"Rejoined" is the 78th episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the fifth of the fourth season.

The episode was the first that writers Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria wrote together, and it was directed by main cast member Avery Brooks.

Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) notifies Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) that a group of Trill scientists will be arriving soon at Deep Space Nine to perform experiments related to wormhole physics.

Kahn's brother Bejal (Tim Ryan), who is on the science team, speaks to her separately and highlights his concerns regarding her contact with Dax.

"Rejoined" marked the first time that longtime Star Trek writers Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria wrote a script together.

They had been hired by executive producer Michael Piller following separate unsolicited manuscripts submitted during the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and had remained on the staff of the franchise since.

[4] This was not the first subplot to be considered for the episode, with the main plot from "Bar Association" originally thought of as being suitable to appear in either "Rejoined" or "Crossfire".

[3] Following the death of Jadzia in the sixth season finale, "Tears of the Prophets", Farrell suggested that the symbiont could be moved to a male character resulting in a similar situation as "Rejoined" between the new Dax host and Worf, as the two were in a relationship at that point.

[9] Visual effect supervisors Gary Hutzel and Glenn Neufeld were busy completing post-production work on the opening episode of the fourth season, "The Way of the Warrior".

For this episode, his two main tasks were the creation of the artificial wormhole and the sequence where Dax uses a forcefield as a walkway to reach a trapped Kahn.

[12] 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.

[15] 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.

[16] Nonetheless, "Rejoined" was still considered controversial because of its subject matter, which depicts two women who engage in a same-sex romantic relationship, and included one of the first[vague] televised lesbian kisses.

[18] 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.

[19] 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.

As Deep Space Nine was shown in syndication, one channel in the Southern United States took the step of editing out the kiss from the initial broadcast.

More responses were received at the production office from viewers than for any other episode of the series, resulting in several staff members having to take turns on the phones in order to cover the load.

[22] He felt that the relationship did not appear to be manipulative for the sake of male viewers, but added that the ending was expected and that the episode never communicated to the audience the need to care about the duo.

[26][27] New media scholar Carolyn Guertin argues that this serves to make the footage "even more alien", presenting queerness as "unearthly".

[27] Jean Bruce argues that, despite the inherent ambiguity of the scene in the episode, "the image is still one of two women kissing, which opens up the possibilities of queer desire on its own terms".