Writers on
Deep Space Nine had previously hinted at a potential same-sex relationship in the
first season episode "
Dax", when Jadzia Dax says goodbye to Enina Tandro, a former lover of Dax's previous male host, Curzon. The first take of the scene resulted in a situation in which it was unclear whether Dax and Enina were about to kiss. It was decided at the time that it was not appropriate, although the writers had hoped that there would be a time when the viewers would accept such a relationship. This theme was eventually realized in "Rejoined". Allen Kwan has argued that
Deep Space Nine is the only series of
Star Trek that resists the
heteronormativity typical of the franchise at the time, citing both "Rejoined" and the
Mirror Universe episodes as examples, even if the presented
bisexuality is
problematized. During that 1995/96 television season there had been an increase in the number of homosexual characters appearing in major television series, and so the same-sex kiss in "Rejoined" was reviewed in this context. An article published by the
Associated Press suggested that the kiss in
Deep Space Nine was not truly a same-sex kiss due to "extenuating circumstances"; namely, one of the characters was an "alien who used to be a man". A similar opinion was offered by Jan Johnson-Smith, author of
American Science Fiction TV, who said that the situation was "ambiguous" as, despite presenting a same-sex kiss, the episode was clear that Jadzia was "actually kissing the symbiont who has the memories of the former host, her male lover, not the current female host". For
film studies scholar Jean Bruce, the ambiguity of the kiss is foreshadowed in an early scene revolving around a magic trick. On the one hand, the magic trick produces a "pleasurable surprise", while, on the other, this mirrors the deception necessary, due to Trill norms, in the reacquaintance of the characters. At the same time, the juxtaposition of very different shots serves to "convey physical distance and the desire to bridge it", which mirrors the fact that the Trills' love for one another transcends gender, identity and death. Though the kiss is "informed by the fact that Dax was a man in her past life", once it occurs, it can "never be taken back", and remains the
queer image of two women kissing. During the course of the episode, no characters register concern about Dax being involved with a woman, only that she was an ex-spouse.
Bryan Fuller, who also wrote for
Deep Space Nine, said that the franchise had usually avoided those story lines because of the paranoia of the studio regarding homosexuality. Dale Palmer, in an essay on gender and sexual politics, suggested that the choice was made to have a female same-sex kiss on screen because a male one would have alienated the main viewer demographic for the series: heterosexual men. ==Reception and legacy==