DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” Analysis – The First Same-Sex Kiss/Relationship In Trek History (2)

Source: http://www.kissingfingertips.com/ds9.html

To continue, the taboo against reassociation carries with it dire consequences. If two symbionts reassociate, their hosts are exiled from the Trill homeworld. This means that when the current hosts die their symbionts will not be joined to new hosts, the symbionts simply die with them. Since nothing is more important to a joined Trill than protecting the life of the symbiont, this is a life-quaking decision.

After spending time together and trying desperately to ward off feelings they both obviously share, Jadzia and Lenara succumb to their passion and… kiss. Oh boy, do they ever. I don’t actually have a top ten most passionate lesbian kisses list, but I think if I did this one would be on it. Anyway, later on aboard the Defiant, Jadzia saves Lenara’s life in a plasma-fire accident. They vow on the spot never to let anything come between them again, but Lenara’s courage fails her and she eventually decides to go back to Trill, leaving Dax heartbroken.

Part of the debate is, as veiled in metaphor as this story is, does it even count as a lesbian story anymore? Sure, the two women kiss, but it seems the “real” couple involved here are Torias and Nelani. I would say yes, and here’s why. Lenara freely admits that she’s never had so much trouble separating her feelings from those of a past host. The reason for this is obvious; the attraction between Dax and Khan isn’t the only attraction going on here. Jadzia and Lenara are obviously attracted to each other as well, and hit it off on a physical and intellectual level. That’s what makes Dax so unwilling to accept this taboo when she’s been the first to champion all matters of Trill honour and duty in the past. She’s not Torias, she’s Jadzia Dax, and she’s in love with this woman she can’t be with, simply because their symbionts have history. As Dax says, the irony is that she and Lenara have more in common than Nelani and Torias ever did. But the word irony isn’t really appropriate, it’s more of a tragedy.

The point, I’d like to think, is that fear and intolerance should never get in the way of love, regardless of who that love is between. People who try to explain away the storyline in terms of the symbiotic relationships and try to get it to fit into their limited (and often homophobic) mindset are missing the whole point. The episode also tells us a lot about Dax’s strength too, and how far she’s willing to go for love. Dax is a bit of a romantic at heart and awfully stubborn. Actually I think “Rejoined” sets the stage nicely for the interracial Klingon/Trill romance and wedding that happens later on in the series. Dax always likes to do things her own way, and we love her for it.

Susannah Thompson and Terry Farrell both do a pretty good job with this episode, especially with acting romantic tension while speaking line after line of nothing but technobabble. Thompson especially I thought was wonderful, with her luminous eyes and having the unsympathetic role of being the one who folds under social and family pressure. She despises herself for her own weakness, while she’s in absolute awe of Dax’s strength of will and moral certainty. It’s a finely nuanced performance which is so different from the passionate, raw sexuality of the Borg Queen she went on to play successfully in Star Trek: Voyager. (She’s also starred on Once & Again.)

Whether you agree that “Rejoined” was successful or not, it certainly caused a stir, and very few other episodes of DS9 are talked about with the same level of fervour as this one. As a political statement it kind of falls flat, and as a gay episode it has plenty of problems (this was one of the earliest examples of “sweeps lesbianism“), but I’m willing to forgive a lot of that simply for that kiss that I never thought I would see on Star Trek.

If people will insist on comparing Babylon 5 and DS9, with the former always coming out on top, ultimately it comes down to this: regardless of where the idea originated, at least DS9 had the guts to show the lesbian kiss that the B5 producers chickened out of showing between Ivanova and Talia. That earns a lot of lesbian brownie points in my book.

Note: The second ST: DS9 episode to deal with lesbian characters (including another onscreen kiss) was the seventh season episode “The Emperor’s New Cloak”.

Got a comment? Write to me at nancyamazon@gmail.com

…

Rinda:

And I just want to add one more thing here in addition to the article,

With regard to good kisses and since I am a Niner & a Gater, this one caught me by surprise and it was funny as hell. Great performance from Rodney, all the way during this episode. Just a Hats off to Stargate Atlantis, a one awesome series and a one awesome franchise.

Season 2, Ep. Duet

DS9 Stories/News: The Awesome Women of DS9

Source: http://awesome-women.livejournal.com/6211.html

By Little Red (mylittleredgirl) wrote in awesome_women,
2010-11-15 22:29:00

Now I absolutely must chime in with a rousing cheer for the women of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax, shown here in Season 1 telling Quark to stop messing around and cooperate, which he does, because they’re awesome and terrifying.

Jadzia Dax

Jadzia Dax is Deep Space Nine’s ultimate renaissance woman. As a joined Trill, she adds her symbiont’s centuries of experience to her host’s youth and brilliance, eventually finding her place as the fun-loving warrior scientist who (almost) always gets the last word.

She’s flying the Defiant in battle. While the Bridge is on fire. Yeah, that’s badass.

Why I Love Her: She’s pretty much relentlessly awesome. She’s loyal, brilliant and brave, like most Star Trek characters, but she’s also fun, and she seems to love and appreciate life every step of the way. Growing up, she was my idol for personal, professional and sexual empowerment.

Here, Jadzia faces the blade of a legendary Klingon warrior to earn the right to join a quest of vengeance. When you’re a skinny young Trill and have Kor, Kang and Koloth taking you into battle as their equal, you’re awesome.

Why I’d Take Her Into A Fight: In hand-to-hand combat, she can take out a Klingon twice her size. As a strategist and a pilot, well, she once defeated a squadron of Jem’Hadar when she was an inch tall in a runabout the size of a coffee cup (it’s Star Trek; these things happen). Chief among her scientific greatest hits: the time she discovered the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, which necessitated the existence of the whole show. Her worldly experience gives her both encyclopedic knowledge and a deep understanding of people – if you bring her to a fight, she may charm her way to victory without firing a shot.

Bedecked in questionable 21st century fashion, Jadzia goads the conservative head of a news network into ruining his career to make history.

Kira Nerys

Kira is a survivor. From a childhood in a refugee camp, she started fighting for the liberation of her people as soon as she was old enough to pick up a phaser. She grows from the angry young woman from the trenches into a powerful, passionate and wise leader who ultimately faces down her demons to save the galaxy.

This is any one of three thousand times Kira kicks ass and takes names. She does this three times before breakfast.

Why I Love Her: I love Kira for her resilience. She struggles with the Cardassians, with her own people, with her conscience and with the rapidly changing world around her, and she never stops fighting for what she believes in. She makes mistakes. In spite of herself, she can be vulnerable and compassionate and even, sometimes, capable of forgiveness. She’s devoted to her people and her culture. My favorite part of her character is her spirituality – her devotion to her faith never wavers, and I love watching how it weaves in and out of the rest of her life.

It should be noted that Kira lays this Klingon flat out after he stabs her in the spleen.

Why I’d Take Her Into A Fight: ALL OF THE ABOVE. The very first time we meet her, she wins a standoff with the Cardassians on nothing but blind hatred; in season 7, she basically leads the entire Cardassian rebellion against the Dominion (which is, I have to say, pretty much my favorite come-full-circle character arc in the history of TV). She’s resourceful, capable, and does not quit. Ever. Whatever war you find yourself in, you don’t want to end up on the opposite side.

Kira faces down a Romulan fleet with a dead man’s gambit for the safety of Bajor. She wins, of course, and schools a Federation admiral in the process. CASE CLOSED.

DS9 Stories/News: Learning to Love Star Trek, Part 42: “Babel”

Source: http://scifiblock.com/features/blog/learning-to-love-star-trek-part-42-babel.htm

By Robert Ring, Tue, 10/26/2010 – 10:02

“Learning to Love Star Trek” is a weekly blog series by Sci-Fi Block Editor in Chief Robert Ring, begun January 1, 2010. In this series of blog posts, Robert is endeavoring to determine whether he can make a Star Trek fan out of himself through an exposure to a combination of episodes from Star Trek the Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Update: TNG has now been replaced with Deep Space Nine). Click here to read his introduction to the experiment.

“Babel” marks the first Deep Space Nine episode that I don’t care for. Whereas the previous episodes have been character-oriented, this one goes back to a technique that I have seen too much in The Original Series and The Next Generation: presenting a problem with no goal other than trying to convince people the characters face a true threat, and then finding a way to pull those characters out safely in the end. There is some character development here, but the vast majority of the episode is concerned with its fake-out scare. Everyone on Deep Space Nine is at risk of dying from a disease. Will they make it out alive? It’s the fourth episode of the series, what do you think?

While running himself ragged trying to fix all of DS9’s many faulty contraptions, Miles O’Brien suddenly finds himself unable to form sentences. As Julian Bashir soon discovers, O’Brien accidentally triggered a hidden device that let loose a manmade aphasia-inducing virus. Before long, everyone is infected, the station is put on lockdown, Kira Nerys abducts the one man who might be able to find a cure, and Quark and Odo, showing immunity to the virus, are left to try to handle things on their own until everyone gets better — or, as the writers probably wanted us to think, if everyone gets better. Oooooh.

There’s really not a lot to say about this aspect of the episode, which is its bulk. The first half is spent trying to figure what’s happening, and the second half is spent trying to fix the problem. There’s no tension because we know everyone’s going to be okay. I find little artistic merit in this plot. I’m sure people will make the argument that this is a story about viral warfare and the consequences of using weapons that can affect innocents years after they were meant to be used, like a landmine story set in future space world. But if that is the case, the message is trite: Weapons that can harm innocents are bad. Or, equally as simplistic, viral warfare is bad. It doesn’t give us any new understanding of the issues at hand.

I do like the little bit of development given to Odo and Quark, however. They’re like enemies that like each other, or friends with an inexorable competitive streak. They’re both always trying to best the other, but they have an unwavering respect for each other at the same time. We see this first when Odo shows some amusement at the prospect of Quark having to shut down his bar but no less than a minute later stands up for the guy when a customer force feeds Quark some soup to prove how bad it tastes. In the end, Quark and Odo are the only people on DS9 capable of running its systems while everyone else has been infected by the virus, and they work together quite happily. Quark even shows genuine concern for Odo’s wellbeing. It’s nice to see two “enemies” that act more like overly competitive brothers than adversaries that simply hate each other under every circumstance.

This is a brief post, but that’s all there is to say about this episode. For the most part, it just isn’t effective. Even plots like this can occasionally work if you use them for something other than trying to manufacture tension, but the premise here is flat all around. The redeeming qualities are tangential and few.