powerful. Like Farell goes big here and it works but you just needed subtle expressons from Stewart to sell everything Picard was feeling and we know hat character so well and respect him so much as sort of the best of humanity as well as the price he has to pay for that

I'm going to second people;s views that the Trill Taboo isn't evil or ridiculous. We already know there arent enough symbionts to go around and there is a fake line that only some are suitable (though this is partially true, not i the sense that their bodies would reject them but surely a lot of trill couldnt handle being joined, they would be overwhelmed by the symbiont, and the symbints themselves want someone who will enhance their life experiences and not add psychological bagage unnecessarily. If re-associatons were allowed, as people have pointed out, you would wind up with a sort of joined aristocracy. Trill is a federation member and while individual member states ca have their own specific laws and rules, all states have to ne compatible with the Federation charter which means unified planetary government, post-scarcity, and a democratic government that ensures the bill of rights for all citizens. Being exiled from Trill society doesn't mean you are exiled from the Fderation generally. It would be like if you were banned from Ohio. Newer members in fact are probably held to stricter standards then the original members, as Vulcan is kind of a weird society but was one of the founders. The whole Trill code really isn't repressive since the overwhelming majority of Trill are not joined and to be joined is a pact with this other species basically where you agree to a shitload of stuff, you undergo a lot of training ad its not forced on anyone. Actually (and I just realized this) when the Trill are originally introduced, those Trill are probably descendants of Symbionts who broke the re-association rule, since the one who was in love with Crusher had no issues with it. It would make sense there was some other species (since humans can also be hosts) that the exiled trill passed their symbionts on to, and that was the society the Enterprise was working with and why they didn't know much about those trill. I would guess its the sort of thing the Federation trill keep quiet and then once they are exiled tell them "actually, there is a palce you can go where the symbionts dont ave to die) but keep it secret to prevent re-associations. It's also interesting to note in an early episode of DS9, Jadzia tells.. Julian maybe?.. that trill gon't go seeking romance like humans. That sort of makes sense. She probably meant joined trill since it would be a pain in the ass. Nothing wrong with one night stands or sort term stuff, and if it happens, it happens.

So smeone probably mentioned this, but the death in the shuttle was why the symbiont was transferred to Joran, the unstable musician. Also, I watched a youtube vid "15 things you didn't know about DS9" A few tidbits- So Brooks was associated with a character called "Falcon" from a previous show where he had his iconic look of the shaved head and goatee. he was so strongly associated with that character that his contract required him to shave his beard and grow out his hair to play Sisko. The thing was, Brooks was flming for a few more episodes of that show after season 3, which was why he grew out the goatee. When he came back at the beggining of seasn 4 with the "Falcon" look he was expecting the producers to fight him on it but as the higher ups at this point were focused on Voyager, nobody cared and he was able to go back to his iconic look. The concept for DS9 was actually from a Paramount higher up who thought there should be a new show that instead of "wagon train to the stars" was instead "The rifleman" in space, with the idea of a solitary frontier outpost. Originally, the higher ups had a rule for this however- no serialization, only stand alone episodic drama. This was because trek was a huge success in aynidcation and they were worried (rightly so in terms of ratings) that serialized drama wouldnt do as well in syndication as TNG had because people wouldnt be able to follow what was going on and though for hardcore trekkers* there they followed things compulsively and there were online communities, for the "average" viewer they were right at the time. However, DS8's showrunners and writers managaed to sneak continuity in, arguing they were doing what they had done in TNG where there was some small degree of callback. The second season three parter coming on the heels of the first season finale with Winn's plot showed them the direction they ultimately wanted to take the show in. They slowly added more and more and by the time hevay serialization came in the higher ups no longer cared and more or less let DS9 do its own thing. The restriction against serialized storytelling was an issue for the first season especially as they had to use some recyled plot ideas from TNG scripts that never made it. This was also a time when Ron Moore had a policy that the studio would accept fan written scripts, and thousands were sent. They had a team that read them and took the best ones as candidates. A few of them were actually made into episodes (I thin this was where Sub Rosa came from) and DS9 and Voyager embraced the practice the most so when you see one off writers those are often fan scripts The practice ended with Voyager however as the egal department shut it down. There are some other tidbits from this we havent gotten to yet, but towards the end of the show I'll post the video. There are also videos like this for TOS and TNG, though most of the stuff from those are already known amongst the fandom. Though there was some interesting stuff. Contrary to the quote about Picrad "in the future baldness wouldnt matter", Roddenberry was very against Stewart being Captain and wanted another Kirk like figure. THe studio was very much for Stewart, and his wife had to send him his wig for the audition. Thats where the famous photos of him in his wig as Picard come from. They then had him audition without the wig and everyone was sold excpet for Roddenberry who did eventually warm up to the idea. Originally Roddenberry had aban on using aliens from TOS, but when they put Dorn in Klingup makeup and had him just stand there, he loved the idea of a Klingn being on the crew. Worf was a last minute addition however and wasnt featured in early promotions. In season 1 is he often standing atound since his exact role wasnt really determined. The original TNG pilot only featured the Faroint mystery, but since Paramount wanted a two hour pilot, they added the Q plotline The writers were worried the Q character was too much like Trelane from TOS, but fans loved John de Lancie and that added plot later recontextualized all of TNG as Picrad on trial in humanity's stead (and producers confirmed the fan theory that trelane was a "baby Q", he was featured in one of the best Trek novles, Q-Squared. The original concept for Lore was that Data would have a "sister" and it would be a possibility for Data to explore romance, but Spiner hated the idea nd suggested an evil twin brother with emotios he couldnt handle. Armin Shimmerman personally wanted to provide depth to the Ferengi who as you now know were a failed villian from TNG. He pushed to make them and there society more complex and helped develop the character of Quark from comic relief to something deeper. In general, the writers respected the actors' takes on their characters and worked with them to develop them. The actors on DS9 in general were very invested in the roles and the show in general, and there was a community process and a sense of being the "underdog" and wanting to push trek to the limits of what it could be. The actors on DS9 in alien garb had to be on set for long times and in their garb it could get to be 115F. To compensate, they brought in a huge coolng unti for the DS9 sets featuring them. They were then comfortable, but the rest of the cast were freezing in those scenes. Morn was originally supposed to be a one off backgrond character and his original mouthpiece wasnt actually open. But everyone loved him as a background alien so he kept getting called back. Later on they created an open mouth and intended to give him dialogue, but it was always getting cut at the last minute, hence the ongoing joke that he neer shuts up despite the fat he never talks in the show (so far)

Man, I love that you guys are such good friends. The voices stuff was exactly how me and my friends did stuff too. We would make fun of each other all the time, but in the best way

Whaaat? That was Susanna Thompson? I clearly didn't recognized her

Back when this first came out I for sure thought they were going to d*ck move and make her die and the brother gets the symbiote. This episode was very controversial when it came out, they talked about it on day time TV. Same sex romantic kiss was still taboo out side of adults only content so it was big for regular TV also it is the first same sex kiss in Star Trek. The current hosts of the Dax and Khan symbiotes have never met before they are strangers to each other outside of their symbiotes so you can imagine why it is not OK for them to be playing out old dramas that should be left behind, after they die they get to live on, not take the symbiote out with them. Also they get to make new memories as part of future hosts zhian'tara, where they would exist in their purest form as just the un-joined individual unburdened by drama from previous hosts. It is hard to know how much of it is the unfettered desire of the current host and how much is that of the personality of the symbiotes they are joined with looking for resolution to painful past trauma.

And the fact it was directed by Avery meant a lot. Still remember Entertainment Tonight behind-the-scenes on this one.

Hilarious how much shit you give Eddington.

Being allowed to sit down and watch Star Trek by myself as a kid was awesome. Hoy moly, am I glad they didn’t walk in while watching this one. Necessary to see myself represented in the same-sex aspect as a young teen in the 90s, and thought it was eminently clever in the episode’s framing device. Still sends eerie chills and emotions seeing the kiss.

Alex's comment about Meridian and this episode is spot on at least in my case. I actually saw this one first because the first episode I watched of DS9 was Heart of Stone and I went forward for several episodes before I ever saw the earlier episodes. Meridian didn't feel as genuine and heartfelt as this one to me at least for the love story.

When I first saw this I also thought they were going to kill off Lenara to fix the problem, and then realized the entire point of the problem is that it doesn't get fixed by either of them dying. It didn't last time they died!

Keep in mind some stations down south moved this episode to late night, it was the 90’s

Trill society seems a lot like ours

While I don't agree with this whole thing being a taboo, being "unnatural," or it being punished by exhile and the symbiotes never getting another host, Trill society does have a point here. We saw here with Jadzia and Lenara the real risk with two joined Trill getting back together in another lifetime. It got really difficult for them to sort out their current selves vs their past selves. If they had spent enough time together and resumed their relationship, how much of their current selves would they lose to the powerful memories of being Torias and Nilani? Would they just get lost in the past? Would the symbiotes really be living a new lifetime at that point? Or would their current lives, and future lives, all be stuck reliving an old lifetime? There is something to be said for learning to let that part go. Then again, maybe it's more of a soul mate thing where the actual symbiotes love each other and never want to part through all of their lifetimes. Why should they ever be forced to part then? It's complicated. And I can see why the Trill homeworld created a severe punishment because they must have known how strong these feelings are. Without a severe deterrent, joined Trill would probably never leave their old relationships behind. Then again, is that really a bad thing? The Trill don't seem to care about friendships carrying over between lifetimes. But what about children? I'd assume they'd work the same way as relationships. Once the Symbiote gains a new host, they can't be a parent to their own children anymore? Or maybe can't even see them again just like here? That would also be a powerful tie back to the previous life.

A good episode that I am always happy to rewatch, but not one of my favorites of the series. It would have been an interesting 'what if' had they stayed together on the station for the rest of the show. I could definitely see some stories coming from it that might have been fun. But they did not, so alas.

IIRC Paramount allowed the kiss because DS9 was syndicated, but they insisted the act not end on it, suggesting they spent the night together. Thus, Lenara decided on screen to leave immediately afterward.

"OK, we'll allow you some gay stuff in your show, but let's make it two attractive women so we'll at least get some straight guys on board easier." This is pretty much late '90s TV. A handful of shows had their Lesbian Kiss Episode. So much more common than a Gay Guy Kiss Episode.

One of my favorite episodes. Hats off to Brooks for capturing the awesome chemistry rolling off of these two straight actors so well. Considering how awash with LGBT modern media is, its important to remember how rare this sort of thing was in the early 90's on network TV. A lesbian kiss onscreen was a rare and controversial thing. This episode is a highlight of the entire series in my opinion, not just on the backs of the directing and the performances, but just in terms of fleshing out this aspect of of the Trill, and charging straight into the concept of love across different lifetimes. I can't think of another piece of media that goes there so purposefully.

After rewatching this episode, I think I can understand the Trill perspective a little more. Dax and Khan love eachother, but Jadzia and Lenara have never met. Jadzia and Lenara aren't in love with eachother. Jadzia Dax isn't actually the same person as Torias Dax, just like she isnt Curzon Dax. All of Jadzia's feelings for Lenara are just Dax's and Khan's memories of Torias Dax and Nilani Kahn, two people who aren't alive anymore. Do Jadzia and Lenara really want to spend their lives together or are they just overcome by the symbiots' intense emotions? It seems unfair to the hosts to give up on their own lives and potential loves for the symbiots past loves. When I first watched this episode I felt a lot more for Dax, but now I think its more complicated. There really isn't a clear right or wrong thing for Jadzia Dax and Nilani Kahn to do. Either way, either the hosts or symbiots will be sacrificing their desires for the other's.

Eddington to should grow up to be a Badmiral. He has all the requirements

So i guess Season 4 is good?

Would I be Jadzia?? I mean.... it's a big step...

It warms the pits of my cold, dead heart to see you guys warming up to DS9.

My guess is this strict rule prevents a small set of families from dominating the Trill symbiant selection process throughout time.

I'm glad you guys liked this (and all of this season so far) as much as you are!

“Lessons” and “Rejoined” are both incredible top shelf episodes. If I personally had to choose between the two I’d have to pick “Rejoined.” It’s more daring, more science fiction-y and more Star Trek-y. Still - a very, very tough choice.

I was noting that they are so matter of fact about it nobody bats an eye that they’re both women. Pretty progressive for the 90’s.

Has anyone mentioned Susanna Thompson being in X Files? She was the scientist in Space.

Risa > Risian is basically the same as Canada > Canadian.

I believe Susanna Thompson played the female Romulan on the bridge of the Romulan science vessel in “The Next Phase” and was also an alien in “Frame of Mind”.

Being LGBTQ myself, this episode flies a little too close to the sun for me. It, along with The Outcast, is hard for me to watch. This is absolutely an A, maybe an A+ (although I don't love the Trill much), but on a personal level it's just hard to sit through.

Lenara’s last name is spelled Kahn, not the same as Khan but is pronounced the same.

I don't remember this episode at all. What a pleasant surprise... it got me! Twice actually I succumbed to glassy eye syndrome. But the hardest hitting scene was Sisko reassuring Dax that whatever her choice, he has her back. What a bro!

Twice now we have Dax making an impulsive decision about a mate. What a great episode and so ahead of its time. Glad you enjoyed the whole thing

I think the thing with season four is that its more consistently excellent. There are excellent episodes in the previous three seasons, so there's no 'massive jump' in quality when you're cherry picking - but they've figured out what works and are continuing those things.

So here's the simple truth on why similar stories with Picard and Spock hit harder: Patrick Stewart and Leonard Nimoy are top tier actors who crafted once-in-a-generation characters. They just have so much screen presence that you're just always going to root for them more. DS9 just doesn't have a single "iconic" character or actor like that. Sisko/Brooks is good, but he's no Picard/Stewart. However, that's perfectly fine. It's a tradeoff: Instead of having one or two "S-tier" characters/actors in the show, it has an ensemble of "A-tier" primary characters, and an extremely DEEP bench of "A-tier" secondary characters, some of whom fans would argue are better than the main cast. Ask any 10 random DS9 fans who their absolute favourite character is, and at least one of them will probably say "Garak". You might even get a "Nog" in there. In contrast, hardly anyone ever says "Nurse Chapel" or "Barclay". This focus on giving all characters equal weight is truly what makes this show special among the rest of the franchise. So yeah, Dax's "Rejoined" may not hit as hard for the viewer as Picard's "Lessons", but in return, every character eventually gets their own "Lessons".

"What do Klingons dream about? Things that would send cold chills down your spine, and wake you in the middle of the night. It is better you do not know. Excuse me" God I missed Worf, we are so fucking back

Which is odd bc they have thousands of people just waiting to be joined

The only flaw in the episode (besides the comically awful force field effect): all you need is one sympathetic Starfleet doctor to preform space surgery and transfer the symbiont. They are so coveted that I think someone would settle for one that is slightly naughty.

DS9 sex scoreboard Ouch no scores. The sex score board Jadzia 5 a wish but not Quark 5 Bashir 3 Sisko 3 Kira 2 Worf 2 Jake 2 Chief 1 Odo 1 GUEST: Anara a lot – (wrong show) Lenara 0 no new DETAILS: We looked for a moment off camera that we could do the assumption leap for a Jadzia-Lenara tribbing action. We were cheering for an end scene of U-Hauling but no.

A+ for Terry Ferrell's performance. The rest of it was a solid B for me. I'm just not as into the Trill as other fans.

It's episodes like this why episodes like 'Meridian' are so derided.

Ben over stepped a 20th century boundary by turning Dax's Starfleet comm badge, coming pretty close to her breast.

I overwhelmingly prefer this one to Lessons because Khan and Dax are so much more believable as a couple. They talk about inane stuff and make each other laugh.

My understanding wasn't that you're not allowed to even speak to a former sibling, parent, etc. Nobody seems to have a problem with Dax and Kahn speaking to each other and working together. It's just the worry about them restarting their previous relationship. So I imagine, like, you're not supposed to start spending a lot of time with your former sibling and having a sibling-like relationship, but just encountering them and talking in passing is fine.

Fills my heart with joy to see how much Eddington pisses you both off.

Great episode with more character development and exploration. I think many of us said to you guys that this is one of the things we love the most about this show. You really start to see many of the cast as friends and family. Well, I do anyway ;)

The Eddington hate is genuinely hilarious. I never thought he was much of a weasel tbh, but it's really funny every time you talk about him. He was being genuinely helpful, he held out as long as he possibly could before the friggin warp core would explode! He knew Dax was moments from safety at that panel, and it would take some time to actually vent the compartment completely. your reaction is still really funny regardless, lmao.

Something Josh mentioned I dont think Torius was killed in that shuttle crash. However he was mortaly injured, so they took Dax out of him before he dided. Granted they put the symbiot into a homicidal musician. But. That's another story.

Ron had to really fight the networks to get the kiss (only the fourth in US TV history) through, convincing them it was in service of the characters and not sensationalist. That said they got tons of complaint phone calls after broadcast, but followed by tons of letters thanking them for their bravery. To this day Terry Farrell has fans thanking her for this episode and what it meant to them.

I somewhat disagree with you guys about the Trill rules / taboos in so far as I think it's fair that, if the whole point of being joined in their society is to live multiple lives that are full, diverse, and away from the ones they've left behind (at least as far as spouse, children, biological family, the same job, et cetera), that they would at minimum seriously frown upon 'double dipping' (or more) and being caught up in a loop like this. Because then, they're never really moving on, and that next life isn't really the new joined hosts' life, it's just re-running back to what came before. That is logical to me. It just gets muddy because clearly the episode is using that as a metaphor for gay relationships in 1990's America/Earth. From their POV, even Jadzia working with Sisko again could be 'pushing it' since they were already close friends via Curzon.

This episode really could do with a final scene of Jadzia and a few others practising some wrestling moves on Eddington for running away.

I like this episode, but, in general, I dislike almost all these one-episode romances Trek tries to do. It’s just almost impossible to try to fit two people meeting, falling in love, then introduce the conflict, they fall out of love/end the relationship, and do it all in 45 minutes in any way that feels satisfying. It can’t help but feel insubstantial and superficial, IMO, because that’s all you have time for.

Low key another lesson of this episode may be that it's easy to think you respect other people's beliefs when it's easy, but you don't really know if you really do until you're presented with beliefs that you find very disagreeable.

One of the nicest things in this episode is just how no one is bothered that this is two women falling in love. Representation does matter.

Y'all's bias against Eddington is getting comical lol At the end, the room was about to kill them all, and he had nothing he could do to help them from across the room. How dare he.... not die for no reason?

Don’t think this was brought up, but the original story had the Lenara character as a man. It was Ron Moore’s idea to make it a woman. No surprise they had to get a lot of clearance before they could do it.

Random LGBTQ+ tv trivia network tv did not say bisexual when referring to anyone until 2015

Sisko's in the weird position of knowing part of Dax's inner monologue. Presumably Dax still has the Curzon part of the symbiont putting thoughts in her head, and Sisko knows what those thoughts are likely to be. It's a neat spin on the mentor/mentee relationship. But I love this episode because it's a great real-world allegory that also works just in the context of the episode. You could come to this with no idea what kind of real-world commentary it's trying to make, and never figure it out, and the episode would still hang together perfectly and make sense. That's tricky writing, and really well done here.

On a serious note, my theory on why maybe Spock and Picard hit a little harder is because those characters are so stoic. Both are so in control of their emotions. Their arcs are so intwined with them keeping their emotions under control. Whereas obviously Dax has never had that problem. A really good episode, but it doesn't really show a completely different side to Jadzia the way it did with Spock and Picard.

Surprised there wasn't a bigger pop. I mean, come on guys! Freaking Khan?? In DS9?? Wait, what was this episode about?

Josh couldn't quite remember the episode number and season there for a second. Had to compose himself first, for some totally unknown reason.

This is another one of those episodes I think y'all will really enjoy. Also, talk about wanting a Dax ep, get a Dax ep. Willing it into existence.

THat kiss topped TOS' inter-racial kiss

I live in eastern Canada, where the local affiliate cut the kiss. Would be unthinkable today (or even better, it wouldn't even occur to someone to do that).

so i did say it would be years before two MEN kissed on star trek....

Let's Fucking Go!!!!